Order Code RL34226
Nuclear Weapons in U.S. National Security Policy:
Past, Present, and Prospects
Updated January 28, 2008
Amy F. Woolf
Specialist in National Defense
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division

---

Nuclear Weapons in U.S. National Security Policy:
Past, Present, and Prospects
Summary
The Bush Administration has outlined a strategy of “tailored deterrence” to
define the role that nuclear weapons play in U.S. national security policy. There has
been little discussion of this concept, either in Congress or in the public at large.
This leaves unanswered questions about how this strategy differs from U.S. nuclear
strategy during the Cold War and how it might advise decisions about the size and
structure of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Throughout the Cold War, the United States relied on nuclear weapons to deter
an attack by the Soviet Union and its allies and to forestall the outbreak of a global
war between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, the broad Cold War-
era agreement about the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy began to
dissolve during the 1990s, after the demise of the Soviet Union. Further, in response
to emerging threats to U.S. national security, the Bush Administration has argued that
the United States must alter its deterrence strategy “from ‘one size fits all’ deterrence
to tailored deterrence for rogue powers, terrorist networks, and near-peer
competitors.”
During the Cold War, the United States often modified, or tailored, its nuclear
targeting doctrine, its nuclear weapons employment policy, and its nuclear force
structure to enhance or maintain the credibility of its nuclear deterrent posture. In
some ways, the Bush Administration’s concept of tailored deterrence follows the
same pattern, using assessments of an adversary’s society and values to identify a
range of targets that might be threatened, and adjusting U.S. war plans and force
structure to enhance the credibility of U.S. threats to destroy these targets. However,
tailored deterrence differs from Cold War deterrence in that it explicitly notes that
U.S. nuclear weapons could be used in attacks against a number of nations that might
have developed and deployed chemical and biological weapons, even if they did not
possess nuclear weapons. Hence, the new policy seems more of a change in “who”
we will deter than it is a change in “how” we will deter.
Congress may review the concept of tailored deterrence, either as a part of its
oversight of nuclear weapons policies and programs, or as a part of a broader debate
about the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy. Issues that might
come up in such a review are questions about how much U.S. nuclear strategy and
weapons employment policy have changed in recent years; questions about whether
the new capabilities and war plans will enhance the credibility of U.S. deterrent
threats, or, conversely, make the use of nuclear weapons more likely; questions about
whether the United States must develop new weapons capabilities to meet the
demands of tailored deterrence, or whether it must retain a force structure with
thousands of deployed warheads if it no longer uses “the Russian threat” as the
metric for sizing the U.S. force; and questions about whether the new concepts and
war plans expand or restrict the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security
strategy.
This report will be updated as needed.

---

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Nuclear Weapons in U.S. National Security Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Evolving Role of Nuclear Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Need for a National Debate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Defining Deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Deterrence, in Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Deterrence, During the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Deterrence, After the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Deterrence in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Issues for Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
How Much Has Nuclear Strategy Changed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Does Tailored Deterrence Enhance the Credibility of Nuclear
Deterrence or Increase the Risk of Nuclear Use? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Can Tailored Deterrence Provide Guidance in Determining the Size
and Structure of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
What Role for U.S. Nuclear Weapons? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

---

Nuclear Weapons in U.S. National Security
Policy: Past, Present, and Prospects
Introduction
The Bush Administration has described the strategy of “tailored deterrence” to
define the role that nuclear weapons might play in U.S. national security policy. Yet,
there has been little discussion of this concept, either in Congress or in the public at
large, that would allow this concept to serve as a mechanism to help determine the
size and structure of the U.S. nuclear force. This absence of discussion has also
made it difficult to identify the ways in which tailored deterrence differs, if at all,
from the Cold War concept of strategic deterrence and how it might alter the role of
nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy.
This report highlights the differences between the construct of tailored
deterrence and the more general concept of strategic deterrence that guided U.S.
nuclear policy during the Cold War. It then identifies a number of issues that
Congress might address when it reviews these differences, including the question of
whether detailed and tailored attack plans are more likely to enhance deterrence or
more likely to lead to the early use of nuclear weapons, and the question of whether
tailored deterrence provides any guidance about the future size and structure of U.S.
nuclear forces.
Nuclear Weapons in U.S. National Security Policy
The Evolving Role of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons were at the center of U.S. national security policy for more
than 50 years. From the end of World War II, and, particularly, from the first
explosion of a Soviet nuclear weapon in 1949, until the end of the Cold War in 1991,
the United States relied on nuclear weapons to deter Soviet aggression and forestall
the outbreak of a global war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Generally, the United States sought to maintain “nuclear and conventional
capabilities sufficient to convince any potential aggressor that the costs of aggression
would exceed any potential gains that he might achieve.”1 But the Soviet Union was
(and Russia remains) the only nation that could pose a global challenge to U.S. allies
and interests and threaten to cause massive destruction in the United States. Other
1 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 1985, by Caspar
Weinberger, Secretary of Defense, February 1, 1984 (Washington, 1984), p. 27.

---

CRS-2
nations, such as China and Soviet allies in Eastern Europe, were included in the U.S.
nuclear war plans, but the Soviet threat dominated U.S. defense planning. Nuclear
forces were sized to deter the Soviet threat; these were then thought to be sufficient
to deter or respond to the “lesser included cases” of threats from other nations.
Although there were often debates about the numbers and types of weapons that the
United States should deploy in its nuclear arsenal, there was little doubt, or debate,
among analysts, experts, and government officials about the need for the United
States to deter the Soviet threat.
This widespread consensus about the nature of the threat to the United States
and its allies, and the need for nuclear weapons to deter and respond to this threat,
began to dissolve during the 1990s, after the demise of the Soviet Union. Some
began to argue that, in the absence of the threat of global nuclear war, the United
States should declare that nuclear weapons would serve only as “weapons of last
resort” to deter nuclear attacks, or possibly other catastrophic attacks, against the
United States itself.2 Others argued that the United States needed to maintain a
credible nuclear deterrent to “hedge” against the possibility of a resurgence of the
Russian threat.3 Still others argued that the United States should craft a nuclear
policy and force posture that would allow it deter and/or respond to the threat of
nuclear, chemical, or biological attacks from a growing number of potential
adversaries.
Although many analysts outside government hoped the United States would
sharply limit the role of nuclear weapons after the end of the Cold War, the Clinton
Administration did not adopt a more restrictive, or “last resort,” posture for U.S.
nuclear weapons. Throughout the 1990s, the Clinton Administration argued that, in
addition to serving as a hedge against the potential resurgence of a Russian threat,
nuclear weapons remained important to deter the range of threats faced by the United
States. It highlighted, in its 1999 National Security Strategy, that “the United States
must continue to maintain a robust triad of strategic forces sufficient to deter any
hostile foreign leadership with access to nuclear forces and to convince it that seeking
a nuclear advantage would be futile.” Furthermore, nuclear deterrence would not
necessarily be limited to potential aggressors with nuclear weapons. Although the
United States did not explicitly threaten the use of nuclear weapons against non-
nuclear states, Assistant Secretary of Defense Edward Warner did indicate in
testimony before Congress that “the very existence of U.S. strategic and theater
2 This debate mirrored one that had occurred with respect to the role of nuclear ewapons in
NATO policy. For a description of this concept, see Bundy, McGeorge, William J. Crowe,
Jr., and Sidney Drell, Reducing Nuclear Danger, Foreign Affairs, Spring 1993, pp. 143-
146. These authors, all with years of experience in U.S. nuclear weapons strategy and
doctrine, advocated a doctrine of “defensive last resort,” where nuclear weapons would be
reserved for use in only the most dire circumstances.
3 This concept was underscored as a part of the results of the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review,
where Secretary of Defense Perry indicated that the United States would alter its nuclear
forces so that it could both “lead” to further reductions in nuclear weapons and “hedge”
against an unexpected developments in Russia. See, for example, U.S. Department of
Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), Remarks Prepared
for Delivery by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry to the Henry L. Stimson Center,
September 20, 1994.

