The Holy Grail of Nuclear Strategy: A Historical Look at Nuclear Superiority

Series on Nuclear Strategy Part 1: Nuclear superiority

This is the first part of a series of articles I will be releasing covering the topic of nuclear strategy. By “nuclear strategy” I mean how states think about nuclear weapons and how they can be used in both peace and war to gain an advantage. I aim to both chronicle the development of these strategies and compare their efficacy. With an understanding of these nuclear strategies, the policies and actions of nuclear powers can be more clearly understood.   

The first of these strategies is that of Nuclear Superiority. In many ways, this strategy represents the Holy Grail of a nuclear armed state, not least because of its inaccessibility. As the name indicates, the idea of Nuclear Superiority is based on winning a nuclear war. Nuclear war is pervasively synonymous with the end of humanity, so the idea of winning a nuclear war seems patently absurd. There is a strong basis for this perspective, but in this article I hope to explain why this strategy was so influential in the past and retains relevance with regards to the future. 

The main reason this strategy is the first to be discussed is because it was the first to be developed. The history of nuclear weapons began with the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, ending WWII. In the aftermath, the United States possessed a nuclear monopoly until the Soviet Union tested a bomb in 1949. During this time, the United States, averse to maintaining a large standing army, believed atomic weaponry could provide the solution. 

While nuclear use (particularly by the US) seems unthinkable in a modern world, strategic bombing was the norm during WWII. Years of mutual bombing had made the practice of scorching cities within the norm. Famously, neither the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki receives the dubious honor of being the most deadly bombing raid of the war, which goes to an incendiary bombing raid on Tokyo, which killed roughly 100,000 people. As a result, fighting a war in the atomic era was readily imaginable.

Even with the USSR acquiring the atom bomb, the United States had a number of reasons to believe that it could win a nuclear war with the Soviets. The first of which was that during the early stage of the Cold War, both sides had very small nuclear arsenals. If one side struck first, it had a good chance of destroying all the enemies weapons. This was largely possible because nuclear weapons had to be delivered by bombers, which are incredibly vulnerable. Unlike ballistic missiles, which can be protected in hardened silos, bombers operate off of airfields, which can be easily targeted. What’s more, bombers can be much more easily intercepted than a missile. If you have a much more powerful air force (such as America had), then the combination of a preemptive strike and interception made nuclear victory easily envisioned. 

At this point, it’s necessary to introduce the two types of nuclear targets, or two ways of using nuclear weapons: 1. Counterforce 2. Countervalue.

“Counterforce” is relatively intuitive, in that it is the use of nuclear weapons to destroy an enemy’s nuclear weapons before they can be employed. Rather than being targeted at cities, industry, or ground forces, a counterforce strike is against an enemy’s nuclear arsenal and delivery platforms. In the early Cold War, for example, a counterforce strike would have aimed at destroying the enemy’s strategic bombers. Later, it would have additionally involved striking missile silos and sinking nuclear submarines. 

Countervalue targets, on the other hand, are more complex. The concept was the destruction of an enemy’s cities both to destroy their industrial base, and for coercive purposes. They were initially thought of as an outgrowth of the strategic bombing campaigns of WWII. The strike is used in two contexts. The first is coercive, where after winning nuclear superiority, you adopt a posture like that of the US towards Japan in 1945: the bombs will keep dropping until you agree to our terms. The second context is as a second strike deterrent. What this means is that you ensure that even if the other side strikes first, you’re still capable of bombing a major city. This is a strategy of deterrence, where essentially you hold that city hostage by saying “if war happens, this place is being nuked.” As this scales up with more weapons and more targets, we approach the familiar concept of Mutually Assured Destruction: even a successful first strike can’t prevent the other side from annihilating you. Bombing Washington D.C. or bombing Moscow are both the classic idea of a countervalue strike. 

In the strategy of Nuclear Superiority, the goal isn’t to just deter the enemy by promising nuclear retribution, but to win outright. As a result, the emphasis is much more on counterforce strikes than on countervalue ones. Winning a nuclear war means avoiding getting nuked, which means having weapons capable of destroying them. Countervalue weapons still serve a purpose, but for destroying enemy war-making capabilities and their willingness to resist in the aftermath of a successful counterforce strike. 

