What Does the Pentagon Truly Need for Nuclear Deterrence To Stop Russia & China?

by Peter Huessy, Senior Nuclear Weapons Analyst, Center for Military Modernization

The nature of nuclear deterrence is not fully understood in part because critics of nuclear modernization believe US restraint would engender reciprocal moves by adversaries such as China and Russia and establish deterrence at an equal level where no nation seeks to “play the nuclear card” and gain the military upper hand.

For example, in 2021 after the Commander of US Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, presented testimony to Congress about the dire state of the projected international nuclear balance, a number of critics claimed the Admiral had unnecessarily exaggerated the nuclear threat, especially from China and Russia.

Furthermore, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Issacs, for example, writing for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, described the Admiral’s Hill testimony as both misleading, and mistaken in seeking “nuclear dominance” and the ability to “prevail” in a nuclear war.

Examining the Admiral’s testimony and much of his previous and subsequent remarks, however, reveals no call for US ability to “fight and win” a nuclear war, and then as Wilson and Issacs noted “rule over the ashes that remained.”

The Admiral did call for deterrence and the ability to compel an adversary not to cross the nuclear threshold, in addition to not undertaking conventional aggression.

But Wilson and Issacs do not seem to have understand the Admiral’s conception of deterrence, either as part of his Congressional testimony as well as some of the Admirals other observations, one in the February 2021 issue of Proceedings and later remarks the Admiral made to a NDIA conference in Alabama later that year.

In Proceedings, the Admiral warned that if the if the US failed to fix the gap in US nuclear deterrent strategy as perceived by Russia and China, the US would run the risk “of developing plans we cannot execute and procuring capabilities that will not deliver desired outcomes.”