---

CRS-3
nuclear forces, backed by highly capable conventional forces, should certainly give
pause to any rogue leader contemplating the use of WMD [weapons of mass
destruction; i.e., nuclear, chemical and biological weapons] against the United States,
its overseas deployed forces, or its allies.”4
The Bush Administration has shifted U.S. nuclear doctrine, at least rhetorically,
away from concerns about a resurgent Russian threat. It declared that the United
States and Russia no longer view each other as adversaries, and it stated, when
releasing the results of its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in early 2002, that the
United States “will no longer plan, size or sustain its nuclear forces as though Russia
presented merely a smaller version of the threat posed by the former Soviet Union.”5
It has, instead, emphasized that nuclear weapons “provide credible capabilities to
deter a wide range of threats, including weapons of mass destruction and large-scale
conventional military force.”6 Some analysts consider this shift to be more rhetorical
than real, as the United States maintains nuclear forces with much of the same size
and shape as it did during the 1990s.7 Nevertheless, the Bush Administration has
continued to emphasize the need to size and shape U.S. nuclear forces to deter
emerging threats from a growing number of potential adversaries. Specifically, the
Administration has indicated that the United States would employ a strategy of
“tailored deterrence,” where the weapons and attack strategies guiding U.S. nuclear
forces would be “tailored” to address the specific capabilities and goals of emerging
adversaries.8
Need for a National Debate?
Most discussions about U.S. nuclear weapons policy, whether they occur in
Congress or in the public and academic literature, focus on how many and what types
of weapons the United States should deploy to implement its nuclear doctrine and
deterrent strategy.9 The discussions have also addressed questions about whether the
United States should pursue the design and development of new types of nuclear
warheads, either to extend U.S. nuclear capabilities or to provide an alternative
4 Statement of the Honorable Edward L. Warner, III, Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Strategy and Threat Reduction, before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on
Strategic Forces, April 14, 1999.
5 U.S. Department of Defense, Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, news
transcript, January 9, 2002. For a more detailed review of the results of the NPR and their
proposed changes in U.S. nuclear strategy, see CRS Report RL31623, U.S. Nuclear
Weapons: Changes in Policy and Force Structure, by Amy F. Woolf.
6 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to the President and the Congress, Donald H.
Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense (Washington, 2002), p. 83.
7 See, for example, Sidney D. Drell and James E. Goodby, What Are Nuclear Weapons For?
Recommendations for Restructuring U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces, an Arms Control
Association Report, April 2005, p. 5.
8 Jason Sherman, “Henry: Quadrennial Review Will Advance ‘Tailored Deterrence’
Concept,” Inside the Pentagon, December 15, 2005, vol. 21, no. 50.
9 For a review of many of the issues raised in these debates, see CRS Report RL33640,
Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues, by Amy F. Woolf.

---

CRS-4
means of maintaining the U.S. arsenal and U.S. nuclear capabilities into the future.10
But a growing number of analysts and officials agree that it will be difficult to answer
questions about the future size and structure of the U.S. nuclear arsenal without at
least some agreement about the role this arsenal should play in U.S. national security
policy.11 The former director of the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), Ambassador Linton Brooks, noted this development during remarks he
made to a conference in January 2007, when he stated that “we are increasingly
hearing from thoughtful observers that political support for the Reliable Replacement
Warhead (RRW) ... will not be possible without greater consensus on the future role
of nuclear weapons.”12 Several committees in Congress have also requested reports
from the Administration that would link U.S. nuclear weapons strategy to plans for
U.S. nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapons infrastructure.13 This perspective has
led to calls for a national debate on the future role of nuclear weapons in U.S.
national security strategy.
Defining Deterrence
Many national security and defense documents produced in the last few years
emphasize how much the national security environment for the United States has
changed since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the terrorist attacks in
2001. The report of the 2006 Quadrennial Review, for example, notes that the
United States now faces an international security environment “characterized by
uncertainty and surprise,” and that it must transform its national security strategy in
response to this new environment.14
Specifically, and of interest for this report, the Defense Department has
identified the need to shift “from ‘one size fits all’ deterrence to tailored deterrence
for rogue powers, terrorist networks, and near-peer competitors.”15 The Pentagon’s
emphasis on the distinction between “one size fits all” deterrence and tailored
deterrence is designed to evoke an understanding of just how much the nature of the
10 See, for example, The United States Nuclear Weapons Program: The Role of the Reliable
Replacement Warhead, American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Nuclear
Weapons Complex Assessment Committee, April 2007. See also CRS Report RL32929,
The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program: Background and Current Developments, by
Jonathan Medalia.
11 See, for example, The United States Nuclear Weapons Program. The Role of the Reliable
Replacement Warhead, American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Nuclear
Weapons Complex Assessment Committee, April 2007, p. 4.
12 Brooks, Linton, Opening Remarks, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National
Laboratories Conference on Strategic Weapons in the 21st Century, January 25, 2007.
13 See, for example, U.S. Congress, House Committee on Appropriations, Report to
Accompany Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, FY2008, H.Rept. 110-185,
pp. 93-98.
14 U.S. Department of Defense, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review, February 2006,
Preface, p. vi.
15 Ibid.

---

CRS-5
threat and the number of U.S. adversaries have changed since the end of the Cold
War. But, even during the Cold War, the United States tailored its nuclear targeting
doctrine, its nuclear weapons employment policy, and its nuclear force structure to
enhance or maintain the credibility of its nuclear deterrent posture. Therefore, this
shift raises questions about the ways in which “tailored deterrence” differs from
classic, Cold War-era strategic deterrence. This section discusses the differences
between these two concepts in an effort to clarify how tailored deterrence might alter
U.S. nuclear weapons employment policy and targeting doctrine.
Deterrence, in Theory
Deterrence, or more precisely, the theoretical construct of strategic deterrence,
describes an ongoing interaction between two parties. In a deterrent relationship, one
or both parties seek to persuade the other to refrain from harmful or dangerous
actions by threatening or promising the other nation that the costs of acting will far
outweigh the benefits. This can be done by threatening to impose high costs on the
acting nation, threatening to deny the benefits the other nation may seek through its
actions, and promising to withhold the costs if the nation forgoes the expected action.
Because it affects the perceptions and chosen actions of nations with multiple goals
and interests, deterrence is difficult to implement or measure with any precision.
Further, in spite of the common shorthand of the Cold War era, deterrence and the
threat of nuclear destruction are not interchangeable concepts. A nation could, for
example, threaten to use overwhelming conventional force as a deterrent, even
without threatening to resort to nuclear weapons, if the adversary perceived those
forces to be sufficient to achieve an unacceptable level of destruction. Nevertheless,
many analysts agree that during the Cold War, the threat of nuclear retaliation
generated the promise of high costs and, therefore, lent some stability to the U.S.-
Soviet deterrent relationship.
Questions about the credibility of the U.S. deterrent posture persisted throughout
the Cold War, with the United States adjusting its doctrine, targeting strategy, and
force structure periodically in an effort to bolster its credibility and enhance
deterrence. It did not maintain a “one size fits all deterrent,” but sought to “tailor”
its forces and attack strategies to affect the perceptions of the Soviet Union, and other
potential adversaries, by convincing them that the United States had the will, the
weapons, and the plans needed to ensure that it would respond if attacked and that
the level of destruction would be unacceptable to the adversary. The Bush
Administration’s focus on tailored deterrence appears to follow the same logic, with
the focus on tailoring attack strategies and weapons to create a credible deterrent
threat.
However, the Administration’s concept of “tailored deterrence” appears to differ
from classic “strategic deterrence” in at least two ways. First, the Administration has
argued that the United States must prepare to deter a wider range of threats from a
greater number of potential adversaries, so it is seeking to tailor weapons capabilities,
operational plans, and targeting strategies to counter the capabilities of “advanced
military powers, regional WMD states, and non-state terrorists.” Second, tailored
deterrence focuses less on maintaining a deterrent relationship with any specific
nation than it does on acquiring the capabilities to attack and destroy valued targets
in another nation. This capability may be necessary for a deterrent threat to be

