nuclear-news

America’s out-dated Cold War nuclear strategy

The Cold War Is Long Gone, but the Nuclear Threat Is Still Here The Atlantic, Dec 20 2011, America’s nuclear strategy hasn’t changed much since the Soviet Union fell, but the world’s nuclear dangers have.   In the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the nuclear challenges facing the United States have changed radically. American nuclear strategy has not.

American nuclear forces are largely designed to deter a superpower that no longer exists. Meanwhile, nuclear and missile technology is more widely available than ever to outlier states like Iran and North Korea, and Americans continue to worry about a nuclear weapon winding
up in the hands of a terrorist.
American nuclear strategy has three main goals in the 21st century.
First, ensure that nuclear weapons are not used against the United
States or its allies. Nuclear deterrence still plays a key role in the
modern world. Second, convince or compel other states not to acquire
nuclear weapons. Third, secure nuclear weapons and dangerous nuclear
materials against theft or diversion to terrorist groups.

Current strategy is heavily geared towards the first goal of deterring
nuclear weapons, a legacy of the Cold War arms race. Efforts towards
the second and third goals have been incomplete.

During the Cold War, the rival superpowers threatened one another with
large numbers of nuclear weapons. Most were far more powerful than the
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These weapons helped to
maintain a shaky peace between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Many of the weapons on both sides were available for almost immediate
use to deter a massive surprise attack, potentially involving
thousands of nuclear weapons, from the other.

This basic posture, with large numbers of weapons capable of
destroying an entire city available for rapid use, continues today,
even though the U.S. military no longer fears a large-scale Russian
attack. No other nation in the world has sufficient nuclear forces to
even attempt a disabling nuclear first strike on the United
States……The United States has choices to make about its nuclear
strategy. In a constrained budget environment, the United States will
need to make the investments to combat today’s nuclear threats, rather
than the threats of past decades.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/the-cold-war-is-long-gone-but-the-nuclear-threat-is-still-here/249867/

December 29, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war