Has North Korea Achieved Minimum Deterrence?

On August 19, President Donald Trump told reporters that he hopes to get along with North Korea and Kim Jong-un, signaling a notable shift in US-North Korea relations (though we’ve been here before). Tellingly, he also noted how the Hermit Kingdom has “57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” a minuscule amount compared to America’s total 3,7000 warheads. North Korea is close to developing capabilities to hit the United States with a nuclear weapon. But even if it could, the United States has conventional and nuclear counterforce options to neutralize much of the North Korean nuclear program before it can launch an attack.

But the number of nuclear weapons in the North Korean arsenal isn’t nothing. The Trump administration wants to negotiate with North Korea despite having superior conventional and nuclear capabilities. This should give the United States a bargaining advantage over the Hermit Kingdom. So why is the Trump administration willing to negotiate? Because there’s a chance, no matter how small, for North Korea to inflict immense pain on the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific. President Trump’s comment on North Korea confirms the long-suspected conclusion that a small number of nuclear weapons is enough to ensure deterrence. 

Nuclear weapons are humankind’s most destructive weapon. They cause indiscriminate damage and harm the health of future generations, with most having much higher yields than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The destructiveness of nuclear weapons led the famed military scholar Bernard Brodie to conclude, “Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them.” The potential horror of nuclear war has been a driving motivator to avoid their use. 

It’s currently impossible for counterforce capabilities and national missile defenses to destroy all an enemy’s nuclear weapons. That’s why this nuclear strategy is called “damage-limitation.” At least one nuke will hit. And by this strategy’s logic, should push come to shove, the United States’ ability to limit nuclear damage to itself will cast doubt in the mind of a rival to launch an attack or be aggressive in the first place.

Yet, this strategy assumes that the United States and its people would be willing to accept nuclear damage, fallout, fires, and deaths. It’s safe to say that Americans and most humans are unwilling to accept such risks, even if the destruction is limited. So while the United States may have broken out of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), it now finds itself in a condition of Mutually Assured Retaliation (MAR). A country like North Korea with its limited nuclear weapons can’t destroy the entire United States. Still, the mere threat, the mere risk of one nuclear detonation on Americans or US allies, is enough to give DC policymakers pause. 

Mutually Assured Retaliation and the Trump administration’s war in Iran may have convinced Tehran’s leaders that their best chance of survival is a fully operational nuclear program. Tom Nichols couldn’t have written it better: “Nuclear deterrence, even with only a few bombs, works. Get a nuclear weapon as soon as you can if you want to be safe and treated with the kind of deference America shows to North Korea.” Non-proliferation has a tough road ahead.

This case with North Korea should cast doubt on America’s damage-limitation strategy and call into question the effectiveness of a nuclear buildup. If a few nuclear weapons are enough to deter somebody, and a damage-limitation strategy fails to give the United States meaningful leverage over a nuclear-armed rival, does the United States need to maintain its massive arsenal, much less expand it? Should it have a preemptive nuclear posture and be willing to strike first? The answer looks like a no.

We need to ask more questions like this. Answers to them will determine what America’s nuclear strategy should look like, what nuclear deterrence means, and the usefulness of nuclear weapons in statecraft.