---

CRS-6
credible, but it is not sufficient to establish or presume the broader conditions of
strategic deterrence because a strategic deterrent relationship presumes that both
nations know the costs and consequences of acting, and each may believe that it will
not suffer the costs or consequences if it does not act. The communication between
the two parties may be indirect or even ambiguous, but it is presumed that both
parties know the stakes and risks associated with their possible actions.
Deterrence, During the Cold War
Throughout the Cold War, the challenge for U.S. nuclear policy was to make the
threat of nuclear retaliation, and therefore the U.S. deterrent posture, credible.
Towards this end, the United States repeatedly sought to modify and adjust its forces
and targeting strategy so that the Soviet Union would believe and heed the U.S. threat
to retaliate with nuclear weapons.
The 1950s doctrine known as “massive retaliation” envisioned a “simultaneous,
massive, integrated” U.S. nuclear strike against targets in the Soviet Union, Eastern
Europe, and China if the Soviet Union or its allies initiated any nuclear or
conventional attack against the United States or its allies.16 In the late 1950s, many
began to question whether the Soviet Union would believe that the United States
would launch a massive nuclear attack against the Soviet Union in response to any
level of aggression against Western Europe, particularly when it became evident that
the Soviet Union could strike back with nuclear weapons against U.S. cities.
Consequently, in the early 1960s, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara outlined
a doctrine of “damage limitation,” which called for attacks against Soviet
conventional and nuclear military forces. This became known as “counterforce”
strategy because it explicitly excluded attacks designed to destroy cities and focused
instead on attacks that would impede the Soviet Union’s warfighting capability.17 In
particular, it sought to destroy those weapons that the Soviet Union might use to
attack U.S. cities. Nevertheless, because many of the targets were located near cities,
and the attack would have been very large, analysts agree that it would still have
produced massive casualties.
By the mid-1960s, Secretary McNamara posited the doctrine of “assured
destruction,”18 where the United States sought to persuade the Soviet leadership that
Soviet society would be destroyed if the Soviet Union launched an attack on the
United States or its allies. But, by the early 1970s, many again questioned the
16 “There was no calculated strategy for war winning or termination beyond that of
producing as much destruction ... as possible in a single devastating blow.” See David A.
Rosenberg, “U.S. Nuclear War Planning, 1945-1960,” in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey
Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986),
pp. 44-45.
17 Desmond Ball, “The Development of the SIOP, 1960-1983,” in Ball and Richelson, eds.,
Strategic Nuclear Targeting, pp. 62-65.
18 Secretary McNamara defined the level of damage needed as the destruction of “one-
quarter to one-third of the Soviet population and about two-thirds of Soviet industrial
capacity.” See Desmond Ball, “The Development of the SIOP, 1960-1983,” in Ball and
Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting, p. 69.

---

CRS-7
credibility of a doctrine that called for massive strikes against Soviet society,
particularly if the Soviet Union could threaten to strike back against U.S. cities.
Therefore, the United States shifted its doctrine again, to “Flexible Response” in the
mid-1970s and “Countervailing Strategy,” in the late 1970s. These policies
emphasized retaliatory strikes on Soviet military forces and war-making capabilities,
as opposed to attacks on civilian and industrial targets, and they called for limited,
focused attacks on specified military targets, instead of large-scale attacks on a
greater number of sites. The 1988 version of the National Security Strategy of the
United States summarized the U.S. approach to targeting by noting that “targeting
those assets which are essential to Soviet war-making capability and political control
has been an integral part of the U.S. strategy for many years.”19
The attack options that were designed to implement this approach were
contained in the highly classified Strategic Integrated Operational Plan, the SIOP.
According to scholarly reports and articles, the SIOP evolved over the years, in
response to changes in the number and capabilities of U.S. nuclear forces, changes
in the Soviet force structure, and the evolution of theories about how to deter the
Soviet Union. The SIOP reportedly provided the president with a number of attack
options that varied in terms of the numbers and types of targets to be attacked and
varied according to the number and types of U.S. warheads available when the
conflict began.20 Further, according to unclassified reports, the target categories
included in the SIOP included Soviet strategic nuclear forces, other military forces,
military and political leadership, and industrial facilities.21 The United States sought
the capability to destroy thousands of sites in these target categories, even if the
Soviet Union destroyed many U.S. weapons in a first strike, leading to the
requirement for large numbers of U.S. strategic nuclear weapons.
To meet these targeting requirements, by the latter half of the 1980s, the United
States deployed nearly 12,000 warheads on its land-based missiles (ICBMs),
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers.22 Analysts
argued that the multiple basing modes for U.S. nuclear weapons would enhance
deterrence and discourage a Soviet first strike because they complicated Soviet attack
planning and ensured the survivability of a significant portion of the U.S. force in the
event of a Soviet first strike.23 The different characteristics of each weapon system
might also strengthen the credibility of U.S. targeting strategy: ICBMs had the
accuracy and prompt responsiveness needed to attack hardened targets, such as
19 National Security Strategy of the United States, The White House, January 1988,
Washington, DC, p. 14.
20 See, for example, Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting.
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). See also Matthew G. McKinzie et al, The U.S.
Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change, Natural Resources Defense Council, 2001, pp. 5-14.
21 U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, The START Treaty and Beyond, October
1991, pp. 11-25.
22 CRS Report RL33640, U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and
Issues, by Amy F. Woolf.
23 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 1989, by Frank
Carlucci, Secretary of Defense, February 18, 1988 (Washington, 1988), p. 54.

---

CRS-8
Soviet command posts and ICBM silos; SLBMs had the survivability needed to
complicate Soviet efforts to launch a disarming first strike; and heavy bombers could
be dispersed quickly and launched to enhance their survivability, and could be
recalled to their bases if a crisis did not escalate into conflict.
Taken together, this diverse and numerous force was thought to have the
capability to persuade the Soviet Union that any attack it launched would be met with
an overwhelming response and an unacceptable amount of damage. It was the sum
total of this force, as much as the details of the specific targets that could be
destroyed in an attack option, that provided the United States with a robust strategic
deterrent.
Deterrence, After the Cold War
Throughout the 1990s, the Clinton Administration argued that nuclear weapons
remained important to deter the range of threats faced by the United States. In his
Annual Report to Congress in 1995, Secretary of Defense Perry noted:
recent international upheavals have not changed the calculation that nuclear
weapons remain an essential part of American military power. Concepts of
deterrence ... continue to be central to the U.S. nuclear posture. Thus, the United
States will continue to threaten retaliation, including nuclear retaliation, to deter
aggression against the United States, U.S. forces, and allies.24
Nevertheless, the Clinton Administration argued that “the dissolution of the
Soviet empire had radically transformed the security environment facing the United
States and our allies. The primary security imperative of the past half century —
containing Communist expansion while preventing nuclear war — is gone.”25 Russia
could potentially pose a threat to the United States again in the future “because it
controls the only nuclear arsenal that can physically threaten the survivability of U.S.
nuclear forces.”26 But the United States also faced growing threats from a number
of emerging adversaries. In its National Security Strategy Report for 1998, the
Administration noted that “a number of states still have the capabilities and the desire
to threaten our vital interests ...” and that, “in many cases, these states are also
actively improving their offensive capabilities, including efforts to obtain or retain
nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, and, in some cases, long-range delivery
systems.”27
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Department of Defense conducted
several studies to review U.S. nuclear targeting strategy and weapons employment
24 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to the President and Congress, by Secretary
of Defense William Perry (Washington, February 1995), p. 84.
25 A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, The White House,
February 1995, Washington, DC, p. 1.
26 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to the President and Congress. William S.
Cohen, Secretary of Defense. April 1997. Washington, DC, p. 11.
27 A National Security Strategy for a New Century, The White House, October, 1998,
Washington, DC, p. 6.

