Much of the coverage of security policy concerns the “what” and “where” of threats. For example, this year’s major nuclear news stories confirmed: (1) North Korea launched another ICBM which was estimated to be able to reach American west coast cities with some kind of nuclear warhead; (2) Russia fired a Kinzhal missile at Ukraine, but surprisingly Ukraine’s armed forces successfully shoot down what was described as one of Putin’s “super weapons”; (3) China built three expansive ICBM fields numbering some 360 silos, that when added to the existing fixed and mobile ICBMs, gave the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) more ICBM launchers under its control then are in the entirety of the United States ICBM force of 450 missile launchers; and (4) Iran has enriched uranium to 84%, just a short distance technically from the 90% level which is considered optimum for building a nuclear warhead.
Although the “what” and “where” of these threats the US and its allies are facing is very important, there is missing an element that is more important. That is the question of “When?” and “Why?” In short, when the bad guys might use such weapons and for what reason must be answered. These are the intelligence “dots” that are often not connected. Even more worrisome these “dots” may not be on the geostrategic landscape to begin with.
It is often alleged that national security and military planners engage in worst case scenarios to artificially exaggerate the threat to support greater military production. In the 1970’s, nuclear expert Dr. Johnny Foster spent years trying to get the US intelligence and defense community to accurately estimate the percentage of the GDP that the USSR spent on defense. The official estimates varied, but generally were on the low end of competing assessments. One estimate placed Soviet spending at 6-8% of GDP, an estimate that not only the CPD but other critics such as Senator Henry M. Jackson and Senator John Stennis, both Democrats, thought was significantly lower than the real number.
Dr. Foster was successful in getting the CIA to do another analysis. But while the agency did another updated analysis, and while grudgingly admitted that Moscow was probably spending nominally more than their earlier estimates, the new estimate was simply a dodge, and as it was later confirmed, hugely off track. At that time, the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) had been created with a central goal of getting an accurate portrait of the real nature of Soviet behavior and threat, especially the extent of Soviet military spending.
One meeting that the CIA arranged between the two sides revealed that the defense budget estimate team inside the agency was adamant that the estimates of Soviet spending if “too high” even though possibly accurate, would “endanger “détente” and “peaceful coexistence” which was after all official US policy. So of course, the “official” estimated level of Soviet defense spending had to take this into account. For if the Soviets were indeed spending some 15-20% of their GDP on defense, there then would be major political pressure in the US to increase its own defense spending from the 1975 level of 5.65%. And if that occurred, détente and peaceful coexistence would have to be discarded as US policy preferences.
The key points the CPD laid out were two: (1) the ongoing buildup of Soviet nuclear weapons, particularly large, multi-warhead land-based missiles, ironically allowed by the 1972 SALT I arms control agreement between Washington and Moscow; and (2) the actual military expenditures by Moscow probably approached 15-20% of GDP which if true clearly reflected the USSR’s goal of seeking world hegemonic power, camouflaged by the ruse of “détente.”
While the extent of the Soviet military build-up was under debate, (the “what”) there was no disagreement that what the Soviets spent on their military (“the who/where”) was critically important for the intelligence community to get right. But while the prestigious journals on foreign policy were largely supportive of détente and sided with the government intelligence sources that minimized the Soviet threat, and what Moscow devoted to defense, the Soviets spread their empire by nearly 20 more nations starting with Indochina in 1970 and ending with Afghanistan in 1979. As the Soviets themselves thought, the “correlation of forces” favored Mocow, and with such military power on their side, the strategists in the Kremlin were convinced they could in fact secure the collapse NATO by dividing the US from its European allies, and thus “win” the Cold War.
For the Soviets, the 1970’s was a decade of war against the West and its imperialism/colonialism, as Moscow liked to describe the US and its key allies in Europe and Asia. At the top of Soviet actions was the continued massive deployment of SS-20 multiple nuclear warhead missiles in Europe and Asia, even as by the end of the decade, the US had not deployed a single Pershing or Ground Launched Cruise Missile in response.
In fact, the US did not even have both missiles under research and development. There were no real deployment plans, despite the rhetoric of the Carter administration and the Schultz government in Bonn that the US would lead NATO to deploy a robust missile response to the Soviet SS-20 deployments unless Moscow ceased such deployments.
Moscow, on the other hand, understood the “when” of the conflict with the US. While Schmidt and Carter promised “an eventual” counter-deployment, no timeline was ever put on the table until President-elect Reagan put such funding and deployment plans in his first defense budget in 1981. For Moscow, they continued their SS-20 deployment for the entire decade and as late as 1985 tried to intimidate the United States by accelerating the rate of their SS-20 deployments just shortly after Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Union.
Today, the United States faces a very big question of “when?”
China’s military buildup is breathtaking says the recently retired Commander of US Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard. But what is China aiming for—Taiwan? —and if so, when? The US is reducing the size of its Navy and USAF, as older legacy systems are being proposed for retirement to generate budget savings to put more funding into the modernization of the force which “eventually” is designed to build a stronger and larger armed force.
But “eventually” may be in the early to mid- 2030s, and the unanswered question is: will the bad guys--what I call the “Brothers Mayhem” of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea-- wait around until the US has fully modernized before they decide to move against Taiwan, and South Korea, and the Arab Gulf States, and the Baltics in Europe?
Or will these rogue states move when the US force levels are declining, and new technologies like a Navy seal launched nuclear armed cruise missiles, a space-based missile and air defense, a hypersonic speed cruise missile, and a reconstituted nuclear pit production complex, are not yet in the US arsenal. The “holiday from history” we took for over two decades after the end of the first Cold War, may catch up with us. The time we wasted not being prepared because many thought the threats were either disappearing or being minimized, cannot be brought back.
Japan developed a buoyant torpedo used to sink our fleet at Pearl Harbor because we assumed their military technology mirrored are own---and that the very shallow water at Pearl protected our fleet. The “what” technology of Japan in 1935 was not the same as the “what” of Japanese technology of December 1941. The issue of “when” obviously made all the difference.
Some three decades later, while the Soviets gobbled up territory around the world, the US was convinced the time was still “good for détente” and low defense budgets. We had withdrawn from Vietnam, given back the Panama Canal, the Middle East “peace process” was in full swing, the head mullah in Iran were described by the White House as a “man of the cloth” and we had secured from Moscow the SALT arms deal and a ban on “destabilizing “missile defenses.”
The most remarkable thing was despite the dangerous “inheritance” bequeathed to the Reagan administration of an America in retreat, it was only a short decade later that the Soviet empire ceased to exist. A marked change in policy worked, implemented by an Administration that all the smart folks assured the American people would eventually fail.
With partners in Great Britain, the Vatican and West Germany, Reagan joined with Thatcher, Wojtyla and Kohl to form a solid wall of resistance to Soviet hegemony, as together they sought an end to the “evil” empire” while liberating hundreds of millions of people from tyranny. In a short 28 months these four leaders came into their respective offices, a remarkable development that must have had a guiding hand.
“He” at least figured out timing or “when” is indeed everything.