Lowell’s article Orbis.

Austin’s as well.

Strategic Simplicity is a collection of content provided for free by experts, many of whom worked with one another in a variety of jobs. The written or podcast content is solely for education purposes, and in no way reflects the views of the U.S. government, MIT, or other entities.

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

James Acton notes that during the war ‘the United States launched about 1,500 sorties against Scud launchers … not a single mobile launcher was confirmed destroyed.’ Gerson cites GWAPS [Gulf War Air Power Survey] to the effect that ‘[E]ven in the face of intense efforts to find and destroy them, the mobile launchers proved remarkably elusive and survivable.’ The failure in the ‘Scud hunt’ is seen as particularly relevant to targeting Chinese nuclear forces. In discussion of China’s movement to road mobile ICBMs, for example, China analyst James Mulvenon notes:

If one factors in US continuing failures with ‘Scud-hunting’ for mobile missiles, China may soon arrive at a stable equilibrium …whereby a US preemptive first strike would not be capable of sufficiently degrading China’s forces such that the currently planned architecture of missile defenses could reliably catch the stragglers.

While references to the Scud Hunt have become less common in the past decade, the analogy still pops up. Yet the available evidence from recent operations, particularly Operation Epic Fury, confirms that the Scud Hunt analogy is past its sell-by date, at least as a blanket confirmation of the impossibility of successful counterforce operations against mobile missiles. Yet recent operations also show there are still limits on targeting mobile missiles, with conventional munitions in particular being suboptimal.

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The Good News: ISR and Conditional Success at Relatively Low Cost

While initial battle damage assessment (BDA) is often wrong, as it was in the 1991 Scud Hunt, there is a sufficient amount of publicly available video and still imagery of contemporary strikes (both June 2025 and March 2026) on Iranian mobile missiles (at least long-range ballistic missiles) to indicate successful targeting. That imagery could show strikes on decoys, but at least some of the strikes show the sort of secondary explosions and fire one would anticipate from a strike on an armed missile launcher. Unlike the Scud Hunt, many launchers were found with sufficient fidelity to target them- an at least conditional success of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

Israeli pre-strike imagery of an Iranian TEL. Screenshot courtesy of TWZ.

Many of the successful strikes in Epic Fury appear to have been conducted by or enabled by loitering MQ-9 Reaper drones (or equivalent Israeli platforms). While the United States reportedly lost more than twenty Reapers, it claims to have struck many more mobile launchers. Press reports of Israeli briefings early in Epic Fury indicated around 200 ballistic missile launchers had been destroyed, about half Iran’s force. Later reports indicated a lower percentage destroyed, but more than half destroyed or trapped in underground facilities. This suggests a rough exchange rate of one Reaper (~$30 million dollar cost) for every 5-10 launchers. Whatever else one says about this element of Epic Fury, it was wildly more successful than the Scud Hunt.

The Bad News: Conventional Munitions May Now Be the Limitation

While finding launchers seems to have gone reasonably well, the conventional munitions to destroy located launchers appear wanting in two respects. First, as noted above, Iran protected many of its launchers in underground facilities. U.S. conventional munitions for attacking underground facilities have improved since the first Gulf War, but still have fundamental physics limits.

For example, the 5000-lb BLU-113 penetrating bomb has been replaced first with the BLU-122 and now the the GBU-72 (aka the Advanced 5000-lb or A5K). A similar evolution is occurring with the largest conventional earth penetrator, the 30,000-lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP aka GBU-57), which will be replaced by the recently announced Next Generation Penetrator (NGP aka GBU-76). These upgrades enhance accuracy, explosive power, and hardness of the bomb but do not fundamentally change the limitations of conventional explosive power and penetration.

When employed in Operation Epic Fury against hardened missile storage, existing penetrating weapons, including GBU-72, appear to have had limited effect. Most unclassified reporting suggests these attacks were effective in closing the portals in to these facilities but not in destroying the storage areas and stored missile launchers. In contrast, the 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer strike on the Fordow enrichment facility appears to have been more effective, but required heavy application of the MOP as well as very good intelligence on the facility as the attacks targeted air vents. Such an attack would be difficult if not impossible to replicate at large scale.

The other munition limitation is in terms of prompt stand-off strike. Many of the attacks on deployed TELs appear to have been made with subsonic munitions with relatively limited stand-off e.g. glide bombs. This relatively slow time of attack works reasonably well with persistent ISR, such as loitering MQ-9s, the ability to do in-flight target updates, and good terminal seekers. However, the ability to target using less persistent ISR- e.g. a fleeting satellite image or SIGINT cue- is much more limited without prompt (i.e. very fast moving) munitions that either have a very large lethal radius or a very effective terminal seeker.

This combination of promptness and lethality is required to make up for any error in location given a target like a TEL can move some distance in the time required for even prompt munitions to be targeted and arrive (as I have described elsewhere with regard to targeting SSBNs). The requirement for persistent rather than fleeting ISR means that existing munitions will make conventional counterforce operations difficult to scale up given the limited number and vulnerability of platforms like MQ-9. Systems like the hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike/Long-range Hypersonic Weapon (CPS/LRHW) will address this gap to some degree but given their cost ($63-71 million per missile) there will be in high demand and low numbers.

The Ugly (?) News: Nuclear Munitions Much More Effective for Counterforce

Nuclear weapons are, bluntly, more effective against hardened and mobile targets than conventional weapons. This should be obvious but it is worth a brief recounting. A 2005 National Academies study on earth penetrating weapons forthrightly notes “Nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy targets deep underground or in tunnels.” Such destruction requires nuclear weapons that penetrate into the ground before detonating as this penetration much more effectively couples the energy of the nuclear explosion to the ground. The National Academies study notes a 20 fold or more increase in effective yield against deeply buried targets from detonating even a relatively small distance underground versus on the surface. Unlike conventional munitions, the ground shock from a nuclear earth penetrating weapon can potentially crush deeply buried targets, destroying them without having to actually penetrate into the facility before detonating.

The United States currently fields one gravity bomb “to hold selected deeply buried targets at risk.” This bomb, the B61-11, was rapidly fielded in the 1990s, and was based on the existing B61-7 bomb. While laudable for its speed of deployment, the fact that the weapon was not purpose built for penetration meant that is has limits (as an aside, I can’t keep repeating the word “penetration” without providing a link to this classic). As the National Academies study notes “Because changes to the nuclear system and warhead electrical system were not allowed, the survivable deceleration level of the B61-11 was limited to the deceleration limits of the B61-7 internal components.” In other words the outside of the bomb is hardened but there was and is probably an upper bound to the hardness of the soil it could strike and effectively penetrate and detonate as harder soil yields faster deceleration.

B61-11 test unit impacting concrete target. Image courtesy of Sandia National Laboratory.

Given this limit, it is unsurprising that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has begun developmental work on a new earth penetrating nuclear weapon. The system, briefly mentioned in NNSA’s budget documents for 2027, has been described further by an NNSA spokesperson: “The Nuclear Deterrent System-Air-delivered will provide the President with additional nuclear options to defeat Hard and Deeply Buried Targets, ensuring that adversaries cannot place their most valued assets beyond the reach of America’s nuclear forces…” While little else is known about the system, it highlights that the U.S. government realizes it has a hardened and deeply buried target problem that is beyond the reach of conventional munitions and is working on a more effective solution. In a nuclear conflict, facilities such as Iran’s so-called underground missile cities will not offer the sanctuary they have provided during Epic Fury.

Prompt nuclear weapons also offer a more effective solution for mobile targets outside deep underground facilities. The combination of fast time of arrival (for ballistic missiles it is on the order of single digit minutes for intermediate range, tens of minutes for intercontinental range) and large lethal radius means that the ISR demands for targeting are much lower. As noted, fleeting SIGINT cues may be sufficient (possibly in combination with imagery satellites) to enable targeting. At a minimum, some degree of barrage targeting (i.e. covering the entirety of the area the mobile system could be in with lethal effect) is possible. As the seminal study on MX missile basing describes, much would depend on how good the initial cue is, whether the mobile system is in continuous motion or stationary a significant amount of time, whether the TEL can move off-road, and other details.

Conclusion

Recent operations should put a stake in the heart of the Scud Hunt analogy. Yet conventional counterforce, while promising for some targets and in some circumstances, continues to have limits- albeit increasingly on the munitions rather than ISR side. Nuclear weapons continue to provide much greater capability for counterforce against both deeply buried and mobile targets- a fact unlikely to change soon absent a technical breakthrough of some kind.

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The author, Camp Fallujah, summer 2008 (and still a sentiment to live by)

I have published a lot on the topic- a book, six peer reviewed articles, seven RAND reports, five book chapters, and various other commentaries- but have a few bits that never ended up making into print. Some of them might be useful or interesting to somebody (?) so I wanted to put them up here- they can be downloaded below. The first, “Swimming Through Concrete,” is an argument written in 2014 for why insurgency in urban environments is unlikely to be a major phenomenon threatening regimes except in specific and relatively rare circumstances. The second, “Life During Wartime,” is a granular snapshot based on interviews in 2007 of the experience of a village in Iraq in the period 2003-2007. The third, “Out of the Shadows,” is a 2015 examination of the factors governing success or failure in insurgent transition from guerilla to conventional operations. I promise I will get back to writing nuclear and nuclear adjacent stuff next week so don’t unsubscribe- it will make Vipin very sad if you do.

Swimming Through Concrete

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Life During Wartime

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Out Of The Shadows

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The Central Strategic Problem: Asymmetric Stakes and War with Nuclear Armed Great Powers

As diagnosis of the problem facing the United States, the speech is precisely correct:

…the central strategic problem our military strategy must solve: How can the United States effectively defend critical interests against strong and resolute major power adversaries while maintaining the costs and risks for Americans at levels rationally proportionate to their interests at stake?