---

CRS-9
policy. According to published reports, these reviews revised and greatly reduced the
length of the target list within the SIOP, but left the basic tenets of the strategy
untouched. According to a 1995 article in the Washington Post, “the United States
primary nuclear war plan still targets Russia and provides the President an option for
counterattack within 30 minutes of confirmed enemy launch.”28 In 1997, however,
the Clinton Administration altered the U.S. strategy from seeking to win a protracted
nuclear war, a strategy identified during the Reagan Administration, to seeking to
deter nuclear war. In practice, this probably meant the United States would not seek
to cause as much damage against as wide a range of targets as it had planned on
attacking in previous war plans. Consequently, the United States would not need as
large an arsenal of nuclear weapons as it had needed during the Cold War.
But, these changes did not alter the core objectives of U.S. nuclear policy. The
United States reportedly continued to prepare a range of attack options, from limited
attacks involving small numbers of weapons to major attacks involving thousands of
warheads, and to plan attacks against military targets, nuclear forces, and civilian
leadership sites in Russia.29 At the same time, reports indicated that the U.S.
Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had begun to expand the focus of the SIOP and
include plans for possible attacks against a wider range of adversaries. According to
some reports, in 1992, General Lee Butler, the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic
Command, proposed changing the name of the SIOP to the “National Strategic
Response Plans,” to accomodate the fact that the SIOP itself was “evolving to a
collection of far more differentiated retaliatory choices, tailored to a threat
environment of greater nuance and complexity.”30 The Clinton Administration
argued that the flexibility offered by this range of options would enhance deterrence
by providing the United States with more credible responses to a range of crises and
attack scenarios.
The Clinton Administration also did not rule out the possible use of nuclear
weapons against nations that were not armed with nuclear weapons themselves.
Specifically, it maintained the long-standing U.S. policy of reserving the right to use
nuclear weapons first in a crisis or conflict “if a state is not a state in good standing
under the Nuclear-Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) or an equivalent international
28 “Secretary Cheney and General Powell and their aides threw thousands of targets out of
the SIOP (single integrated operational plan), helping to reduce it from its Cold War peak
of more than 40,000 to about 10,000 by 1991.” In addition, “General Butler reviewed each
target one-by-one tossing many out ... one day he eliminated 1,000 targets in newly liberated
Eastern Europe....” By 1994, General Butler had helped to pare the SIOP to 2,500 targets.
See David B. Ottaway and Steve Coll, “Trying to Unplug the War Machine,” Washington
Post, April 12, 1995, p. A28.
29 Jeffrey R. Smith, “Clinton Directive Changes Strategy on Nuclear Arms; Centering on
Deterrence, Officials Drop Terms for Long Atomic War,” Washington Post, December 7,
1997, p. A1.
30 Memorandum, Gen. George L. Butler, U.S. Air Force, Commander in Chief, U.S.
Strategic Command, to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Renaming the Single
Integrated Operational Plan,” September 2, 1992. Cited in Hans M. Kristensen, “U.S.
Strategic War Planning After 9/11,” The Nonproliferation Review, Center for
Nonproliferation Studies, July 2007, p. 378.

---

CRS-10
convention.”31 Furthermore, the United States did not rule out the possibility of
retaliating with nuclear weapons if a nation attacked the United States or U.S. forces
with weapons of mass destruction (WMD).32 The United States did not, however,
directly threaten to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for non-nuclear attacks. Its
policy, consistent with the long-standing U.S. approach, was one of “studied
ambiguity,” neither ruling in nor ruling out the possible use of nuclear weapons in
any given circumstance.
The United States did, however, reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal, to around
6,000 warheads deployed on strategic delivery vehicles, according to the provisions
outlined in the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Even with these
reductions, however, the United States continued to maintain a triad of strategic
nuclear forces, with warheads deployed on land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched
SLBMs, and heavy bombers. According to the Department of Defense, this mix of
forces not only offered the United States a range of capabilities and flexibility in
nuclear planning that complicated an adversary’s attack planning, but also hedged
against unexpected problems in any single delivery system. Moreover, the United
States still maintained detailed, tailored attack plans that were intended to enhance
the credibility of the U.S. deterrent posture.
Deterrence in the 21st Century
The Bush Administration has emphasized that nuclear weapons “continue to be
essential to our security, and that of our friends and allies.”33 It has argued that
nuclear weapons remain the only weapons in the U.S. arsenal that can hold at risk the
full range of targets valued by an adversary. As a result, “they provide credible
capabilities to deter a wide range of threats, including weapons of mass destruction
and large-scale conventional military force.”34
In many ways, the Bush Administration’s statements about the role that nuclear
weapons play in deterring potential opponents echo the Cold War and post-Cold War
concepts described above. In a document prepared in February 2004, STRATCOM
noted that nuclear weapons “cast a lengthy shadow over a rational adversary’s
decision calculus when considering coercion, aggression, WMD employment, and
escalatory courses of action. Nuclear weapons threaten destruction of an adversary’s
most highly valued targets.... This includes destruction of targets otherwise
31 Craig Cerniello, “Clinton Issues New Guidelines on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Doctrine,”
Arms Control Today, November/December 1997.
32 Jeffrey R. Smith, “Clinton Directive Changes Strategy on Nuclear Arms; Centering on
Deterrence, Officials Drop Terms for Long Atomic War,” Washington Post, December 7,
1997, p. A1.
33 U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy, February 14, 2002.
34 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to the President and the Congress, Donald
H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense (Washington, 2002), p. 83.

---

CRS-11
invulnerable to conventional attack....”35 Further, according to the report of the
Quadrennial Defense Review, “the aim is to possess sufficient capability to convince
any potential adversary that it cannot prevail in a conflict and that engaging in a
conflict entails substantial strategic risks beyond military defeat.”36
At the same time, though, the Bush Administration has indicated that the Cold
War concept of strategic deterrence would not be sufficient to generate the
requirements for U.S. nuclear strategy, doctrine, and force structure in this new
security environment. In a letter written to Defense News in March 2004, Keith
Payne, who had served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense during the 2001 Nuclear
Posture Review, noted that “deterrence threats based on the generally high nuclear
yields of the Cold War arsenal may not appear credible, given the excessive civilian
destruction likely to occur.... Clearly, some reasonable and much needed steps to
better align U.S. deterrence policy to the realities of the new era include broadening
U.S. deterrent threat options ... seeking an understanding of the opponents’ intentions
and the flexibility to tailor deterrence to specific requirements of foe, time, and
place....”37 This is the mandate for tailored deterrence.
According to Ryan Henry, the Principal Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy,
when pursuing the concept of tailored deterrence, the United States must have “the
means to determine what assets an adversary holds dear and wants to protect; an
ability to identify which military tools can be used to threaten those assets; and an
effective means of communicating to adversaries that the military can target their
most important assets and destroy them.”38 Payne made similar points in testimony
before the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
in July 2007, when he noted that a central feature of the U.S. ability to tailor
deterrence to meet emerging threats was the ability to “understand the specific
opponent’s mind-set and behavioral style, and the different ways opponents can
perceive and respond to our deterrence threats.”39
The Bush Administration asserts that nuclear weapons have a role to play in
deterring threats and challenges from potential adversaries armed with weapons of
mass destruction. During a news conference on March 14, 2002, President Bush
stated that “we want to make it very clear to nations that you will not threaten the
United States or use weapons of mass destruction against us or our allies.... I view
our nuclear arsenal as a deterrent, as a way to say to people that would harm America
that ... there is a consequence. And the President must have all the options available
35 Draft JCS Strategic Deterrence Operating Concept (JOC). Cited in “Global Strike: A
Chronology of the Pentagon’s New Offensive Strike Plan,” by Hans M. Kristensen,
Federation of American Scientists, March 15, 2005, p. 69.
36 U.S. Department of Defense, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review, February 2006,
p. 30.
37 Keith Payne, Letter to the Editor, Defense News, March 15, 2004.
38 Jason Sherman, “Henry: Quadrennial Review Will Advance ‘Tailored Deterrence’
Concept,” Inside the Pentagon, December 15, 2005, vol. 21, no. 50.
39 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
hearing on United States Nuclear Weapons Policy, prepared statement, July 18, 2007.

