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‘Blurring line between conventional, nuclear forces’: Expert’s warning for Pentagon’s strategy review

The Pentagon’s review of US nuclear strategy risks blurring the line between conventional and nuclear forces and lowering the threshold for nuclear war, nuclear policy expert Joe Cirincione has warned.

FP News Desk, |Sep 15, 2026, https://www.firstpost.com/world/us-department-of-defense-nuclear-strategy-review-tactical-nukes-war-threshold-expert-warning-global-war-14045964.html#goog_rewarded

The US Department of Defense is drafting a new nuclear strategy, and it appears set to be a recipe for disaster, nuclear policy analyst Joe Cirincione has warned.

Undersecretary of Defense (Policy) Elbridge Colby is leading the review of American nuclear strategy and has said he is looking at ways of “expanding options” available to President Donald Trump and providing the “decision space for any conceivable escalation scenario”.

Such an approach risks lowering the threshold for nuclear war and blurring the line between conventional and nuclear forces, Cirincione warned in an article for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The expansion of options is understood to involve the development and induction of lower-yield nuclear weapons, commonly known as tactical nuclear weapons, for use within a theatre or region rather than being launched with the intention of attacking an entire nation.

Tactical nukes lead to global war in all war games, expert warns

While supporters of the approach, such as Colby, argue that lowering the nuclear threshold means an adversary would know they would lose at every rung of the escalation ladder, critics argue that the approach is fundamentally flawed because it would make nuclear confrontations more likely.

Cirincione noted that almost every war game involving the use of tactical nuclear weapons has resulted in rapid escalation into global war. He also highlighted that supporters of tactical nuclear weapons never explain exactly where and how these new weapons would be used.

“More recent war games involving artificial intelligence find that AI models escalate to global war 95 per cent of the time. Nor do they say why more weapons will increase confidence in US security assurances when the main cause of unease among US allies is the behavior of an erratic, authoritarian president, not the lack of weapons,” Cirincione further said.

Critics such as author Annie Jacobsen have also argued that the notion that a tactical nuclear strike could remain localised is a myth. She has previously said that, regardless of the type of weapon used, a nuclear strike would almost certainly plunge the world into a near-extinction conflict.

“No matter how nuclear war begins, if Nato’s involved or not, if tactical nuclear weapons are used or not, if China is involved or not, it still ends in nuclear armageddon. That was my north star,” Jacobsen told Task and Purpose in an interview.

The Trump administration is also taking steps towards developing and inducting such weapons and putting in place a strategy that would allow for their use. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has already lowered the threshold for nuclear strikes and has frequently threatened the West with attacks since launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Observers have said that such posturing by the world’s two largest nuclear powers places the world in a highly precarious position.

September 17, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA