ABSTRACT
This chapter considers pertinent policy challenges to nuclear-strategic stability in Asia and analyzes some options for more or less stable configurations of Asian nuclear weapons states. United States policy has been to support the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), requiring non-nuclear state subscribers to the treaty to abjure the option of nuclear weapons. Uncertainty about the rate of nuclear weapons spread in future Asia is in contrast to the comparative stability of the Cold War experience. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons spread from state to state at a slower rate than pessimists projected. The 'elephant in the room' thus far unmentioned is the rising economic and military power of China relative to that of the United States and other nuclear weapons states. According to Lawrence J. Korb and Alexander Rothman, the United States should adopted an unconditional 'no first use' policy for its nuclear weapons and urge other nuclear weapons states to do likewise.