---

CRS-12
to make that deterrent have meaning.”40 Further, some outside reports indicate that,
in June 2002, President Bush signed a new nuclear weapons planning guidance,
National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 14, that explicitly stated that the
United States may use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks
against U.S. forces or allies.41 The United States has never ruled out the use of
nuclear weapons in response to attacks by nations with chemical or biological
weapons (in other words, the United States has never adopted a “no first use” policy
for its nuclear weapons), even though many analysts argue that such a policy would
better serve U.S. national security interests. Nonetheless, some view the
Administration’s explicit inclusion of these types of attacks in nuclear weapons
planning guidance as a further indicator of an expanding role for nuclear weapons
under the Bush Administration.
The Pentagon has outlined changes in the U.S. strategy for targeting nuclear
weapons, shifting from threat-based targeting to capabilities-based targeting. Instead
of focusing on the forces and attack plans needed to defeat the “Soviet threat” when
planning for the possible use of nuclear weapons, the United States would “look
more at a broad range of capabilities and contingencies that the United States may
confront” and tailor U.S. military capabilities to address this wide spectrum of
possible contingencies.42 Specifically, according to the Pentagon, the United States
would identify potential future conflicts, review the capabilities of its possible
adversaries, identify those capabilities that the United States might need to attack or
threaten with nuclear weapons, and develop a force posture and nuclear weapons
employment strategy that would allow it to attack those capabilities.
The Administration has never specified, in public, the full range of capabilities,
or types of targets, that the United States would want to threaten under this strategy.
However, it has highlighted the threat posed by hardened and deeply buried targets,
and has also noted that the United States may need to improve its capabilities against
mobile or fleeting targets, perhaps by enhancing its ability to attack promptly, or
perhaps preemptively, at the start of a conflict. The desire to acquire this capability
is central to the focus of the new “prompt global strike” mission and the Pentagon’s
interest in pursuing the deployment of conventional warheads on some of Air Force
or Navy long-range ballistic missiles. One list of possible targets for nuclear
weapons appears in DOD’s publication Deterrence Operations: Joint Operating
Concepts. This document indicates that
nuclear weapons threaten destruction of an adversary’s most highly valued
assets, including adversary WMD capabilities, critical industries, key resources,
and means of political organization and control (including the adversary
leadership itself). This includes destruction of targets otherwise invulnerable to
40 Greg Miller,” Bush Puts Nuclear Use in “Options Available,” Los Angeles Times, March
14, 2002.
41 Cited in “Global Strike: A Chronology of the Pentagon’s New Offensive Strike Plan,” by
Hans M. Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, March 15, 2005, pp. 108.
42 U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Statement of the Honorable
Douglas J. Feith, Undersecretary of Defense For Policy, February 14, 2002.

---

CRS-13
conventional attack, e.g., hard and deeply buried facilities, “location uncertainty”
targets, etc.43
As it did during the Cold War, the Pentagon continues to maintain a detailed
war plan that contains the numerous nuclear attack options that would be available
to the President in the event of a conflict. The SIOP of the Cold War era has,
however, been replaced with a new war plan known as OPLAN (operations plan)
8044. This document may contain many of the same types of major strike options
and contingency plans for potential conflicts with Russia that had been included in
the SIOP, although reports indicate that it no longer considers Russia to be an
“immediate contingency” that the United States must plan to address.44 It also,
reportedly, contains options that would be available for use in conflicts with other
potential adversaries. At the same time, officials from STRATCOM have indicated
that the structure and purpose of the SIOP/OPLAN has changed, as it has expanded
to include a wider range of contingencies and potential adversaries. In 2003, the
Commander-in-Chief of STRATCOM, Admiral James Ellis, noted, as had his
predecessor General Butler in 1992, that the war plan was changing from “a single,
large, integrated plan to a family of plans applicable to a wider range of scenarios.”45
As the plan continued to evolve, in response to guidance that emerged after the 2001
Nuclear Posture Review, it underwent what General Richard Myers, then Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referred to as a “major revamping” so that it could
provide the President with “more flexible options to assure allies, and dissuade, deter,
and if necessary, defeat adversaries in a wider range of contingencies.”46
Hence, as the U.S. nuclear war plan has evolved, it has changed from a “single
integrated plan” that contained a growing number of options for attacks against the
Soviet Union to a more diverse document that has been described as a “family of
plans” with options for attacks against a wider range of contingencies. The Bush
Administration has identified three types of contingencies that these plans must
address:47
! Immediate contingencies include “well-recognized, current
dangers.” The Soviet threat was an immediate contingency in the
43 U.S. Department of Defense, Deterrence Operations. Joint Operating Concept. Version
2.0, p. 39, available at [http://www.dtic.mil/futurejointwarfare/concepts/do_joc_v20.doc].
44 Hans M. Kristensen, “U.S. Strategic War Planning After 9/11,” The Nonproliferation
Review, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, July 2007, p. 378.
45 Memorandum, Adm. J. O. Ellis, U.S. Navy, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, to the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 3, 2002. Cited in Hans M. Kristensen, “U.S.
Strategic War Planning After 9/11,” The Nonproliferation Review, Center for
Nonproliferation Studies, July 2007, p. 378.
46 U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, Written
Posture Statement to the Senate of General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, April 27, 2005.
47 The following summarizes the discussion in the Secretary of Defense’s Annual Report.
See U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to the President and Congress, Donald H.
Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense (Washington, 2002), p. 88.

---

CRS-14
past; current examples include a WMD attack on U.S. forces or
allies in the Middle East or Asia.
! Potential contingencies are “plausible, but not immediate dangers.”
This might include the emergence of new, adversarial, military
coalitions, or the re-emergence of a “hostile peer competitor.”
According to the Administration, the United States would probably
have sufficient warning of the emergence of these threats to modify
or adjust its nuclear posture.
! Unexpected contingencies are “sudden and unpredicted security
challenges.” This might include a “sudden regime change” causing
an existing nuclear arsenal to be transferred to the control of a
hostile leadership or an adversary’s sudden acquisition of WMD.
These three types of contingencies would place different demands on U.S.
nuclear war planners. Because the United States can understand and anticipate
immediate contingencies, it can size, structure, and plan in advance for the use of its
nuclear arsenal to address these contingencies. The United States can also plan in
advance for the possible use of nuclear weapons in potential contingencies, even if
it does not maintain the needed force structure on a day-to-day basis. These
contingencies are one possible source of the “family of plans” contained in OPLAN
8044. Further, these plans may include many of the same types of targets as the
United States planned to attack during the Cold War because the ability to destroy
these types of facilities is likely to remain important to the U.S. ability to defeat an
enemy and limit damage to itself during a conflict. These targets could include
deployed and non-deployed stocks of weapons of mass destruction, other military
facilities, leadership facilities, and, possibly, other economic targets.
The United States cannot, however, prepare pre-planned attack options for
unexpected contingencies because it does not know when or where these threats may
emerge. This has given rise to a growing emphasis on the need for “adaptive
planning” capabilities. STRATCOM, which develops the operational plans for U.S.
strategic nuclear weapons, has been pursuing this capability since at least 1992, when
it sought to develop “a flexible, globally focused, war planning process” along with
a “living SIOP,” a nuclear war plan “able to respond almost instantaneously to new
requirements.”48 Now, “STRATCOM is in the process of developing a more flexible
and adaptive planning system ... that employs modern computing techniques and
streamlined processes to significantly improve our planning capability for rapid,
flexible crisis response.”49
The Bush Administration has emphasized the increasing importance of adaptive
planning, and waning relevance of pre-planned attack options, to highlight the fact
that its nuclear doctrine and targeting strategy focus on emerging threats, rather than
48 Stephen I. Schwartz, “Nukes You Can Use,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June
2002, p. 19.
49 U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, statement of Admiral James O. Ellis,
Commander in Chief of Strategic Command, February 14, 2002.

