When the United States withdrew its nuclear forces from the Korean Peninsula in 1991, it could not have known how the strategic environment would change over the next three decades. Today, alternative strategies to current nuclear weapons policy are needed. Understanding the fluid nature of the nuclear threat to South Korea from the north and China is an important first step. The Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK) tested its first nuclear device on October 9, 2006. This action exacerbated an already significant threat perception by the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan. Because ..read more

The topic of rebuilding a European nuclear deterrent in a world of finite American resources was the topic discussed by Max Hoell in one of Peter Huessy’s recent online seminars. The discussion touched on the evolving challenges to American extended deterrence in Europe amidst growing nuclear capabilities and assertiveness from China, North Korea, Russia, and, potentially, Iran. This is prompting European debate on nuclear deterrence and strategic alignment. While attempting to summarize these complex issues, the article makes a number of recommendations for advancing European deterrence. Euro ..read more

Advocates of nuclear abolition wish humanity could live in a world without nuclear weapons. However, results of such a policy could be catastrophic. Bad actors, for example, would likely cheat on such a ban. Russia, for example, has a long track record of cheating on international agreements. As with all law, it is only the honest who follow the rules. The dishonest are incentivized to cheat in order to employ nuclear coercion, or even nuclear attack, in a time of crisis. Scenario analysis of possible results from denuclearization suggest there is significant risk to such a move. Removing the ..read more

In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates writes, The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. Not since the Korean War has the United States had to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. And no one alive can remember a time when an adversary had as much economic, scientific, technological ..read more

Annie Jacobsen’s new book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, is receiving rave reviews. It portrays a scenario in which a limited North Korean nuclear strike on the United States spirals into global thermonuclear war between the United States and Russia, ultimately killing a significant portion of the world’s population. For Jacobsen, who treats her fictional scenario as if it is fact, the problem is American nuclear policy, which, she asserts, is an utter failure. The only solution to the problem she creates is arms control and nuclear disarmament. In Jacobsen’s scenario, North Korea unexpectedly laun ..read more

With the recent release of Annie Jacobsen’s highly acclaimed novel, Nuclear War: A Scenario, Americans are waking up to the fact that it is time to reconsider the role of nuclear weapons in national security. One area that Jacobsen, among many authors, does not consider is the increase in global warming brought about by the existence of great-power nuclear arsenals. In 2024, the world’s population surpassed 8 billion citizens. This is more than a 300 percent increase since 1950, which is an important year for global warming. It was this year when carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions began to increas ..read more

The post–Cold War period’s absence of nuclear competition led the American military to believe that the only way to win a nuclear war was to never fight one. This belief is challenged by Russia and China who do not share that view. For both nations, nuclear weapons are tools that can affect the outcome of battle and do not necessarily lead to Armageddon. In the United States, however, participants in recent wargames where nuclear weapons enter the scenario demonstrate an unwillingness to employ them, even after facing a limited nuclear attack. This results from ei ..read more

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a military installation located in Colorado and designed to provide command-and-control functions for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). In the hypothetical event that Russia launched a surprise intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nuclear attack on this base, employing a Russian SS-27 800-kiloton ICBM that managed to strike the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the impact would be devastating. The detonation would likely degrade or destroy operations at Cheyenne Mountain. The intense heat fro ..read more

Space forms an infinite supranational common, which, as ultimate high ground, envelops the Earth and offers significant opportunity positive or negative use. Whoever can achieve on-orbit military superiority has the potential to surround their adversary. Earth’s orbit is already littered with too much debris from a handful of anti-satellite tests and debris-generating events and has the potential to become close to unusable if Russia or China were to employ offensive capabilities against American and allied satellites. Russia’s coercive but indiscriminate “Sputnuke” concept lies at one end of ..read more

Einstein once said that he did not know how World War III would be fought, but World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones. Nuclear abolitionists, in their zeal to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle, will bring that about. Several months ago, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published an article by Zak Kallenborn in which he defended nuclear weapons and their utility. Rebuttal articles published made two fundamental arguments. First, realism predicts the unavoidability of war, which requires the elimination of nuclear weapons. Second, deterrence is unreliable because previous cl ..read more