Offensive Doctrine in a Defense-Dominant World

It is easy to agree with proponents of strategic defense who argue that it is better to protect the American people from nuclear attack than to avenge them. There is a danger, however, that oversimplified appeals may detract from important issues of military strategy in a defense-dominant world. Deterrence can never rest on defense alone. Without offensive teeth, failure becomes the only penalty for aggression. The threat of offensive retaliation in some form will should remain part of U.S. strategic doctrine. The strategic defense debate has raised serious questions about what form the offensive component of U.S. strategic doctrine may take in the twenty-first century.

New technology is not likely to be a substitute for offensive strategy or even for the classical theories of war. Clausewitz, for example, in his study of war, which has become a standard text in the curriculum of American war colleges, devoted extensive effort to the analysis of defense. He concluded that defense was a stronger form of war than the attack. But defense was not purely passive. In his view, defense consisted of two phases: waiting for a blow and parrying it. The latter and sometimes forgotten action was intrinsic to Clausewitz's whole concept of defense. An army took up defensive positions in order to fight from them. A defense was a shield, but an active shield, one "made up of well-directed blows."¹

Clausewitz's defensive strategy consisted of finding a proper balance between defense and offense, waiting and countering appropriately, and choosing the right time and place to unleash that" flashing sword of vengeance, which he described as "the greatest moment for the defender."²

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) debate has reflected very little of this kind of thinking. Rhetorical excesses have created the impression that new technologies may become so reliable that the United States will be able to sheathe its strategic sword and rely on its shield. Beating our swords into satellites will not free us from the threat of nuclear war. Offensive forces will remain in one form or another. Before we jump enthusiastically on the SDI bandwagon, it is important that we examine these realities and the offensive-defensive relationship during the projected transition period to a "defense-dominant" world. We need to know where that bandwagon is headed and what other items are in the parade.

The Evolution of Strategic Offense

Classically, deterrence of war and strategic nuclear weapons employment policies have a paradoxical relationship in that deterring nuclear war has required policies and credible plans and strategies for fighting and, if not winning, at least assuring that potential adversaries could not win. While "winning" a nuclear war has little meaning in view of the major destruction that would accompany the use of nuclear weapons, it still seems clear that to be deterred, potential aggressors must be denied confidence that they could achieve their war aims.

The strategic doctrines of the United States and the Soviet Union have evolved from this paradox with important differences inemphasis.³ U.S. force structure and declared employment policies have evolved to deter, through assured retaliation by survivable American nuclear forces, Soviet execution of large-scale war in plans or aggression in Western territory. Increasingly, this strategy has included "damage limitation" through preferential attack options against Soviet military targets, accompanied by the threat of escalation to urban/industrial targets if aggression continues. (Damage limitation has two distinctly different meanings. One use of the term refers to selective attacks that limit collateral damage to the enemy. A second, more common use refers to preemptive attacks, i.e., attacks against enemy forces before they can be used against you. The latter definition is used in this discussion.) The most salient feature of this doctrine has been the evolution of graduated and flexible responses that incorporate limited nuclear attacks to maintain options for intrawar bargaining, escalation control, and prompt conflict termination.

Soviet doctrine places greater emphasis on warfighting and damage limitation through large-scale, preemptive attacks against military targets. The Soviets' force structure and declaratory policy emphasize that the better their armed forces are prepared to fight a nuclear war, the better their society is equipped to survive its effects; moreover, the more clearly the adversary understands this preparedness, the more he will be effectively deterred. This doctrine is sometimes called "deterrence through denial" -- that is, seeking to deny the opponent the prospect of military victory. It covers all of the Soviets' strategic bases since it rests on well established war-fighting doctrines and capabilities in the event deterrence falls. American strategists who favor war-fighting options against Soviet military targets also argue that denial of military victory is a far more credible strategy than threats to punish an attacker by retaliating against civilian populations.

