Congressional Commission Should Recommend "Damage Limitation" Strategy

(Compiler's note: Long, but a "must read" article. rca)

by Baker Spring

Section 1062 of the National Defense Authoriza­tion Act for Fiscal Year 2008 created a congressionally appointed commission to review the strategic posture of the United States.[1] The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States is charged with assessing the entire strategic posture of the U.S., including offensive and defensive forces and conven­tional and nuclear forces. It is chaired by former Sec­retary of Defense William Perry and co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger. The commission's initial report is due later this year.

The commission's review comes at a perilous time for U.S. strategic forces. The U.S. nuclear arsenal and stockpile have been atrophying since the end of the Cold War. Strategic defenses, which were all but aban­doned during the Cold War, continue to lag behind the threat resulting from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and their delivery sys­tems. Congress has been reluctant to pursue conven­tional strategic strike programs, which are also referred to as prompt global strike systems.

However, the commission's most pressing problem is adapting the U.S. strategic posture to maintaining national security and stability in the multipolar world that has replaced what commentator Charles Krau­thammer has called the "unipolar moment" that immediately followed the end of the Cold War.[2] This multipolar world has resulted from the post-Cold War proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particu­larly nuclear weapons and related delivery systems.

In this multipolar environment, the commission should recommend to Congress that the U.S. adopt a damage limitation strategy to replace the retaliatory deterrence strategy that dominated U.S. policy during the Cold War. A damage limitation strategy would seek to protect the peoples, territories, institutions, and infrastructure of the United States and its allies against attacks by defeating such attacks and, bar­ring the outright defeat of such attacks, limiting their attendant damage to the greatest extent possible. ....