No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security

Abstract

At around 5,000 total warheads, the U.S. nuclear stockpile today is a fraction of its former self. One therefore might presume that U.S. nuclear doctrine has undergone an equally significant transformation since the end of the Cold War. Thomas M. Nichols disabuses readers of this notion, showing how the machinery of “mutual assured destruction” remains predominant even though the world that spawned this doctrine disappeared with the Soviet Union. But this doctrine is now obsolete, Nichols argues. Deterrence no longer requires—if it ever did—an expansive nuclear inventory with diverse delivery platforms, a launch-on-warning alert posture, and convoluted targeting plans. In Nichols's view, a pocket-sized nuclear deterrent would be adequate. Yet U.S. strategy remains saddled with the costly baggage of an arms competition that ended a quarter-century ago. Nichols's antidote: a “minimum deterrence” doctrine, which aims to deter adversaries with a few nuclear weapons, rather than thousands. He proposes, among other measures: unilateral nuclear reductions; a presidential declaration that the United States will never use nuclear weapons first in a conflict; re-targeting missiles toward enemy infrastructure rather than cities and military assets; ending national missile defense programs; forgoing nuclear retaliation altogether against smaller powers; and, most provocatively, dismantling the (implicit) nuclear umbrella protecting U.S. allies. A doctrine with these features, he maintains, would be better suited to the threats faced by the United States today.