These are confusing times in nuclear strategy.
The Obama Administration is promoting the vision of a world without nuclear weapons. At the same time, power politics and coercion are making a comeback, particularly in Asia, where repeated instances of Chinese assertiveness and the use of armed force by North Korea are unsettling US allies including South Korea, Japan and Australia. Half a world away, NATO has struggled to reconcile nuclear disarmament imperatives with concerns about Russia in its revised strategic concept. In South Asia and elsewhere, fears of nuclear terrorism are rising. And Iran's atomic ambitions could rewrite deterrence calculations across the Middle East.
All of this points to a vital question, the answer to which will be critical to international stability in the years ahead: is the age of extended nuclear deterrence (END) coming to an end? For decades, the US has made the seemingly-credible threat that it would use nuclear weapons to protect its allies against large-scale aggression — the so-called 'nuclear umbrella'. But how viable is such a strategy in a changing nuclear order and an altered strategic environment? And are there feasible, palatable alternatives?
Here at The Interpreter, we think it is time to foster a dynamic and truly global debate on this issue. To launch the exchange, we have invited contributions from four of the world's leading experts on nuclear arms control and strategy: George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Bruno Tertrais of the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, Shen Dingli of Fudan University in Shanghai, and the Lowy Institute's own Hugh White.
In the days and weeks ahead, their initial posts will be followed by other solicited contributions from prominent security thinkers and practitioners. We will also open up to the debate to readers and give the original contributors opportunity to reply and expand on their arguments. If you have your own views on the subject, please send them to Sam Roggeveen, editor of The Interpreter.
As the debate progresses, we will be interested in exploring not only the core analytical question of whether END is dead or alive, but also the policy options for the nations concerned, including those US allies who have sometimes entertained nuclear options of their own.
It should prove a fascinating, important and at times confronting conversation.
The Nuclear Reactions column is supported by the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, as part of a wider partnership between the NSP and the Lowy Institute.
Photo by Flickr user Paul [W] Campbell.
