缓解对美俄战略稳定的挑战（英）-兰德-2022.2.pdf

SAMUEL CHARAP,JOHN DRENNAN,LUKE GRIFFITH,EDWARD GEIST,BRIAN G.CARLSONMitigating Challenges to U.S.-Russia Strategic StabilityC O R P O R AT I O NFor more information on this publication,visit www.rand.org/t/RRA1094-1.About RANDThe RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure,healthier and more prosperous.RAND is nonprofit,nonpartisan,and committed to the public interest.To learn more about RAND,visit www.rand.org.Research IntegrityOur mission to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis is enabled through our core values of quality and objectivity and our unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and ethical behavior.To help ensure our research and analysis are rigorous,objective,and nonpartisan,we subject our research publications to a robust and exacting quality-assurance process;avoid both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff training,project screening,and a policy of mandatory disclosure;and pursue transparency in our research engagements through our commitment to the open publication of our research findings and recommendations,disclosure of the source of funding of published research,and policies to ensure intellectual independence.For more information,visit www.rand.org/about/principles.RAND s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.Published by the RAND Corporation,Santa Monica,Calif.2022 RAND Corporation is a registered trademark.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication.ISBN:978-1-9774-0705-4Limited Print and Electronic Distribution RightsThis publication and trademark(s)contained herein are protected by law.This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only.Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited;linking directly to its webpage on rand.org is encouraged.Permission is required from RAND to reproduce,or reuse in another form,any of its research products for commercial purposes.For information on reprint and reuse permissions,please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.iiiAbout This ReportThis report documents research and analysis conducted as part of a project entitled Rethinking U.S.-Russia Strategic Deterrence.The pur-pose of the project was to analyze the military,technological,and other strategic dynamics that are eroding the viability of the U.S.-Russia stra-tegic deterrence paradigm and to identify potential policy options to address this challenge.The objective was to investigate possible alter-native paradigms that can meet the requirement of sustaining mutual deterrenceboth today and in the futureand address the downsides associated with the status quo.The research reported here was completed in May 2021 and underwent security review with the sponsor and the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review before public release.RAND National Security Research DivisionThis research was sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy(ISDP)Center of the RAND National Security Research Division(NSRD),which operates the National Defense Research Institute(NDRI),a federally funded research and development center spon-sored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense,the Joint Staff,the Unified Combatant Commands,the Navy,the Marine Corps,the defense agencies,and the defense intelligence enterprise.iv Mitigating Challenges to U.S.-Russia Strategic StabilityFor more information on the RAND ISDP Center,see www.rand.org/nsrd/isdp or contact the director(contact information is provided on the webpage).AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to thank the Defense Threat Reduction Agen-cys Strategic Trends Division for sponsoring the project.Specifically,we are grateful to Jennifer Perry,Research Program Coordinator,for her support,understanding,and interest in making this project a suc-cess.She and her colleagues provided important input at several stages.We would also like to thank our colleague Lt Gen(Ret.)Frank Klotz at the RAND Corporation and Heather Williams of the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology and Kings College London,whose reviews of this report challenged our thinking in positive ways and greatly improved the final product.vSummaryThe U.S.-Russian bilateral stability paradigm rests on the shared con-fidence that one sides preemptive counterforce strike would fail to disarm the other.Both sides are mutually vulnerable to retaliation and thus have no incentive to strike first.Nonetheless,the United States has developed significant prompt counterforce capabilities that Moscow fears could be used for a first strike.These threat perceptions have become a significant source of instability.A variety of developments relating to the sides nuclear forces and their other strategic capabilities has led in recent years to an asymme-try of perceived vulnerability to preemption.The United States has pointed to certain Russian activities in the strategic domain that Wash-ington considers problematic or even destabilizing,but Washington has not raised concerns that Moscow could undermine U.S.retaliatory capability.Indeed,Russia cannot plausibly threaten the lions share of U.S.strategic forces with a counterforce strike;moreover,evidence suggests that Moscow is not developing capabilities that could hold most U.S.forces at risk.Although the United States lacks the ability to deliver a decisive disarming blow,it does maintain far greater coun-terforce capabilities and leaves open the possibility of using its strategic forces for damage limitation strikes.Furthermore,the United States continues to develop related strategic capabilities,such as ballistic mis-sile defenses(BMDs)and long-range conventional strike,that Moscow believes could be used in concert with a counterforce nuclear strike to blunt Russias deterrent.vi Mitigating Challenges to U.S.-Russia Strategic StabilityIn this report,we examine the historical origins of the divergence in approaches that created this asymmetry,analyze resulting Russian threat perceptions,assess the pluses and minuses associated with cur-rent U.S.policy,and evaluate alternative approaches that could improve strategic stability.In the United States,counterforce targeting began in the 1960s as a consideration for retaliation.The shift away from an exclusive emphasis on counterforce retaliation and the development of capa-bilities to target much of the Soviet arsenal were driven by the need to maintain damage limitation options and ensure the credibility of U.S.extended deterrence while accounting for the 1970s growth in Soviet nuclear forces and the conventional imbalance in Europe.The United States has maintained significant counterforce capabilities and the ability to deliver them promptly ever since.The end of the Cold War,the collapse of the Soviet Union,and the dramatic reductions in nuclear forces achieved through strategic arms control never shook the U.S.commitment to maintaining a formidable prompt counterforce capability.After the 1960s,Sovietand,later,Russiannuclear strategy did not prioritize capabilities for a credible counterforce option.Instead,the requirement to inflict unacceptable damage even after Russian forces have been degraded by a first strike was the core requirement for effective deterrence.Instead of trying to match U.S.capabilities quan-titatively or qualitatively,the Soviet Union would