---

CRS-15
on a smaller version of the Cold War threat from the Soviet Union. However, recent
statements indicate that concerns about Russia, and possibly China, still play a role
in determining the size and structure of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In a brief statement
on “National Security and Nuclear Weapons,” released in late July 2007, the
Secretaries of Energy, Defense, and State indicated that “the future direction that any
number of states may take, including some established nuclear powers with
aggressive nuclear force modernization programs, could have a dramatic effect on
U.S. security and the security of our allies.”50 According to Steve Henry, an Assistant
Secretary of Defense, both Russia and China qualify as established nuclear powers
with aggressive nuclear force modernization programs.51
Under the terms of the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (known as
the Moscow Treaty), the United States will reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal to
1,700-2,200 “operationally deployed warheads” by the end of 2012.52 Hence, the
United States still plans to maintain a sizeable and varied force of strategic offensive
nuclear warheads. The Bush Administration has stated that this force is not
determined by a need to counter a “Russian threat,” but to provide the United States
with the capability to assure its allies of its commitments to their security, dissuade
potential adversaries from seeking to challenge or compete with the United States,
deter conflict with adversaries, and defeat an adversary if deterrence should fail.53
Moreover, some who support the Administration’s approach have argued that
the remaining U.S. nuclear force structure may not be sufficient to meet the security
challenges of the future. The new nations challenging the United States may not
possess nuclear weapons at all, and certainly will not possess the capability to destroy
the United States as a functioning society. Therefore, a threat to impose
overwhelming levels of damage in these nations, with weapons that have “a relatively
high yield and modest accuracy,” may not seem credible.54 Instead, they argue, the
United States should seek the ability to attack promptly, at great range, with focused
intent, and with less destructive force than it would have used in attacks against the
Soviet Union. To achieve these objectives, it would need not only nuclear weapons,
but also precision conventional weapons, long-range strike capabilities with its
50 National Security and Nuclear Weapons: Maintaining Deterrence in the 21st Century,
statement by the Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State, July
2007, p. 3.
51 Bill Gertz, “Inside the Ring,” Washington Times, July 27, 2007, p. 6.
52 Operationally deployed warheads are those deployed on missiles and stored near bombers
on a day-to-day basis so that they be available immediately, or in a matter of days, to meet
“immediate and unexpected contingencies.” See U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed
Services, statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy, February 14, 2002.
53 U.S. Department of Defense, Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, news
transcript, January 9, 2002. These are the same four defense policy goals outlined in the
Quadrennial Defense Review for the whole of the U.S. military. See U.S. Department of
Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, September 30, 2001, p. 11.
54 Keith B. Payne, “The Nuclear Posture Review: Setting the Record Straight,” The
Washington Quarterly, Summer 2005, p. 142.

---

CRS-16
conventional weapons, and missile defense capabilities.55 These capabilities, when
combined with the new attack options that may be included in the new operational
plans described above, form the core of the capabilities needed to implement the
strategy of “tailored deterrence.”
Others, however, have questioned whether “tailored deterrence” is just an
excuse for the United States to deploy a new generation of nuclear weapons and
develop new war plans that include targets in a longer list of nations. These differing
perspectives on both the substance and the rationale for tailored deterrence give rise
to several specific issues, addressed in the remainder of this report, that might be part
of a congressional, or even national, debate on the future role of nuclear weapons in
U.S. national security policy.
Issues for Congress
Congress has the opportunity to review U.S. nuclear weapons programs and
policies during the annual authorization and appropriations process. Each year, the
Administration’s budget contains funding requests for programs that are designed to
maintain both the warheads and the delivery vehicles that make up the U.S. nuclear
arsenal. During its debates about the funding levels for these programs as Congress
can, and often does, address broader discussions about the role of nuclear weapons
in U.S. national security strategy. As was noted early in this report, the
Administration’s request for funding for a new “reliable replacement warhead” has
served this purpose in recent years. This section reviews a number of topics that
might be addressed in such a discussion.
How Much Has Nuclear Strategy Changed?
There is no question that the Bush Administration has changed the rhetoric
about U.S. deterrent strategy and the role of nuclear weapons in that strategy
substantially since it released the Nuclear Posture Review in late 2001. The
Administration has spoken often about how the United States no longer views Russia
as an enemy, and how the United States will now focus its nuclear deterrent on
emerging threats in other nations. But changes in war plans and employment policy
have evolved since the end of the Cold War, with few sharp distinctions unique to
the policies that appeared under the Bush Administration. U.S. military planners
began to include nations other than Russia in the SIOP, and to consider the SIOP to
be a “family of plans,” in the early 1990s, as the United States adjusted to the post-
Cold War security environment. It also began to emphasize adaptive planning and
to focus on the need to deter nations armed with weapons of mass destruction during
that same time period. Further, in spite of the changing rhetoric about the Russian
threat, Russia probably still holds a unique position in the U.S. war plans. Many
analysts believe it is the only contingency that can account for the U.S. plan to retain
55 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
hearing on United States Nuclear Weapons Policy, prepared statement, July 18, 2007. See
also M. Elaine Bunn, “Can Deterrence Be Tailored?” Strategic Forum, Institute for National
Security Studies, National Defense University, January 2007, pp. 4-5.

---

CRS-17
2,200 nuclear warheads in its arsenal; contingencies with other nations are likely to
require a far smaller number of warheads.
On the other hand, there are similarities between tailored deterrence and Cold
War deterrence strategy. For example, both are based on the precept that it is
necessary to know what your adversary values and to maintain the weapons and
attack plans needed to target those valued assets. During the Cold War, the United
States developed a number of attack plans that were tailored to address the values,
interests, and capabilities of its primary adversary, and some smaller plans to address
threats from other adversaries, such as China and the Warsaw Pact nations.56 As was
noted above, Ryan Henry and Keith Payne have both noted the need for this kind of
analysis in support of tailored deterrence. Further, just as U.S. war plans evolved
during the Cold War to accommodate changes in weapons capabilities and threat
assessments, the Administration’s supporters believe that tailored deterrence will
allow for similar, ongoing modifications to U.S. war plans.
The key difference in the current security environment, however, is the fact that
the United States may now face a longer list of potential adversaries, and, therefore,
when planning its nuclear policy and force structure, the Administration has argued
that the United States now faces threats from “multiple potential opponents, sources
of conflict, and unprecedented challenges.”57 Considering both these similarities and
differences, it seems, then, that the change from strategic deterrence to tailored
deterrence is less of a change in “how to deter” then there is in “whom to deter.”
There is, however, one element of strategic deterrence missing from the
Administration’s description of tailored deterrence. A deterrent relationship, where
one nation seeks to stop another from pursuing actions by threatening to impose high
costs if the action occurs, presumes that both sides are aware of the threats and
possible responses. This requires that the party making the deterrent threat
communicate that threat to the other party, either explicitly or implicitly. The
existence of a workable attack plan does not necessarily translate into the
communication of a credible deterrent threat.58
In future crises, the United States may not have the time or the channels to
inform a potential adversary of the types of actions that might result in a nuclear or
conventional response from the United States. Further, the Administration seems to
place a high priority on developing the capability to react promptly, with little or no
warning, at the start of a conflict, either to preempt the adversary’s use of weapons
of mass destruction or to undermine the adversary’s ability to prosecute the conflict
on its own terms. This presumes that the United States would act before the
adversary had taken the actions that the United States had sought to deter. There is
56 M. Elaine Bunn, “Can Deterrence Be Tailored?” Strategic Forum, Institute for National
Security Studies, National Defense University, January 2007, p. 2.
57 U.S. Department of Defense, Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, news
transcript, January 9, 2002.
58 For a description of the need for a communications strategy to complete the concept of
tailored deterrence see M. Elaine Bunn, “Can Deterrence Be Tailored?” Strategic Forum,
Institute for National Security Studies, National Defense University, January 2007.

