Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2017
Volume 62, Number 4
Monday–Friday, March 13–17, 2017; New Orleans, Louisiana
Session R40: Emerging Technologies and the Future of the Nuclear ArsenalsInvited Undergraduate
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Sponsoring Units: FPS Room: 387 |
Thursday, March 16, 2017 8:00AM - 8:36AM |
R40.00001: The New Era of Counterforce Invited Speaker: Keir Lieber Nuclear deterrence rests on the survivability of nuclear arsenals. For much of the nuclear age, “counterforce” disarming attacks – those aimed at eliminating nuclear forces – were nearly impossible because of the ability of potential victims to hide and protect their weapons. However, technological developments are eroding this foundation of nuclear deterrence. Advances rooted in the computer revolution have made nuclear forces around the world far more vulnerable than before. Specifically, two key approaches that countries have relied on to ensure arsenal survivability since the dawn of the nuclear age – hardening and concealment – have been undercut by leaps in weapons accuracy and a revolution in remote sensing. Various models, methods, and evidence demonstrate the emergence of new possibilities for counterforce disarming strikes. In short, the task of securing nuclear arsenals against attack is a far greater challenge than it was in the past. The new era of counterforce challenges the basis for confidence in contemporary deterrence stability, raises critical issues for national and international security policy, and sheds light on one of the enduring theoretical puzzles of the nuclear era: why international security competition has endured in the shadow of the nuclear revolution. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 16, 2017 8:36AM - 9:12AM |
R40.00002: Strategic Missile Defense \& Nuclear Deterrence Invited Speaker: Laura Grego The United States has pursued defenses against nuclear-armed long-range ballistic missiles since at least the 1950s. At the same time, concerns that missile defenses could undermine nuclear deterrence and potentially spark an arms race led the United States and Soviet Union to negotiate limits on these systems. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty constrained strategic missile defenses for thirty years. After abandoning the treaty in 2002, President George W. Bush began fielding the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) homeland missile defense system on an extremely aggressive schedule, nominally to respond to threats from North Korea and Iran.\\ \\Today, nearly fifteen years after its initial deployment, the potential and the limits of this homeland missile defense are apparent. Its test record is poor and it has no demonstrated ability to stop an incoming missile under real-world conditions. No credible strategy is in place to solve the issue of discriminating countermeasures. Insufficient oversight has not only exacerbated the GMD system’s problems, but has obscured their full extent, which could encourage politicians and military leaders to make decisions that actually increase the risk of a missile attack against the United States.\\ \\These are not the only costs. Both Russia and China have repeatedly expressed concerns that U.S. missile defenses adversely affect their own strategic capabilities and interests, particularly taken in light of the substantial US nuclear forces. This in turn affects these countries’ nuclear modernization priorities.\\ \\This talk will provide a technical overview of the US strategic missile defense system, and how it relates to deterrence against non-peer adversaries as well as how it affects deterrence with Russia and China and the long-term prospects for nuclear reductions [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 16, 2017 9:12AM - 9:48AM |
R40.00003: Is crisis stability still achievable? Invited Speaker: Joshua Pollack During the Cold War, the idea of crisis stability concerned whether the United States and the Soviet Union would be faced with powerful incentives to strike each other first with their nuclear weapons during periods of tension. This idea influenced the design of nuclear forces and guided aspects of nuclear arms control. The United States and Russia continue to operate large, alert nuclear forces, but at least three new factors have emerged that add significantly greater complexity to this picture. The first new factor consists of the development and deployment of new strategic military technologies that are “entangled” with nuclear weapons. These include strategic ballistic missile defenses, counter-space weapons, and strategic conventional weapons. The second new factor consists of new “dyads” of interacting strategic forces beyond US-Russia. These include US-China, US-North Korea, India-Pakistan, and India-China. The third new factor consists of the emergence of three-actor crisis stability dynamics, where the third actor is not necessarily nuclear-armed. This paper illustrates the concept with the US-North Korea-South Korea “triangle.” It briefly discusses the implications of these developments and reflects on the broad policy options that may be available. [Preview Abstract] |
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