The arsenal of a country desiring nuclear superiority will be oriented towards striking counterforce targets. It is therefore more likely to invest in precise delivery methods for warheads and less likely to invest in high-yield devices, unless it is incapable of increasing precision. If you’re good enough at counterforce, you can eliminate an enemy’s ability to retaliate, negating their nuclear deterrent. You don’t actually have to start a war and destroy their nuclear arsenal to reap the benefits of this superiority, the fact that you can are able to do this means that when tensions increase between you and a rival, they are aware that if a conflict breaks out, they will lose, making it very likely that they will back down. 

Two developments in the 1950s began to threaten the viability of a strategy of Nuclear Superiority. The first was the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) which created a new mechanism for delivering destruction that was hard to intercept and hard to destroy on the ground. The second was the hydrogen bomb. Very quickly, both the United States and Soviet Union tested bombs that dwarfed the yield of those used on Japan. No longer were the consequences of war comparable to the strategic bombing campaigns of WWII, but involved a higher order of lethality. The combination of the increased difficulty in completely destroying the enemy’s weapons and the increased consequences of one getting through caused a crisis in nuclear strategy. 

“Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.” -General "Buck" Turgidson, Dr. Strangelove

In this crisis, figures in American military leadership looked favorably on preemptive war not because of ignorance or callousness towards its consequences, but out of fear that this was the last chance to fight a war that could be won. Once a strategy of nuclear superiority became untenable, a new way of thinking about nuclear weapons was necessary. If nuclear strategy failed, and war broke out, there would be no winners. It was this clear vision of the future that tempted American military thinkers, the knowledge that the choice was between a war they could win, even with horrific consequences, and a potential war with no survivors, let alone winners. 

As we will discuss in the second part of this series which will  focus on MAD as a nuclear strategy, mutual destruction is not easily or automatically assured. In fact, while the introduction of these new technologies raised the prospect that a nuclear war would be unwinnable, it was by no means a sure thing from their mere existence. Precision rocketry could finally make good the famously exaggerated claim of the WWII era Norden bombsight and “drop a bomb into a pickle barrel” or, more relevantly, a hardened silo. More and better interceptors could nullify the bomber threat, and Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) could be countered if enemy nuclear submarines could be detected and sunk the moment a conflict erupted. 

Submarines, Bombers, and Missiles represent the three parts of the nuclear triad.

Gaining nuclear superiority in the era of the nuclear triad was tremendously more difficult than the prospect had been when the only delivery mechanism had been bombers or early missile technology. Nevertheless, both the United States and the Soviet Union made efforts to develop offensive capabilities sufficient to allow a “splendid first strike” that would destroy their enemy’s ability to retaliate. They persisted in this despite the fact that it was eminently clear that there was little chance that they would be able to actually accomplish this goal. Even serious advantages in nuclear forces would be insufficient to prevent some number of warheads reaching the “victor’s” homeland, killing tens of millions and almost inevitably destroying the seat of government. 

This is seemingly paradoxical behavior. Why would states still adhere to Nuclear Superiority when the technological conditions make victory impossible? Part of the answer is in the fact that technological conditions are constantly in flux. It could not (and still cannot) be anticipated whether a sudden breakthrough would make Nuclear Superiority possible. In conditions of intense competition between the great powers, like the Cold War, it was unacceptable to fall behind. 

The other motivation is maintaining deterrence. Both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to avoid a conventional war in Europe. With two massive armies facing down across the Inner German border, there was a constant fear that a Third World War could be sparked at any time. Nuclear weapons offered a chance to maintain the peace through mutual fear. The difficulty was that Mutually Assured Destruction is not automatic; this is a topic that we will delve further into in a subsequent article, but suffice to say that if using nuclear weapons means everyone dies, it’s unimaginable that anyone would use them, even if losing a conventional war. Counter-intuitively their total destructiveness causes them to lose their deterrent value because the threat of using them is not credible. 

