Nuclear security

Nuclear Weapons: What Are They Good For?

With both China and Russia now threatening U.S. global primacy, the world has entered a new era of great-power competition. The struggle is playing out in diplomacy, trade, and politics, of course. But some of its gravest implications are military.

Ukraine and the South China Sea are only the most obvious hot spots. The three countries are vying for influence from East Africa to Latin America to the ever-melting Arctic. And as President Donald Trump made clear with his recent decision to withdraw from America’s 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Weapons Treaty with Russia, the threat of nuclear conflict may be rising again to Cold War levels.

The challenge for today’s military planners is to prevent nuclear war as thoroughly as their Cold War predecessors did. For it’s true that, since 1945, no atomic weapons have been dropped in anger. With the potential exception of the Cuban missile crisis, the possibility never came very close. And over the past three decades, the major powers’ nuclear arsenals have steadily been reduced.