---

CRS-18
no promise that the adversary would not suffer the consequences and costs of its
attack if it refrained from action; if anything, the adversary may feel pressured to act
even more quickly, before the United States launched its preemptive attack.
Does Tailored Deterrence Enhance the Credibility of Nuclear
Deterrence or Increase the Risk of Nuclear Use?
Officials from the Bush Administration have argued that, by tailoring U.S.
deterrent strategies to address the specific values and capabilities of a larger number
of potential enemies, the United States can enhance the credibility of its deterrent
posture and, therefore, increase the likelihood that deterrence will succeed in future
contingencies. They argue that a “one size fits all” set of war plans and a nuclear
arsenal consisting of Cold War-era weapons would not meet this need because the
weapons have yields that are too large and the war plans presume the use of too many
weapons. Therefore, the adversary would not believe that the United States would
follow through on its deterrent threats and the United States would be self-deterred
from implementing its war plans because it would know that an attack would be too
large and cause too much collateral damage.59
Critics of the Administration’s nuclear policy, in contrast, believe that the
concept of tailored deterrence is less likely to enhance deterrence than it is to make
the use of nuclear weapons more likely in regional conflicts. They view the
expansion of the U.S. nuclear war plans to include a wider range of potential attack
options against a growing number of potential adversaries to be an indication of the
growing willingness of the United States to resort to nuclear weapons use before
other means — including diplomacy and conventional force — have been employed
and exhausted.60 If such plans were not in place, the United States would be less
likely to use them in a crisis.
This debate derives from the long-standing theoretical debate about what it takes
to make a deterrent threat credible. Administration officials argue that, to be
credible, deterrent threats must be precise, detailed, and specific, so that an adversary
will accept that the United States is both willing and able to implement the plans.
Some analysts have argued that such precision is not a key to credibility. Some have
argued that no threats to use nuclear weapons, no matter how specific or limited,
would be credible because such an attack would produce “disproportionate and
unacceptable collateral destruction and severe political fallout.”61 Because such use
would be so horrific, no adversary would believe the United States would be willing
59 According to the Defense Science Board, “Credible deterrence requires that the adversary
believe that U.S. capabilities will be used if the adversary takes the course of action we seek
to deter.” See Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Nuclear Capabilities,
U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,
Technology, and Logistics, December 2006, p. 11.
60 For a description of some of the stability implications of these types of detailed attack
plans, see Hans Kirstensen, “U.S. Strategic War Planning After 9/11,” Nonproliferation
Review, vol. 14, no. 2, July 2007, pp. 383-386.
61 Daryl G Kimball, “Of Madmen and Nukes,” Arms Control Today, November 2005.

---

CRS-19
to launch a nuclear attack unless its very national survival were at stake. Others have
argued that such precision is unnecessary because the mere existence of nuclear
weapons and the means to deliver them could serve as a sufficient deterrent.
Adversaries do not need to understand the specifics of U.S. nuclear policy to
understand that they might be on the receiving end of an attack with nuclear
weapons.
While U.S. military and civilian leaders might be more willing to use nuclear
weapons if they believe the specific plans and weapons in the U.S. arsenal are less
likely to produce catastrophic levels of destruction, it is not clear that this would be
the only, or even primary, factor in their decision-making process. Some U.S. leaders
might be deterred from launching such an attack because they feel constrained by a
generally accepted “nuclear taboo.”62 Others may, in contrast, be more inclined to
use nuclear weapons if, knowing not only that such use would not lead to global
nuclear war, but also that the adversary could not retaliate against the U.S. with
nuclear weapons, they believe the effects of an adversary’s attack on the United
States would be worse than the effects of the limited use of U.S. nuclear weapons.
Therefore, the outcome, in any particular contingency, could depend not only on the
specifics of the U.S. war plans and weapons characteristics, but also on the belief
system of the leadership involved in making the decision.
Can Tailored Deterrence Provide Guidance in Determining
the Size and Structure of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal?
Officials speaking for the Bush Administration have indicated that, as the
United States tailors its nuclear attack plans and weapons capabilities to address the
challenges and capabilities of potential adversaries, it will need a nuclear force
structure that differs in many ways from the Cold War-era arsenal. They have noted
that the United States will need weapons with the capabilities to attack and destroy
hardened or deeply buried targets and that it may need warheads that can produce
tailored effects, perhaps to destroy stocks of chemical or biological weapons. They
have also noted that the United States may need a greater number of lower-yield
weapons, so that it can minimize collateral damage while destroying these types of
targets.63 But they have offered few, if any descriptions of how a concept of tailored
deterrence would affect the required numbers of warheads in the U.S. arsenal.
Throughout the Cold War, the United States determined the size and structure
of its nuclear arsenal, in part, through an analysis of the numbers and types of
weapons it would need to deter a Soviet attack on the United States and its allies.
Although a number of factors affected this determination, the numbers and types of
weapons, along with the plans that would guide their use, reflected an assessment of
62 For a description of the long-standing “taboo” against the use of nuclear weapons, and its
relationship to current debates over U.S. nuclear weapons policy, see Thomas C. Schelling,
“The Nuclear Taboo,” Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2005, p. 14. See also, Nina
Tannenwald, “Stigmatizing the Bomb: Origins of the Nuclear Taboo,” International
Security, vol. 29, no. 4 (Spring 2005).
63 Keith B. Payne, “The Nuclear Posture Review: Setting the Record Straight,” The
Washington Quarterly, Summer 2005.

---

CRS-20
the numbers and types of targets that would need to be destroyed in the former Soviet
Union. When the target base began to decline after the end of the Cold War, the
number of weapons needed in the U.S. arsenal began to decline, and the United
States began to reduce the size of its deployed forces.
Under the Moscow Treaty of 2002, the United States has pledged to reduce its
strategic nuclear forces to no more than 2,200 operationally deployed warheads by
the end of 2012. But many analysts have questioned why the United States needs to
retain that many warheads, and why it cannot reduce its forces much further, if it is
not sizing and structuring its forces to meet the “Russian threat.” Few can imagine
contingencies or conflicts that would require the United States employ more than a
few, or even a few dozen nuclear weapons. The only contingencies where the United
States would need to employ thousands, or even hundreds, of weapons would be one
where the United States sought to destroy large numbers of weapons and facilities in
Russia, or possibly in China.64
The Bush Administration has countered this calculation by noting that there are
a number of objectives for U.S. nuclear forces that go beyond just deterring attacks
by Russia or other nations. Nuclear weapons, along with missile defenses and other
elements of the U.S. military establishment, can also assure allies and friends of the
U.S. commitment to their security by providing an extended deterrent, dissuade
potential adversaries from challenging the United States with nuclear weapons or
other “asymmetrical threats” by convincing them that they can never negate the U.S.
nuclear deterrent, and defeat enemies by holding at risk those targets that could not
be destroyed with other types of weapons.65 The size and structure of the U.S.
arsenal should reflect all of these goals, or a combination of these goals, although it
has not indicated which goal requires a force as large as 2,200 operationally deployed
warheads.
What Role for U.S. Nuclear Weapons?
For many, the apparent disconnect between the concept of tailored deterrence
and the size and structure of the U.S. nuclear arsenal raises questions about the actual
future role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security. If the goal is simply to be
able to threaten small numbers of targets in large numbers of countries, than a much
smaller force may be sufficient. At the same time, though, many analysts are wary
of a posture that calls for the use of U.S. nuclear weapons against nations that do not
have nuclear weapons themselves. They believe that U.S. national security interests
can be served well with a smaller number of nuclear weapons because they believe
64 See, for example, the analysis presented by Dr. Sidney Drell in testimony before the
House Armed Services Committee, Strategic Forces Subcommittee, prepared text, July 18,
2007, pp. 1-3.
65 U.S. Department of Defense, Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, news
transcript, January 9, 2002. These are the same four defense policy goals outlined in the
Quadrennial Defense Review for the whole of the U.S. military. See U.S. Department of
Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, September 30, 2001, p. 11.