A cartoon illustrating the danger of conventional conflict

The problem of deterrence was especially important to the United States because it had to extend that deterrence. In the early Cold War, the conventional military balance in Europe strongly favored the Soviets. This was a particular problem for the US. If it abandoned the strategy of nuclear superiority and acknowledged that nuclear war was a no-win scenario, there wasn’t much to deter a Soviet takeover of Western Europe. After all, the Soviets wouldn’t doubt the US would use nuclear weapons to defend itself, whatever the consequences might be. However, it’s easy to imagine the Americans choosing to abandon the Europeans if defeated conventionally rather than escalate to a nuclear exchange while their homeland remains secure. 

As a result, the US at least nominally pursued a strategy of nuclear superiority throughout the Cold War, in large part to convince the Soviets that it would use nuclear weapons to defend its NATO allies. Deterrence is only effective if the other side is convinced you will actually pull the trigger. The more cautious, fearful, and rational you seem, the more likely your enemy will feel safe in acting against you. The result is that even if you don’t believe nuclear superiority is possible, there’s a very strong incentive to act like you do. After all, someone who thinks they can win a nuclear war is far more likely to start one. It’s extremely beneficial for you if your enemy thinks that you’re willing to start a nuclear war.  The only way to convince the enemy that you’re willing to start a nuclear war is with a plan for winning. 

This motivation explains the arms races of the Cold War. It was not that 1000 warheads was insufficient to achieve MAD, but that having enough of an advantage in nuclear weapons to threaten to escape from MAD offers an advantage in a crisis. Even though having 2000 warheads to your enemy’s 1000 isn’t going to allow you to win a nuclear war without unacceptable losses, those losses will be unequal in your favor. Obviously it’s cold comfort if only half your country’s population is immediately incinerated, but it means your opponent will fear that you are more likely to initiate nuclear war in a crisis than if you had parity. Expanding a nuclear arsenal beyond what is needed for a retaliatory strike is a form of “costly signaling” that you’re attempting to position your country to outright win a nuclear war. 

This aggressive posture on the nuclear level in effect had a strong influence on preserving the peace. Neither side can be sure whether the other thinks they have a chance at winning, and are so both reluctant to provoke crises. The pursuit of Nuclear Superiority addressed the uncertainty that MAD is truly assured by intimating willingness to fight a nuclear war. Thus, while Nuclear Superiority became quickly outmoded during the Cold War, neither side was willing to abandon the pursuit of it. In subsequent articles in this series, we will go over the strategies that the nuclear powers developed in the shadow of Mutually Assured Destruction. 

It’s important to recognize that the pursuit of nuclear superiority continues to this day. While the voracity with which it has been pursued has varied greatly, the United States in particular has never fully abandoned the concept. Technologies that improved counterforce capabilities have been developed and proliferated. By the end of the Cold War, US missiles had entirely eclipsed the Soviets in terms of precision, and the gap has only widened. The ability to put a nuclear warhead in precisely the right spot is the capability most needed for taking out hardened silos where an enemy’s own weapons would be kept. Increases in precision, combined with missile defense technology, create the potential for an end for Mutually Assured Destruction.¹

“The new era of counterforce suggests, however, that leaders have been correct to perceive that stalemate can be broken, and that the nuclear balance can vary dramatically across cases. If today's secure arsenal can become tomorrow's first-strike target, then there is little reason to expect the geopolitical competition between countries to end with the deployment of seemingly secure nuclear weapons.”

Lieber & Press, “The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence”

It is not at all surprising that the United States has not been content with living under the shadow of Mutually Assured Destruction. Escaping MAD would mean no longer living in a world in which the potential for national annihilation is omnipresent. The idea of winning a nuclear war remains in the realm of the hypothetical, yet states are not content to sit on their existing arsenals with their hands folded. No matter how unlikely, there remains the chance that developments in technology will shift the balance so that it becomes possible to reliably shoot down nuclear delivery vehicles. To that end, states will continue to pursue the technologies that would enable a strategy of nuclear superiority. 

1. Keir A. Lieber, Daryl G. Press; The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence. International Security 2017; 41 (4): 9–49. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00273