Mr. Colby also rightly observes that there may be real or perceived asymmetry of stakes between the United States and these adversaries, where the adversaries at least believe “the stakes as more immediate, more proximate, and more directly connected to prestige, legitimacy, security, and political survival than Americans do.” The adversary’s beliefs in this case may be wrong- but it may take a crisis or even failure of deterrence for this to be revealed.

This asymmetry of stakes is challenging because adversaries with large and diverse nuclear arsenals can choose to escalate. Mr. Colby notes nuclear escalation makes “unlimited war among major powers extraordinarily dangerous and almost inherently irrational.” Indeed, rationality is perhaps the leitmotif of strategy in the speech, appearing eight times in relation to strategy and stakes. If stakes are asymmetric, the adversary may believe the United States cannot rationally run existential nuclear risks to defend an interest that, however vital, is not existential. The shadow of nuclear escalation enabled by (perceived) asymmetric stakes will logically then enable adversaries to either deter U.S. involvement in conflict in the first place- or to coerce termination of a conflict on terms favorable to the adversary. This is, as they say, a bit of pickle.

What Is to Be Done? Denial, Escalation Management, and Binding

What then is to be done in terms of military strategy? Mr. Colby points to the 2026 National Defense Strategy, which he characterizes as providing:

…a military-strategic framework for addressing this difficult problem. This framework is composed of three core elements.

The first element is denial defense – specifically, denying an opponent the ability to seize and hold the key territory of a U.S. ally or partner, thereby preventing them from acquiring the leverage necessary to subordinate that state and overturn a favorable regional balance of power, in line with the National Security Strategy’s geopolitical guidance.

The second element is favorable escalation management – placing the burden of escalation, or the costs and risks of initiating escalation, on the opponent, keeping it there, and making it progressively heavier through sustained denial and selective, strategically rigorous cost imposition.

The third element is a binding strategy – structuring the conflict so that the opponent’s attempts to escalate out of frustration or failure strengthen coalition cohesion, deepen allied resolve, and reinforce the balancing coalition opposing aggression.

These three elements are eminently sensible, and were integral to U.S. strategy in the Cold War, particularly the late Cold War. Indeed, in a speech with multiple references to architects of the Cold War Kennan, Kennedy, and Kissinger, one would expect such historical anchoring. In terms of denial, the 1970s and 1980s saw investments in U.S. conventional military modernization, often termed “The Second Offset,” intended to enable a significant conventional defense of key territory in Europe. The same period saw refinements in U.S. nuclear strategy to produce limited nuclear options using strategic nuclear forces as well as enhancements in U.S. theater nuclear forces- all intended, at least in part, to support escalation management (sometimes called “escalation control”). Finally, the cohesion and resolve of U.S. alliances was a perpetual source of both strength and headaches for U.S. leaders from Eisenhower to Reagan.

If a similar framework succeeded in addressing the Cold War challenge of confronting a nuclear armed great power (a point some contest but I believe to be correct), then there is a strong prima facie case to be made that it will be successful in the 21^st century. Yet Mr. Colby’s speech is incomplete in its modernized invocation of the Cold War military-strategic framework, leaving out a vital element from other architects, perhaps most notably James Schlesinger.

Secretary of Defense Schlesinger. Image courtesy of IMDB.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Escalation

As I have noted elsewhere (some would say ad nauseam- apologies to those readers), the central strategic problem Mr. Colby ably sketches led many U.S. nuclear strategists to conclude that escalation control and limited nuclear options were necessary but not sufficient. As James Schlesinger remarked just before the Cuban Missile Crisis:

Unless the Soviets are less shrewd or less technically competent than we think them to be, eventually they will provide themselves with a relatively invulnerable counter-deterrent, which, permitting a much higher percentage of Soviet military might to survive, will increase the risks to the United States of a large-scale counterforce strike. Will this be in 1965, 1968, or 1970? If massive nuclear exchanges are to be avoided—and both superpowers have a dramatic incentive to do so—the chief possibility for dissuading the Soviets from major provocations is to threaten carefully measured attacks against military targets or cities—deterrence on a tit-for tat basis.

Dr. Schlesinger thus agreed with Mr. Colby on the disincentive for large scale nuclear exchanges, and thus homed in on the same sort of solution: escalation management aka “carefully measured attacks.” Yet Schlesinger went a step further in his logic:

In a war of nerves, with limited encounters, which side will prove the stronger—especially when we have reached the city-swapping stage? How long will the American public accept a game played by these rules?

Mr. Colby acknowledges this dilemma in one part of the speech:

…strategies relying primarily on punishment or cost-imposition are also deeply problematic. Such approaches often appear attractive because they promise asymmetric leverage at relatively low cost. But this is usually an illusion. In the first place, an imposition of cost does not prevent a resolute opponent from seizing territory, nor plausibly reverse it. But it can anger him, and nuclear-armed major powers possess substantial capacity to inflict pain on us as well. Thus our imposition of cost on the adversary invites him to respond by applying pain to Americans – and the more painful our application is, the more painful it is likely to be for our citizens. Moreover, even leaving aside the grievous costs such strategies are likely to entail, they are not likely to work, as competitions in pain tolerance frequently advantage the side perceiving the conflict as more vital, which is likely to be our opponent in such a struggle.

Yet this logic does not appear in the section of the speech describing favorable escalation management:

…selective and strategically disciplined cost-imposition becomes increasingly salient. Here Schelling’s insight that “the power to hurt is bargaining power” is very relevant. Selective cost imposition, however, must reinforce, not undermine, denial of the original objective of the aggressor. It also must remain ever-conscious of the need to avoid catastrophic escalation, especially involving nuclear weapons at scale… Its purpose, rather, must be coercive diplomacy: persuading the opponent that continued escalation will progressively worsen his strategic position while improving neither his military prospects nor his political leverage… If we can do this, even a major power nuclear-armed opponent will face the strongest set of incentives not only to conclude the conflict, but also do so in ways that limit the costs to regular Americans.

If the adversary is likely to prevail in “competitions of pain tolerance” how will selective cost imposition (aka pain) persuade him that continued escalation will not favor him? Won’t the adversary “respond by applying pain to Americans – and the more painful our application is, the more painful it is likely to be for our citizens?” Dr. Schlesinger certainly was concerned that this would be the result.

Yet it is possible that the adversary may, when confronted with selective cost imposition, realize he has miscalculated. U.S. resolve is greater than he anticipated, U.S. capability more flexible and ingenious than he believed. The stakes were not, after all, quite so high as the adversary believed.

It is this possibility that led U.S. Cold War nuclear strategists to embrace limited nuclear options- to give the U.S. president the ability to engage in exactly the sort of coercive diplomacy Mr. Colby refers to. When he became Secretary of Defense, Dr. Schlesinger was intimately involved in reviews of U.S. nuclear strategy, ultimately producing guidance for the military that translated presidential objectives into concrete planning direction. This document, the Policy Guidance for the Employment of Nuclear Weapons (NUWEP), is now almost entirely declassified, and devotes significant attention to the strategic concept of escalation control. It also provides three principal objectives for developing limited nuclear options:

(1) To indicate to the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China that issues attendant to local conflicts are part of the vital interest of the United States

(2) To provide options for establishing or increasing the military superiority of U.S. and allied forces in a local conflict and to inhibit further enemy military operations.

(3) To provide responses to limited nuclear attacks by the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China on the United States, its allies, or its forces

These objectives seem entirely consonant with Mr. Colby’s element of favorable escalation management. Yet Dr. Schlesinger no doubt recalled his own words from the previous decade and thus that planning for limited options was necessary but not sufficient. The NUWEP plans for the possibility that limited options could still lead to a large-scale exchange or a contest of pain that favors the adversary. It therefore articulates planning guidance “to the extent escalation cannot be controlled.”

The guidance here is clear and stark. An option was to be developed intended to “neutralize the Soviet nuclear threat to the United States.” Another is intended to “neutralize the Soviet nuclear threat to major urban areas of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) other than the United States and Canada.” These options were to plan to comprehensively attack the nuclear threat, including national leadership, command and control, and all manner of fielded nuclear forces. The guidance stipulated that

…in a U.S. attack planned with fully generated undamaged forces on the Soviet nuclear threat to the United States and its allies, not less than one warhead should be applied to each ICBM site, each IRBM and MRBM site, each base for heavy, medium, and light bombers, and each base for missile-launching submarines, even if a high damage expectancy cannot be achieved or only short-term damage can be realized.

The guidance also called for tailoring these damage limiting options with the potential to withhold execution against particular target sets. These included national leadership, to potentially permit negotiations even after a large-scale damage limiting strike. Urban targets were also prohibited in these options, to provide Soviet leaders an incentive to terminate conflict- they would still have much to lose if they chose to retaliate with their surviving forces. Thus even damage limitation remained, at least potentially, an extension of the coercive diplomacy Mr. Colby describes.

This aspect of U.S. nuclear strategy- counterforce targeting for damage limitation- is the key element omitted in Mr. Colby’s speech and thus renders his theorem incomplete. Yet surely such a comprehensive attack violates his leitmotif of rationality or perhaps is “some abstract escalation dominance, which is not realistically attainable at a credible level of cost and risk in such circumstances” - thus raising the question was Dr. Schlesinger’s guidance an aberration? Perhaps other U.S. strategists eschewed this approach- but if not, why not?

I turn to this next but before proceeding it is important to clarify that everything in Dr. Schlesinger’s planning guidance was intended to build options for the president. It is unknown- and indeed unknowable- whether a president would choose to employ any of these options. In his speech, Mr. Colby rightly highlights this reality but emphasizes the need to nonetheless provide options:

In such circumstances, our political leaders may decide to let the conflict simply play out, without seeking to force an end to the war. But they also may look to us to provide military options to coerce the opponent to settle or terminate the conflict – coupled, of course, with diplomatic outreach and other instruments of national power.

