Giving Away the Farm

It looks like rookie president Obama is about to attempt to drop our nuclear arsenal down significantly. Admirable goal right? Perhaps.

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I don't know a lot about nuclear weapons, but I do know that most people think if a nuclear war happens, a big button is pushed, a bunch of nukes fly, and civilization if not mankind ends.

From what little I know I'd say that is accurate up to a point. But in reality things aren't that simple. In order to avoid nuclear war, you pretty much have to guarantee M.A.D., or mutually assured destruction. Everyone from the USA to Russia to China to Iran need to know that if they start lobbing nukes, their ENTIRE population will be destroyed.

Here is the danger. Bad guys, like China, Russia, and Iran, tend to be willing to sacrifice people "for a greater good". I'll leave this as a self evident truth, do a quick history lesson if you doubt me. If there is any doubt that they might survive a nuclear attack, their past willingness to sacrifice good chunks of their populations might in some far out but possible scenarios might lead the leaders of these nations to be willing to bluff more, and possibly even risk a nuke war if there is a reasonable chance that at least the elites of these nations will survive to conquer whatever wreckage of the world is left after the war.

Plus these bad guys have for a long time had low tech nukes. So since they were inaccurate, they tended to build their nukes big. The U.S. on the other hand had pretty accurate weapons, so we tend to build our nukes smaller since they are accurate. The bad guys have decided to put their command and control centers way under ground, so in order to guarantee that these command centers will be destroyed in a nuclear war, U.S. planners often target these sites with many multiple nuke strikes, and with differing types of nuclear weapons (yeah, they aren't all just one type, some are designed to penetrate deep, others are designed to blow up big areas like cities, etc...).

Well, now the bad guys have stolen enough U.S. know how to make their weapons accurate. So here is the bad scenario that Obama is setting up. If we cut our nuclear arsenal down to a certain point, we will be left with a bunch of small but accurate nukes. The bad guys will be left with a bunch of big accurate nukes. American command and control centers tend to be very vulnerable to nuke strikes. The bad guys have put their command and control centers very deep and very well protected. If we drop below x number of nuclear weapons, we can no longer guarantee that we can achieve M.A.D. against Russia or China, while they, with their bigger nukes and easier targets, can guarantee our destruction.

What does this do to the geopolitical process of bluffing? I don't think Russia or China would attempt to engage in a nuclear war with us in the future, but with the knowledge that they possibly could survive, might change the whole dynamic of how they deal the rest of the world politically, how eager they are to use conventional forces, and how much they are willing to push the boundaries of what other nations will accept from them as they project power.

So, for the moderate cost of maintaining a fairly robust nuclear arsenal, and ensuring M.A.D. against all comers, the U.S. helps keep the world more, well, stable. If Obama in his glee to make a historical name for himself cuts our nuclear arsenal too thin, Obama may unwillingly pave the way for more instability and more war, and possible even increase the possibility of "the big one", a nuclear Armageddon, taking place sometime in the future.

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Update: The weekly standard makes a good point about Obama giving up our two biggest bargaining chips, the polish missile shield and the size of our nuclear arsenal, before renegotiating START with the Russians which expires in December. Brilliance.

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