U.S. Strategic Force Planning: Restoring the Links between Strategy and Capabilities

A reasonably sound linkage between declaratory and employment doctrine and the capabilities of the strategic posture should always be an essential prerequisite to credible and secure deterrence, In most areas of military planning, analysis of the general requirements of our strategies can be an effective tool for determining what forces and plans are needed to accomplish selected missions. Because of the difficulty in devising generally acceptable strategies for nuclear employment, however, operational and force planning for nuclear forces have been particularly disconnected from each other. Consequently, the U.S. nuclear posture may be inappropriate for the tasks it may be called upon to perform. In order to restore a linkage in nuclear planning, some people have recommended that we base force design on requirements deriving from vague surrogate objectives. A more reasonable approach is the articulation and adoption of a set of force design principles and themes. These principles and themes do not themselves describe or determine strategy; instead they increase the likelihood that U.S. commanders wil be able to pursue the most promising paths in an emergency. Furthermore, in peacetime, the propriety of the force can be more meaningfully measured by introducing more sophisticated and realistic mission requirements.