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Observations on the Impact of Uncertainty in Strategic Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Stanley Sienkiewicz
Stanley Sienkiewicz
Affiliation:
Harvard
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Abstract

The effects of uncertainty in strategic analysis are generally not well understood, but are increasingly important in relating the strategic calculations by means of which we evaluate the adequacy of our strategic forces to the deterrence of attack in the world of real political leaders, in real crises. Assumptions must be made about many unknowns and uncertainties—ranging from the behavior of national leaders to the technical characteristics of weapons systems—in order to make the problem calculable. The assumptions we make for purposes of analysis, however, are not necessarily the same as those that political leaders can make in considering the actual use of nuclear forces. This distinction is at the root of the relationship between strategic analysis and real-world deterrence. Systematic examination of the uncertainties in strategic analysis, therefore, can help us to better understand the difference between our analytical model and the real world, and hence to put our strategic problems in better perspective.

Type
Research Notes
Information
World Politics , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , October 1979 , pp. 90 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1979

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References

1 The utility and disutility of static indices is discussed at length in Brown, Thomas A., “Numbers Mysticism, Rationality and the Strategic Balance,” Orbis, XXI (Fall 1977), 479–96.Google Scholar

2 This point, of course, is not particularly original. It has been clearly argued by, among others, Enthoven, Alain C. and Smith, K. Wayne in How Much is Enough? Shaping the Dejense Program 1968–1969 (New York: Harper & Row 1972), 179.Google Scholar

3 Actually, contemporary strategic planning in the Defense Department is more aptly described as “best-estimate” planning. Though it is conservative in the broad sense, quite optimistic assumptions are sometimes made.

4 Strategic warning refers to indications of preparation for war or attack, such as the deployment of bomber forces to Arctic bases, the evacuation of cities, and so forth. Tactical warning refers to the indication that an attack has been launched, e.g., by picking it up on the Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar.

5 Although we worry, as a matter of prudence, about unanticipated and strategically significant technological breakthroughs (of which there has probably never been a real-world example in the nuclear age), it is difficult to imagine how even a significant breakthrough could be so rapidly and extensively deployed as to rule out the opportunity for appropriate countermeasures. Even where Soviet capabilities are underestimated, such as in missile accuracy, they still take years to incorporate in the entire missile force.

6 The term “system” here refers not to individual weapon systems but to the entire complex of strategic weapons, means of delivery, command, control, communications, support, and decision-making elements that would have to function precisely together to launch a substantial strategic nuclear attack. It is this total system whose overall operational effectiveness is the central concern of this paper.

7 Operational target hardness, even for our own silos, is in fact an estimate. (Given high yields and accuracies, this is a minor point.) We do not know precisely what overpressure, for example, will “disable” a missile in a silo at the lower end of the spectrum. However, increasing yield and accuracy can produce high confidence about the expected results.

8 Soviet nuclear doctrine differs on this fundamental point, at least superficially. See, for example, Sienkiewicz, , “SALT and Soviet Nuclear Doctrine,” International Security, 11 (Spring 1978), 84–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 This point was elaborated with great insight nearly 20 years ago, by, among others, Bull, Hedley, in The Control of the Arms Race (2d ed.; New York: Praeger 1961)Google Scholar, chap. 12, “The Problem of Continuous Innovation.”

10 If we assume a fully premeditated attack, decision making becomes a trivial element. If, on the other hand, we assume crisis recourse to a nuclear attack (seemingly the more likely way in which nuclear war might start), the decision-making segment is important for our analysis.

11 The major possibilities are clearly and briefly discussed in Tsipis, Kosta, “The Accuracy of Strategic Missiles,” Scientific American, Vol. 233 (July 1975), 14–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See, for example, Rummel, R. J., “Detente and Reality,” Strategic Review, IV (Fall 1976) 33–43Google Scholar; Rummel, , “Will the Soviet Union Soon have a First-Strike Capability?” Orbis, XX (Fall 1976), 579–94Google Scholar; Lehman, Christopher M. and Hughes, Peter C., “Equivalence and SALT 11,” Orbis, XX (Winter 1977), 1045–54Google Scholar; Nitze, PalJl H., “Assuring Strategic Stability in an Era of Détente,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 54 (January 1976), 207–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nitze, , “Deterring Our Deterrent,” Foreign Policy, No. 25 (Winter 1976–1977), 195–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 “There is an enormous gulf between what political leaders really think about nuclear weapons and what is assumed in complex calculations of relative ‘advantage’ in simulated strategic warfare. Think-tank analysts can set levels of ‘acceptable’ damage well up in the tens of millions of lives. They can assume that the loss of dozens of great cities is somehow a real choice for sane men. They are in an unreal world. In the real world of real political leaders—whether here or in the Soviet Union—a decision that would bring even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one's own country would be recognized in advance as a catastrophic blunder; ten bombs on ten cities would be a disaster beyond history; and a hundred bombs on a hundred cities are unthinkable.” Bundy, McGeorge, “To Cap the Volcano,” Foreign Affairs, XXXXVIII (October 1969), 9–10.Google Scholar

14 Wohlstetter, , “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs, XXXVII (January 1959). 211–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Ibid., 216.

16 The difference is between a goal toward which we strive, at reasonable levels of effort and with the entire range of tools at our disposal, and a minimum standard, falling short of which can have critical implications for the U.S. deterrent.

17 Wohlstetter, A. J., Hoffman, F. S., Lutz, R. J., and Rowen, H. S., The Selection and Use of Strategic Air Bases, R-266 (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, April 1954).Google Scholar

18 Described to me by Thomas C. Schelling.