ABSTRACT
The chapter begins with an analysis of past nuclear policy and then examines the nuclear challenges on the Trump agenda and considers the policy options for managing these challenges. The most destabilizing policies are those that erode deterrence by giving one actor an apparent nuclear edge or that erode the credibility of America’s extended nuclear deterrence. Such policies risk undoing decades of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation policy and emboldening others to acquire nuclear arsenals or nuclear-weapons capability.
