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THE GAME STRATEGY OFNUCLEAR DETERRENCE
2009 NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW COMMENTS
Orig. SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 2009 - EDITED VERSION FOLLOWSLYLE A. BRECHT, BUSINESS CONTACT & PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORPHONE: 410.963.8680FAX: 931.598.0051EMAIL:LBRECHT@PIPELINE.COM
CAPITAL MARKETS RESEARCH
Research for Living Sustainably on Earth
 
NOTE TO NUCLEAR HAWKS, DOVES & THE NONPROLIFERATION COMMUNITY:
On September 24, 2009 the United Nations Security Council met and approved Resolution 1887. ThisResolution commits the Council to work toward a world without nuclear weapons, calls for further pro-gress on nuclear arms reductions, and strengthens the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
1
This fol-lows the President’s request of the Pentagon to rethink its draft
 Nuclear Posture Review
that was charac-terized as just more of the same thinking that has prevailed for the past 64-years.
2
Efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons are grounded in the proposition that these weapons represent the"gravest threat" to U.S. security. However, many smart and thoughtful persons differ in this assessment.They claim that nuclear weapons may not make the world more dangerous. Nukes may make us safer.
3
The proposition that nuclear weapons make the world safer is based on the premises of technologicalpositivism and the logical fallacy of retrospective determinism: nuclear weapons have not been used since1945 and there's never been a nuclear, or even a nonnuclear, war between two states that possess them.This statement presumes
stationarity
.
4
This assumes that what happened in the past is a good indicator of what the future portends. This assumption also provides rationale to go slow in reducing nuclear arsenals.Is past history a sound basis to support nuclear deterrence based on Mutual Assured Destruction? For ex-ample, on September 10, 2001, was the fact that the U.S. had never had a terrorist attack on its soil a goodpredictor that an attack on September 11, 2001 would not occur? Stationarity presumes so.We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima. Nuclear deterrence optimists argue how strikingthis is - and against all historical precedent! Does nuclear deterrence really work? But after 64-years of collected data, might we have learned just the opposite of what nuclear optimists argue?
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Or are these justthe thoughts of a nuclear pessimist? Someone with nuclear phobia.Nuclear deterrence in both its strong (e.g. MAD, Assured Destruction) and weak (Massive Retaliation,Minimal Deterrence) forms, relies on producing deterrence of the
First Use
of nuclear weapons throughthe promise of a devastating counterattack. This strategy rests on the mathematics of game theory. Thisgame was originally conceived as a two-player Nash Equilibrium game (my behavior in the game willdetermine your future behavior). Is what is ‘striking against all historical precedent’ not that deterrencedoctrine based on nuclear weapons works, but that humanity still survives on earth despite assuming thatpossessing nuclear weapons produces deterrence?Technological positivism presumes that the ‘correct number’ of nuclear weapons analytically derivedwillachieve deterrence and extended deterrence objectives. But has nuclear deterrence encouraged an
armsrace
in conventional weaponry and preparations for national defense? Let’s develop ever more lethalweapons so that we don’t have to use the nuclear option. Maybe this makes sense when national defenseis considered primarily in terms of counter-force. But does spending a $1,500 billion globally each yearon preparations to deter aggression merely divert scarce capital from human development and economicgrowth? Does this diversion of capital make aggression
more
probable, rather than less so? Have nuclearweapons, collectively along with nuclear deterrence doctrine, become a doomsday machine it is long pasttime to unplug?
6
Is this a good time to rethink the strategy of nuclear deterrence itself - something that hasserved as a foundational belief upon which much of the Pentagon’s National Defense strategy rests.
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THE GAME STRATEGY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Friday, October 9, 2009 DRAFT V.5.1
Lyle Brecht - Capital Markets ResearchPage 2 of 45
 
TRANSMITTAL LETTER
SUBMITTED:
 

 
VIA EMAIL:
RE: RETHINKING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE: NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW COMMENTS
 Attached is an unsolicited proposal for a study to examine the feasibility for developing an up-dated deterrence doctrine; a deterrence doctrine that does not depend on nuclear weapons.The study objectives are to: (a) establish a new conceptual framework for deterrence; and (b)develop a methodology for allocating capital to deterrence based on this framework.For example, there may be value to expanding deterrence beyond counter-force. Today, deter-rence counter-force is anchored by the maintenance of large stockpiles of nuclear weapons.This creates an ancillary need for conventional weaponry to fight wars to avoid
First Use
of nu-clear weapons.The proposed methodology for allocating capital (i.e. creating budgets) to investigate for de-veloping a deterrence posture is to use Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). This methodol-ogy, applied to a re-visioned understanding of deterrence, may help to establish the high levelpolicy discourse necessary to set budget priorities analytically.
8
Use of PRA with a reformu-lated idea of deterrence may also provide a useful framework for making sound decisions re-garding nuclear force strength (e.g. how many nukes, their modernity, who possess them, etc.)and establishing a nuclear posture that affects nonproliferation and denuclearization objectives.Nuclear weapons today, unlike in 1950 when nuclear deterrence was invented as a game toplay, are just one of a number of doomsday machines.
9
Today, we know about many more ma-chines (made by human hands/policies/choices) that have been developed: energy (e.g. PeakOil), food (e.g. GM seed crops, yields dependent on petrochemicals and irrigation) and freshwater availability doomsday machines from climate disruption due to anthropogenic carbonloading of the atmosphere, declining fisheries, ocean acidification, emerging pandemic dis-eases, increasing antibiotic resistance, are some examples. Might it be that what links all ofthese doomsday machines of serious, intertwined global-scale challenges are that the presenteconomic structure produces revenues and profits by expanding on the activities that result inthese doomsday machines in the first place?It is important to determine if there are perverse economic incentives to maintain nuclear deter-rence. Despite any bilateral or multilateral accords, unless these economic drivers are ad-dressed, it is likely that actions taken will be mostly smoke and mirrors.What if the maintenance of nuclear deterrence is a similar situation to the CDO meltdown onWall Street that destroyed $50,000 billion in asset values overnight? As systemic risk is not be-
THE GAME STRATEGY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Friday, October 9, 2009 DRAFT V.5.1
Lyle Brecht - Capital Markets ResearchPage 3 of 45
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