ABSTRACT
For the past few decades, successive US administrations have pursued strategic non-nuclear capabilities to augment nuclear weapons for certain national security functions and missions. But as the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review makes clear, nuclear weapons continue to fulfil major strategic functions for the United States. Because US military planners have been keen to maximise the benefits of technological change, particularly for conventional deterrence and war-fighting, the United States could fit the bill of a “Technological Transformer” (especially in the past). However, the emergence of a new context whereby Washington is confronted by two major nuclear-armed “revisionist” powers in Russia and China has fundamentally strengthened the role of nuclear weapons for both homeland and extended deterrence. Indeed, it is arguably US nuclear capabilities that allow for its allies to pursue non-nuclear technological solutions to their immediate security concerns. The United States remains committed to maintaining the shape of the current nuclear order through established governance and arms control architectures centred on the NPT, but there is also a recognition that the Third Nuclear Age will be defined by competition rather than cooperation and possibly a greater rather than reduced role for nuclear weapons.
