Ifri’s Security Studies Center has just published the issue #21 bis of its Focus Stratégique series entitled:

Toward the End of Force Projection? II. Operational Responses and Political Perspectives

The author, Corentin Brustlein, is a research fellow in Ifri’s Defense Research Unit. He is also the deputy editor of Ifri’s Proliferation Papers, and blogs here at Ultima Ratio.

The article can be downloaded here.

This paper is the second part of a 2010 two-volume study on the antiaccess threat to Western armed forces. The translation of the first part, focusing antiaccess strategies and capabilities, was published back in July 2011 and can be downloaded here.

Abstract:

For more than a decade, US defense circles have been concerned about the emergence of capabilities and strategies, which, as they spread, risk imperiling the United States’ position in the world by their ability to disrupt or prevent force projection operations. Though most of the literature on such “anti-access” strategies focuses on the military aspects of the threat, this Focus stratégique – the second and last part of a two-part study – adopts a different perspective. Firstly, it considers the various means Western armed forces could rely on to confront anti-access strategies and conduct forcible entry operations, and assesses in particular the potential French and European contributions. Secondly, it argues that the problem of access cannot be studied in depth without taking into account its political dimension, which determines the operational freedom of action of both the interventionist powers and their adversaries. As was the case with the first part of the study, mostly centered on an analysis of current Iranian anti-access capabilities, this article is focused on examples taken from the Persian Gulf region.

And here’s this part’s table of contents:

Introduction

Western Responses to Anti-Access Capabilities

The Primacy of the Political Framework

Conclusion

Your comments are more than welcome!

Sometimes you wish you never accepted to review a friend’s book/article : you lack the time to read the document, and once you finally find a few minutes/hours to discover it, it proves disappointing (and it’s pretty hard to find an easy way to say that). Some other times, fortunately, it’s the opposite: you get just what you were looking for (but still have to find the right way to say it, not to look like you’re congratulating a friend for being a friend). I’m glad to write from the start that this monograph clearly belongs to the second group.

Of course, it cannot be said to be a huge surprise when someone studying both military innovation and nuclear weapons policies (curiously enough, not the two of them together) finds interest in a paper on the innovation processes that gave birth to US Navy’s ballistic missiles. Still, disappointment was a real possibility, either due to a lack of empirical research, superficial treatment of the issue, or lack of theorization. Again, you’ll find no such thing here.

In his monograph, Sébastien Miraglia, a researcher at the Oslo-based Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies (IFS), reviews the development of the Fleet Ballistic Missile program from its creation back in the 1950s, to the Trident II D5, which currently equips US Navy’s Ohio-class SSBNs (as well as Royal Navy’s 4 Vanguard-class subs). Sébastien’s argument is that initial orientations taken by the Navy’s office in charge, the Strategic Project Office (SPO) weighed on its future choices and constrained its ability to respond optimally to external stimuli for change, such as new nuclear policies. This, in turn, created serious risks of disconnection between requirements identified at the policy level and available capabilities. For instance, following the deployment of the Soviet Galosh anti-ballistic missile defense system, SPO chose to respond not through the development of penetration aids – a path taken by the USAF for its Minuteman II ICBMs – but by putting multiple, smaller warheads on top of US SLBMs (MIRVing, for those who might not be familiar with the issue). It didn’t follow that path because MIRVing seemed to be the optimal way to deal with the threat from these rudimentary defenses. It took a path that would allow it to make good use of previous R&D on MIRVing, avoid entry costs associated with such developments as penetration aids, all the while fulfilling what it considered its core missions: saturate defenses and strike “soft” targets such as urban areas.

As one may guess, the paper rests heavily on concepts and approaches drawn from historical institutionalism and sociology of organizations. What one may not guess is that in addition to using classics such as MacKenzie’s Inventing Accuracy, Sébastien made extensive use of historical, unpublished material/archives from the SPO and its successor, various memoranda and transcripts of interviews of individuals directly involved in the program.

The result is a highly readable, rigorous and insightful research, as well as a great opportunity to discover the inside story – or close to – of the program and to understand how technical and operational dilemmas were solved. A great read for anyone interested military innovation, technology development and US nuclear history.

The study is available online for free (here) but you may as well consider buying a softcover copy as the format is great (much better, for example, than SSI monographs). Also, take some time to visit the IFS website and the other one dedicated to their publications, as you’ll find lots of interesting stuff here (by the way, people at IFS are the ones you should thank for last year’s amazing special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies on the Information Revolution in Military Affairs).

Gratulerer, Sébastien !

Sébastien Miraglia, Nuclear strategy and the development of military technology. The case of the Fleet Ballistic Missile programme, Defence and Security Studies – Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (Institutt for Forsvarsstudier), 2/2010, 124 p. PDF or paper (free / 100 NOK or approx. ~USD 16.00)