Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Vipin Narang)

  • I think this author speaks a lot of sense.
  • Criticises any theories based on the experience of the superpowers during the Cold War, which are not representative of modern regional (= smaller) powers.
  • Focuses on explaining the nuclear posture of superpowers, and contends that nuclear posture (rather than simply the existence of nuclear weapons) is what causes deterrence
  • Describes three broad categories of postures: catalytic (uses the threat of escalating a conflict to blackmail superpowers, often the US, into intervening); assured retaliation (direct deterrence, usually involves survivable second-strike forces); asymmetric escalation (threatening rapid escalation to deter even conventional attacks)
  • China has persistently had an assured retaliation stance

On Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century (eds Jeffrey A. Larsen and Kerry M. Kartchner)

  • general agreement that the threat of all-out nuclear war has decreased but the probability that nuclear weapons will be used in some, more limited way has increased

    Ch6: Future Scenarios of Limited Nuclear Conflict (Thomas G Manhken)

  • It’s the strength of the United States’ conventional forces, rather than its nuclear forces, that motivates smaller states to acquire nuclear weapons
  • “in fact conventional arms now approach the effectiveness of nuclear weapons” e.g. conventional precision-guided munitions
  • many scenarios of future nuclear weapon use: enhancing a state’s credibility; launching a selective attack for specific political objectives; forestall a conventional military defeat; state collapse (esp North Korea and Pakistan)
  • Russia is the only state that can legitimately devastate or destroy the United States
  • Russia have gradually become more keen on tactical nukes

    Ch7: Escalation to a Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century (Kerry M Kartchner and Michael S Gerson)

  • Some ways that escalation has changed
  • the assumptions upon which traditional approaches to escalation control rested (e.g. mutual interest in limiting conflict, political control of armed forces, etc) cannot be taken for granted
  • “a future adversary may have no predisposition to engage in or respect reciprocal crisis management norms”, and they might not adhere to schemes for mutual signalling (e.g. sequential elevation of alert status) either because they don’t care or they don’t have the capabilities to do so
  • nuclear taboo may not be as strong among emerging nuclear powers - might be more keen to use nukes to coerce and compel, rather than as deterrence or last resort
  • domestic circumstances might be important, e.g. internal political needs like diverting focus away from internal unrest, or demonstrating strength or whatever

    Ch8: The End of the Nuclear Taboo? (George H Quester)

  • surprisingly long duration of non-use to date
  • many countries around the world with latent capability for producing nuclear weapons
  • possible that the nuclear taboo could be eroded by events in the grey area, e.g. using nukes against submarines or as anti-ballistic missiles, or confusion/ambiguity between very large conventional weapons and smaller nukes

Australia’s Defence Strategy: Evaluating Alternatives for a Contested Asia (Adam Lockyer)

  • Australia’s size makes it difficult to defend but also very difficult to attack, let alone invade or occupy
  • Security anxiety - wanting to be besties with Britain and then the US
  • Australia’s most important strategic interests, in order: 1) Australian mainland, 2) the Indo-Pacific Arc, 3) the Melanesian Arc (though this is of little importance to the Asian great powers), 4) continental South-East Asia, and 5) a favourable international order including a friendly superpower
  • Largely due to China and India (plus Japan, which will also be in the top 4 economies in the world by 2050), the Indo-Pacific Arc is “emerging as some of the most valuable geopolitical real estate in the world” and “the bottleneck of international maritime trade and the buffer between China and India’s emerging spheres of naval influence” - thus mitigating threats to that region is/will be Australia’s primary objective
  • China is pursuing a systematic, gradual, and mostly non-confrontational strategy to remedy its “geopolitical claustrophobia”; a “trapped giant” - hence the expanding navy, the creation of artificial islets, and claiming jurisdiction/sovereignty over the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Yellow Sea. But still happy to free ride on US navy-provided security “for the time being”.
  • India pursuing naval hegemony in the Indian Ocean but as a “good cop”, and the other countries seem generally receptive to this (e.g. trading their port access for India’s provision of security)
  • USA has stated that it “will not permit conditions under which our maritime forces would be impeded from freedom of maneuver and freedom of access” and same with the supply chain / communication / commerce
  • “the prospect of a single Asian great power gaining control over continental south-east Asia remains extremely remote” and “the threat of a conventional military attack on the Australian mainland remains unlikely”
  • no state in the Indo-Pacific or Melanesian arcs possess sufficient military capabilities to attack the Australian mainland
  • no great power has bases in the Arcs from which a conventional military attack could be mounted
  • nearest possibility is “a possible Indian threat to Australia’s west coast” but this would be post-2050