Two admittedly anecdotal tales ought to serve as a caution about our ability to get inside the head of our adversaries. Certain deterrence aficionados assert that transcripts captured after the invasion of Iraq demonstrate that our nuclear weapons did deter Saddam from using chemical weapons against either Israel or coalition forces. This is the part they don't tell you: Saddam had wildly inaccurate views about U.S. and Israeli nuclear weapons. Saddam had a long argument with his advisers, who tried to convince him that Israel did not have U.S.-supplied Pershing missiles. He was wrong, but his advisors understandably did not persist. Worse, a former Iraqi commander stated that Saddam had dispersed his forces in response to the deployment of nuclear-armed Pershing missiles to Saudi Arabia -- although the United States was in the process of eliminating the Pershing force under the terms of the 1987 INF Treaty with the Soviets. Saddam may have been deterred by nuclear weapons we did not have and, in fact, had verifiably eliminated under the nose of Soviet inspectors. Deterrence worked! Sort of.
The other case is more worrisome. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a U.S. defense contractor completed a massive two-volume study entitled Soviet Intentions, 1965-1985 based on extensive interviews with former "Soviet military officers, military analysts, and industrial specialists." The study is the most persuasive evidence that we dramatically overestimated the requirements to deter the Soviet Union. It also gives us a famous story about Brezhnev's hand "trembling" during an exercise when he had to authorize a nuclear use. The downside of our narcissism is that our efforts to assure ourselves blinded us to real paranoia in the Soviet Union, particular in the early 1980s. The Reagan administration, having campaigned on the notion that Jimmy Carter's weakness had provoked Soviet assertiveness, undertook a variety of activities to remedy the situation, including very aggressive efforts to test Soviet air defenses. The rocky period that we now call the "War Scare of 1983" hit its nadir in 1983 during a NATO command-post exercise called Able Archer. This was the most dangerous period of the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and no one in Washington noticed because they were staring at their belly buttons, arguing about the Midgetman.
If the Obama administration intends to transform U.S. nuclear forces, rather than simply make incremental reductions, the president has to grapple with this much darker legacy. The fact that the nuclear enterprise is exempted for now from sequestration suggests he has not done so. Indeed, the Obama administration's approach to nuclear disarmament has struck me as fundamentally backward. Consider the president's stated goal of reducing our reliance on nuclear weapons: That might feed the president's ego as a historical figure, but it inflates his role in the process. Moreover, it suggests further reductions would be unwise. If nuclear weapons play such an important role in our security right now, why would we choose to reduce it?
In fact, the relationship is the opposite. It is the broader changes in technology and society over the past few decades that are responsible for reducing our reliance on nuclear weapons: Technology is improving conventional forces, and we can no longer imagine credible scenarios in which using nuclear weapons would be consistent with our aims in the world. This has nothing to do with Barack Obama's leadership, nor could Mitt Romney have reversed this trend even if he wanted to. The role of nuclear weapons is decreasing as a function of external factors, not pretty speeches.
Doing the right thing, then, doesn't mean doing everything we can, but consolidating and aligning our nuclear forces, policy, and posture with the limited role that nuclear weapons still credibly play.
In other words, what the Obama administration needs, to paraphrase Mike Watt, is some validation. Well, go ahead. You have my permission.
The decision to exempt nukes from sequestration suggests the president isn't intellectually there yet. Whatever he says on a dais in Prague, it's business as usual at home.
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