| Nuclear weapons |
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| Background |
| Nuclear-armed states |
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In nuclear strategy, a retaliatory strike or second-strike capability is a country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker. [1] To have such an ability (and to convince an opponent of its viability) is considered vital in nuclear deterrence, as otherwise the other side might attempt to try to win a nuclear war in one massive first strike against its opponent's own nuclear forces.
The possession of second-strike capabilities counters a first-strike nuclear threat and can support a no first use nuclear strategy. Reciprocal second-strike capabilities usually cause a mutual assured destruction defence strategy, though one side may have a lower level minimal deterrence response.
Second-strike capabilities can be further strengthened by implementing fail-deadly mechanisms. These mechanisms create a threshold and guaranteed consequences if that threshold is breached. For instance, a threshold may be for an allied nation not to be attacked. If a rival nation then breaches this threshold by attacking the allied nation, then the predetermined consequences for this action go into effect. These predetermined consequences could include a wide range of responses, including a retaliatory nuclear second strike.
The crucial goal in maintaining second-strike capabilities is preventing first-strike attacks from taking out a nation's nuclear arsenal. In this manner, a country can carry out nuclear retaliation even after absorbing a nuclear attack. The United States and other countries have diversified their nuclear arsenals through the nuclear triad in order to better ensure second-strike capability. [2]
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles are the traditional, but very expensive, method of providing a second strike capability, though they need to be supported by a reliable method of identifying who the attacker is. Using SLBMs as a second-strike capability has a serious problem, because in retaliation for a submarine-launched ICBM, the wrong country could be targeted, and can cause a conflict to escalate. However, implementation of second strikes is crucial to deter a first strike. Countries with nuclear weapons make it their primary purpose to convince their opponents that a first strike is not worth facing a second strike. Such countries have many diverse launch mechanisms, prepared responses to various nuclear attack scenarios, launch mechanisms in many different areas of the country, and underground launch facilities that are specifically designed to withstand a nuclear attack.[ citation needed ]
Launch on warning is a strategy of nuclear weapon retaliation that gained recognition during the Cold War between the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. In addition to the nuclear triad, nations deploy an early warning system that detects incoming nuclear missiles. This gives that nation the capability and option to launch a retaliatory second strike before the incoming nuclear first strike hits any of its targets. This is another method of solidifying second-strike capabilities and deterring a first strike from another nuclear power. [3]
Because of the low accuracy (circular error probable) of early-generation intercontinental ballistic missiles (and especially submarine-launched ballistic missiles), second strike was initially only possible against very large, undefended countervalue targets like cities. Later-generation missiles with much improved accuracy made second-strike counterforce attacks against the opponent's hardened military facilities possible.[ citation needed ]
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Perimetr-PTS, otherwise known as "мёртвая рука" (the Dead Hand) within Russia, is a Russian nuclear deterrence developed to automatically launch ballistic missiles as a retaliatory attack in the event that the Russian command and control system is destroyed in a surprise decapitation strike.
Perimetr PTS dates back to 1974, in response to Soviet fears of devastating nuclear strikes from US ballistic missile submarines. It became operational in January 1985, with SS-17 launch silos in Vypolzovo (Yedrovo) and Kostroma, each 100 and 150 miles north-west of Moscow respectively. The system was built with multiple layers of redundancy, in case multiple layers of communications were destroyed in the initial strike. Launch authorization would be transmitted by UHF radio, by transmitters buried deep underground. Development continued over the years with the system incorporating the new RT-2PM2 Topol-M ICBMs in December 1990, and further refinements in 1996.
Russian leadership was concerned that the system could trigger an accidental launch, so they incorporated numerous safeguards into its design.
Despite the automated launch capabilities, Russian nuclear command and control could order missiles to self-destruct mid-flight in the event of an accidental launch.[ citation needed ] Russian ballistic missile submarines were reportedly never incorporated into Perimetr-PTS, given the inherent communication issues which could ensue.
As early as 1940, science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein wrote the science fiction short story Solution Unsatisfactory in which he described a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. In one episode, the US cabinet discusses the scenario of a Soviet surprise attack in which American cities would be destroyed, but the US armed forces would survive and launch a counter-attack.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972–2002) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. It was intended to reduce pressures to build more nuclear weapons to maintain deterrence. Under the terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of which was to be limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles.
In nuclear strategy, a first strike or preemptive strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's strategic nuclear weapon facilities, command and control sites, and storage depots first. The strategy is called counterforce.
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of rational deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which, once armed, neither side has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm.
Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear utilization target selection (NUTS) is a hypothesis regarding the use of nuclear weapons often contrasted with mutually assured destruction (MAD). NUTS theory at its most basic level asserts that it is possible for a limited nuclear exchange to occur and that nuclear weapons are simply one more rung on the ladder of escalation pioneered by Herman Kahn. This leads to a number of other conclusions regarding the potential uses of and responses to nuclear weapons.
Fail-deadly is a concept in nuclear military strategy that encourages deterrence by guaranteeing an immediate, automatic, and overwhelming response to an attack, even if there is no one to trigger such retaliation. The term fail-deadly was coined as a contrast to fail-safe.
The Force de frappe, or Force de dissuasion after 1961, is the French nuclear deterrence force. The Force de dissuasion used to be a triad of air-, sea- and land-based nuclear weapons intended for dissuasion, the French term for deterrence. Following the end of the Cold War, France decommissioned all its land-based nuclear missiles, thus the Force de dissuasion today only incorporates an air- and sea-based arsenal.
Massive retaliation, also known as a massive response or massive deterrence, is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack.
Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of massive retaliation. Flexible response calls for mutual deterrence at strategic, tactical, and conventional levels, giving the United States the capability to respond to aggression across the spectrum of war, not limited only to nuclear arms.
The Strategic Ocean Force has been the synonym of the French Submarine Forces since 1999, which the commandant commands the ensemble related to, along with the squadron of nuclear attack submarine.
The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, formerly the Second Artillery Corps, is the strategic and tactical missile force of the People's Republic of China. The PLARF is the 4th branch of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and controls China's arsenal of land-based ballistic, Hypersonic, cruise missiles—both nuclear and conventional. The armed service branch was established on 1 July 1966 and made its first public appearance on 1 October 1984. The headquarters for operations is located at Qinghe, Beijing. The PLARF is under the direct command of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Military Commission (CMC).
Launch on warning (LOW), or fire on warning, is a strategy of nuclear weapon retaliation that gained recognition during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. With the invention of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), launch on warning became an integral part of mutually-assured destruction (MAD) theory. Under the strategy, a retaliatory strike is launched upon warning of enemy nuclear attack while its missiles are still in the air and before detonation occurs. US land-based missiles can reportedly be launched within 5 minutes of a presidential decision to do so and submarine-based missiles within 15 minutes.
A nuclear triad is a three-pronged military force structure that consists of land-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines, and strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs and missiles. Specifically, these components are land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers. The purpose of having this three-branched nuclear capability is to significantly reduce the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack. This, in turn, ensures a credible threat of a second strike, and thus increases a nation's nuclear deterrence.
Dead Hand, also known as Perimeter, is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system that was constructed by the Soviet Union. The system remains in use in the post-Soviet Russian Federation. An example of fail-deadly and mutual assured destruction deterrence, it can automatically initiate the launch of the Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by sending a pre-entered highest-authority order from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Strategic Missile Force Management to command posts and individual silos if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors even with the commanding elements fully destroyed. By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, as of 2009, it was said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose when needed.
On 26 September 1983, during the Cold War, the Soviet nuclear early warning system Oko reported the launch of one intercontinental ballistic missile with four more missiles behind it, from the United States. These missile attack warnings were suspected to be false alarms by Stanislav Petrov, an engineer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces on duty at the command center of the early-warning system. He decided to wait for corroborating evidence—of which none arrived—rather than immediately relaying the warning up the chain of command. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States and its NATO allies, which would likely have resulted in a full-scale nuclear war. Investigation of the satellite warning system later determined that the system had indeed malfunctioned.
A missile launch facility, also known as an underground missile silo, launch facility (LF), or nuclear silo, is a vertical cylindrical structure constructed underground, for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs). Similar facilities can be used for anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs).
In nuclear strategy, a counterforce target is one that has a military value, such as a launch silo for intercontinental ballistic missiles, an airbase at which nuclear-armed bombers are stationed, a homeport for ballistic missile submarines, or a command and control installation.
Prompt-launch status and delayed launch status are generic classifications of combat readiness applied to describe nuclear-armed missiles.
Dust defense, sometimes called environmental defense, was a proposed anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system considered for protecting both Minuteman and MX Peacekeeper missile silos from Soviet attack.
A railcar-launched ICBM is an intercontinental ballistic missile that can be launched from a train. The first operational example, and the best-known, is the Soviet RT-23 Molodets. The United States planned and started development of an analogue, the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison, but abandoned the plan with the end of the Cold War. Similar systems were tested by China in 2016 and North Korea in 2021.