First Time is a Mistake, Second Time is Foolishness: Cold War Lessons on a US-China Nuclear Arms Race
A 23-kiloton tower shot fired at the Nevada Test Site in 1953. Photo by The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Another nuclear arms race is looming and, this time, we may not make it out alive. Amidst rising tensions surrounding the fate of Taiwan, it was recently revealed that China tested hypersonic glide missiles in August, a development which inscribes itself in the long list of actions the country has taken to expand its nuclear capability. In October, General Mark Milley underlined the U.S. military leadership’s concerns over this development, which could allow a nuclear weapon to move largely undetected into U.S. territory after being dropped from outer space. He even compared this launch to the Sputnik moment of the Cold War, prompting many to worry about an eventual sequel to this confrontation. However, the context of this stand-off could not be more different than that of the late 1950s, and the allusion to Sputnik showcases our failure to learn the right lessons from the Cold War. Beyond the fear that the recent hypersonic missile test might intensify the already ongoing arms race between the U.S. and China in an environment much more conducive to disaster than 70 years ago, the reasons for this arms race are therefore largely misunderstood.
Back in the 50s, the Soviet satellite’s launch sparked the fear of a missile gap with the U.S.S.R., and this perception of a superiority in the number and power of Soviet missiles in comparison with those of the U.S. served as a catalyst for the arms race. However, if the technology needed to launch a nuclear weapon was indeed similar to the rocket type used to put the satellite in space, later documents showcased that this fear was unfounded as the U.S. possessed a large superiority both in the numbers and targeting capabilities of its missiles. An odd parallel can be traced with present circumstances, partly because even if China is ahead in the race to hypersonics, these missiles are far from providing a definitive advantage. As Nuclear Security scholar Sanne Verschuren explains, the current American missile defense system is already largely unable to counter the hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) China possesses, a fact which the 2019 missile defense review acknowledged.
Like the other members of the P5, China and the United States have violated their commitments to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, whose Article VI states an obligation to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race (…) and to nuclear disarmament,” by engaging in massive modernization programs for their arsenals. Needless to say, these new developments are worrying the international community, a feeling perhaps best crystalized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists setting the doomsday clock at 100 seconds to midnight this year, the closest it has been since 1947. The U.S. for instance justified pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty—designed in the early 1970s to halt an eventual arms race—over concerns for terrorist or "rogue-state" ballistic missile attacks, which prompted the country to develop a defence against ICBMs. However, even if the American leadership believes this system is largely inefficient at stopping even a minimal amount of missiles from reaching their point of impact, what matters is whether China believes the anti-ballistic missile system will one day permit the U.S. to attack an enemy first while remaining protected against a retaliatory strike. This would essentially overturn nuclear deterrence, and China has indeed expressed concerns over the situation, justifying building up its own nuclear arsenal as a logical response to hedge against this possibility. If building a system to defend against nuclear strikes seemed rather harmless and legitimate theoretically, it has triggered yet another arms race in reality.
Dr. Wernher von Braun, to the right of NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans, explains the Saturn Launch System at Cape Canaveral to President John F. Kennedy, on the left of the picture. Photo by NASA.
Looking Back at a Deformed Shadow of the Cold War
Reminders of the Cold War are everywhere, but it is important to understand that the danger with which we are faced today are in fact much greater than they were during that period. For instance, thermonuclear weapons can nowadays be 3,000 times as destructive as the 16 kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The level of carnage caused by a single one of these bombs, let alone thousands, is hard to fathom. Nonetheless, some scientific models have predicted a vividly grim scenario of what would happen if a 800 kiloton nuclear bomb was detonated above Manhattan. On top of this, the explosion could result in a nuclear winter possibly affecting multiple countries at once, spreading nuclear vulnerability to those who do not even possess the weapon. The odds of this scenario becoming reality increase as great power competition destabilizes the balance of powers and creates mistrust and fear. Even if one ascribes to the theory that China can peacefully rise, which presupposes that the country is not forcibly endangering the United States’ position in a way that could escalate to a nuclear standoff, scholarship has showcased that there is a serious risk of Chinese nuclear escalation in the event of a conventional war with the United States, partly because such a campaign would pose a considerable threat to China’s own nuclear arsenal. Much like during the Cold War years, the resulting security dilemma could entertain a spiral of armament in which any miscalculation about the opponent’s intentions could prove almost immediately fatal.
