In mid-2020, the Louisiana Tech Research Institute publishedGuide to Nuclear Deterrence in an Age of Great Power Competition, a twenty-three chapter handbook written by the country’s top nuclear experts, including former senior military commanders.
Recently, Alan Kaptanoglu and Stewart Prager reviewed the book for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, condemning it for advocating nuclear warfighting.
For decades, the disarmament community has held that the United States’ counterforce deterrent strategy—that holds an adversary’s nuclear assets at risk—is actually a “war fighting strategy.” These critics hold that a nuclear war can never be “won.”
First, the only cohesive view in the book is that nuclear deterrence is a critical requirement for the United States. Neither Global Strike Command nor any other entity gave any direction to the authors. Period.
Second, Kaptanoglu and Prager’s review makes additional false claims that directly relate to the warfighting charge. For example, the review claims that the book is hostile to arms control. My chapter on strategic stability credits several former U.S. presidents with negotiating successful arms control treaties that reduced deployed strategic nuclear forces by nearly 90 percent. Certainly, some arms control agreements (such as START I) improve U.S. security. But given the long record of Soviet and now Russian cheating and treaty non-compliance, ensuring that arms agreements are highly verifiable is necessary—though highly difficult.
Also critical is the need to avoid harmful concessions. Both Russia’s massive strategic warhead upload capability under New START and the thousands of Russia’s unregulated regional and medium-range nuclear weapons are prime examples.
Further, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was not and is not required for arms control to take place.
