On October 9, 2006, North Korea tested its first nuclear device. Granted, the explosive yield of the device (estimated at half a kiloton [kt], or the equivalent of 500 tons of TNT) was not, by the standards of most nuclear weapons, impressive. Nevertheless, the fact that an impoverished nation-state, such as North Korea, could develop and test a nuclear device in the face of opposition from the United States and all the other states in northeast Asia is a signal event in international relations.

It suggests that the United States and like-minded countries have difficulty denying nuclear weapons to regional powers that seek them. In light of this, prudence dictates that the United States and its allies prepare for the possibility that they might, in the not-too-distant future, confront regional adversaries with deliverable nuclear arsenals.

In anticipation of this future, analysts at RAND have, for some time, been conducting research on the problems that nuclear-armed regional adversaries pose. The insights they have developed raise important questions about U.S. strategy for power-projection operations and about the adequacy of the capabilities that may be available to future U.S. forces. The work documented here, part of a fiscal year 2006 study, “The Future of Deterrence in a Proliferated World,” suggests strongly that it would be a mistake to regard nuclear-armed regional adversaries simply as lesser included cases of more powerful adversaries, such as the Soviet Union of the Cold War.

The research documented here was sponsored by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Programs, Headquarters United States Air Force and was conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.

Other RAND Project AIR FORCE documents that address nuclear armament and regional adversaries include the following:

• Future Roles of U.S. Nuclear Forces: Implications for U.S. Strategy (MR-1231-AF), by Glenn C. Buchan, David Matonick, Calvin Shipbaugh, Richard Mesic
• U.S. Regional Deterrence Strategy (MR-490-A/AF), by Ken Watman, Dean A. Wilkening, Brian Nichiporuk, and John Arquilla
• Nuclear Deterrence in a Regional Context (MR-500-A/AF), by Dean A. Wilkening and Ken Watman

RAND Project AIR FORCE

RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF), a division of the RAND Corporation, is the U.S. Air Force’s federally funded research and development center for studies and analyses. PAF provides the Air Force with independent analyses of policy alternatives affecting the development, employment, combat readiness, and support of current and future aerospace forces. Research is conducted in four programs: Aerospace Force Development; Manpower, Personnel, and Training; Resource Management; and Strategy and Doctrine.

Additional information about PAF is available on our Web site: http://www.rand.org/paf/

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DAVID OCHMANEK
LOWELL H. SCHWARTZ

© Copyright 2008 RAND Corporation

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Summary:

The United States, along with other members of the international community, is striving to convince North Korea, Iran, and other states to forgo the development of nuclear weapons. If these efforts do not succeed, the consequences for U.S. and allied security could be profound.

U.S. conventional and nuclear forces will continue to have deterrent effects on the leaders of regional adversary states, such as North Korea and Iran, even if these states field substantial numbers of nuclear weapons. However, defense planners in the United States and elsewhere must begin now to confront the possibility that, in the face of superior U.S. conventional forces, adversaries of this class could see using nuclear weapons to be in their interest under a variety of circumstances during a conflict involving the United States. Several reasons exist for this:

❏ Regional adversary nations spend only a small fraction of what the United States does on military forces (less than 5 percent in the cases of Iran and North Korea). This virtually guarantees that any serious conflict involving the United States will end in such opponents’ defeat if the conflict stays at the conventional level. (See pp. 15–17.)

❏ Military defeat can have disastrous consequences for authoritarian rulers, who may therefore be prepared to run high risks to stave it off. Facing the prospect of defeat, enemy leaders may perceive that using one or more nuclear weapons may be the most attractive option open to them if it might deter the United States and its allies from continuing their military operations. (See pp. 36–37.)

❏ In several conflicts, U.S. forces have demonstrated the capability and will to attack enemy leaders, command-and-control assets, weapons of mass destruction, and delivery means from the outset. Fears of decapitation strikes or disarming counterforce attacks could lead enemy leaders to perceive that they are in a use-or-lose situation, thus heightening the pressure to resort to nuclear use early in a conflict. (See p. 37.)

In short, deterring the use of nuclear weapons by threatening retaliation, which was a mainstay of Cold War military strategy, could be highly problematic in many plausible conflict situations involving nuclear-armed regional adversaries for the simple reason that adversary leaders may not believe that they will personally be any worse off for having used nuclear weapons than if they were to forgo their use.

This being the case, U.S. and allied leaders confronting nucleararmed adversaries will want military capabilities that offer far greater assurance than do today’s that adversaries can be prevented (as opposed to deterred) from using nuclear weapons. This points to demands for forces that can locate, track, and destroy nuclear weapons and their delivery means before they are launched and, above all, active defenses that can destroy delivery vehicles after they have been launched. Today and for some time to come, the emphasis should be on fielding effective defenses against theater-range missiles, not ICBMs. (See pp. 39–42, 51–52.)

Unless and until highly reliable means of attack prevention become available, U.S. leaders will be compelled to temper their objectives visà-vis nuclear-armed regional adversaries, avoiding conflict with them or using military force in limited ways that minimize the adversary’s incentives to escalate to nuclear use. (See p. 53.)

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