As Russo-American Tensions Rise, Nuclear Policy Must Stay Grounded

As Russia encroaches on Ukraine’s sovereignty, it bears remembering: the United States currently has over a thousand nuclear weapons currently deployed, hundreds of which can be launched in five minutes of the President deciding to initiate a strike. Russia is similarly armed. And yet since the fall of the USSR, nuclear policy has lost the public’s attention. The foundational philosophy behind America’s nuclear arsenal, the doctrine of deterrence, fundamentally posits a morally abhorrent argument—namely, as James Doyle wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “that it is necessary and acceptable for individual nations to seek security for their citizens by threatening to annihilate the populations of other nations.” President Obama’s 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal and President Trump’s 2017 “fire and fury” episode with North Korea each brought brief bumps of attention to the issue, but interest swiftly waned. Even Gallup, the premier American issue opinion pollster, does not consistently poll on American public attitudes towards our own nuclear arsenal. Now, Russia is invading Ukraine and performatively testing nuclear-capable missiles. So it is with unnerving timing that the Biden administration will soon release its Nuclear Posture Review—the document each administration puts forward to enumerate America’s nuclear policy under its current president. Regardless of Russian provocation, the Biden administration must de-escalate America’s nuclear weapons policy; maintaining a threatening posture only raises the risk of attack.

A brief primer: the current nuclear-armed countries, America included, all maintain their arsenals because of the nuclear deterrence doctrine. This is a national security philosophy that essentially says, only by maintaining the credible threat of major nuclear retaliation can an adversary be effectively prevented from using a nuclear bomb first. A few more terms: first use refers to when a country initiates a nuclear strike without having already been attacked with nuclear force, this is what deterrence is trying to prevent. Second use refers to nuclear retaliation when attacked with nuclear force, this is what deterrence relies on. But crucially, as Tom Collina, director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund, explains, “What’s necessary for deterrence is second use. That’s the whole point…First use is not required for deterrence.”

And yet the US has maintained, over decades of Nuclear Posture Reviews, a first use stance, saying that America will not constrain itself against launching a nuclear attack in circumstances other than in retaliation for a nuclear attack. In fact, the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review stated explicitly that the United States has the authority to respond to non-nuclear attacks like cyber-attacks with nuclear force. It also planned for the deployment of lower-yield nuclear weapons, which, being less catastrophically destructive, are easier to include in tactical war plans—an ease that leads to increased risk of use. The US additionally relies on a launch on warning policy, which means that America holds the position that a nuclear strike can be legitimately launched upon warning from weapons detections systems of an incoming nuclear attack. These postures, first use and launch on warning, may seem reasonable at a glance. However, they present very real and well documented risks.

Nuclear deterrence relies on a commitment to retaliation. By incorporating a first use policy into deterrence, America adds a destabilizing element into the mix; it increases the threat from the US to enemy states, which in return raises the risk that an adversary would want to attempt a preemptive first strike. Launch on warning is similarly unwise—nuclear attack detection systems have failed on multiple occasions over the past 50 years, due to both human and machine error. And as cyber warfare gains sophistication and detection systems age, they will become more vulnerable to malicious hacking, with potentially catastrophic consequences. Both the United States and Russia have more than once come terrifyingly close to launching nuclear attacks based on faulty information showing a non-existent incoming strike.

We do not need to be in this position.

Nuclear weapons are so powerful that they changed the historical trajectory of warfare; in a nuclear conflict, for the first time ever, the attacker has the military advantage instead of the defender. Nuclear deterrence was conceived to mitigate this advantage. As long as nuclear weapons continue to be maintained as part of global arsenals, deterrence, with all its many risks, may be the only viable solution. But there is no good reason not to de-escalate to the extent possible within the current paradigm. Even though Russia is instigating violence in Europe, the Biden administration can and must recognize that the nuclear arsenal is not a place to demonstrate reciprocal bellicosity. Quite the opposite; the United States should be recognizing that there is no strategy to maintaining a first-strike posture, only an outdated egoism.

Tensions between nuclear-armed countries are rising in a way unseen since the Cold War, and for all the arms reductions that have occurred, the United States and Russia each still have nuclear arsenals that are more than destructive enough to literally end human society on Earth. With the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review, the Biden administration has an opportunity to show that, even in the face of Russian hostilities, the United States recognizes the importance of removing its metaphorical hand from the nuclear trigger. This is not 1945—nukes are no longer assistive for national defense. Rather, the whole world becomes a more dangerous place when nuclear weapons gain tactical precedence.