I don’t think this is true for the UK’s nuclear deterrence strategy. The UK’s nuclear warheads are launched only from four Vanguard-class submarines. Each one carries 8 (but can carry up to 16) Trident nuclear missiles, and at least one is on active service at any one time. This last part is crucial- the deterrence strategy relies on the location of the active submarine and its’ warheads being very hard to detect, and I would argue the number of warheads beyond a certain point is irrelevant to deterrence.
If that’s roughly the case (which I haven’t looked into), then it seems like the UK’s “secure second strike” capability is actually ~1/4 of its total number of warheads. In which case an increase to 260 is increasing to a secure second strike capability of 65, i.e. still less than 100.
On the other hand, that Ellsberg quote seems to be simply saying that 100 should be the upper limit, rather than specifying “100 that would likely survive a nuclear first strike against that state”. But that mostly just makes me think that that quote shouldn’t be given much weight. Other things that make me think that are that:
he’s just one person
this is just a podcast interview so may lack some of the nuance of his full views
I think some of his claims in that interview and his book are over-the-top or misleading (though I also found parts of that interview and his book useful)
(I could see if I have notes that would allow me to elaborate, if you’d like)
Btw, I’m drafting a post on “What would be the ideal size and composition of nuclear arsenals?”, which I hope to post to the Forum ~October (I’m working on various other things in parallel). I definitely won’t have definitive answers, and it’ll probably mostly just shallowly highlight various considerations and minor arguments, but may still be of interest to you and to readers of this post.
If that’s roughly the case (which I haven’t looked into), then it seems like the UK’s “secure second strike” capability is actually ~1/4 of its total number of warheads. In which case an increase to 260 is increasing to a secure second strike capability of 65, i.e. still less than 100.
On the other hand, that Ellsberg quote seems to be simply saying that 100 should be the upper limit, rather than specifying “100 that would likely survive a nuclear first strike against that state”. But that mostly just makes me think that that quote shouldn’t be given much weight. Other things that make me think that are that:
he’s just one person
this is just a podcast interview so may lack some of the nuance of his full views
I think some of his claims in that interview and his book are over-the-top or misleading (though I also found parts of that interview and his book useful)
(I could see if I have notes that would allow me to elaborate, if you’d like)
Btw, I’m drafting a post on “What would be the ideal size and composition of nuclear arsenals?”, which I hope to post to the Forum ~October (I’m working on various other things in parallel). I definitely won’t have definitive answers, and it’ll probably mostly just shallowly highlight various considerations and minor arguments, but may still be of interest to you and to readers of this post.