Although Soviet and U.S. strategic doctrines are partially converging in their emphasis on hard-target counterforce and damage-limiting capabilities, potentially destabilizing doctrinal differences remain. The most obvious is the apparent Soviet rejection of limited nuclear war concepts, including escalation control and intrawar bargaining. The Soviets view these concepts as attempts at political intimidationrather than as elements in a strategy conceived by those who take war seriously. For theSoviets, denial of military victory requires robust preemption when war appears imminent and attacks of greater magnitude than those prescribed by U.S. limited nuclear war strategy.

The credibility of both doctrines is sensitive to the evolving relationships between offensive and defensive forces and is complicated by the fact that nothingin nuclear strategy is purely defensive in thesense that it does not directly support or lendcredibility to offensive operations. Any calculation of a first-strike or preemptionis conditioned in part by active (ballistic missile defense) and passive (civil defense) capabilities toabsorb residual second-strike forces. Any realignment of offensive and defensive strategic capabilities-as in the President's new concept of strategic defense--must be examined carefully for its impact on the quite different offensive doctrines of the Soviet Union and United States.

A strategy incorporating strategic defense may or may not add to stability or to theevolvinglimited nuclear war capabilities of U.S. forces. Those outcomes will depend not only on thesuccess and reliability of developing technologies but also on the Soviet Union's willingness to negotiate offensive limitations rather than to embark on new strategic initiativesof itsown.

Precisely which general combinations of negotiated offensive-defensive constraints would degrade Soviet capabilities most is debatable because of operational uncertainties. On balance, offensive reductions would affect the Soviets' robust style of preemption/damage limitation more than they would the evolving U.S. strategy of limited attack options and escalation control. Defensive constraints affect both American and Soviet strategic doctrine. When combined with offensive limits, however, they degrade the effectiveness of Soviet forces more than those of the United States, since defensive constraints make the execution of limited nuclear options more credible than a Soviet - strategy based on massive preemption.

Defensive advantages by either side will greatly enhance the credibility of that. side's strategic doctrine. Neither side is therefore likely to accede to a posture of defensive inferiority. Failing arms control remedies, the disadvantaged party will seek to reestablish its strategic position through offensive countermeasures, defensive countermeasures, or both. In the Soviets' case, these measures could also include doctrinal modifications. For example, the Soviets could seek compensation for perceived offensive shortfalls by moving toward a "softer" strategic target set, including greater emphasis on countervalue targets to compensate declining penetrability of their strategic forces.

Arms control remedies that result in equal offensive force levels, equal offensive force levels, equal sublimits, or offsetting asymmetries (e.g.,U.S. bomber or SLBM advantages for Soviet ICBM advantages) may satisfy domestic political requirements, but they do not necessarily support the operational effectiveness of U.S. nuclear forces if deterrence falls. This is not to suggest that war-fighting plans and strategies should drive arms control policy. Nevertheless, Americans must realize that strategic force levels codified by treaty will shape war-fighting options for the future, and our credibility to deter war will depend to a large degree on the relationship between offensive tradeoffs and defensive systems that may or may not be constrained by arms control agreements. For, example:

These examples illustrate why nuclear arms control negotiations require a comprehensive, long-term approach to Soviet-American strategic, capabilities. Treaties cannot embrace every possible threat or contingency, but neither should they result in vulnerable force structures because negotiators failed to comprehend the offensive-defensive relationships among strategic forces. It may also be worth noting that potential unilateral remedies or countermeasures (e.g., hardening systems, improving C³I assets, incorporating Stealth technologies more broadly, increasing the numbers of defensive weapons, etc.) could be taken outside the context of an arms control treaty to shore up U.S. defenses against evolving vulnerabilities or to strengthen our deterrent capabilities independent of treaty constraints. No treaty locks all the doors to potential countermeasures.

Strategic Defense
and Nuclear Targeting

The offensive-defensive debate includes arguments from an earlier period in the evolution of American strategic doctrine. The new debate finds the administration repeating many of the same arguments made during the Nixon years by advocates of limited nuclear war and flexible response. Nixon administration spokesmen argued, also, that the U.S. President needed options to simple retaliation against Soviet cities, especially if Soviet reserve forces could retaliate against previously spared American cities.

