Jerk
1/22/2006, 12:49 PM
Reuters carried story that France was prepared to retaliate against any nation which launched a terrorist attack upon it with nuclear weapons.
France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent. Deflecting criticism of France’s costly nuclear arms program, President Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit back hard at a hostile state’s centers of power and its “capacity to act.”
He said there was no change in France’s overall policy, which rules out the use of nuclear weapons in a military conflict. But his speech pointed to a change of emphasis to underline the growing threat France perceives from terrorism. “The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part,” Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in northwestern France.
The obvious target of the warning was Iran. But how effective is a conventional deterrent against a state which might sponsor terrorist proxies armed with nuclear weapons? At a discussion at the Confederate Yankee one commenter said:
The fear is not that Iran would attack us, but that they would produce countless small nuclear devices and turn them over to the terrorists whom they support. These would then be smuggled into many major cities in all the western nations for detonation.
The terrorist "suitcase nuclear weapon" is the nightmare scenario often invoked to explain why such weapons should never be allowed to fall into the hands of leaders like President Ahmadinejad. It was this fear which provided much of the rationale for launching Operation Iraqi Freedom. But a closer examination of the suitcase nuke problem suggests that this method of delivery has certain limitations. Let's begin a thought experiment by considering the number of suitcase nukes that would be required to destroy a country like France or the United States.
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a somewhat left of center think tank, produced a very respectable model of how many nuclear weapons would be required to inflict damage to the point of diminishing returns, a concept accepted by Robert McNamara at the height of the Cold War. This inflection point is known as the "knee" and occurred where around 25% of the target population was killed. The NRDC recalculated the numbers for the year 1999 with these results; which are probably correct at least to order of magnitude.
Country 1999 population 25% of population No of 375 kt warheads needed to threaten 25% of the population
United States
258,833,000
64,708,250
124
Canada
28,402,320
7,100,580
11
United Kingdom
56,420,180
14,105,045
19
France
57,757,060
14,439,265
25
Germany
81,436,300
20,359,075
33
Italy
57,908,880
14,477,220
21
Spain
39,267,780
9,816,945
20
All NATO Member Countries
754,933,329
188,730,000
300
Russia
151,827,600
37,956,300
51
China
1,281,008,318
320,252,079
368
North Korea
22,034,990
5,508,747
4
Iran
64,193,450
16,048,363
10
Iraq
20,941,720
5,235,430
4
Syria
14,045,470
3,511,368
2
Libya
5,245,515
1,311,329
2
According to these figures it will take about 150 nukes to 'destroy' the fabric and cohesion of the United States and about 30 to do the same to France. Note that inflicting this damage will not have any substantial effect the US ability to perform an immediate counterstrike with thousands of nuclear warheads because these are deployed in hardened facilities or on submerged platforms which would survive a paltry (by Cold War standards) 150 warhead strike. But this number would be enough to finish the target nation as cohesive society for decades.
The problem with suitcase nukes is maintaining command and control over them. Any suitcase nuke which could be armed and detonated by its possessor (protected only by a combination detonator just like the movies) would have serious defects as a weapon. This method delegates so much command and control over the weapon to the possessor that it is effectively "his". In our thought experiment, imagine a rogue state providing such weapons to 150 terrorist teams for use against the United States. There would be no assurance that once deployed these weapons would not be stolen or used for unintended purposes. It would be possible for a rogue team to sell the weapon to the highest bidder, perhaps a rival rogue state looking for such devices. It would not be impossible for one of the teams to turn against its masters and use it against them. A team with a suitcase nuke might divert to Switzerland where they could demand the payment of a few billion dollars in exchange for not blowing up Zurich. A suitcase weapon could be captured by the CIA or the Mossad and reimported into the rogue state where it could be detonated against targets who could hardly admit its true provenance. If the teams belonged to rival political terrorist organizations they could be used against each other. Clearly, releasing a large number of suitcase nuclear weapons without positive command and control would be less than ideal and probably disastrous for the wielder.
The most probable workaround to the problem would be to deploy these weapons at a very low rate by sending them out one trusted team at a time. In that way the weapon would be used within a short period and watched, probably by a large number of mutually counterchecking personnel, every step of the way. One nuke to Paris. Boom. One nuke to New York. Boom. The problem with solving the control problem by slowing down the rate of attack is apparent from the table above. One nuke in Paris or New York will be grossly insufficient to finish the infidel enemy but quite sufficient to provoke a massive response. Once the fissile traces are identified ten thousand warheads will be headed back the other way.
The other obvious possibility is to deploy a large number of suitcase nukes in a componentized configuration so that it requires the assembly of several teams, each with part of the requisite firing information or componentry to activate the device. (This is conceptually similar to the two key system on boomers) For example, Iran could deploy 450 teams -- three teams to activate a suitcase bomb -- with the intent of controlling 150 devices targeted at the United States. Unfortunately a force of this size could hardly remain covert for any length of time. The teams security would rapidly "deteriorate" in a deployed environment and would almost certainly be discovered before long. Once discovered the game would be up. The weapons would no longer be deniable and their use would be open belligerency. The suitcase weapons would have no advantage to nuclear bombs delivered by the air force of the rogue nation.
Which brings us back to France. Perhaps the French have calculated that nuclear deniability is ultimately unattainable and are conveying to President Ahmadinejad that 'if you nuke us, you die'.