Playing Chicken: Damage Limitation, Uncertainty, and Bargaining Advantage

In terms of the views of the Nixon administration, Dr. Schlesinger was no aberration. Damage limitation (from both counterforce and strategic defenses) was discussed seriously by the entire National Security Council, including President Nixon, in February 1969. In an exchange between President Nixon and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Earle Wheeler, both believed first strike enabling damage limitation was highly desirable:

Wheeler: If I thought technically, fiscally feasible to [develop?] ABM defense which gave first strike capability, I would advocate it, destabilizing or not. Wouldn’t bother me.

Nixon: Wouldn’t bother me either. Nuclear umbrella in NATO a lot of crap. Don’t have it.

In the same meeting President Nixon mused “Suppose you could defend cities. Really means credible threat of first strike would be much greater if they are screwing with Allies.” Yet in 1969, the Council’s general conclusion was that dominance- defined as returning to U.S. damage limitation capability circa 1962- was likely unattainable. But this did not mean that investments in improving the balance were unwise or useless- and the Nixon administration began those investments.

By 1974, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a candid conversation with Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Deng Xiaoping, could explain emerging U.S. first strike advantages. After a detailed summary of U.S. and Soviet strategic forces and their asymmetries- which in Dr. Kissinger’s view meant a Soviet first strike on the United States was impossible but a U.S. first strike on the Soviets was at least plausible- he concluded:

...we have planned our forces for the 1980’s and they have planned their forces for the ’70’s. By the early 1980’s, both land-based forces will be vulnerable. And 85% of theirs are land-based while only 35% of ours are land-based. Secondly, they are making all their improvements in the most vulnerable forces, namely in the land-based forces. We are making ours in the sea-based and air-based forces—which are not vulnerable, or much less vulnerable. For example, on their submarines, they have not begun to test a multiple warhead—which means they could not possibly get it before 1980 into production. Which means, in turn, we will be, in accuracy and technical procedures, 10 to 15 years ahead of them.

Vice Chairman Deng, as an emerging de facto ally of the United States, replied “We are in favor of your maintaining a superiority against the Soviet Union in such aspects,” to which Dr. Kissinger added “And I repeat that if we launched a first strike against them we could use overseas forces which are added to the strategic forces that I gave you.”

The Carter administration certainly did not take for granted the wisdom of its predecessors and commissioned an extensive Nuclear Targeting Policy Review. In his memorandum conveying the findings of this review to President Carter, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown noted the need for “a capability to threaten escalation. To lend credibility to a U.S. threat to escalate, we need employment options and supporting capabilities which the Soviets might perceive to be advantageous to us.” This pursuit not of abstract escalation dominance but concrete escalation advantage drove continued pursuit of damage limitation in the Carter nuclear posture.

The executive summary of the review then spends considerable time on the objective of damage limitation. It begins by acknowledging nothing will “give the promise of restoring the relative capabilities we enjoyed in the early 1960s. This does not mean, of course, that we can or should do nothing to improve the present or perspective balance.” This was more or less the same conclusion as President Nixon’s National Security Council. After reviewing pros and cons of damage limitation, the review concludes

…from the standpoint of targeting it seems clear that we ought to retain a substantial hard target capability. Such capabilities are required not only to be able to attack Soviet ICBM silos effectively but also for the growing number of hardened C3 facilities and some other hardened installations… Given the many uncertainties noted above, a quick hard target capability might well improve the outcome of a nuclear exchange from our standpoint or complicate Soviet calculations of the outcome and thereby help to strengthen deterrence.

This idea that damage limitation capability, including through counterforce attack, can complicate adversary calculations has been subsequently built upon by scholars. Using formal game theoretic models and high-performance computing simulations, for example, Ben Bahney and Braden Soper demonstrate that damage limitation capabilities provide bargaining advantage in crisis. This is particular true in situations of asymmetric stakes: “Unilaterally increasing the mean damage limitation of the low-stakes player increases her probability of prevailing, but this comes at the expense of increasing the probability of ruin [large scale nuclear exchange].” Put another way, when playing Chicken, both sides will suffer in a collision but the side with a larger, heavier vehicle is likely to survive and the other will not- an important fact when stakes are asymmetric.

President Carter and his national security team. Image courtesy of GWU/NSA.

Nuclear planning and procedures, including for large-scale exchange, were not abstractions in the Carter administration- especially for the president. President Carter, more than perhaps any other U.S. president, immersed himself in nuclear procedures and plans. He is possibly the only sitting president to have participated directly in a nuclear decision conference exercise and gave directions for improving the format of decision materials. While William Burr rightly notes there is much we still don’t know, he concludes “While Carter raised questions about the presentation of SIOP [Single Integrated Operating Plan] options, so far as can be told, he did not question the targeting arrangements themselves or the high damage expectancies built into the SIOP.” These targeting arrangements included options such as those against Soviet nuclear forces for damage limitation as described in the earlier NUWEP. Indeed, Carter who had previously been an advocate of a minimalist approach to deterrence, underwent a “conversion” while president- a conversion that included proceeding with the development of the MX missile, a counterforce weapon par excellence.

The Reagan administration largely accepted the logic of Nixon-Carter targeting policy and force investments, simply adding more resources. Yet it innovated in key areas for damage limitation. One strategic innovation beyond Nixon-Carter was the Strategic Defense Initiative, a huge program of damage limiting defenses. Another was the Maritime Strategy, a publicly articulated strategy of threatening to use the period of conventional conflict that would precede nuclear use to attack Soviet strategic targets, most notably Soviet ballistic missile submarines- essentially a conventional counterforce campaign for damage limitation. A final innovation was urgent investment, directed by the president, in the ability to hold the emerging Soviet mobile missile force at risk.

This combination of investments in damage limitation over multiple administrations resulted in grave doubts by Soviet leaders in the current and future prospects for the survivability of their nuclear forces- exactly the situation that would yield bargaining advantage had a crisis emerged. More importantly, Soviet cognizance of this reality was likely to deter them from entering in to crisis to test the resolve of the United States. In short, by the late Cold War U.S. damage limitation capability provide a realistic and credible escalation advantage that bolstered deterrence.

Binding Agent: Damage Limitation and Alliance

Apart from the crisis bargaining advantage provided by damage limitation, this capability was central to alliance cohesion in the Cold War. As the comments from President Nixon regarding “screwing with Allies” underscores, this was well understood in the White House and Pentagon. Chairman Deng’s comments to Dr. Kissinger illustrate the extent to which allies and partners also appreciated its utility.

External analysts ranging from the RAND Corporation to the Cato Institute also understood the connection between damage limitation, first-strike stability, and extending deterrence to allies. At RAND, Glenn Kent and David Thaler forthrightly noted:

The most important conflict arises between the objectives of enhancing first-strike stability, on one hand, and extending deterrence and limiting damage on the other; i.e. the more robust the Soviets believe first-strike stability to be, the less they might hesitate to precipitate a deep crisis by engaging in serious aggression, for example, in Western Europe. Balancing between first-strike stability and extended deterrence presents a problem in the planning of strategic forces.

Their RAND colleague Paul Davis termed this trade-off “the devil’s dilemma.”

Earl Ravenal, long-time associate of the libertarian Cato Institute, offered an even lengthier treatment of the linkage between counterforce, damage limitation, and alliance:

American protection of Western Europe requires both initial conventional defense and credible extended deterrence. One cannot be substituted entirely for the other. Extended deterrence, in turn, requires the practical invulnerability of American society itself to Soviet attack. (This is not to be confused with the invulnerability of American nuclear weapons.) I say “practical” invulnerability, since absolute invulnerability is beyond America’s, or anyone’s, reach. Rather, what is necessary is the ability to limit damage to “tolerable” levels of casualties and destruction. This is so an American president can persuade others that he would risk an attack on the U.S. homeland, or that he could face down a threat to attack that homeland, in the act of spreading America’s protective mantle over Western Europe and other parts of the world. That is the key point.

Ravenal then emphasized that this connection was not just to keep the Soviets from initiating crisis or conflict. It was also to ensure that U.S. allies remained bound to the United States:

For extended deterrence to work, the escalatory chain must seem to be unbroken. But, in the case of Europe, the United States’ rhetorical assurances are seriously contradicted by its actions. Quite understandably, from the American perspective, the United States seems to be putting time and distance between the outbreak of war in Europe and the decision to use its strategic nuclear weapons. Virtually any change in U.S. military doctrine or posture- up, down, or sideways-can be seen to have the effect, if not the purpose, of decoupling the United States from Europe…

Ravenal’s solution to theses tensions was to shift U.S. grand strategy away from alliances- towards isolationism or “restraint” in the modern parlance:

Thus we encounter the ultimate contradiction between crisis stability and deterrent stability. There is no way to escape this contradiction. It is not a peculiar weakness in my case. It is simply a fact of life. There is an essential tension, not an easy complementarity, between achieving safety for Americans through crisis stability and achieving safety for the objects of American protection in the world through deterrent stability. But the United States can lessen the incidence of this tension by diminishing its obligations to extend nuclear protection.

Yet if, as Mr. Colby describes, the United States instead wishes to make alliance cohesion one of the central elements of deterrence, it is left with the need for significant damage limitation capability to ensure the coupling of allies to the United States and its nuclear forces.

It is finally worth noting the connection between extended deterrence and U.S. nonproliferation objectives. A large part of the reason the United States extends nuclear deterrence to allies is to convince them, in concert with other measures, to forego their own nuclear weapons. This was a major objective in the Cold War, particularly with regards to German proliferation. In the 21^st century this may no longer be the same sort of concern- perhaps the United States would be less concerned about so-called “friendly” proliferation today. Yet there would be consequences to such proliferation and these consequences should be explicitly considered in U.S. strategy.