---

CRS-21
that the role of nuclear weapons can and should be sharply limited to deterring
nuclear or other catastrophic attacks on the United States.66
In recent years, the debate about the future role of nuclear weapons in U.S.
national security strategy has become closely linked to the debates about the
relationship between U.S. nuclear weapons programs and policy and U.S.
nonproliferation policy. There is widespread agreement both inside and outside
government that the greatest threat to the United States comes not from the nuclear
challenge posed by a single adversary, as it did in the Cold War, but from the
potential proliferation of nuclear weapons to an increasing number of nations, and
possibly, terrorist groups. But there is little agreement about whether the continued
U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons stems proliferation by reminding nations of the
risks they face if they challenge U.S. security with their own weapons of mass
destruction, or spurs proliferation by demonstrating that nuclear weapons can play
a significant role in enhancing a nation’s security. As a result, most discussions of
U.S. nuclear policy now focus on the question of whether, or how, the size, structure,
and role of the U.S. nuclear arsenal can affect the emergence of or deterrence of
nuclear threats in other nations.
The Bush Administration has identified tailored deterrence, along with the
growing integration of missile defenses and conventional force capabilities into the
U.S. deterrent posture, as a response to the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons
and other weapons of mass destruction. They believe the capabilities and attack
plans generated under this strategy will enhance the U.S. ability to deter, and if
necessary, defeat these emerging threats to U.S. national security. Further, they also
argue that a robust U.S. nuclear deterrent can further U.S. nonproliferation objectives
by strengthening the U.S. extended deterrent. In response to questions submitted
prior to his nomination hearing to be Commander in Chief of U.S. Strategic
Command, General Kevin Chilton noted that “a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent ...
assures allies that the U.S. will deter, prevent, or limit damage to them from
adversary attacks. This removes incentives for many of them to develop and deploy
their own nuclear forces, thereby encouraging nonproliferation.”67
Further, those who support the Administration’s position argue that no amount
of restraint in U.S. nuclear weapons policies — either through reductions in deployed
warheads, restraints on modernization or maintenance plans, or restrictions in the
declared role of nuclear weapons — is likely to deter or discourage the acquisition
of nuclear weapons by nations who want them. They note that these nations
generally seek nuclear weapon to meet their own regional security concerns, and not
in response to U.S. nuclear weapons programs.
66 See, for example, Jack Mendelsohn, “Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons,” Issues in Science
and Technology, Spring 2006.
67 U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Advanced Questions for General Kevin P.
Chilton, USAF. Nominee for Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, September 27, 2007,
p. 17. See also Dr. Keith B. Payne, testimony before the House Armed Services Committee,
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, July 18, 2007, p. 3.

---

CRS-22
Few analysts who disagree with the Administration’s approach would argue that
reductions or the elimination of U.S. nuclear weapons programs would alter the
decision to acquire nuclear weapons in nations seeking nuclear weapons to meet their
own security concerns. At the same time though, they argue that the continued
pursuit of these programs, and the continued retention of thousands of deployed
warheads, when combined with a doctrine that has a longer list of nations that might
be targets of nuclear attack, can undermine U.S. nonproliferation goals. They argue
that the United States is likely to find it more difficult to persuade other countries to
abandon or reject nuclear programs if the United States, through its own efforts, is
reinforcing the view that nuclear weapons can play a critical role in a nation’s
security policies.68 Some have also noted that, by pursuing programs to maintain or
expand its own nuclear arsenal, the United States could find it more difficult to
persuade other countries to work with it and share its objectives when trying to
constrain nuclear programs in “problem” countries. Several prominent current and
former government officials have, in recent months, highlighted this linkage and
proposed that the United States adopt a number of policies that, over time, may
demonstrate that it has reduced its own reliance on nuclear weapons and strengthen
its case against nations seeking nuclear weapons. These include, among other things,
the ratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty, the reaffirmation of the pledge
in Article VI of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that embraces the eventual
elimination of nuclear weapons, and further deep reductions in the numbers of
deployed nuclear weapons.69
A new national debate on the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security
policy has been brewing during 2007, and is likely to grow louder in 2008 as the next
presidential election approaches. Congress has already indicated that it would like
the next President to re-evaluate U.S. nuclear policy and posture, and it has indicated
that future nuclear weapons initiatives may hinge on the results of this review. For
example, the FY2008 Defense Authorization Bill establishes a “Congressional
Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States” (H.R. 1585, Sec. 1062).
This Commission, with 12 Members appointed by the Chairmen and Ranking
Members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, is charged with
assessing “the benefits and risks associated with the current strategic posture and
nuclear weapons policies of the United States.” Its report, which it is to submit by
December 1, 2008, is supposed to make recommendations about
(1) the military capabilities and force structure necessary to support the
recommended strategy;
68 In her keynote address to the Carnegie Endowment’s annual Nonproliferation Conference
in June 2007, Margaret Beckett, then Great Britain’s Foreign Minister said, “we risk helping
Iran and North Korea in their efforts to muddy the water, to turn the blame for their own
nuclear intransigence back on us. They can undermine our arguments for strong
international action in support of the NPT by painting us as doing too little to fulfill our own
obligations.” Transcript available at [http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/keynote.
pdf].
69 See for example, George P. Schulz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn,
“A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, p. 15. See also,
Ivo Daalder and John Holum, “A Nuclear-Free World,” The Boston Globe, October 5, 2007.

---

CRS-23
(2) the number of nuclear weapons and number of replacement warheads
required;
(3) the appropriate qualitative analysis, including force-on-force exchange
modeling, to calculate the effectiveness of the strategy under various scenarios;
(4) the nuclear infrastructure required to support the strategy;
(5) an assessment of the role of missile defenses in the strategy;
(6) an assessment of the role of nonproliferation programs in the strategy;
(7) the political and military implications of the strategy for the United States
and its allies; and
(8) any other information or recommendations relating to the strategy (or to the
strategic posture) that the commission considers appropriate.
Congress has also mandated that the Secretary of Defense under the next
Administration conduct a “comprehensive review of the nuclear posture of the
United States for the next 5 to 10 years” (H.R. 1585, Sec. 1070). This review, which
is to be submitted to Congress along with the next Quadrennial Defense Review in
2010, is to include assessments of the following:
(1) The role of nuclear forces in United States military strategy, planning, and
programming.
(2) The policy requirements and objectives for the United States to maintain a
safe, reliable, and credible nuclear deterrence posture.
(3) The relationship among United States nuclear deterrence policy, targeting
strategy, and arms control objectives.
(4) The role that missile defense capabilities and conventional strike forces play
in determining the role and size of nuclear forces.
(5) The levels and composition of the nuclear delivery systems that will be
required for implementing the United States national and military strategy,
including any plans for replacing or modifying existing systems.
(6) The nuclear weapons complex that will be required for implementing the
United States national and military strategy, including any plans to modernize
or modify the complex.
(7) The active and inactive nuclear weapons stockpile that will be required for
implementing the United States national and military strategy, including any
plans for replacing or modifying warheads.

These studies, and many others underway in organizations outside the U.S.
government, may provide the framework for a broad-based debate on the future of
U.S. nuclear strategy and doctrine.

---