Handout // April 6, 2000
17.423
 
 

Escalation, Limited War and the Nuclear Era



I. The Nuclear Era is the Era of Limited War (so far): Why?

A. Historically, some wars have begun as intense wars (1914), others have more gradually evolved (1939 Europe, 1941 Pacific). In the Nuclear Era we have only seen the Great Powers engage in "limited war" in the last 55 years. This raises two broad questions:

1.) What factors influence whether or not a war escalates or stays limited?
2.) What, if anything, is new and different about the nuclear era?

 II. Explaining Escalation, Intensity and the Prolonging of Wars: Does War beget War? Wars are difficult to control . . . A. In war, states tend to expand their war aims! -- each side adopts darker images of the other ("they are evil") and worse ideas of the other’s intention’s.
-- more possible war aims are logrolled to gain support for the war effort.
  B. Sunk-cost dynamics: $$$$ --"all treasure and effort will be for naught if we don’t win."

C. Popular vengeance — "our brothers and sisters will have died for no reason if we don’t win!"

-- [Note: it is widely believed that democracies are more peaceful before a war begins­difficult to arouse/provoke, but once provoked they are most vengeful­they will fight fiercely to the finish! How true?]
  D. Ego-investment: Leaders get committed to policies for both personal ego reasons and political reputation reasons, and thus cannot admit they were wrong!

E. Wartime hyper-nationalism and chauvinist mythmaking.

-- to get people to "sacrifice" for effort
-- to unify the country
  F. False Wartime Optimism: -- many organizational incentives to report, even exaggerate, battle "successes" and downplay/hide failures.
-- Political incentives for leaders to report/exaggerate "successes" to the homefront. — This helps shut off "realistic" evaluation and diplomacy by leaders.
  G. Wartime non-evaluation: 1.) Leaders begin wars without visualizing the end! They often seem to work through the first few battles or moves, but fail to fully determine how the war might be brought to an end . . . -- Such partial planning may be understandable for 1) a lesser power in a last-ditch self-defense effort, or 2) a great power with overwhelming capability and willing to use it. Any other situation should be examined more fully­"war is a blunt instrument" very difficult to use for policy purposes.
  2.) Secrecy prevents civilian analysts from evaluating­"must keep military secrets from unnecessary civilian eyes!"

3.) Open criticism can hurt "unity," and can give incentives to adversary ("aid and abet" the adversary; treason; "stab in the back.")
 

 H. "Treason of the Hawks"­Do military hawks wield more political power in wartime? -- Ikle suggests this is a missing concept! While collaborating with the enemy is "treason" and is morally reviled, and often punishable by death, ruining one’s country in avoidable warfare is a crime with no name and no punishment.
  I. Outside powers often become involved­escalating and prolonging the war in ways not anticipated by the initiators/original participants.
 
  III. Common Hypotheses on Limited War v. Intense War A. "Destructive Weapons Cause Destructive War" -- and its less popular opposite: "Mutual Deterrence Prevents Destructive War." Consider four hypotheses on arms and the intensity of war:

1.) States destroy what they can. The violence of war corresponds to the destructive power of states.

2.) States destroy what they cannot avoid destroying. The violence of war depends on whether weapons are discriminating, e.g. accurate or not.

3.) States destroy what they must to accomplish their war goals. The violence of war corresponds to the scope of these goals, and hence to the scope of the political conflict between the belligerents.

4.) States destroy in inverse proportion to the punishment they will receive in return. The violence of war corresponds inversely to the ability of both belligerents to punish the other.

Note: Propositions #A1 and #A4 are mirror opposites. What to make of this?
 

Solutions implied by proposition #A1:

1.) Disarmament.

2.) Deploy forces that can disarm the other side­e.g., strategic nuclear counterforce forces (accurate silo-busting ICBMs and strategic defenses for cities.)
 

Solution implied by proposition #A2:

1.) Deploy discriminating weapons that can be used without collateral damage­e.g. laser-guided bombs. Ban land mines, especially hard-to-clear anti-personnel mines.
 

