12 Jan 18. Nuclear Posture Review draft leaks; new weapons coming amid strategic shift. A leaked copy of the Pentagon’s upcoming Nuclear Posture Review includes the development of a new low-yield warhead for America’s submarines, pushing for the creation of a new sub-launched, nuclear-capable cruise missile and a shift in America’s stance on when nuclear weapons may be used.
A draft of the review was posted online Friday by the Huffington Post. The Nuclear Posture Review, or NPR, is scheduled to be formally released in February, and so the document may change somewhat between now and then.
In a statement, the Pentagon did not deny that the draft is authentic, instead saying “Our discussion has been robust and several draft have been written.
“However, the Nuclear Posture Review has not been completed and will ultimately be reviewed and approved by the President and the Secretary of Defense,” the statement read. “As a general practice, we do not discuss pre-decisional, draft copies of strategies and reviews.”
Since his election, President Donald Trump has shown an interest in the nuclear arsenal, complaining it had grown too small and pledging to increase the size and capabilities of America’s nukes — much to the dismay of nonproliferation advocates.
Unsurprisingly, the draft reaffirms the need for a full nuclear triad — the mix of air-, ground- and sea-based nuclear weapons that has formed the backbone of America’s deterrence posture for decades. But the document appears to be in line, at least somewhat, with Trump’s public desires.
Low-yield changes
For months there have been rumors in the nuclear community that the NPR would feature a push to lower-yield nuclear weapons — which already exist on the W80 and B61 nuclear bombs. Based on the draft of the NPR, the Pentagon intends to either modify or create new low-yield nuclear warheads for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which is not a current capability.
The NPR justifies this as needing to counter the belief among potential adversaries, including Russia, that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is too devastating to ever be used. Offering lower-yield nuclear options, the authors argue, will “enhance deterrence by denying potential adversaries any mistaken confidence that limited nuclear employment can provide a useful advantage of the United States.”
Peter Huessy, a defense consultant who runs his own company, believes the Pentagon is justified in moving in this direction.
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“If deterrence is holding at risk what the bad guy values, why is it a bad idea to be able to destroy that military industrial or command authority target as best you can in the most flexible way?” he said. “Otherwise one has to argue any retaliatory use of nuclear weapons of any number or kind has to lead to the use of all weapons and Armageddon… Otherwise you are saying any use by the Russians of one nuclear weapon must require an all-out retaliatory strike by the USA.”
“If an all-out response isn’t credible, then having low-yield, smaller weapons makes sense because it’s a better and more credible deterrent,” Huessy added.
But the nonproliferation community worries that creating lower-yield nuclear weapons, which are still capable of devastating a city, simply increases the inventive to use such weaponry.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, is more sanguine about the change.
“I don’t think this makes nuclear weapons more usable. On the contrary, I don’t think reducing yield does anything to make our nuclear threats more credible,” he said. “This is a political problem; it does not have a technical solution. So giving the W76 a dual-a-yield option is pointless, not the end of the world.”
Instead, the problem Lewis see