France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent. Deflecting criticism of France’s costly nuclear arms program, President Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit back hard at a hostile state’s centers of power and its “capacity to act.”
He said there was no change in France’s overall policy, which rules out the use of nuclear weapons in a military conflict. But his speech pointed to a change of emphasis to underline the growing threat France perceives from terrorism. “The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part,” Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in northwestern France.
The obvious target of the warning was Iran. But how effective is a conventional deterrent against a state which might sponsor terrorist proxies armed with nuclear weapons? At a discussion at the Confederate Yankee one commenter said:
The fear is not that Iran would attack us, but that they would produce countless small nuclear devices and turn them over to the terrorists whom they support. These would then be smuggled into many major cities in all the western nations for detonation.
The terrorist "suitcase nuclear weapon" is the nightmare scenario often invoked to explain why such weapons should never be allowed to fall into the hands of leaders like President Ahmadinejad. It was this fear which provided much of the rationale for launching Operation Iraqi Freedom. But a closer examination of the suitcase nuke problem suggests that this method of delivery has certain limitations. Let's begin a thought experiment by considering the number of suitcase nukes that would be required to destroy a country like France or the United States.
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a somewhat left of center think tank, produced a very respectable model of how many nuclear weapons would be required to inflict damage to the point of diminishing returns, a concept accepted by Robert McNamara at the height of the Cold War. This inflection point is known as the "knee" and occurred where around 25% of the target population was killed. The NRDC recalculated the numbers for the year 1999 with these results; which are probably correct at least to order of magnitude.
Country 1999 population 25% of population No of 375 kt warheads needed to threaten 25% of the population
United States
258,833,000
64,708,250
124
Canada
28,402,320
7,100,580
11
United Kingdom
56,420,180
14,105,045
19
France
57,757,060
14,439,265
25
Germany
81,436,300
20,359,075
33
Italy
57,908,880
14,477,220
21
Spain
39,267,780
9,816,945
20
All NATO Member Countries
754,933,329
188,730,000
300
Russia
151,827,600
37,956,300
51
China
1,281,008,318
320,252,079
368
North Korea
22,034,990
5,508,747
4
Iran
64,193,450
16,048,363
10
Iraq
20,941,720
5,235,430
4
Syria
14,045,470
3,511,368
2
Libya
5,245,515
1,311,329
2
According to these figures it will take about 150 nukes to 'destroy' the fabric and cohesion of the United States and about 30 to do the same to France. Note that inflicting this damage will not have any substantial effect the US ability to perform an immediate counterstrike with thousands of nuclear warheads because these are deployed in hardened facilities or on submerged platforms which would survive a paltry (by Cold War standards) 150 warhead strike. But this number would be enough to finish the target nation as cohesive society for decades.
The problem with suitcase nukes is maintaining command and control over them. Any suitcase nuke which could be armed and detonated by its possessor (protected only by a combination detonator just like the movies) would have serious defects as a weapon. This method delegates so much command and control over the weapon to the possessor that it is effectively "his". In our thought experiment, imagine a rogue state providing such weapons to 150 terrorist teams for use against the United States. There would be no assurance that once deployed these weapons would not be stolen or used for unintended purposes. It would be possible for a rogue team to sell the weapon to the highest bidder, perhaps a rival rogue state looking for such devices. It would not be impossible for one of the teams to turn against its masters and use it against them. A team with a suitcase nuke might divert to Switzerland where they could demand the payment of a few billion dollars in exchange for not blowing up Zurich. A suitcase weapon could be captured by the CIA or the Mossad and reimported into the rogue state where it could be detonated against targets who could hardly admit its true provenance. If the teams belonged to rival political terrorist organizations they could be used against each other. Clearly, releasing a large number of suitcase nuclear weapons without positive command and control would be less than ideal and probably disastrous for the wielder.
The most probable workaround to the problem would be to deploy these weapons at a very low rate by sending them out one trusted team at a time. In that way the weapon would be used within a short period and watched, probably by a large number of mutually counterchecking personnel, every step of the way. One nuke to Paris. Boom. One nuke to New York. Boom. The problem with solving the control problem by slowing down the rate of attack is apparent from the table above. One nuke in Paris or New York will be grossly insufficient to finish the infidel enemy but quite sufficient to provoke a massive response. Once the fissile traces are identified ten thousand warheads will be headed back the other way.
The other obvious possibility is to deploy a large number of suitcase nukes in a componentized configuration so that it requires the assembly of several teams, each with part of the requisite firing information or componentry to activate the device. (This is conceptually similar to the two key system on boomers) For example, Iran could deploy 450 teams -- three teams to activate a suitcase bomb -- with the intent of controlling 150 devices targeted at the United States. Unfortunately a force of this size could hardly remain covert for any length of time. The teams security would rapidly "deteriorate" in a deployed environment and would almost certainly be discovered before long. Once discovered the game would be up. The weapons would no longer be deniable and their use would be open belligerency. The suitcase weapons would have no advantage to nuclear bombs delivered by the air force of the rogue nation.
Which brings us back to France. Perhaps the French have calculated that nuclear deniability is ultimately unattainable and are conveying to President Ahmadinejad that 'if you nuke us, you die'.