Or the United States could expand its currently deployed force of strategic weapons by more heavily MIRVing its sea-based deterrent and adding two warheads to each Minuteman III or new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) land-based missile, as well as building defenses specifically against hypersonic cruise missiles.

Or the United States could combine offensive and defensive modernization options with a ban on MIRVed land-based missiles which would largely eliminate the threat of massive pre-emption. A country would need far more land-based missiles—upwards of 1,000—each with single warheads to take out the U.S. land-based force. The New START Treaty limits such platforms to no more than 700—ensuring single-warhead ICBMs pose no destabilizing strategic threat. (Especially in that targeting generally assumes two warheads would be needed against each target to assure the target’s destruction.)

Whether trying to deter a massive or limited strike using nuclear warheads, a robust, land-based single-warhead missile force spread out over many thousands of square miles, plus a robust spaced-base missile defense, would so complicate an adversary’s first strike calculations as to make such a strike not credible. On the other hand, as missile defense expert Tom Karako explained, all defenses are limited in the sense they are not going to be nor do they need to be perfect.

Missile defenses add to deterrence as they make first strikes untenable because such pre-emptive type strikes would not be able to achieve their objectives. Ironically, however, a retaliatory strike cannot be stopped entirely, as multiple weapons are going to get through. But an initial strike, especially one of limited numbers, can be blunted or stopped, eliminating to a large extent Russia and China’s “escalate to win” strategy.

What then might future U.S. policy be? The United States could combine a proposed ban or limits on MIRVed land-based missiles, with a vigorous space-based missile defense for the United States and its allies. Directed-energy and hypersonic speed systems should be part of that too. Both the early and limited use of nuclear weapons and a massive Armageddon-type attack can be deterred.

Peter Huessy is President of Geostrategic Analysis and Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute.

Image: Reuters.