Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Henry Sokolski
The administration is courting serious risks to global stability by neglecting any strategy around nuclear proliferation.
Although commentators have extensively critiqued President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy, they’ve neglected what’s missing. Throughout the document’s 33 pages, there is no mention of nuclear extended deterrence and nonproliferation.
That’s worrisome. America’s security has long depended on the proper treatment of these two related matters. Ignoring them or misconstruing their connection is risky.
Consider the academic argument that more nuclear-armed states might be better. Some realists insist Washington should encourage America’s friends to go nuclear as a cheap way to keep the peace. Adopting this policy, however, would unplug one of America’s most successful stratagems, extending America’s nuclear deterrent by committing to use it, if necessary, to protect its allies. It is odd that the National Security Strategy doesn’t speak about this.
Perhaps the omission simply reflects the Trump administration’s optimism that the Golden Dome will protect America from missile threats. However, establishing this missile defense system will take time. Until then, America’s security and that of its allies will depend, as it has for decades, on threatening to project force and, if necessary, to use nuclear weapons to deter our enemies.
Hardcore isolationists might bridle at this. But extended deterrence has helped prevent repeat performances of the total wars that Americans were dragged into in 1917 and 1941. It also kept the Cold War from escalating into a hot one.
Certainly, if South Korea or Saudi Arabia went nuclear, they’d be more likely to explore what they could gain by working more closely with China, Russia, and other bad actors. Why is that a problem? World War I and World War II began, in no small part, with risky diplomatic experiments to cope with a world arming to the teeth.
In 1939, Poland tried to save its skin by signing a non-aggression pact with German chancellor Adolf Hitler; it only egged him on. Meanwhile, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin agreed to turn a blind eye to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in exchange for his own cut of Polish territory. Similarly, before World War I, European powers frantically piled up secret diplomatic security guarantees as they simultaneously planned military mobilizations.
Did these sophisticated maneuvers produce peace and stability? They did not. Yet, now we are to believe that spreading more potent nuclear ammunition among smaller states will?
Enthusiasts for winding down extended deterrence say yes. Why station US troops overseas or spend billions to project force to protect America’s friends, they argue, when, with nuclear arms, our friends could defend themselves? America could then pull back and spend less on its own defense. Maybe, but history suggests otherwise. After Britain, France, Israel, and Pakistan went nuclear, America actually spent more, not less, on defense.
As for serving US security interests by staying out of other people’s wars, it’s an appealing argument. Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Senator William Borah, and Father Charles Coughlin all made it prior to World War II, as did President Woodrow Wilson from 1914 to 1917. America followed this advice, but in doing so, only slowed its preparations for the fights into which it was eventually dragged anyway.
American efforts at conventional deterrence prior to World War I and World War II were weak and ineffective. Today, what’s required for effective conventional and nuclear deterrence is even higher. Contrary to the desire to limit defense spending, such deterrence requires constant upgrades to military command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and delivery systems to remain credible.
Initially, new, small nuclear forces are relatively vulnerable. That’s why extended deterrence has been one of America’s most effective nonproliferation strategies. It helped keep Italy, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Germany, Turkey, and Taiwan from going nuclear or gaming the system.
Encouraging allies to go nuclear would be different. If Washington encouraged Seoul to get a bomb, a dovish South Korean president could ask American forces to leave the peninsula. What if the two Koreas, now both with nuclear arsenals, then decided to confederate?
History gives us a peek into other possibilities. In 1956, Israel joined Great Britain and France to seize the Suez Canal. Russia threatened to intervene and use its nuclear weapons. President Dwight Eisenhower had to forceBritain, France, and Israel to withdraw. Would matters have been eased if Israel had its own bomb? In 2003, the belief that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear program sucked American military forces into the region for almost a decade. In a smaller repeat performance, this June, the Pentagon bombed Iran’s nuclear fuel-making plants after Israel failed to get the job done.
To avoid a future that rhymes even more explosively with this history, the world needs fewer, not more, nuclear-armed states. Towards this end, Washington must extend, rather than truncate, effective security guarantees. Any security strategy worthy of the name would detail how best to achieve both.
About the Author: Henry Sokolski
Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He was deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Department of Defense (1989–1993), and is the author of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War (2024).
