Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

Chapter 1. Deterrence and Strategic Stability37involving Russia.) In such a scenario, the Russian Armed Forces(including the nuclear triad) would be put on full alert, ensuringthe utmost level of dispersal and camouflage. Therefore, the precisionguidedweapons would only really be able to attack some of the fixedsitefacilities, such as launching silos and command centers, that areotherwise protected from air strikes by area and site air defense systems.The majority of Russia’s mobile ICBMs, whose self-propelledlaunchers patrol vast areas and are well-camouflaged from optical andradar reconnaissance means, and sea- and ocean-patrolling missilesubmarines would, on the other hand, preserve a considerable nucleardeterrence capability even after a disarming strike not only by conventional,but even by nuclear weapons.Second, the sea- and air-based precision-guided weapons wouldsimply be incapable of simultaneously destroying all of Russia’s dispersedfixed-site targets even if they have been spotted by reconnaissance.For obvious reasons, such strikes are extremely difficultto plan; Russia’s territory is simply too vast, and many of its systemsare out of range of the presumed positions of the precision-guidedweapons. Therefore, any strike that tries to disarm Russia’s nuclearforces with conventional precision-guided weapons will necessarilyinvolve a fairly sustained military operation that is certainto prompt an active Russian rebuff, despite the significant superiorityof the U.S. and NATO in general forces. However, one must alsoremember that these strikes would spread beyond Russia’s nuclearforces and also include the warring parties’ entire range of militaryand industrial facilities.Finally, so far as is known, the Soviet Union/Russia has alwaysconsidered all of the potential conventional warfare scenarios andassessed their corresponding level of acceptable nuclear triad losses.If these levels are exceeded, then the Soviet Union/Russia believesin taking retaliatory measures involving the use of nuclear arms. Inessence, these very same provisions were established in the Russianmilitary doctrines of 2000 and 2010.This is all indicative of the complete inanity, both from a militarystandpoint and from a political and economic perspective, of planningsuch military operations against Russia either by NATO orthe United States. Thus, for the official members of the so-called“nuclear club,” scenarios involving wide-scale disarmament strikesusing conventional precision-guided weapons may be viewed as littlemore than theoretical talk.