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Thread: My new article in @TXNatSecReview is a somewhat long read so let me pitch some of my argument here in case I can get you to take a look: https://tnsr.org/2020/07/wormhole-escalation-in-the-new-nuclear-age/ 1/
The scalation “ladder” is an enduring, but increasingly unhelpful metaphor to describe strategic crisis between nuclear states. Contemporary analysts largely reject its false precision but the linear, predictable process it implies undergirds many of our deterrence concepts. 2/
Fueled by an increasingly competitive security environment, transformational technologies, and a more fragmented global order future strategic crises may defy the orderly, stepwise and even somewhat predictable process this image suggests.We need a new metaphor.3/
Drawing from Sci-Fi and physics, I propose escalation wormholes - sudden openings in the fabric of deterrence which competing states can inadvertently enter and suddenly traverse between sub-conventional and strategic levels of conflict in accelerated and non-linear ways.4/
Wormhole escalation suggests a new nuclear paradox: As states drive to compete and win at the sub-conventional level… the risk of strategic crisis may increase, even as the risk of conventional conflict between nuclear-armed states declines. What is driving these developments?5/
Nuclear powers can engage competitors’ core strategic interests directly, intrusively, and coercively (and unintentionally), below traditional armed conflict, esp through cyber, economic, and info attacks. In other words, sub-conventional weapons can engage strategic targets. 6/
Also, modern gray zone conflict is highly intrusive. States still seek surrogates to wage wars of influence, but today’s proxies are online trolls who wander freely inside one’s digital homeland, enabled by advanced cyber, disinfo and weaponized social media...7/
...rather than guerilla wars with black-market weaponry in distant lands. These digital “proxy wars” do not take place on foreign shores beyond the public eye but rather deep inside the U.S. homeland, without the geographic distance to cushion escalation risks. 8/
Also, states and nonstate actors alike can engage digital “sleeper cells” that can be awakened with a keystroke — think “Trojan horse” meets “flash mob.” 9/
For more on how information warfare could challenge nuclear crisis decisionmaking and undermine the political foundation and public confidence in our nuclear command and control system check the new @csisponi Deep Dive Debrief at https://www.csis.org/analysis/nc3-challenges-facing-future-system. 10/
Wormhole escalation risks also pervade the upper levels of conflict as states pursue horizontal escalation options even as firebreaks between nuclear and conventional systems erode - weakening escalatory restraint. 11/
Technologies designed to increase warning and enhance situational awareness in complex crises under a nuclear shadow carry underappreciated risks. For more on this also see the online research hub https://ontheradar.csis.org including our report: https://ontheradar.csis.org/analysis/final-report/ 12/
Advanced tech (remote sensing, AI,hypersonics, etc) can accelerate the precision, lethality, and survivability of conventional weapons and challenge traditional notions of stability, opening new paths to strategic crisis -with wormhole effects. 13/
Also its not just a great power game. Emerging tech, especially in the digital info space, can level the playing field, providing smaller states virtual expeditionary forces with global reach. With advanced digital technology, non-state actors and small powers ...14/
...can take on militarily superior states with disproportionate impact, high deniability and limited retaliatory risk. This can obscure attribution and accelerate the time between launch and impact, making it difficult to trace where an attack originated or who was behind it.15/
Asymmetric capabilities may encourage actors to engage in high-risk, escalatory behavior at lower levels of conflict in attempts to achieve victory -- outmaneuvering militarily superior states without ever having to pull the trigger. 16/
In terms of disinformation racing, smaller regional powers can give larger states a serious run for their money. Any state can launch an attack with the click of a button. But just because a state can start a war, doesn’t mean it can end it on acceptable terms. 17/
Bottom line: Asymmetric, substrategic war-fighting techniques — cross-domain coercion, front-door information attacks, latent and out of control disinformation, and shifts from opacity to transparency — will shape the way states compete and change perceptions of risk.18/
What do we do? For starters build resiliency. Concepts of collective security, like “see something, say something,” cannot just be about suspicious packages, but must include other illicit and nefarious intrusions into the fabric of national life.19/
Also, arms control structures and institutions, with mechanisms for dispute resolution and compliance enforcement, can mitigate conflict and restrain impulsive or risky actions but moving beyond overly rigid, stove-piped approaches and incorporating alternative models is key. 20/
Wormholes are inherently, and indeed catastrophically, unstable. Whether in terms of space travel or nuclear escalation, they seem best avoided. Want more: Check it out at https://tnsr.org/2020/07/wormhole-escalation-in-the-new-nuclear-age/ Thanks for reading! 21/
