ABSTRACT
Introduction In the years ahead, the United States will confront a wide array of security challenges that include preserving strategic stability with a nuclear peer competitor, deterring the use of nuclear weapons by rogue nations, dissuading smaller nuclear powers from nuclear arms racing, preventing non-nuclear states from crossing the nuclear threshold, and preventing nuclear terrorism. These trends underscore the complexities of nuclear strategy, doctrine, and force structure, and support the premise that the United States must make quantitative and qualitative adjustments to its nuclear triad and current deterrence strategies to counter multiple nuclear threats in the strategic environment of the future. The American strategic arsenal of the twenty-first century must maintain strategic stability with Russia and China, deter potential regional adversaries, and assure allies and partners under the American nuclear umbrella. Because of its seven decade record of success, American allies protected by the nuclear umbrella have chosen not to develop their own nuclear arsenal, a point too many elected officials and scholars take for granted. Nuclear abolitionists and other groups are calling for reductions in the nuclear arsenal and a new commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. Other groups have proposed significant reductions in the number of nuclear weapons or reductions in the number and mix of nuclear delivery systems. This chapter will assess the future strategic environment from the perspective of US nuclear weapons policy, deterrence policy, the cost and structure of the nation’s deterrent capability, and the future threat environment in order to discuss the quantitative and qualitative adjustments that are required for the nuclear triad and current deterrence strategies to counter multiple nuclear threats in the future. As long as these nuclear threats endure, the United States must have a strong nuclear deterrent that is safe, secure, and effective in meeting its security needs and those of its allies.
