Nuclear Weapons and Military Preparedness in the Asia-Pacific
Christine M. Leah & Natalie Treloar
1 day ago
The United States is not militarily prepared to deter conflict with China over Taiwan. Whilst American military power in the Asia-Pacific is formidable, the sheer logistical challenges of deterrence with conventional forces in a multipolar maritime theater fundamentally undermine the United States’ preparedness to fight and defeat a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan.
Alternatively, credible deterrence may be more readily achieved through the threat of low-yield nuclear weapons actively dispersed throughout the Asia-Pacific. Specifically, it is achieved through the threat of nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCM-N) deployed aboard American submarines. However, the risk of nuclear escalation and the undisclosed conditions under which Xi Jinping could use force need to be factored into American deterrence posture. These conditions likely include any attempts to introduce nuclear weapons into the Taiwan issue and any American security guarantees for the self-governing island.
Preparedness is not a well-covered concept in academic literature and is therefore not as well understood by most civilian strategic thinkers. It is chiefly a military concept for thinking about force generation and deployment. Preparedness is the sustainable capacity to apply capabilities to accomplish government-directed tasks over time. It is composed of readiness and sustainability. Readiness is the ability of a capability to be applied to a specific activity within a nominated time frame for a specified period of time to achieve a desired effect. Sustainability is the ability of a force to maintain the necessary level of combat power for the duration required to achieve its objectives.
https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-weapons-and-military-preparedness-in-the-asia-pacific/
