Nuclear security

Can Two Nuclear Powers Fight a Conventional War?

As the U.S. military reviews the makeup of its nuclear arsenal, among the questions being asked is: Can two nuclear powers fight a conventional war without going nuclear?

Just last week, this scenario was among the mock battles when U.S. Strategic Command ran its annual Global Thunder nuclear wargame, Army Brig. Gen. Greg Bowen, the command’s deputy director of global operations, said Thursday at the Defense One Summit.

“It gets into a very difficult calculus,” Bowen said. “It’s clearly a place that we don’t want to go.”

That’s because when one country begins to lose a conventional battle, there is a temptation to use those nuclear weapons.

“If you’re talking about India and Pakistan, I think every scenario people play is that it goes nuclear,” said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, who joined Bowen for an onstage discussion. “You have a nuclear war in South Asia, that’s a global event. That will affect us and not just economically.”

During a six-day trip to four Air Force nuclear bases last month, Gen. David Goldfein, the service’s chief of staff, asked airmen to think about new ways that nuclear weapons could be used for deterrence, or even combat.