Solution implied by proposition #A3:

1.) All states should adopt defensive force postures, so that their neighbors will not be insecure, hence will not feel the need to adopt desperate measures in a search for security. [Provide peaceful resolution options for other grievances­economic, environmental, demographic etc….]
 

Solution implied by proposition #A4:

1.) All states should arm themselves abundantly with well-protected weapons of mass destruction. "Nuclear weapons cause greater security . . ."
 

 B. "Total War Doctrine Causes Total War." and "Limited War Doctrines Allow Limited War." --Are these ideas true?
-- Is it best to plan only for total war, in hopes of avoiding all war?
-- Are limited wars more dangerous because they allow for "gradual escalation" or safer (possible to keep limited) because they resolve problems?
  C. "Defining and Observing Thresholds Helps Keep War Limited" — e.g. "I won’t use gas if you won’t."

D. "Don’t destroy your opponent’s command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I)" -- otherwise they cannot observe your restraint, or make peace with you.
 

 IV. Causes of War as Causes of Intensity and Escalation: A. First-strike advantages: increase intensity, possibly widening, make war difficult to end because "treachery" makes initiator untrustworthy.

B. Large windows­fluctuations of relative power­occur during war, making war difficult to stop (encouraging intensity and escalation)­how?

C. False Optimism­-(often increases during war …)

D. Cumulative resources — become more necessary and more "conquerable" as inhibitions to war are lost­widening wars.

E. Offense v. Defense dominance­-what makes war more intense?
 

 V. The Nuclear Era: Technical Effects of the Nuclear Revolution Technologies rarely have decisive effects on war or politics; more often technology is bent to serve politics or military doctrine. Nuclear weapons are an exception. They overwhelm politics and doctrine.

Five cascading technical effects flow from the nuclear revolution. These cascade further into political effects listed below in Section VIII. The technical effects are:

Effect #1: Hydrogen bombs offer an increase of six (6, count them six) orders of magnitude over the power of TNT explosives used in World War II. The atomic bomb = x 1,000 increase on TNT; the hydrogen bomb = x 1,000 increase in atomic bombs.

Effect #2: due to effect #1 (the destructiveness of nuclear weapons), the "cost-exchange ratio" vastly favors defenders (better termed "retaliators") over attackers seeking to disarm them. Nuclear weapons pack tremendous explosive power in devices that are cheap, light, and easily hidden, protected, and delivered. Hence destroying nuclear weapons is very hard, protecting and delivering them is very easy.

Effect #3: due to effect #2 (the cost-exchange ratio), a relationship of MAD ("Mutually Assured Destruction") develops between major powers. Both can destroy the other’s society even after absorbing an all-out counterforce attack by the other. In short, both have a "second strike countervalue capability."

In the Cold War, both the US and USSR sought to avert MAD, preferring instead to deny the other a second-strike countervalue capability, but they could not escape MAD. Technology overrode their desires.
  Effect #4: "flat of the curve dynamics." One of MAD’s special characteristics is the "flat of the curve": beyond a certain point, the capacity to inflict damage on the other society, or to prevent damage to one’s own, is inelastic to the size and capability of one’s own force or one’s opponent’s force. Capabilities are absolute!

Effect #5: the "multiplier effect." The efficiency with which one side must strike the other’s forces in order to leave the other unable to inflict unacceptable damage in retaliation increases sharply as the arsenals of both sides grow. Even an inefficient strike (a substantial percentage of the attacked weapons survive) can reduce the retaliation to "acceptable levels" if both arsenals are very small; even a very efficient strike (e.g. 99% effective) can fail to reduce retaliation to acceptable levels if both arsenals are very large. Hence first strikes are LEAST thinkable when arsenals are LARGE, suggesting the argument that "the more weapons both sides have, the less the risk of their use."
 
 

 MORE on the Nuclear Era next time!!!­countervalue, counterforce, first-strike, second-strike, MAD, BAD, MARNE, WORSE, -- benefits of and doubts about benefits of proliferation . . .