Amidst talk of budget cuts and further strategic arms reductions, the Pentagon has issued another ritualistic affirmation of the Triad in its report to Congress on Nuclear Employment Strategy. During the Cold War, the big plus of maintaining a strategic force posture consisting of bombers, land-based, ocean-spanning missiles and ballistic missile-carrying submarines was clear: diversification posed an insurmountable targeting problem for the Soviet Union. This rationale no longer keeps US taxpayers in thrall.
The big minus of paying large sums for the Triad was that it didn’t make Americans feel more secure when the Soviet Union chose three-way protection, as well. The reassurance that the Triad was supposed to provide was undermined by one of its legs. The prompt hard-target kill capabilities residing in intercontinental ballistic missiles fueled anxieties about surprise attack, driving warhead numbers up to assure massive retaliation.
The combination of sunk costs, Soviet competition, and strong domestic constituencies congealed US strategic force structure. In 1971, Herb York, who previously served as the Pentagon’s head of research and development, summed up the pros and cons of keeping the Triad in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this way:
The maintenance of a triad … ensures that should any potential crisis emerge in the future, no adversary could conclude that any perceived benefits of attacking the United States or its allies and partners are outweighed by the cost our [nuclear] response would impose…
Our triad of weapons does present an extremely complex problem to the Soviets. It complicates the problem of making a preemptive attack on us. It complicates any plans they may have for defending against an attack by us…
It ought to lead to fewer weapons in total and it ought to eliminate frantic responses on our part to the notion the Russians may possibly be preparing for an attack against one of our [triad’s] components. In the real world, however, the triad seems to have exactly the opposite effect. We build and deploy each component in more than sufficient numbers to do the whole job… and we simultaneously inflate the size of the job and we do frequently respond frantically to Soviet moves…
So while the triad ought to lead to fewer total weapons than either a dyad or a single system, instead it seems to lead to three times as many.
Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger had a moment of candor when asked about the Triad during Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings in 1974. His questioner, Stuart Symington (D-Missouri), previously served as Secretary of the Air Force:
Senator Symington: [Dr. York] said he thought that we would not be moving on with the Triad if we had known all three systems would work.
Secretary Schlesinger: In my posture statement there is a switch away from what I will call the canonical logic of the Triad.
Senator Symington: My guess would be that he was worried about the efficiency of the Polaris-Poseidon syndrome development at that time.
Secretary Schlesinger: To some extent, I think the rationale of the Triad was a rationalization.
The US Triad was a product of atomic anxiety and service rivalry during the Cold War. It has subsequently survived a quarter-century of deep cuts, and is likely to survive longer. The biggest threats to the Triad in the United States aren’t budget cuts, new thinking about deterrence, or the continued shrinkage of the Russian Federation’s fortunes. Instead, the biggest threats to the Triad reside within the officer corps of the US Air Force and Navy. They won’t be getting out of the nuclear business, like the US Army, but they would prefer to spend money on and be assigned to weapon systems that have greater military utility.
Cruise missiles provide a sense of clarity on these matters. In the United States, cruise missiles evolved from being a bargaining chip in nuclear negotiations, to being projected as significant supplements to the Triad, to being dispensable for ground-basing in Europe, to being modest contributors to nuclear targeting plans. In military terms, a nuclear-armed cruise missile is good for only two things, neither of which can be commended for actual military utility: to cross the nuclear threshold or to serve as a radioactive rubble multiplier. In contrast, conventionally-armed cruise missiles have considerable military utility against targets on land and at sea. Portions of each leg of the US Triad have similarly been re-purposed to provide added military utility.
Elsewhere, the model of the Triad continues to have appeal. The Kremlin never had much of a bomber leg and, with its sea-based deterrent facing hard times, is recapitalizing its land-based missiles. China, India and Pakistan are working to add new sea-based capabilities to possess small-scale Triads. Even in the absence of prompt hard-target kill capabilities, the triangular competition in southern Asia shows no indications of tapering off.