Reviewing the evolution of offensive strategy and nuclear targeting options is essential to the assessment of a future defense-dominant world. For the past two decades, there has been a (continuous official effort to increase the range of strategic nuclear targeting options available to the President in a crisis. Options to mutual assured destruction (MAD) have been developed in the documents, strategies, and force structures of every administration since 1970, including the Reagan administration. Not since the Kennedy administration has a president been confronted with a choice between no nuclear response or the massive unleashing of our strategic forces. These changes have been characterized by plans that concentrate against military targets through limited and selective attack options that, intheory, make it possible to control escalation short of attacking cities, to bargain with the Soviets during a nuclear war, and to terminate nuclear conflict at the earliest possible time.

The first official public discussions of these issues came in President Nixon's foreign-policy message to Congress on 18 February 1970:

A series of studies and directives followed, providing political guidance on structuring more flexible preplanned nuclear responses in the U.S. war plan or SIOP (single integrated operational plan). Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger publicly announced the change in targeting strategy. Assured destruction and the old policy of initiating a suicidal strike against the cities of the other side "were no longer adequate for deterrence." He would, therefore, implement a set of selective options against different sets of targets on a much more limited and flexible scale.⁵

The Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy (NUWEP) signed by Schlesinger in 1974 set forth the planning assumptions, attack options, targeting objectives, and predicted damage levels needed to satisfy the political guidance developed by the administration. Targets were divided into four principal groups:

In response to this policy, changes were made in the SIOP, which further divided these four groups into specific categories and offered "packages" of strike options that could single out our combine various target categories within the four general groups.⁷Only two of these categories--leadership and economic targets--are associated with mutual assured destruction, and many of those (dams, rail junctions, leadership bunkers) are located outside major population centers. Military targets were given top priority. By adopting the strategy of limited nuclear options, planners reasoned, escalation might be averted short of attacking target categories in major urban-industrial centers.

The Carter administration refined the limited nuclear war strategy by deemphasizing Soviet economic targets (moving still farther away from MAD) and stressing the importance of survivable strategic forces and C³ (command, control, and communications) systems required to execute a limited nuclear war.⁸

Subsequently, the Reagan administration produced a Nuclear Weapons Employment and Acquisition Master Plan, which maintained the legacy of limited, nuclear warfare and stressed the requirements for strategic modernization including survivable forces and CII (command, control, communications, and intelligence) systems to execute selective attack options.⁹ In fact, considerable controversy duringthe administration's first term focused on public discussions of fighting and "winning" limited nuclear wars.

The actual conduct of nuclear war could be considerably different from that suggested by the declaratory policies of either the Soviet Union or the United States. Strategic orthodoxy could easily give way to ad hoc strategies based on last-minute military and political judgments or resulting from the chaos caused by a disrupted national command authority. Escalation, collateral damage, and the delayed effects of nuclear weapons (radiation and societal disruption) could drive casualties quickly to "unacceptable" levels or bring about unforeseen consequences even if cities were not directly attacked.

There are no quick technological fixes to these dilemmas. However, the impact of strategic defense on offensive forces and targeting policies that will remain in effect for at least the remainder of this century, requires far more scrutiny than it has received in a debate which, thus far, has focused on public diplomacy, technical problems, and budgeting.

The New Strategic Concept:
Build Down to Security

The "new strategic concept" of the Reagan administration links the Strategic Defense Initiative to long-range arms control proposals. Its goal is to make deep cuts in offensive weapons with the development of strategic defenses over a long, carefully phased transition period. During the next ten years, the United States will seek a radical reduction (build down) in offensive nuclear arms, followed by a period of mutual transition to effective nonnuclear defense forces as technology makes such options available. In a final "ultimate period," strategic defenses may make it possible to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

Ambassador Paul H. Nitze, reportedly the author of the new concept, described the three envisioned phases in detail during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

Assuming that the Soviets could be persuaded to cooperate in a transition to a defense dominant world (a position they now publicly reject), it is important not to lose sight of the continued, long-term role of offensive weapons. During the "near-term " phase, for example, deterrence would continue to be based on the threat of nuclear retaliation. Offensive modernization programs would continue even if arms control agreements succeed indriving down total force levels.