Conclusion: Outside Voice/Inside Voice

I conclude by admitting it is rather unfair to hold an official’s public speech to a standard of completeness. It is far easier to speak candidly and completely in private, particularly about nuclear strategy. All of my quotations above from official discussions and documents were originally classified, generally with markings like Top Secret/Sensitive. As I have described elsewhere, any public discussion of damage limitation runs the risk of appearing buffoonish or mad. Such was the fate of Reagan administration official T.K. Jones. Mr. Colby’s speech may therefore be an example of wisely and appropriately not saying the quiet part out loud.

Yet public discourse is shaped by official remarks. The elision of damage limitation in this cogent speech may lead observers- both domestic and foreign- to conclude the United States now eschews such options and capabilities. This could lead to misperception, so even if unfair to Mr. Colby I thought it worthwhile to highlight why damage limitation has been an important fourth element of the Cold War version of the military-strategic framework he ably describes.

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Early Cold War: Intelligence and Warning

The High North in the early Cold War was principally an arena for intelligence and early warning collection by the United States and its allies (principally the United Kingdom and Norway but with an important role for ostensibly neutral Sweden). This included monitoring of Soviet nuclear test activity at Novaya Zemlya and the development of Soviet strategic capabilities in and around the Kola Peninsula. The GLOBUS radar in northern Norway, the Norwegian intelligence ship Marjata, signals intelligence cooperation, and environmental monitoring all provided crucial insight into Soviet nuclear weapons, missiles, and submarine development in the early Cold War.

The Norwegian Intelligence Service surveillance vessel Marjata. Image courtesy of Norwegian Intelligence Service.

The warning aspect of this intelligence grew in importance as the Soviet Union began to field ballistic missile submarines that could threaten the United States. The range of early Soviet submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) meant that these submarines (initially Golf and Hotel class, later Yankee class) had to transit from the High North to the Atlantic Ocean. Monitoring the readiness of these submarines and then tracking when they deployed became a key indicator of potential conflict with the Soviet Union. The U.S. Sound Surveillance System, which utilized hydrophones to track Soviet submarines, combined with both U.S. and allied anti-submarine warfare (ASW) platforms allowed the location of these submarines to be identified and potentially for them to be held at risk. This was a powerful, if clandestine, capability for warning of war and potentially of decisive action against Soviet submarines in war.

The Soviets were not unaware of this activity, though they did not perhaps understand its full implications until the late 1960s, when they benefited from the Walker-Whitworth spy ring in the U.S. Navy. Yet even earlier the Soviets were aware of the role of the High North in intelligence and warning and focused their own intelligence services on the region. In particular the Soviets established under the General Staff specialized units focused on reconnaissance of U.S. and allied undersea infrastructure. These units eventually evolved into the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, generally known by its Russian acronym GUGI (Glavnoye Upravleniye Glubokovodnykh Issledovaniy).

Late Cold War: The Maritime Strategy

If the early Cold War was principally about the role of the High North in providing intelligence and warning for strategic deterrence, the late Cold War shifted to the High North as a potential battleground. Following the revelations of the Walker-Whitworth spy ring, the Soviets realized that their ballistic missile submarines were highly vulnerable in the Atlantic Ocean. The Soviet Navy soon adopted a so-called “bastion” strategy, developing longer range SLBMs that could be launched from waters near the Soviet Union. This meant submarines no longer had to transit to the Atlantic and could be protected by Soviet naval and aviation assets in or near their home waters.

The United States and its allies, upon realizing this change in strategy, shifted to a more aggressive posture in the High North. By the 1980s the “Maritime Strategy” envisioned actively targeting these submarines as well as strategic assets (such as air defense) on the Kola peninsula during the conventional phase of a major war with the Warsaw Pact. This included both forward ASW operations by U.S. and U.K. submarines as well as strikes from U.S. submarines with land attack cruise missiles along with aircraft carriers operating from Norwegian fjords. The potential for Soviet counter-attack led to a new role for the U.S. Marine Corps on NATO’s “Northern Flank” to defend Norway.

USS America in Vestfjord, Norway during Ocean Safari 85 exercise. Image courtesy GetArchive/NARA. Yes, I do love this image.

The Maritime Strategy was controversial (my thesis advisor remains grumpy about it) but proved worrying to the Soviets. Given the dire state of the Soviet economy in the 1980s, dedicating additional resources to defending the High North was infeasible. As a result, the Soviets began to press for the inclusion of naval forces in arms control and risk reduction regimes. In 1986, Secretary of the Central Committee Yegor Ligachev proposed that “Soviet ballistic missile submarines be removed from the Baltic in exchange for a NATO agreement on a nuclear-free north Europe and curtailment or elimination of large-scale naval exercises from the North, Norwegian, Barents, and Baltic Seas.” General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev amplified this proposal the following year.

After Invasion: New Confrontation

From the end of the Cold War until roughly 2014, relations between Russia and the United States and its allies were sufficiently positive that the High North was relatively quiet in terms of strategic deterrence, though the intelligence functions presumably continued. Following Russia’s 2014 of Ukraine and accelerating after its 2022 further invasion, the High North is once again a major arena for strategic deterrence. Russian deployments of advanced Yasen-M (Severodvinsk) submarines from the High North to the Atlantic and even Caribbean are one facet of this renewed salience.

Imagery of GUGI base and assets. Image courtesy of UK MOD.

In addition to its continued role as a bastion for Soviet strategic forces, developments in the region, particularly undersea infrastructure, have given the area new importance. Most notably, the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO have expanded the arena of competition and confrontation in the High North. In addition, the Svalbard archipelago now hosts one of the most advanced satellite ground stations in the world and is connected to the Norwegian mainland by undersea data cables. The importance of Svalbard has raised concerns about Russian intentions and deterrence in crisis. In April 2026, the UK and Norwegian governments conducted a military/surveillance operation targeting Russian GUGI and other naval assets, with UK Defence Secretary John Healey bluntly accusing Russia of “nefarious activity over critical undersea infrastructure.” Deterrence of such activity, which is potentially another form of clandestine capability, will pose a challenge. Things will likely to continue to heat up in the High North, which will remain a central element of strategic deterrence.

Some authors who’ve touched on the subject in recent years - largely in advance of nuclear posture reviews or policy processes - and i’m sure there are many more, but not many recently:

Brad Roberts: “On Adapting Nuclear Deterrence to Reduce Nuclear Risk.” 2020.

Sophia Becker and Elisabeth Suh: “How Biden’s Plan to Limit the Role of Nuclear Weapons Challenges NATO.” 2021

Matt Costlow: “A Net Assessment of ‘No First Use’ and ‘Sole Purpose’ Nuclear Policies.” 2021.

Adam Mount: “ The Biden Nuclear Posture Review: Obstacles to Reducing Reliance on Nuclear Weapons.“ 2022.

Amy Woolf (formerly of CRS): “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Considering “No First Use.” Updated 2022.

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Strategic effects are defined as effects that collapse the adversary’s will and/or capability to continue the war. Long-range strike precision strike- with long range defined as in excess of 500 kilometers- can potentially produce these effects. Long-range strike includes precision missiles of any trajectory - cruise, ballistic, hypersonic glide - as well as aircraft capable of delivering missiles and precision gravity bombs at such ranges. Such munitions will be critical to affecting strategic targets deep in the territory of adversaries (e.g., munitions storage, command nodes, defense industrial base) and, particularly in the case of the western Pacific, overcoming geographic limitations of basing..

The Israeli air campaign against Iran in June 2025 underscores the potential strategic effect long-range strike, in conjunction with other critical enablers, can have on a conflict. At a distance of about 2,000 km, Israel combined stand-off strikes from systems including air-launched ballistic missiles with stand-in attacks from long-range strike aircraft with precision gravity bombs. This combination devastated Iran’s command and control, nuclear and missile infrastructure, and air defense in just twelve days - with US long range strike delivering the coup de grâce against the most hardened Iranian facilities. This long-range strike campaign achieved strategic effect by physical destruction but also by collapsing Iranian will to continue the conflict - a success for strategic coercion in producing successful war termination.

Opening salvo of Operation Epic Fury. Image courtesy of CENTCOM.

Yet the similar- and in some ways more devastating- U.S. and Israeli attacks in February 2026 have not had strategic effect (to date). This underscores the importance of a target’s stakes and will to fight in a conflict. While Iran was not (apparently) fully committed to conflict in the summer of 2025, an attempt at regime change by decapitation in 2026 has changed the stakes. With a resilient, well-institutionalized regime, even effective leadership targeting has been unable to produce a collapse in Iranian will or ability to continue the fight.

The counter to long-range strike - air and missile defense interceptors - is equally critical. The Israeli air campaign in 2025 was militarily and politically possible because of air and missile defense of its population, military bases, and critical infrastructure. While not impermeable, Israeli defense, supplemented by the United States, greatly limited the effectiveness of Iran’s long range strike campaign. Despite launching over 500 missiles and 1000s drones at Israel, Iran’s attack was largely blunted by air and missile defense. It killed only 28 Israelis and did not do any substantial damage to the country’s critical or defense infrastructure.

Israeli (and US) long-range strike and missile defense thus worked synergistically to produce strategic effect. In essence the Iranians were suffering extensive punishment and destruction while being unable to inflict similar harm on the Israelis. This combination appears to have been important in terms of generating one of the main strategic effects - the collapse of Iranian will to fight. As a counterfactual, an Iran that inflicted as much harm on Israel (a much smaller country) as it experienced might have been willing to continue fighting - resulting in a protracted conflict rather than a strategic success for Israel. In 2026, air and missile defense has been equally important but the effects have not been strategic, given Iranian will to fight and the changed stakes (and for the moment a ceasefire).

IRIS-T air defense system in Ukraine. Image courtesy of Ukrainian MOD.

