Nuclear Forces; Post 1994
SAG Paper to CINCSTRAT Chiles, July 12, 1994

The 1994 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) never produced a final report. Instead, the Strategic Advisory Group produced what amounted to a blueprint for the review following an internal revolt against the elaborate study group process spearheaded by Ashton Carter, then the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Security and Counterproliferation.

Half way through the NPR, the study group process collapsed following what appears to have been an internal revolt. Only a few months into the review process, in January 1994, Major General John Admire from Joint Staff sent his NPR co-chair Ashton Carter a memorandum in which he expressed concern with the NPR process and how the findings of the working groups would be reviewed and approved. This same concern, he said, "has been expressed to me by the Services and CINCs based on input from their working group members." (copy of memorandum is available from the right-hand bar)

Four days later, Carter issued a joint letter with Admire to the NPR Steering Group that outlined the "way ahead." The Steering Group's activity would intensify, the letter said, and laid out a work plan for the six working groups that aimed at completing a preliminary draft NPR guidance by mid-February. But the letter failed to resolve the dispute and immediately triggered an angry response from STRATCOM which complained over the lack of progress and the tight schedule. Carter's plan “imposes a schedule that will backfill the vacuum with grab-bag thinking and then ask the Secretary for his blessing," Retired Admiral Bobby Inman complained to CINCSTRAT Admiral Chiles. "This would be comical if we didn’t have so much at stake,” Inman warned. (copies of Carter's and Inman's letters are available from the right-hand bar)

As the working group process collapsed in the early summer of 1994, STRATCOM commander Admiral Chiles instead ordered his SAG to prepare a paper on the future development of the nuclear posture. The six-page document, entitled "Nuclear Forces; Post 1994," outlined the main policy and force assumptions and much of it appears to have been carried forward into the final NPR decision.

A Nuclear Vision

The paper started with formulating a new nuclear rationale: "The nation's security should not be premised on piecemeal nuclear reduction in unrelated increments to satisfy a sense that we do not need as much as before the Cold War ended, or to save scarce defense dollars." Consensus has to be constructed around the following issues:

1) the new role of nuclear deterrence in U.S. national security
2) the role of U.S. nuclear force in assuring our allies
3) the relation of U.S. nuclear forces structure and doctrine to arms control negotiations, and
4) fiscal status.

Central to the future nuclear posture, the SAG paper concluded, was "hedging" against an uncertain Russian future. "So long as the nuclear strike forces of the former Soviet Union remain largely intact, U.S. strategy must guard against their being put to use by a government hostile to the United States and its allies." Hedging as a strategy meant that the U.S. should 1) maintain enough nuclear forces to match those in Russia, and 2) maintain a high enough readiness level "to respond to the rapid pace at which adverse political change could take place." This meant shifting focus to a potential rather than an immediate existing threat.

SAG also argued strongly for a role of nuclear weapons to deter other forms of weapons of mass destruction than only nuclear weapons. "Those who argue that biological and chemical threats can always be safely deterred without requiring the last resort of U.S. nuclear force must bear the burden of proof for their arguments. Until they make a compelling case that nuclear force is not necessary for successful deterrence, it is not in the nation's interest to foreswear the uncertainty as to how we would respond to clear and dangerous threats of other weapons of mass destruction." SAG concluded that "measured ambiguity" remained a powerful tool for the President.

The SAG paper also predicted that the pace of bilateral U.S.-Russian arms control to slow down during 1994-2004 as START I and START II were implemented. Surprisingly, less than three years after unilateral arms reductions were used by the Bush administration to jumpstart the arms control process, the SAG paper concluded that unilateral force reductions below the START limits "do not serve to encourage the Russians to move to future negotiations." Further reduction would also require an assessment of when and how strategic nuclear reductions should be expanded beyond only Russia and the United States. "Until some sense of that issue is obtained," SAG concluded, "there is no basis for assessing the military or political sufficiency of [the] remaining U.S. nuclear forces."

The extraordinarily cautious tone of the paper was further underscored by SAG's warning against cutting too deep too fast in the nuclear forces. The SAG members seemed to be more alarmed by the post Cold War world than by the post World War II world. "It is even more imperative today than it was in the late 1940s that we adjust our nuclear force structure wisely and with careful forethought to arms control regimes. Otherwise we run the very real danger of creating a less stable world."

The reduced but largely intact nuclear force with an increased readiness and flexibility would, together with the strategy of hedging, provide what SAG saw as a credible deterrent against Russia, assurances to allies and friends, but without giving "to future Saddam Husseins the dangerous impression that American nuclear weapons are not credible deterrents to dangerous provocations, or that we are self deterred." It was, SAG said in paraphrasing an earlier JCS Chairman, "the right strategy, at the right time, against the right set of potential adversaries."

CINCSTRAT Chiles forwarded the SAG paper to CJCS Chairman Shalikashvili, who replied that the paper would be useful as the Joint Staff evaluated the conclusions and recommendations on the NPR. "In particular," Shalikashvili said, "I appreciate your perspective on hedging against future uncertainty while we grapple with near-term resource requirements." Chiles later thanked the SAG for the paper, which he said was "particularly effective" in preparing the NPR. (copies of the SAG study and Shalikashvili's letter are available from the right-hand bar)