U.S. Must Counter Collective Nuclear Blackmail
By Dan Leaf & Howard Thompson
June 18, 2022(Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service via AP)
Social, economic and security challenges aplenty have marked what is becoming a tumultuous 2022. The most significant of all the problem sets may be the emergence of a new norm in nuclear doctrine – blackmail. That approach is in stark contrast to the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction, where major powers – United States, the USSR, and China – viewed atomic attack as truly a last resort. The United States must now seriously consider its options to counter a new collective nuclear blackmail.
New Paradigm
For decades, the U.S. nuclear policy and posture has been to deter and, if necessary, defend against missile attacks on the U.S. homeland, our territories, and our allies. In an environment of Mutually Assured Destruction, presidential administration after administration assumed that the Soviets, and later the Russians and Chinese, believed what we believed – that a strategic nuclear exchange was suicidal for all parties and, therefore, highly unlikely.
The Mutually Assured Destruction premise rests squarely on a balance of power. Originally limited to two nuclear clubs – NATO and the Warsaw Pact – the antagonists had sufficient offensive and defensive capability to make a first strike foolhardy. Enhanced defensive capabilities have been offset by the development of Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicles. China’s nuclear capability remained comparatively small as the Warsaw Pact dissolved and NATO expanded. The lineups changed, but the cataclysmic calculus was still the same zero-sum standoff.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/06/18/us_must_counter_collective_nuclear_blackmail_838067.html