field weapons suffi-cient to ensure that the United States would never escape unacceptable damage irrespective of its investments in offensive weapons and missile defenses.Whereas the U.S.concept of assured destruction was a mea-sure of sufficiency distinct from employment policy,Soviet and Rus-sian military writings suggest that their nuclear war plans were designed to subject an attacker to unacceptable damage with retaliatory strikes.In short,for largely historically contingent reasons,the U.S.stra-tegic force has significant counterforce capability and its employment policy openly discusses damage limitation,while the Russian emphasis is on ensuring enough retaliation to effect unacceptable damage.Although the exact number of warheads that the Russian military has specified as necessary for ensuring unacceptable damage in retalia-Summary viition remains unknown,it is clear that the requirements for a retaliatory strike are significant.Since the 1990s,Russian strategists have fretted about their countrys ability to fulfill those requirements.One group calculated that,whereas the United States was able to deliver only one warhead on each Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile in 1991,that number had tripled by 1999 because of the changes in the sides capa-bilities.In addition to the relative decline in Russias strategic nuclear forces,Moscows confidence in its ability to ensure retaliation has been steadily eroding over the course of the post-Soviet period for several additional reasons.Russias concern is that a combination of new U.S.capabilitieswhich include conventional precision-guided missiles,BMDs,and cyber and space capabilitiesand the qualitative superior-ity of the U.S.nuclear triad itself could eventually provide the United States with a viable option for a disarming first strike.There are four major consequences for the United States of Rus-sias growing concern about its ability to retaliate after a counterforce first strike.First,Moscow has developed a suite of novel capabilities to address this concern.Second,Russia seems unwilling to reduce its stra-tegic nuclear forces below New START levels as a result of the height-ened requirements to ensure unacceptable damage in retaliation.1 Third,the overall stability of the bilateral relationship,and thus its ability to deliver on U.S.national interests,has eroded,in no small part because of divergences over strategic issues.Many in Moscow seem convinced that geopolitical blackmail using the threat of a disarming strike is possible at some point in the future.Therefore,Russias con-cerns about preemption are relevant not only in a crisis but also during what the United States would consider a peacetime context.Fourth,and finally,a strong case can be made that Russian concerns about pre-emption might incentivize a first strike in a serious crisis.The United States has an interest in ensuring that Russia is not driven to initiate a strategic exchange over use-them-or-lose-them concerns.1 New START(strategic arms reduction treaty)is used to refer to the Treaty Between the United States and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limi-tation of Strategic Offensive Arms,signed on April 8,2010.viii Mitigating Challenges to U.S.-Russia Strategic StabilityThese four negative consequences should be weighed against five significant benefits provided by current U.S.posture:effective deter-rence,damage limitation,hedging,arms control,and international legal-ity.This report describes each in greater detail.Although it is clear that the current approach does provide for these benefits,it is not clear that this approach is required to obtain them.None of the five is a binary value;some degree of each might be achieved under a different approach.In this report,we analyze three categories of possible policy changes that could address Russian concerns about preemption:a paradigm shift in U.S.nuclear policy,mutually negotiated structural transformations(i.e.,significant changes to nuclear capabilities),and negotiated mutual self-restraint measures.A paradigm shift would entail addressing preemption concerns directly by changing U.S.nuclear policy fundamentally.Structural transformations in the U.S.and Russian arsenals could rule out or significantly complicate coun-terforce strikes by modifying capabilities.Self-restraint measures are more-modest steps that reduce preemption concerns but do not require dramatic changes in policies or capabilities.A paradigm shift in U.S.nuclear policy could significantly miti-gate and perhaps even completely resolve the instability created by Rus-sian preemption concerns.However,some experts counter that doing so would imperil U.S.and allied security by weakening deterrence.Unless negotiated with Russia in return for significant concessions,such an approach seems unlikely to be politically viable in the United States and could call into question the need for arms control,which is a stabilizing force in the relationship.Given the present configuration of the U.S.and Russian arsenals,neither of the two possible structural transformations evaluated in the report would seem a practical way forward to address Russian preemption concerns.Although a paradigm shift would be required to eliminate the destabilizing effect of Russian preemption concerns completely,there are measures that the United States and Russia could take either together or unilaterally but in coordination that could reduce concerns about preemption without radically changing U.S.nuclear policy.These measures,summarized in Table S.1,would provide a degree of reassurance about the parties lack of intention to execute a preemp-Summary ixTable S.1Self-Restraint MeasuresMeasureDescriptionIncreased transparency of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines(SSBNs)through exchange of maintenance schedulesRegular exchange of maintenance schedules to provide more predictability about the actual number of operational submarine-launched ballistic missiles(SLBMs)deployed and reduce uncertainty about the size of a possible U.S.strikeCommitments not to operate SSBNs in certain areasU.S.commitment not to conduct SSBN operations near the Russian coast to ensure a minimum time of flight for SLBM launches and thus provide assurance regarding warning time;Russian commitment not to operate SSBNs outside their bastionsBan on depressed trajectory flight tests of SLBMsMutual agreement to ban depressed trajectory launchesas neither side has conducted them or indicated an intention to do soto mitigate preemption fearsBan on deployment of space-to-Earth weaponsSpecific commitment not to deploy weapons that could strike earthbound targets from spaceseparately from those weapons,such as antisatellite weapons,that are currently the subject of a broader debate between the United States and Russia(and other countries)over the militarization of spaceBan or limit on ground-based and/or air-based deployments of prompt conventional strike options in proximity to bordersBilaterally negotiated ban or unilaterally declared limits on ground-based deployments of intermediate-and medium-range cruise or ballistic missiles to limit both decapitation concerns for Russia and nuclear decoupling concerns for the North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationCommitment not to strike nuclear command,control,and communication(NC3)and early-w