For a very long time, from Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991, much of the world dreaded nuclear annihilation. There were attempts to diminish that peril through superpower summits and arms control agreements, but the threat of catastrophe never truly disappeared. Then, with the end of the cold war, the perceived risk of nuclear war largely evaporated, and few gave much thought to the mammoth stockpiles of atomic weapons still in place. But now the threat of nuclear war has returned, as the major powers undertake plans to modernise those arsenals and contemplate their use.
The principal nuclear powers – the US, Russia and China – are all engaged in weapons modernisation, but no government has embraced this new era of atomic rehabilitation with greater fervour than the administration of President Donald Trump. On 2 February the US defence department released a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), envisioning the use of nuclear weapons under a wider range of circumstances than previously allowed and calling for more atomic munitions to make this possible.
By ‘nuclear posture’ the Pentagon means an assessment of the global security environment; a formal statement of US policy regarding the use of atomic weapons; and an inventory of the weapons deemed necessary to implement it. The new NPR is very clear on all these points. The US, it says, faces wider threats than ever before, including increased hostility from, and military assertiveness by, Russia and China. In response, US nuclear policy must be revised to afford the president greater leeway in the use of nuclear weapons, and munitions must be acquired to facilitate such actions, when and if necessary.
One might conclude that the US is at a military disadvantage vis-à-vis Russia or China, and desperately needs to rebuild its defences. Nothing could be further from the truth: the US has overwhelming superiority in conventional military forces and a vast, (...)
