From the Editor's Desk

Deterring the Nuclear Dictators - Foreign Affairs (No paywall)

For more than three decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States and its allies faced no serious nuclear threats. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been rattling his nuclear saber in a manner reminiscent of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Chinese President Xi Jinping has directed a dramatic buildup of China’s nuclear arsenal, a project whose size and scope the recently retired commander of U.S. Strategic Command has described as “breathtaking.” The Russian and Chinese leaders have also signed a treaty of “friendship without limits.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is supplying weapons and troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, and North Korea is improving its ability to strike both its neighbors and the U.S. homeland with nuclear weapons, as it demonstrated with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch on October 31.

These developments pose far-reaching challenges to U.S. national security. The United States no longer has the luxury of ignoring nuclear dangers and concentrating on deterring a single adversary. To address this new reality, the Biden administration has modified U.S. nuclear targeting guidance in order to be able to deter China and Russia simultaneously. It is also developing new nuclear delivery systems, platforms, and warheads. But Washington’s efforts to modernize the aging U.S. nuclear deterrent have been hampered by inadequate industrial base capacity, materials and labor shortages, and funding gaps. What needs to be done is clear: the next administration should dispense with undertaking an extensive review of either the nuclear deterrence policy or the modernization plans. There is a huge need to just get on with the work of modernization and fix the problems.

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