CIAO DATE: 04/01

The U.S. Enlargement Strategy and Nuclear Weapons

The United States is often accused of lacking a global security strategy. The United States, so the accusation goes, makes foreign policy and security decisions on an ad—hoc basis, prompted by the demands of politics and pressure groups, and in alternating bursts of idealism and realpolitik. Since none of these factors can safely be dismissed, there has to be something to the accusation. In an unpredictable world, a certain respect for the ad hoc may even be a good thing: a global strategy, carried out without regard to circumstances, would confine the United States to a conceptual straitjacket, depriving it of needed flexibility.

Nevertheless, the accusation is without merit. The United States has a global security strategy, in deeds if seldom clearly in words. The U.S. security strategy is to enlarge the areas of the world that it can control militarily and to weaken all states outside those areas. The strategy does not rely solely on military means, but enlarged military control is the end and military means—armed interventions, alliance extensions, arms sales—usually lead the way. Aside from a 1992 Pentagon trial balloon,1 which was poorly received though accurate enough as far as it went, and a few other statements, the strategy has been manifested via a series of consistent actions rather than formal statements.

Along with this overall strategy, the components of which I give below, the United States also has policies regarding nuclear weapons. Some of these policies are stated, some are tacit. The stated policies include de—emphasizing nuclear weapons, discouraging nuclear proliferation, and pursuing nuclear arms reductions, a comprehensive test ban, and other nuclear—arms— control measures.

The tacit policy is reliance on deterrent nuclear forces to limit escalation of conventional conflicts and to offset the nuclear forces of other powers. By relying on nuclear deterrence, the United States assumes that nuclear deterrence between it and potential nuclear adversaries will be stable, where stable nuclear deterrence means that nuclear weapons on both sides will help defuse a crisis rather than move it toward all—out war. Though tacit, this reliance has to be in the long run an essential part of an overall policy of military expansion and dominance.

These two policies, military enlargement and reliance on nuclear stability and arms control, are not compatible. Continued enlargement backed or led by military force will not support de—emphasis of nuclear weapons, let alone nuclear disarmament. It may not support nuclear nonproliferation even among allies, depending on whether the United States is seen to become overextended or overcommitted at home or abroad. Military enlargement weakens support for several of the arms—control measures on the U.S. agenda. Enlargement is also likely to lead to crises that will test the stability of nuclear deterrence more seriously than it has been tested since the early years of the Cold War.

The alternative to military enlargement would require the United States and the other principal military powers in the world to accept geographic restraints on the unilateral use of their power. Such acceptance would minimize nuclear—weapons—related risks. It would also, perhaps paradoxically, better serve continued U.S. power and influence than continued attempts at military enlargement. It might even be popularly acceptable. But it would represent such a change from the present U.S. strategic patterns that it is not likely to be acceptable today.

Nevertheless, welcome or not, limits will have to be accepted someday. Continued expansion, if not checked voluntarily, must lead to nuclear confrontation where the adversary is a nuclear power. Nuclear confrontation will lead either to nuclear war or to a mutual acceptance of lines of demarcation. Nuclear war is unacceptable and will not be accepted so long as rational decision—making prevails. Unfortunately, if not planned in advance, acceptance of limits will be reached through a succession of dangerous crises, some of which may sap U.S. power and influence.

In what follows I first remind the reader of the main components of the U.S. military enlargement strategy. Next I describe why other states, given the U.S. enlargement strategy, find and will continue to find nuclear weapons useful. These states are not all potential opponents. Third, I explain how the U.S. enlargement strategy undermines nuclear arms control. What is more important, I show why it will inevitably lead to nuclear crises. Last, I discuss the alternative strategy of military restraint and show how it would ensure U.S. influence for a longer time and with greater safety than the present strategy of unilateral U.S. military enlargement.

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