However unsettling, this understanding still does not take into account the possibility of an accident, a phenomenon which has been generally overlooked in narratives of the Cold War. It may indeed be tempting to point to the “victory” of the United States and the absence of nuclear war in this period as proof that mutually assured destruction works and that nuclear weapons actually bring a sense of stability to international relations. However, due to the secretive nature of nuclear weapons and slow processes of declassification, the public has only recently discovered the cover-up of multiple close-calls of nuclear use during the Cold War, which were thwarted only by dumb luck. For instance, at the height of the conflict, a technological failure prompted Russian computers to signal that the U.S. had launched five Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles toward the U.S.S.R., leaving the Soviet Air Defense Forces in a state of utter shock. The Colonel in charge, Stanislav Petrov, thankfully decided to report the launch as a false alarm, fearful that Yuri Andropov would launch a retaliatory attack. His decision was far from obvious, and he explained in an interview that it was at best a “50-50” guess, which he was later reprimanded for.
On the American side, we are reminded of this through the more recent 2018 false missile alert in Hawaii, where this time a worker’s poor judgment led to panic on the island. However reliable technology gets, neither the U.S. nor China can be entirely safe from human error, many examples of which are exposed in the 2014 Chatham House Report. The report also suggests that the nuclear weapons establishment will more often put the blame on individuals for threatening the safety of the country rather than question its own structural deficiencies in the command and control chain, making the odds of this changing anytime soon very low. On the Chinese side, very little information is available to the public regarding even basic elements of its nuclear capability and posture. Tong Zhao, a scholar in security issues, for instance describes how even senior diplomats and Chinese nuclear policy experts are “cut out of internal policy deliberations and instead rely on open-source research by foreign counterparts to understand their own country’s capabilities and motivations.” This certainly has an impact on domestic checks and balances as well as the reliability of the command and control structures within the country.
A D-5 Trident II missile spins out of control after being launched from the nuclear-powered strategic missile submarine USS TENNESSEE (SSBN-734). Photo by The U.S. National Archives.
Moving Toward a Worrying Future
The risks linked to the possession of a nuclear arsenal are thus decidedly not restrained to the past. Ignoring the rife history of nuclear close-calls during and after the Cold War make it plausible to justify dangerous claims like those that humanity has reached an era of nuclear peace as a result of the Cold War, and that limited nuclear warfare, using low-yield bombs aimed at reducing radioactive fallout, can be “winnable.” Indeed, as Verschuren explains, both states are developing weapons technologies and doctrines straddling the boundary between nuclear and conventional capabilities. This emerging “dual-capable” technology might very well increase miscalculations as it blurs the leadership’s ability to know the nature of an incoming missile until it has reached its destination. Given the caveats likely present in the command and control structure of both countries, it is all the more likely that a panicked officer with launch authority might respond with a retaliatory nuclear strike regardless of the leadership’s instructions. What’s more, unlike for much of the Cold War which saw the creation of a hotline between Washington and Moscow, the United States possesses very few channels of communication on nuclear and military matters with China.
This trend threatens to normalize the possession of nuclear weapons and the business-as-usual of the states who possess them. Public opinion is completely divorced from the question of nuclear weapons safety, partly because the population is led to believe that nuclear weapons are safe and under control, which gives policymakers less imperatives to get rid of them. Our political leadership often also falls prey to this illusion of control, although at other times it is the lack of civilian control over the tax-funded nuclear arsenal that renders said leadership unaccountable to their promises of safety. Interestingly, many American policymakers have spoken out about the role of sheer luck in preventing a nuclear war in the past, but they have only done so after their retirement, such as former Secretary of State George Shultz and former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as well as former chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn. As Elaine Scarry, an American essayist writing about Science and Law notes in her book, not only have nuclear weapons escaped direct democratic control but they also violate the social contract while undermining deliberative democracy under the U.S. Constitution.
Recent events showcase that efforts to escape nuclear vulnerability in any other way than through disarmament are doomed to fail as adversaries will always find new ways to challenge the impenetrability of our defenses in order to guarantee their own security. To those who think that the favorable outcome of the Cold War and the absence of a nuclear war ever since is reason enough to justify yet another nuclear arms race against a rising China, nuclear weapons scholar and holder of the chair of excellence in security studies at the Center for International Studies of Paris Benoit Pelopidas poses a question: Is 70 years a high-enough threshold of evidence for us to surrender our fate to nuclear weapons forever ?
As we wait for the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review, which is set to be published by the end of this year, we should strive to bring nuclear weapons safety concerns into political debates and challenge the illusion of control. There are plenty of actions that could be taken, such as holding Congressional hearings addressing the strategic effects of missile defense or sponsoring a new arms control treaty with China. Engaging in nuclear disarmament, and this time in good faith, may very well be the only way for us to keep the doomsday clock ticking for a little while longer.
Anna Bartoux is a staff writer for CPR and a junior studying Political Science at the School of General Studies. Originally from Paris, if you overhear some angry mutters about nuclear weapons in a heavy French accent, it probably comes from her.