核能政策文件包含领导一个克林顿时代”d Hedge” Strategy

By Hans M. Kristensen

The new nuclear policy paperNational Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Centurypublished quietly Tuesday by the Defense and Energy Departments embraces the “lead and hedge” strategy of the first Clinton administration for how US nuclear forces and policy should evolve in the future.

然而，在新论文中很难找到“领导”，该论文似乎集中在对冲上。

该论文没有为美国核政策提供不同的替代选择，而是基于冷战威胁的分析，它在国会呼吁美国核政策发生重大变化的情况下划定了一条界限。

Strong Nuclear Reaffirmation

The paper presents a strong reaffirmation of an “essential and enduring” importance of nuclear weapons to US national security. Russia, China and regional “states of concern” – even terrorists and non-state actors – are listed as justifications for hedging with a nuclear arsenal “second to none” with new warheads that can adapt to changing needs.

即使在新的三合会中 - 2001年核姿势审查提出的概念是decrease核武器的作用并增加了常规武器和导弹防御的作用 - 新论文指出，核武器“以这些新能力的基本方式支撑”。

In defining the role of nuclear weapons, the paper borrows from and builds on statements, guidance and assertions about the role of nuclear weapons issued by the Clinton and Bush administrations during the past 15 years. This consensus seeking style presents a strong reaffirmation of the continued importance – even prominence – of nuclear weapons in US national security.

毕竟基于威胁的分析

Officials have argued for years that US military planning is no longer based on specific threats and that the security environment is too uncertain to predict them with certainty. But there is nothing uncertain about who the threats are in this paper, which seems to place renewed emphasis on threat-based analysis. The earlier version from 2007 did not mention Russia and China by name, but both countries and their nuclear modernizations are prominently described in the new paper.

Russia is said to have a broad nuclear modernization underway of all major weapons categories, increased emphasis on nuclear weapons in its national security policy and military doctrine, possess the largest inventory of non-strategic nuclear weapons in the world, and re-incorporated theater nuclear options into its military planning. This modernization, resumption of long-range bomber patrols, threats to target US missile defense systems in Europe with nuclear weapons, have created “considerable uncertainty” about Russia’s future course that makes it “prudent” for the US to hedge.

China is said to be the only major nuclear power that is expanding the size of its nuclear arsenal, qualitatively and quantitatively modernizing its nuclear forces, developing and deploying new classes of missiles, and upgrading older systems. The paper repeats the assessment from the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review that “China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive technologies that could, over time, offset traditional U.S. military advantages.” To that end, the paper indirectly points to China as having influenced the US force level planned for 2012 in “retaining a sufficient margin over countries with expanding nuclear arsenals….”

本文中还强调了（或正在发展的）大规模杀伤性武器的区域“关注状态”（以前称为流氓国家），作为美国核武器的持久使命。这种在1990年代发展的美国核武器的作用扩大了2003年导致将核罢工选择纳入美国战略战争计划，专注于伊朗，朝鲜和叙利亚。但是，该论文警告说，未来“关注状态之间的一致性”的重大变化可能需要“调整对美国威慑能力”。

“暴力极端主义者和非国家行为者”（通常称为恐怖分子）也被列为美国核武器的潜在任务。大多数分析人士都同意，恐怖分子不能或不需要受核威胁的影响，因此该论文宣称，这是美国政策“使恐怖主义的国家赞助者对其代理人的行为负责”。

In addition to these potential threats, the paper describes how regional dynamics lead other nations, “such as India and Pakistan, to attach similar significance to their nuclear forces.” Israel is not mentioned in the paper.

如果所有这些都没有印象深刻，则该论文还包括法国和英国，以表明他们已经致力于将现代核力量扩展到21世纪。

这些趋势“清楚地表明了今天和可预见的将来的核武器的持续相关性。”因此，它断言，谨慎的是，美国具有可行的核能，即“首屈一指”到21世纪。

Sizing a “Second to None” Nuclear Arsenal

“Second to none” means a US arsenal that is better than Russia’s arsenal. At the same time, the paper states that the criteria for sizing the US arsenal “are no longer based on the size of Russian forces and the accumulative targeting requirements for nuclear strike plans.” This has been said before and has confused many; some officials have even claimed that target plans do not affect the size of the arsenal at all. So the paper adds a lot of new information – probably the most interesting and valuable part of the paper – to clarify the situation:

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还困惑吗？我认为他们试图说的是，某些意外事件的目标设置不再需要每天被操作部署的核弹头覆盖。

所允许的这种变化不是删除啊f strike plans against the Russian target base per ce (which has shrunk considerably since the 1980s), but rather the extraordinary flexibility that has been added to the nuclear planning system and the weapons themselves over the past decade and a half. This flexible targeting capability – which ironically was started in the late 1980s in an effort to hunt down Soviet mobile missile launchers – has since produced a capability to rapidly target or retarget warheads in adaptively planned scenarios. Put simply, it is no longer necessary to “tie down” entire sections of the force to a particular scenario or group of targets (although some targets due to their characteristics necessitate use of certain warheads).

The more flexible war plan that exists today, which the 1,700-2,200 operational deployed strategic warhead level of the SORT agreement is sized to meet, is “a family of plans applicable to a wider range of scenarios” with “more flexible options” for potential use “in a wider range of contingencies.” And although they are no longer the same kind of strike plans that existed in the 1980s, some of them still cover Russia to meet the guidance of the Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy document from 2004:

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Concluding Observations

本文的政治动机是国会要求对美国核政策进行全面审查，然后再考虑是否批准工业规模的生产新的核弹头。为此，本文提出了国防和能源部门的核武器要求“逻辑”，以试图为正在考虑改变美国核武器政策，战略和力量结构的任何人创造基础。

The paper says the US has already made “historic reductions” in its deployed nuclear forces – a fact given the Cold War only happened once and has been over for two decades – and comes tantalizingly close to acknowledging that the warhead level set by the SORT agreement essentially is the START III level framework agreed to by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin in Helsinki in 1997.

Indeed, by closely and explicitly aligning itself with policies pursued by the Clinton and first Bush administrations, the paper seeks to tone down the controversial aspects of the current administration’s nuclear policy and portray it as a continuation of long-held positions. Whether that will help ease congressional demands for change remains to be seen.

然而，对于一篇描述“在21世纪”中描述核武器作用的论文（迄今为止持续的核时代延伸到未来的时期）是惊人的现状。更好的头衔是“在21世纪的前十年。”

It offers no options for changing the role of nuclear weapons or reducing their numbers beyond the SORT agreement – it even states that “no decisions have been made about the number or mix of specific warheads to be fielded in 2012.” The only option for reducing further, the paper indicates, is if Congress approves production of new nuclear warheads (including the RRW that Congress has rejected) that can replace the current types. And even that would require a production far above the currently planned level.

The central message of the paper seems to be that two decades of nuclear decline is coming to an end and that all nuclear weapon states will retain, prioritize, and modernize their nuclear forces for the indefinite future. The US should follow their lead, the paper indicates, and “maintain a credible deterrent at these lower levels” for the long haul. To do that, the United States needs nuclear forces “second to none” “that can adapt to changing needs.”

Background Information:National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century|2008年美国核武器|2001 Nuclear Posture Review Report(reconstructed)