How to Survive the New Nuclear Age

Vipin and I published a new article in Foreign Affairs attempting to cover how the nuclear landscape has changed in the past 15 years, and what it means for U.S. national security.

When approached by Foreign Affairs to try and capture the nuclear landscape after 2-3 years in government, Vipin and I realized just how much the world changed since we started working on nuclear issues. In researching for such an expansive article, the breadth of nuclear developments in the past decade, and the concentration of so many geopolitical events adjacent to nuclear issues during our recent tenure in government took us by surprise. I hope we were able to capture our experience from 2021-2025 in this article.

Importantly, we felt any discussion of the global nuclear landscape needed to span strategy, policy, posture, military capabilities, and diplomacy. The various specialties in the “nuclear community” often lead to stove piped research and publications; deeper and more technical expertise and writings removed from the bigger national security picture. It is easy to make the case for saving money on nuclear weapons without addressing the political and military needs of “umbrella” allies or new threats emanating from adversaries. It’s similarly easy to view every foreign policy problem as naturally addressed through a new military capability. We leapt at the opportunity to try and tie some of these disparate threads together and make the case for how the United States needs to approach nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation, and arms control in this new era, where dreary geopolitics and nuclear weapons are colliding.

The specific recommendations on changes to U.S. nuclear posture and arms control approaches in our article are our judgments, and will continue to be the source of debate for years to come. However, hopefully the main point - that nuclear weapons are central to core national security dilemmas facing U.S. leaders, and senior officials moving forward need to develop comfort with nuclear affairs and the farsighted nature of nuclear deterrence and nonproliferation developments - will not be controversial.

Hope you enjoy, and here’s a gift link for your reading pleasure: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/tTmePE23v1s