The "transition period" calls for a "mix of offensive and defensive systems" that could be maintained (and modernized) for "decades." Nuclear weapons, offensive strategies, and targeting policies would be required well into the next century. It is essential, therefore, that strategic planners carefully assess the probable impacts of such strategic shifts on U.S. and Soviet targeting policies. Would the transition to strategic defense make us more secure, or would each side alter its nuclear employment policies in such a way that cities and population centers face even greater danger than they have in the recent past?

The Irony of Strategic Defense

If arms control agreements succeed in reducing the levels of offensive nuclear weapons, there will still remain a visible trend toward modernization and qualitative advances in the remaining forces. Maneuverable warheads, Stealthtechnology, and cruise missiles, to name a few, will be sufficientto create doubts about the effectiveness of defenses. Similarly, technological breakthroughs in defenses will increase the uncertainties for offensive operations. Together, offensive and defensive uncertainties may precipitate targeting policies that are as threatening as any in the past. Cities and their civilian populations could again become primary targets in a nuclear war. This outcome would be the ultimate irony of strategic defense.

Table I illustrates the relationship between current U.S. strategic doctrine based on limited attack options and the evolution toward a defense-dominant world. The phases are based on Nitze's descriptions. During the initial decade, assuming a cooperative adversary, offensive nuclear forces would be reduced (and modernized) to mutually agreed levels. Limited attack options could remain credible throughout this period.

Table I. Impact of the New Strategic Concept on U.S. Strategic Doctrine
1985*-1995 reduced offensive forces	1990-1995 interim point defense	1995-2015 territorial defense	2015 - ? near-zero nuclear offensive forces
limited nuclear options remain credible	reduced credibility against: strategic nuclear targets leadership targets some conventional targets most credible against: urban/industrial transportation energy population	limited nuclear options not credible	offensive nuclear doctrine not required
*estimated dates		offensive remedies: technological modernization to penetrate/attack defense increased numbers of offensive forces attacking high-value, soft targets if deterrence fails

If the United States were to begin deploying interim point defenses in the 1990s, such defenses would be deployed to defend strategic forces and command and control centers. Assuming that the Soviets deployed point defenses with the same priorities, a strategy of limited attack options would have significantly reduced credibility against strategic nuclear and leadership targets. Urban/industrial targets would become the most vulnerable target sets during a "transition" stage with extensive point defenses.

As point defenses then expanded to full-scale space-based defenses capable of providing reasonably credible (but less than perfect) territorial defense, the credibility of limited attack options would be degraded against all target categories. As Table I indicates, however, several offensive countermeasures are possible. Ironically, as Table II depicts, urban/industrial targets have become the most vulnerable to attack in a less-than perfect territorial defense. Offensive planning, unless all war-fighting strategies are foregone, would avoid attacks against high-expenditure/low-payoff military targets, especially those that are hardened and protected by "thick" terminal defenses. Admittedly, a nuclear attack would come only in the most desperate of crises; but if it occurred, targeting plans would likely call for hits oil soft targets where a small, surviving force would have high payoff in its destructive effects.

