As the war in Ukraine drags on, the risk of Russian chemical or nuclear weapons employment, however low, goes up. The Biden administration's delayed ICBM tests and cancellation of a key weapon system could send the wrong message: that Russian nuclear saber rattling is working. Instead, the United States must bolster the credibility of our deterrent to convince Russia that employing either chemical weapons or nuclear weapons would be a grave mistake. By weakening the perceived effect of Russia's nuclear coercion it will also signal to China that similar tactics will not deter the United States from defending Taiwan.
-Rebeccah Heinrichs
Director of KDI & Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Hudson Highlights
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs | National Review
The Biden administration must make a rapid course correction and seek to convince Russia that the U.S. and NATO are not intimidated by the Kremlin's nuclear threats.
Andrew Krepinevich, Jr. | Foreign Affairs
By closing in on parity with the two existing great nuclear powers, China is heralding a paradigm shift to something much less stable: a tripolar nuclear system. In that world, there will be both a greater risk of a nuclear arms race and heightened incentives for states to resort to nuclear weapons in a crisis.
Hudson Senior Fellow William Schneider on how the Russian military could use chemical weapons in a false flag attempt in Ukraine:
"[In thinking about Putin’s possible nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons use,] it's important to bear in mind Putin's aims. They are not to produce a neutral Ukraine. They are not to keep Ukraine out of NATO. It is to absorb NATO. And his vision of a so-called Russian world, which would be a Eurasian-Russian empire that is unlike the Soviet Union, which was shaped by Stalin to be a multinational empire led by the communist ideology. Putin sees it as an all-Russian empire that would be based on Russian ethnicity. And as the late Zbigniew Brzezińskii said, Ukraine is the key to preventing the reemergence of a facsimile of the former Soviet Union."
Key Insights
Editorial Board | The Wall Street Journal
"Vladimir Putin has made veiled threats about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and the Biden Administration says it is worried. This makes it all the more puzzling that President Biden is canceling a new weapon that would be a nuclear deterrent."
Franklin Miller | The Wall Street Journal
"U.S. nuclear deterrence policy and U.S. nuclear arms-control policy have become dangerously disconnected. Longstanding deterrence policy requires that the U.S. have sufficient capacity to target what potential enemy leaders value most. Arms control is supposed to augment deterrence by limiting, and if possible reducing, the threats while allowing the U.S. to deploy a force that deters an attack on America or our allies."
David Trachtenberg | Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a clear failure of deterrence. It has demonstrated the shortcomings of what some have called ‘deterrence by detection’ or ‘deterrence by disclosure.’ Simply telling Russia we knew what they were up to by publicly releasing information about their military buildup on Ukraine’s borders was clearing inadequate to prevent them from invading. Nor did the threat of severe sanctions serve as an effective deterrent.”
Hudson Institute panel hosted by Rebeccah Heinrichs
Timothy Walton: "It's really not about a perfect defense, but rather a defense that can sustain operations at the levels that are appropriate for the campaign. I think that is a little bit more tractable… I think we've talked a lot about defense of Guam. There have been discussions on this for over a decade. Now, it's time to…pour concrete, deploy some active defenses, and integrate a more diverse architecture.
Matthew Costlow: "The worry I have with Ukraine is that China is watching that conflict in a similar way that it watched the Gulf War and learning that they should probably make nuclear threats more explicit, much earlier, and do it against the homeland, perhaps Guam to start."
In light of Ukraine and growing tensions in the South China Sea, Hudson Senior Fellow Bryan Clark explains an important difference between Russian and Chinese military doctrine:
Keith B. Payne and Matthew R. Costlow | National Institute for Public Policy
"Successful deterrence in this case is limited to the U.S. political goal of continuing to prevent the CCP from deciding to forcefully eliminate Taiwan’s political autonomy, as is specified in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). Thus, the United States should state clearly, as it did in the TRA, that it is U.S. policy to support the continuation of the political status quo on Taiwan (neither supporting Taiwan’s declaration of independence as a sovereign state, nor being forced to unite with China under the mainland’s communist political system) i.e., deterring any forceful attempt to alter the status quo."
Top Reads
Si Vis Pacem, Para [Nuclear] Bellum
Marc Livecche | Real Clear Defense
C.I.A. Director Airs Concern That Putin Might Turn to Nuclear Weapons
David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes | The New York Times
U.S. Strategic Command Chief: Sea Missile Cancellation Opens ‘Deterrence and Assurance Gap’
Joe Gould | Defense News
U.S. Sees Rising Risk in ‘Breathtaking’ China Nuclear Expansion
Roxana Tiron | Bloomberg
STRATCOM Chief Bucks White House on Low-Yield Nukes
Tony Bertuca | Inside Defense
Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s Crisis of Nuclear Credibility
Tyler Bowen | War on the Rocks