In addition, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities has been critical enabler for both attack and defense. ISR capabilities include both space-based (e.g. imagery satellites) and airborne (e.g. electronic intelligence aircraft, such as US/UK RC-135 Rivet Joint). In World War II, ISR (and the ability to deny ISR to the adversary) underpinned virtually every strategically significant military effort from the Battle of the Atlantic to the Battle of Midway and the D-Day invasion. ISR failures led to strategically significant surprise attacks, from the German operation through the Ardennes in 1940 to the invasion of the USSR to Pearl Harbor.

ISR (and intelligence generally) has been critical to Ukraine’s war effort against Russia and was equally important in Israel’s war with Iran. This is particularly true in terms of enabling long-range strike and air and missile defense. US and allied ISR has provided vital warning of Russian attacks to Ukrainian forces as well as enhancing the effectiveness of Ukrainian strikes. Israeli and U.S. intelligence, including a variety of ISR platforms, was the foundation of every aspect of operations in 2025 and 2026. Conversely, Russia’s weakness in ISR at operational/strategic range (i.e. far from the forward line of troops) has hampered their long-range strike in terms of inflicting strategic effects (rather than just cumulative punishment).

Long range strike munitions consumption in a major war will likely be unprecedented. As an example of munition consumption in even regional war, the US and UK expended 789 Tomahawk cruise missiles in roughly 30 days during the opening phase of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Even lower intensity conflicts have consumed substantial quantities - in roughly 75 days of Operation ALLIED FORCE against Serbia the US and UK fired 239 Tomahawks. Ukrainian intelligence reported in 2025 that Russia is firing a variety of long-range munitions as fast as they can be produced. Launchers are vulnerable to attrition, which I will turn to in another post.

Similarly, effective air and missile defense consumes large numbers of interceptors - while the launchers are also vulnerable to attrition. The effective combined US-Israeli defense against Iran in 2025 required the reported expenditure of more than 200 interceptors by the United States and an unknown - but likely in excess of 100 - interceptors by Israel in just twelve days. The conflict in 2026 has likewise seen massive consumption. In terms of attrition, Ukraine estimates that it has destroyed over 1,000 Russian air defense systems (launchers not just interceptors) albeit over nearly four years of war. Yet over 100 of those struck were in the month of December 2025 alone. While these figures may be inflated, they are not implausible - open-source imagery has confirmed more than 300 of the total Ukrainian claims.

Implications

Significant shortfalls in long range strike and air/missile defense interceptors could have strategic consequences. In the European theatre, a shortfall of long-range strike would deprive NATO of the opportunity to disrupt Russian mass and attrition-based warfare, including with short-range drones. Strikes on critical Russian command and control - which have in most cases not been targeted during the Ukraine war - as well as reserve echelons and logistics at depth could enable NATO to exploit its advantage in maneuver warfare. This was the essence of NATO’s 1980s Follow On Forces Attack concept to defeat analogous Warsaw Pact mass - and elements of that approach were successful in the initial invasion of Iraq.

Conversely, shortfalls in air and missile defense will leave NATO vulnerable to Russian long-range strike. While Russia likely lacks the same ISR enablers that NATO has, it can nonetheless target key fixed facilities as NATO would. NATO defense industrial facilities, which Russia has targeted through sabotage already, are also likely targets - and in many cases lack resilience. The same logic holds for war in the Pacific.

Given this, there are three potential pathways towards nuclear escalation stemming from long-range precision fires. The first is that long-range precision fires provide a means to drive escalation through non-nuclear strategic effects. Given the desire of European and Asian states to deploy such capabilities there will be an increase in the number of independent centers of escalation decision-making and thus a multiplication of the pathways to (and potentially the likelihood of) escalation. The second is through misperception of adversary willingness to tolerate non-nuclear strategic effects- as apparently happened in February 2026 (but not June 2025). While Iranian retaliation was conventional (albeit strategic by threatening the Strait of Hormuz) a nuclear adversary could retaliate with nuclear escalation. The third is a more traditionally understood pathway, that of exhaustion of conventional capabilities (either long range fires or interceptors) that then drive escalation via losing protraction.

The JCPOA’s constraints on Iran’s nuclear program were designed around the concept of “fissile material breakout time.” This is the time needed to produce the fissile material for a single nuclear weapon using the centrifuge capacity available to Iran.

Computing the details of a breakout scenario, and the breakout time it requires, is complicated, and informed by lots of information and the input of lots of smart people. But a much simpler cartoon model can be useful in evaluating and comparing different sets of potential nuclear constraints. In particular, we can use a much-simplified treatment to compare the current zero-zero proposal under discussion between U.S. and Iranian negotiators (i.e., zero enrichment for some amount of time and zero stocks of enriched material) to the one-year fissile material timeline under the 2015 JCPOA. The unfortunate reality is that because Iran has significantly improved its capabilities since the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, even the most extreme zero-zero solution provides significantly less cushion than the JCPOA’s provisions offered.

The Model:

Enrichment is a process by which feed material is turned into more-enriched product and less-enriched tails. That process represents a decrease in entropy and thus requires the application of thermodynamic work; in Iran’s case, that work is applied in a collection (or cascade) of centrifuges.

There are some basic physics constraints on how this can happen. Conservation of mass says that you can’t get more or less material out than you put in, so the masses of feed, product, and tails are related by the first equation below. If the enrichment level of each of these three material flows – basically the fraction of the material that is composed of the fissile uranium isotope U²³⁵ – is represented by x_f, x_p, and x_t , thenthe mass of U²³⁵ must also be conserved, yielding the second equation.

We can use these equations to relate the amount of material in the inputs and outputs of the enrichment process as a function of their different enrichment levels.

For example, if you wanted to turn 3.67%-enriched material into 90% material, with 1.5%-enriched tails:

meaning you’d need about 40 times as much feed material as you want product, or 1,000 kg of 3.67% feed to produce 25 kg of 90%.

With those relationships established, enrichment capacity can be introduced, essentially the means by which to account for the thermodynamic work needed to carry out the enrichment process. See the references in this paper for the detailed derivation, but the punchline is that the enrichment capacity C can be defined so that:

And the value function V at each point is defined as:

These terms just do the job of making the thermodynamic work match up so you’re not reducing entropy for free or something equally illegal.

Trying it Out for the JCPOA:

Let’s try out a simple model from these key parameters, namely the JCPOA-ish scenario of enriching from natural uranium to 3.67%, and then from there to 90%.^[1] Using the equations above, you can calculate that:

· 1 kg of 90% material requires about 40 kg of 3.67% material as feed (I assume 1.5% tails)

· Doing that requires about 40 SWU per kg of product

· 1 kg of 3.67% material requires about 8.5 kg of natural uranium feed (I assumed 0.003% tails)

· That requires about 4.7 SWU per kg of 3.67% material produced

With these rough numbers, you can play around with breakout times. Just multiplying, you find that making 25 kg of 90% material straight from 3.67% feed would cost about 25x40=1000 SWU and 1000 kg of feed. To create that material, every month the available capacity can be applied, producing a kg of material for every 4.7 SWU available^[2]. Taking a JCPOA solution, in which you start with 5,000 SWU already operating and 300 kg of 3.67% material, and assuming that in addition to using the centrifuges you already have, you install new cascades of the same model at a rate of two cascades (say 170 centrifuges each) per month, we can chart month by month how long it takes to reach a weapon’s worth of material:

Thus the raw 3.67% material needed for a weapon is in hand at the end of the seventh month after starting breakout. 1000 SWU is needed to bump this material up to 90%; that would take just under 2 months if the entirety of the installed capacity could be instantaneously reconfigured, bringing the processing timeline to nine months. In reality, it would take some time to do this reconfiguration, which (with some hand-waving) is how the total breakout time gets to closer to a year. If Iran was worried about wasting its valuable 3.67% material (for example so that it could build a second weapon), it might introduce an intermediate enrichment stage at 20%, pushing timelines out further (but using 3.67% material more efficiently). There are a million details to add in here, but this is the basic picture.

Now let’s look at a situation in which Iran has shown itself to be capable of installing cascades at closer to 6 cascades per month, and the centrifuges in those cascades are much higher-performance, more like 6 SWU.^[3] Now the enrichment capacity of the new centrifuges quickly outpaces that of the original 5,000 IR-1s allowed by the JCPOA.

The dramatically faster accumulation of enrichment capacity means we now get our 1,000 kg of 3.67% in just over three months, rather than seven. We still need to apply 1,000 annualized SWU to this material to bring it to 90%, but now Iran can install 6,000 SWU worth in whatever configuration it likes each month; a bit less than two months is now more than enough to install and use that capacity to top the material accumulated off at 90%, and the total breakout time is thus more like four to five months, much worse than before.^[4]

Press speculation about ongoing negotiations has centered on Iran’s 60%-enriched material, which is disastrously close to weapons-usable in any scenario. Note that the above has assumed not only that Iran has eliminated all of its 60% material, but also removed all 20% and all but 300 kg of its current stock of thousands of kg of 3.67% material, matching the JCPOA limits (if Iran keeps this material, the timelines compress dramatically). Even this is clearly disappointingly ineffective in breakout terms. How much better can we do, i.e. by going further than the JCPOA and eliminating ALL centrifuges and ALL enriched uranium stocks, in a true zero-zero option?

This best-case nuclear deal (at least in the sense of enrichment limits, there are other things you can try to do to plug the gap) adds about two months to the processing time, a total breakout time of maybe 6-7 months. Even here, the SWU are just accumulating too fast.

