NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION REPLACES OTHER, MORE EXPENSIVE

NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION REPLACES OTHER, MORE EXPENSIVE
FORMS OF MILITARY GROWTH
Avery Goldstein, Department of Political Science University of Pennsylvania, 2000, Deterrence and Security in the st Century, p. 54-55 During the Cold War China, Britain, and France deemed nuclear deterrence an attractive strategy for dealing with the superpower threat not only because it is robust but also because it is economical when compared with the most plausible conventional alternatives. The economic attractiveness of nuclear forces is not a reflection of their low cost in an absolute sense. Developing and deploying nuclear forces is not cheap. Especially fora poor country like China, the effort is arduous and requires great sacrifice and a husbanding of scarce resources. The relevant assessment of cost-effectiveness, however, is not the absolute amount spent on nuclear forces, but rather the amount that would have to be spent on conventional forces to achieve comparable levels of security. Fora country like China, determined to self-reliantly deal with what it believed were serious superpower threats and dissatisfied with its relatively cheap conventional deterrent (i.e., the peoples war capability, the choice was between burdensome alternatives—a conventional defensive or a nuclear deterrent capability. The latter offered the more plausibly affordable path to enhanced security. Relying on conventional forces for deterrence or defense has another economic disadvantage. Conventional deployments usually need to be geared to those of the adversary. The value of an investment inexpensive conventional forces depends on ratios of military power (adjusted for qualitative differences) and the skillfulness with which its use is planned. Not only is it difficult to be confident about the outcome of engagements between known forces, but technological change constantly threatens the military value of ones investment. In addition, one must be prepared to counter quantitative and qualitative improvements in the adversaryʼs capabilities. Precision-guided munitions, electronic countermeasures, stealth technology, and sophisticated armoring are only some of the elements in the clash of modem conventional forces that made them an increasingly expensive gamble and volatile investment as the Cold War progressed. By contrast, where nuclear weapons are involved the calculus is bluntly simple, not agonizingly complex, and the value of the investment is relatively stable. The enduring ability of the most basic nuclear weapons quickly to annihilate military forces or inflict catastrophic damage on society, even in the teeth of massive deployments of technologically sophisticated defenses, remains unchallenged. Until this changes, nuclear weapons will bean economical hedge against obsolescence for states seeking an affordable way to fulfill the requirements of strategies for dissuading highly capable adversaries.