Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review Avoids Hard Choices
The administration appears to have used the prospect of “great power competition” as cover for a status quo-oriented NPR that tinkers at most with the margins of U.S. nuclear posture.
However, on the negative side of the ledger, such an undertaking could contribute to a potential pathway to “inadvertent nuclear escalation risk” by bringing into stark relief the continued nuclear asymmetry between China and the United States. Here, as Robert Ayson notes, the question becomes “can either of the two sides (and especially the United States) put at risk the conventional forces of the other side (and especially China’s) without also endangering the target country’s nuclear forces?” From China’s perspective, the answer could well be “no” in the event of a crisis and incentivize it to escalate due to fears of U.S. conventional or nuclear counterforce strikes.
The NPR’s approach to declaratory policy, force composition, and the strategy that underpins it thus ultimately recenters nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy. But it does so in a manner that is neither whole-hearted nor coherent.
Dr. Michael Clarke is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Defence Research, Australian Defence College, and Adjunct Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, UTS.
Image: Reuters.