There’s an important caveat here; I’ve assumed that Iran has the centrifuges on hand to install this quickly. While Iran sustained the high-installation rate in 2025, it could have been drawing in part on stockpiled centrifuges, rather than manufacturing the new machines on an as-needed basis. We don’t know what stocks of centrifuges are on hand today, or what kind. Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing facilities have also been damaged over the past few years; IAEA monitoring of that capability largely ended in 2021, and so it’s also an unknown (at least to me) to what degree it has since been reconstituted, and where. Finally, the raw materials needed to manufacture new centrifuges could be a limiting factor, slowing down the process. If you assume that centrifuge stocks have all been destroyed and manufacturing capacity is less than six cascades worth per month, then the installation will be correspondingly slower. But you’d have to be pretty confident you have perfect insight into those parameters to bet the success of your nuclear deal on that. You could imagine adding provisions to a deal that would get at these uncertainties (e.g., destroying any stocks of centrifuges, restoring verification at that step of the process), but such elements haven’t been part of the deal parameters leaking out. I hope they’re part of the discussion.

Again, I fully acknowledge that the above is simplistic in a number of ways I identified, and surely in many more that I didn’t. My assertion is just that it’s close enough to reality to justify the side by side comparison with the JCPOA. I tried to be clear about the assumptions, which are drawn mostly from IAEA reporting; different assumptions might nudge the numbers around a bit, but I don’t think they change the core takeaway.

As Nate Swanson and I noted in Foreign Affairs, Iran’s potential for nuclear breakout is like running a race on a track: Iran wants to cover the distance from start to finish in a short time, and we want to use a nuclear deal to lengthen that time. In this analogy, the nuclear constraints in a deal have the effect of moving the starting line backwards, lengthening the race and the time it takes Iran to finish it. But as a result of Iran’s significant gains in capabilities following the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, it is now an accomplished sprinter that can cover even the longer distance in a much shorter time. Unfortunately, because we cannot demand that Iran have less than zero centrifuges and less than zero nuclear material, we cannot move the starting line far enough back to compensate for these improvements, and even this extreme case is less effective in constraining Iran’s breakout potential than the JCPOA was ten years ago. In our Foreign Affairs piece, we highlight the kinds of additional measures, beyond constraints on enrichment and stocks and delving more into verification issues, that can help compensate for this lost effectiveness.

^[1] There are good reasons not to do this, mostly relating to a desire to use low-enriched material more efficiently by, for example, enriching it first to 20% and then higher. But nothing prevents this one-step process, and it’s simpler to model for the purpose of making the comparison I want to make. Just don’t take it too literally!

^[2] There are some factors of 12 floating around in the capacity, because the SWU levels are annual, but I’m applying that capacity for only a month or 1/12^th of a year in each case.

^[3] The good ISIS has a good rundown here; the cascade installation rates are just observing what the IAEA reported that Iran was doing in 2025. The SWU for the IR-6s can be estimated by looking at Iran’s production of 60% material with two cascades of these advanced machines, the production rate of which the IAEA reported in the same report. If these factors are off by a bit that propagates through what follows, but the basic idea holds.

^[4] Another caveat – I’ve been accounting for installed SWU only the month after they are installed, but this probably isn’t fair when they’re being installed much more quickly than that. Properly accounting for this would speed up the process further.

The report advocates for “sufficiency” as a north star for U.S. nuclear force planning - a secure second strike capability - rather than “superiority” is suggests has dominated U.S. nuclear thinking to date. The authors note that superiority “does not enhance security; it signals offensive intent, invites countermeasures, and erodes the stability that deterrence is supposed to protect.”

We talk about the report’s analysis of a few of these crises, the consequences of a “sufficiency” approach, especially for extended deterrence and nonproliferation, how non-nuclear weapons states may react to these obscure nuclear strategy debates in Washington, and discuss the connection between nuclear posture and arms control. Take a listen, and read the report below:

https://www.stimson.org/2026/why-strategic-superiority-still-doesnt-matter/#elementor-toc__heading-anchor-0

and here’s a link to Kroenig’s book too:

https://academic.oup.com/book/5898

The 2026 NPT Review Conference begins in New York on April 27. The NPT Parties will gather, share their views on how treaty implementation is going, and attempt to gather consensus around whatever consensus can be gathered around. The general view is that the conference is not primed for success on anything substantive, or maybe anything at all.

As the NPT parties prepare for the conference, dozens have submitted national reports on their implementation and working papers on various aspects of the treaty. The documents contain useful information on how the various parties will approach the conference; I was particularly interested to read Russia’s lengthy report, and wanted to share some quick takes.

The Russian document answers the 2010 NPT Review Conference (the last one to reach consensus), which called on all NPT parties to submit national reports, and in particular for the five nuclear weapon states to report on their actions in pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Of the latter, the UK also submitted a national report this spring, and France submitted a report at last year’s Preparatory Committee meeting; China and the United States have not yet done so.

Much of the report repeats existing Russian policy documents like the 2021 Russian National Security Strategy, the 2023 Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, and the 2024 Foundations of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence. Anchoring to these documents isn’t unexpected but does suggest other parties should keep them in mind as they try to understand where alignment may be possible.

I took away positive news on AI and nuclear decision-making; bad news on transparency as a RevCon area of agreement; and unsurprising but important Russian narratives on nuclear sharing and nuclear disarmament.

AI and Nuclear Decision-Making

Russia’s paper includes a line that I haven’t seen elsewhere:

The Military Doctrine and the Basic Principles of State Policy clearly state that the decision to use nuclear weapons is taken by the President of the Russian Federation.

Overall, the Russian Federation ensures decisive human involvement and judgment in the field of nuclear weapons on an ongoing basis, including strict control at the level of the country’s highest military and political leadership. Against the backdrop of technological progress, this approach remains an absolute constant.

The United States, France, and the UK made a similar statement in 2022, and China and the United States did so in 2024. Russia, to my knowledge, has not previously done so. This is encouraging, not only because the alternative is deeply troubling, but also in NPT terms, because this issue is one that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), New Agenda Coalition (NAC) and Brazil call for in their own working papers. Mexico sponsored a resolution on this topic at last fall’s General Assembly, which passed despite opposition from Russia and the other nuclear weapon states. If Russia is now willing to entertain language on this topic, of clear interest to NPT parties, this may now be an area of potential alignment. I hope so.

NPT Transparency

The issue of transparency in the NPT context is a major focus for the conference; the EU, Ireland-New Zealand-Switzerland, the NAC, the NPDI, and the United States have all submitted RevCon papers related to process enhancements by which states submit reports regarding their implementation of the NPT and then engage in dialogue regarding those reports, and parties met in 2023 in a working group focused in part on this subject.

Russia’s report is in itself a positive step. The fact of its report will be contrasted with the lack (as of now) of a U.S. report. Moreover, the Russian report includes detailed numbers relating to its nuclear arsenal, again differentiating from the lack of any new U.S. numbers, which have not been released since 2024, and France’s recent decision to no longer provide even a ceiling for its arsenal size. It’s worth noting that Russia’s numbers are as of 2022 and thus not new. China, of course, has submitted neither a report nor numbers.

Russia’s transparency is tempered by its narrative. Russia

“does not view transparency in terms of absolute values or universally applicable templates” and “is convinced that automatically increasing transparency is not a definitive or fail-safe way to reduce strategic risks. Moreover, an ill-considered policy in this area could lead to the opposite outcome.”

I wrote elsewhere that integrating a more robust process for transparency within the NPT could well be one area on which NPT parties can agree this year, and thus a rare opportunity for a conference that leaves the NPT stronger rather than weaker. Russia’s paper may indicate that Russia is unlikely to join such an effort. This is a shame.

Nuclear Sharing

While proclaiming the “centralization of nuclear weapons command and control” in the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus, Russia goes beyond the extensively quoted 2024 “Foundations” document. In the NPT report, Russia explains that “control over Russian nuclear weapons is centralized in all cases and on a permanent basis and is not transferred to anyone…This ensures strict compliance with the relevant obligations of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus under articles I and II of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

This new language is a necessary rejoinder to those who have questioned the consistency of Russia’s deployments to Belarus and its NPT obligations to not “transfer” nuclear weapons to any state. Russia has denied any transfer, but statements by President Lukashenka of Belarus have been in some tension with this claim. The Russian report seeks to put this question to rest, albeit via assertion rather than explanation.

Having done so, the report proceeds to attack the policies of other nuclear alliances. Included in a longer list of factors negatively impacting strategic stability:

- “Intensive and extensive development within the North Atlantic bloc, which has proclaimed itself a “nuclear alliance”, of schemes and means for “nuclear sharing” - with the broad participation of non-nuclear member States and reliance on the advanced deployment of United States nuclear weapons at a growing number of sites in Europe;

- “The inclusion of elements of NATO nuclear sharing in United States ‘extended deterrence’ arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region, with a tendency towards establishing a tripartite “nuclear alliance” between the United States, South Korea and Japan;

- “A radical deepening of coordination among European nuclear States on military nuclear policy issues, including planning for the use of nuclear weapons and joint operations, against the backdrop of discussions with anti-Russian rhetoric on the establishment of a common European nuclear capability to supplement the nuclear umbrella of the United States;”

Putting aside the hypocrisy of criticizing NATO while implementing similar policies in Belarus, the first bullet’s critique is by now familiar. Noteworthy is the emphasis on the “growing number” of forward-basing sites (presumably referring to UK announcements in 2025) and “broad participation” of non-nuclear weapon states in the “schemes and means” for sharing. I expect Russia to invoke at the Review Conference legalistic and technical arguments that NATO’s policies are inconsistent with NPT obligations but its actions in Belarus are not, essentially by suggesting a greater and more concerning involvement of non-nuclear weapon states in the former.

Russia has pressed similar accusations for a decade, with heavy assistance more recently from China. More concerning is that other states are picking up the argument. In a Review Conference working paper, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) expressed “concern over policies and practices that run contrary to the principles and objectives of the Treaty such as the continued and evolving nuclear weapons sharing arrangements and extended deterrence,” calling those policies a new nuclear arms race and a clear violation of the treaty. Brazilechoes the allegation that “nuclear sharing arrangements” are inconsistent with NPT obligations, and further repeats Russia’s allegation that new nuclear umbrellas are being created. In one of Iran’s five (!) working papers for this conference, it goes further, accusing U.S. nuclear policy and “nuclear sharing” in particular of constituting proliferation.