Table II. Strategic Targeting and Strategic Defense
Target Categories	Offensive Reductions and ABM Treaty in Force		Offensive Reductions and Expanded Point Defense		Offensive Reductions and Territorial Defense
	United States	Soviet Union	United States	Soviet Union	United States	Soviet Union
I. strategic nuclear	less vulnerable	less vulnerable	least vulnerable	least vulnerable	least vulnerable	least vulnerable
II. leadership	less vulnerable	less vulnerable	less vulnerable	less vulnerable	least vulnerable	least vulnerable
III. conventional military	vulnerable	vulnerable	vulnerable	vulnerable	less vulnerable	less vulnerable
IV. urban/industrial - transportation - energy - population	vulnerable vulnerable vulnerable vulnerable	vulnerable vulnerable vulnerable vulnerable	most vulnerable most vulnerable most vulnerable most vulnerable	most vulnerable most vulnerable most vulnerable most vulnerable	less vulnerable less vulnerable less vulnerable less vulnerable	less vulnerable less vulnerable less vulnerable less vulnerable

As Table II illustrates, only urban/industrial and nondispersed conventional military targets (of the four categories) meet these criteria. The probability of nuclear war may decline in direct proportion to quantitative and qualitative offensive constraints, but the possibility of war will never reach zero. And, if deterrence does fail, the consequences might well be catastrophic, due to the assumptions that each side might make about the other's defenses. The irony of strategic defense is that cities and population centers very likely could move from the bottom to the top of targeting priorities for both the United States and the Soviet Union.

A strategy for controlling nuclear war short of mass destruction may be a false hope, as critics claim. But there is a world of difference between war plans that deliberately (as in the 1950s) provide no options other than surrender or holocaust and those developed throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, which at least attempt to mitigate the consequences of nuclear war if deterrence falls. The distinctions between MAD and limited nuclear war have been debated for more than two decades. That debate and whatever wisdom it may have produced should not be ignored as this and subsequent administrations move toward a defense-dominant world that may not provide more security than its predecessors. If we look to the past, we see that nuclear war was planned in the 1950s on the basis of what our bombers could find--Soviet cities. In the 1990s, we may plan war on the basis of what our weapons can hit--again, cities. Like the British and French with limited nuclear resources, American and Soviet planners may be driven toward counter city targeting. We shall then have come full circle at great expense and, in the end, succeeded only in making the world safe for MAD. Given that possibility, our leaders and planners need to consider all plausible contingencies and scenarios carefully and think through the impact of strategic defense on deterrence, crisis management, and offensive targeting now rather than in the midst of a future Soviet-American crisis.

1. Carl vonClausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 357.

2. Discussed extensively by Michael Howard in Clausewitz (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 23-26.

3. Studies of Soviet and U.S. strategic doctrine are too numerous to cite. Those that compare and contrast the Soviet and American approaches to strategic doctrine include Friz W. Ermarth, "Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought," International Security, Fall 1978; Benjamin Lambeth, Selective Nuclear Options in American and Soviet Strategic Policy, R-20034-DDRE (Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, 1976; and Dennis Ross, "Rethinking Soviet Strategic Policy: Inputs and Implications," Journal of Strategic Studies, May 1978. For the evolution of U.S. strategic doctrine, see Fred Kaplan, The wizards of Armageddon: Strategists of the Nuclear Age (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983); Leon Sloss and Marc Dean Millot, " U.S. Nuclear Strategy in Evolution," Strategic Review, Winter 1984, pp. 19-28.

4. Richard Nixon, U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970s. A New Strategy for Peace, a report to Congress, 18 February 1970 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 122.

5. James Schlesinger, Address for Writers Association Luncheon, DOD Public Affairs Office, 10 January 1974, pp, 5-6.

6. Desmond Ball, Targeting for Strategic Deterrence, Adelphi Papers (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1983), pp. 23-24.

Reagan strategic modernization speech of 2 October 1981 with his "Star Wars" speech.

10. Ambassador Paul H. Nitze, Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 February 1985, pp. 2-5. Emphasis added.

Gary L. Guertner (B.A., M.A., University of Arizona; Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School) is Professor of Political Science at California State University, Fullerton. He has been an officer in the Marine Corps, a faculty member at U.S. Army War college, and a scholar in residence at the U.S. Arms control and Disarmament Agency, Washington, D.C. Dr. Guertner has written numerous articles on defense and foreign policy for professional journals, including the Review.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.