NATO Allies, in many cases strong proponents of both the NPT and progress towards nuclear disarmament and with relevant domestic constituencies of their own, must react carefully to these potentially damaging (and untrue) accusations. Coordinated by the superb NATO International Staff, I expect Allies will be ready to push back and respond at the NPT meeting as necessary. But changes to that argumentation may be needed.

Past Allied messaging emphasized the legality of NATO policies in language similar to Russia’s defense of Belarus (i.e., no “transfers,” maintenance of U.S. “control”). It has stressed the hypocrisy of Russia’s attacks, given that the Soviet Union was part of the effort to ensure the consistency of the NPT’s provisions with the already extant NATO policies, as brilliantly documented by William Alberque. While true, the latter argument is less useful with states like China and some in the Non-Aligned Movement, who weren’t present for those negotiations and can credibly claim to have not understood the NATO practice when they joined the NPT.

In 2026, Allies should engage (to an extent) in the more technical and legalistic argument invoked by Russia and China. Every Ally has an interest (and obligation!) to ensure there is no proliferation involved in the implementation of NATO policies. Where states have genuine questions (i.e., not Russia or China!), Allies should to the extent possible do more to explain how they ensure consistency, rather than simply asserting it. New Ally and long-time disarmament advocate Sweden would be a particularly strong messenger, having presumably recently assured itself of these facts.

At the same time, Allies should seek to contain this argument and redirect discussion to where it belongs. In the context of war in Iran tied to its nuclear program, Russian nuclear threats and new doomsday weapons, expiration of the last arms control treaty, and an unacknowledged nuclear build-up in China, it defies belief that a main focus of this Review Conference should be decades-old NATO policy. Allies should engage NAM members individually and outside of the NPT plenary hall to substantively answer any actual questions, but should also make clear that while Russia and China’s motivations for pursuing the nuclear sharing issue are obvious, it is less clear why others would see this as a priority.

Returning to Russia’s paper, the point on the expansion of new nuclear sharing arrangements in East Asia is patently and demonstrably false. The ROK and Japan have been strong and capable partners in pushing back on such false claims in the past; unfortunately efforts will need to be expanded both in statements and in direct diplomacy to confront this ridiculous claim. The relationship between nonproliferation and security assurances is quite familiar to Non-Aligned states.

I read Russia’s third point above as a reference to France’s recent announcement of “forward deterrence.” We discussed President Macron’s announcement in detail separately. Macron explained that, like NATO’s arrangements, the implementation of his “forward deterrence” will be fully NPT-compliant. But between the newness of this announcement and many open questions about its implementation, there is opportunity for those aiming to confuse and distract at the Review Conference. France and its partners will need to be prepared to explain and defend this new angle of “nuclear sharing,” and to differentiate it from NATO policies.

Narrative on Arms Control and Risk Reduction

Notable – but not novel – in Russia’s report is the lengths to which it goes to establish Russia as the responsible actor that has made self-proclaimed “truly impressive contributions” to arms control and disarmament, while painting the United States as a destructive actor unwilling to cooperate. Treaty by treaty, history is rewritten to emphasize unmotivated U.S. withdrawals, while Russia nobly proposed extensions (New START) or moratoria (INF) with no response. No mention is made of Russia’s serial noncompliance with these agreements, and forgotten is Russia’s past refusal to engage on arms control absent favorable resolution of the Ukraine issue. Russia will of course seek to revise history to its advantage, and the U.S. and other delegations will and should push back to correct the record. In doing so, they would be wise to adjust the U.S. narrative surrounding the February expiration of New START. That narrative placed too much emphasis on the inadequacies of the expired treaty, and too little on the emptiness of the Russian offer to “extend” New START in view of Russia’s sustained refusal to implement its verification measures or engage on a follow-on. New START was broadly appreciated as a contribution by the United States and Russia to the disarmament objectives of the NPT. U.S. NPT objectives will be best furthered not by criticizing the treaty but by explaining clearly that Russian and Chinese actions have regrettably prevented its continued implementation.

Russia’s efforts to engage in a blame game on arms control are intended to obscure its clear view that its NPT Article VI obligations come with preconditions that haven’t been met. Nuclear disarmament can only be considered in the context of efforts towards “general and complete disarmament,” and cannot be isolated from the “overall military, political, and strategic context.” Russia asserts the “feasibility” of nuclear disarmament ideas and proposals must be considered in the context of the international security context, immediately concluding that in Russian eyes all such proposals fail that test. Russia is clear: the “conditions” for disarmament (unstated, but potentially to include the abandonment of Ukraine?) have not been met.

This view contradicts the position of the New Agenda Coalition, a group of influential and pro-disarmament states, who in their working paper reject “arguments purporting that nuclear disarmament can advance only when undefined security circumstances improve… We cannot and must not wait for a speculative state of ‘strategic stability’ to make progress.” It is equally inconsistent with the position of the Non-Aligned Movement, who in their paper reject “any proposals that would subject [disarmament] obligations and previously agreed commitments to preconditions on the pretext of political and security factors.” U.S. and other diplomats should help other Review Conference participants recognize this inconsistency, ensuring that it is not drowned out by an argument about who is responsible for the demise of past arms control treaties.

Unfortunately, Russia’s paper applies similar conditions on steps to reduce nuclear risks, a popular topic this year (e.g., in the NAC paper and also a paper from this broad group). Russia views such measures as necessarily conjoined with the international security environment, and at present incapable of delivering results or adding value. Russia makes clear it will not engage in such risk reduction measures via the group of nuclear weapon states. That said, the Russian paper does then walk through a list of measures it will continue to implement, including notifications, communications lines, non-targeting, and conventions on the prevention of nuclear war, acknowledging the value of transparency and confidence building measures. I hope that China will read this list with close attention, and that NPT parties will push for more on this front.

Conclusion

Russia’s paper plays the role that a national report to the NPT should: it characterizes Russia’s views of the treaty and its implementation, and offers a Russian perspective on its own performance. Unsurprisingly, Russia gives itself good marks on that implementation, in particular with regard to disarmament. The paper distorts and omits in many areas, giving clues as to how Russia will present itself during the Review Conference itself and making the case for a U.S. report to advance its own (more accurate) narrative on some of these topics. Russia’s statement on the role of AI in its nuclear weapons is interesting and hopefully indicates an area of potential alignment for the Review Conference. While the report demonstrates the value that an interactive dialogue on such reports could have, unfortunately Russia seems disinclined to go along with efforts to incorporate such a dialogue into the Conference’s procedures. Hopefully that will change, and discussion on reports like this one can move forward over the course of the Review Conference.

NTI’s Eric Brewer joins us to unpack how Iran’s nuclear program has transformed since the JCPOA era — and what that means for any future nuclear agreement, which we acknowledge may be quite far off. We talk about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, the lack of IAEA access, new underground facilities, and years of experience with advanced centrifuges, and how these changes create a fundamentally different technical baseline than negotiators faced a decade ago.

The three of us also talk about Iran’s intentions moving forward, summarizing recent public reporting and the disappearance of the IC’s long‑standing assessment that Iran was not pursuing key weaponization activities. We also discuss the ongoing conflict, starting with Operation Midnight Hammer, and how these events may have shifted Tehran’s strategic calculus with the old deterrence architecture weakened—its proxy network and missile forces have been degraded—whether Iran’s leadership might now view a nuclear weapon as the only reliable insurance policy.

Finally, we talk about what a future deal (and additional policy measures) would actually entail. We cover building blocks on the topics of weaponization bottlenecks, regional missile transfers, and a more muscular counterproliferation posture, as well as what may be an exponentially more difficult verification mission, with new mechanisms for access, dispute resolution, and monitoring of military‑linked sites.

Show notes and a few publicly available resources we referenced:

We started out hoping to go into slightly more technical detail on JCPOA and future JCPOA provisions, but kept the conversation at a higher level for the sake of greater appeal to a wider array of listeners. However, if you would like to see more text…

• JCPOA Full Text (U.S. State Department archive)

• IAEA Additional Protocol (verification baseline):

Reporting on Iran’s Program (2024–2025)

• Wall Street Journal reporting on Iran “closing knowledge gaps” in weaponization

• ODNI “Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Capability and Terrorism Monitoring Act,” assessment regarding Iran’s nuclear activities report (Nov 2024)

Press on negotiations:

• NYT, “United States Said to Have Sent Iran a Plan to End the Middle East War”

• The Guardian, “UK security adviser ‘attended’ US-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach“

Foreign Affairs articles

• Vaddi & Narang, “The North Korean Way of Proliferation”

• Nicole Grajewski and Ankit Panda “The Stunning Failure of Iranian Deterrence“

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Strategic Simplicity is a collection of content provided for free by experts, many of whom worked with one another in a variety of USG jobs. The written or podcast content is solely for educational purposes, and reflects the personal views of contributors. Nothing on this Substack reflects the views of the U.S. government, MIT, or other entities.

Astrid’s analysis at CSIS:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/macrons-ile-longue-speech-updating-frances-nuclear-doctrine-new-era

Official translation of Macron’s speech:

https://uk.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/president-delivers-speech-frances-nuclear-deterrence

Select Media Coverage:

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/05/-france-nuclear-deterrence-strategy-macron.html

https://apnews.com/article/france-nuclear-weapons-macron-deterrence-ccbcfb03ef4a1e3efe287fb744adb148

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260302-macron-unveils-france-nuclear-strategy-eu-counter-russian-aggression-wavering-us

Evolutionary but not Revolutionary

Ultimately, my view is that the speech cannot be dismissed as pure optics and rhetoric, but neither was it transformational or revolutionary. Rather, it represents a necessary evolution—with more continuity than discontinuity—in French nuclear strategy given the deteriorating global nuclear security environment, and reasonable European concerns about America’s current levels of enthusiasm to act on its extended nuclear commitments.

First, the speech itself was excellent and delivered with the gravitas and optical flourish that the French have truly mastered when it comes to their nuclear arsenal, with the President delivering the address at Île-Longue, the “cathedral of [their] sovereignty” (!!). But, it is important to note at the outset that the concept of “forward deterrence” is NOT, and explicitly not, “extended deterrence.” Extended nuclear deterrence is a commitment to defend, with the full range of capabilities including nuclear, an ally against strategic attack (nuclear or non-nuclear). “Forward deterrence” is avowedly not that, as President Macron made clear. At no point did he commit to defend any other nation, besides France, from strategic attack. Instead, he noted that France’s vital interests, as has been expressed for decades in French nuclear strategy, unavoidably includes a so-called European dimension:

“Could we consider that the survival of our closest partners might be put at risk without it affecting our vital interests? Or conversely, that an extreme threat in Europe only concerns us? For these fundamental reasons, successive Presidents have referred to the European dimension of France’s vital interests.”

In short, France’s vital interests may be at stake if Poland, or certainly Germany’s, survival were threatened. The concept is not about committing to defend Germany against strategic attack per se, but that France might have to consider a employing nuclear weapons, starting with a “unique and non-renewable” “nuclear warning shot” if Germany’s survival was at stake because it is key to France’s survival, not because it cares about Germany qua Germany. To be blunt, French nuclear strategy has always had a European dimension in that Paris was never going to wait for the Red Army to reach the French frontier before issuing the “warning shot” (or “final warning”)—it would use nukes on German territory to defend France. So this concept of “forward deterrence,” which invokes the geographic extent of France’s vital interest deep into Europe for the sake of France, is not novel at all. To me, at least, it represents far more continuity than some of the initial reactions.

What is New

What is evolutionary, however, is the proposed implementation of “forward deterrence.” Given the security environment and European/NATO concerns about the current American enthusiasm—not necessarily ability—to meet its extended deterrence obligations, Macron has proposed several new mechanisms to better realize the vision of French “forward deterrence.” As we have noted before and exhaustively, French nuclear DNA will not allow it to directly contribute its nuclear forces to NATO or to join NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group (NPG). As Macron noted: “there will be no sharing of the ultimate decision, nor of its planification, nor of its conduct” (planification is my new favorite word). Instead, France has established a series of bilateral agreements to realize the concept of “forward deterrence,” which is “a distinct effort which has its own value and is perfectly complementary to NATO’s at both strategic and technical level”. At the moment, France has secured bilateral agreements with nine NATO allies: UK, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and, honestly surprisingly to me, Greece (good geography at least).

So what is new? First, France, which has long treasured its ambiguity and opacity around its nuclear strategy, will take some key steps toward transparency with this set of nine (and perhaps more as the group grows). This includes participation in nuclear exercises such as POKER with not just observation, but potentially allied conventional capabilities, site visits, and steering group dialogues as it has with the United Kingdom already after the Northwood Declaration (that is a lot of steering group meetings for my excellent former French counterparts!). This transparency can help assure nervous NATO allies about France’s independent—but not uncoordinated—nuclear forces, and allow them to establish ways to provide conventional support for French nuclear operations. This opening up of French exercises and exercising operations with allied conventional support is legitimately a big step for Paris.

Second, there are some key hardware and operational proposals that are quite evolutionary for France. For example, increasing the number of nuclear warheads but being ambiguous about its size can help serve as a better deterrent and assurant in Europe—since the end of the Cold War, France can still produce new nuclear weapons, while the United States and United Kingdom are struggling to turn the ignition back on on their enterprises. Obviously there are limits as to how many warheads and weapons France can deploy, as it is limited to four SSBNs and a finite number of nuclear-capable Rafale squadrons, but there may be headroom that may allow France to evolve its posture to the deteriorating security environment.

In addition, President Macron proposed:

“[T]he temporary deployment of elements of our strategic air forces to allied countries. In the same way that our strategic submarines dilute naturally in the oceans, guaranteeing a permanent-strike capability, our strategic air forces will also be able to be spread deep into the European continent. This dispersal across European territory, a sort of archipelago of forces, will complicate the calculations of our adversaries and will make this forward deterrence very valuable to us. It will strengthen our defense, while giving it room to operate: it will offer it a new strategic depth, in line with the challenges of European security. It will be, I believe, very valuable to partners who will follow this approach with us, and whose territory will gain a strong link with our deterrence.”

What does this mean? It is easier to start with what it DOES NOT mean. This does NOT mean nuclear sharing with any partner. These assets, whatever they are, remain French and strictly under French command through any deterrent/nuclear employment maneuver. It also does NOT appear to be the forward deployment of French nuclear weapons (ASMPA-Rs or warheads), certainly not on a permanent basis. Nor does it appear to mean the permanent deployment of nuclear-capable Rafales in the “forward deterrence” partners. Instead, it appears closer to a dispersal concept in crisis or conflict that would enable nuclear-capable Rafales to forward deploy to locations both for deterrence signaling (as a step, for example, prior to issuing the “warning shot”), but also for potentially survivability. Many commentators have interpreted this proposal as potential forward deployment of French nuclear weapons, but Macron only referred to strategic assets, such as Rafales, and was not explicit about weapons. Permanent, or even temporary, deployment of nuclear weapons would require costly and robust security and surety infrastructure and forces that may or may not ever be developed. However, I should emphasize that even as a dispersal concept in crisis or conflict—for signaling or survivability—this is quite a big step in the evolving implantation of “forward deterrence.”

Challenges Remain

What are the challenges I foresee, at the moment as this concept of “forward deterrence” gets further implemented along these axes? First, the bilateralization of the implementation may create some assurance challenges and, frankly, risks fractures in the NATO nuclear mission. Extending the concept to Germany, Norway, even Poland may be acceptable in Paris, but what about to the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) on the frontlines with Russia? What about Turkey? What if a non-NATO country is included, such as Austria? Picking some NATO states but not others poses challenges to the coherence of the NATO nuclear mission that must be, and I imagine, will have to be addressed. Having had the true privilege of serving as the Chair of the NATO High Level Group for over 2.5 years, a parallel French-led High Steering Group (which does not include the United States) would certainly create complications, to put it mildly. Here, the United Kingdom could serve as a valuable and crucial bridge between the NATO nuclear mission (as the second explicit NATO nuclear power), and France’s “forward deterrence” concept and steering group structures. NATO states that participate in both must ensure that any arrangements made with France are aligned with NATO’s nuclear mission and strategy, and here the UK can play a unique and crucial bridging role.

Second, as noted, Macron’s “forward deterrence” concept is not entirely new and should therefore not be seen by analysts or allies as either a complement, let alone a substitute, to American extended nuclear deterrence. To be fair, it is not meant to be, I don’t think. France, as many of us have noted before, is genetically allergic to the concept of extended nuclear deterrence—that any state would fight a nuclear war on behalf of another state. Indeed, de Gaulle’s entire raison d’etre to pursue an independent nuclear arsenal, and subsequently fiercely defending that independence, was precisely because France never believed in the credibility of American extended deterrence guarantees—that Washington would ever risk trading New York for Paris. So no one should believe that French DNA has mutated on this count. Indeed, “forward deterrence” simply operationalizes the geographic extent to which France defines its national interests, it does not expand its political extent.

Furthermore, as Austin, Pranay and I have pointed out, the American solution to the asymmetry of stakes problem—to convince allies that we would fight a nuclear war on their behalf and not decouple from them—was damage limitation. Damage limitation may not be the only solution to the asymmetry of stakes and decoupling problem (though I struggle to think of anything more credible), and certainly France residing on the European continent means their stake in the survival of Berlin is greater than Washington’s. But “forward deterrence” does not offer any new theory or solution to the decoupling problem. For one, Macron was adamant that France does not believe in “tactical” nuclear weapons. The problem is Putin does. So “forward deterrence” has no new answers to Putin’s threat to use tactical nuclear weapons that did not exist last week—the French answer is still the “warning shot” followed by the threat to “go big” with strategic nuclear employment, which Macron subtly shifted from “unacceptable damage” to “damage that they could not recover from” (it will be interesting to unpack this more). This explicitly rejects limited nuclear options and counterforce or damage limitation, I would think, so the issue of decoupling Germany or Poland from France remains: Moscow could employ nuclear weapons against the Baltic states, Poland, or Germany, withholding against Paris, and by salami slicing, test and dare Paris to prove how far forward “forward deterrence” goes. But perhaps since “forward deterrence” is not extended deterrence, Paris does not need any novel solutions to the asymmetry of stakes/decoupling problem.

Thus the fundamental challenge—one that I am sure we will be discussing in the coming months and beyond—is that this new incarnation of “forward deterrence” was motivated by allied doubts about the credibility of American extended deterrence while simultaneously being explicit that it is itself not a version of extended nuclear deterrence, that French “forward deterrence” is for French vital interests. Operationalizing the enduring European dimension of French nuclear strategy in novel ways for Paris should have an assuring effect on allies. This is legitimately new. But historic French allergies about explicitly committing its nuclear forces to the defense of any other nation, is not.

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Today, President Macron made another speech further articulating his view of the changing requirements of French deterrence, introducing the concept of “forward deterrence” to protect France’s vital interests beyond its borders. Vipin and Pranay highlighted some of the challenges France will face in expanding the ambition of its nuclear deterrence, but I wanted to offer some thoughts as our allies grapple with this debate. To put the bottom line up front, forward deterrence is a useful elaboration of France’s role as an independent center of decision-making in the NATO alliance but is in no way a meaningful replacement for U.S. extended nuclear deterrence.

President Macron’s speech at Île Longue, March 2, 2026. Image courtesy of Toute l'Europe.

The European Dimension in Historical Perspective

The idea that the vital interests of France, which the French deterrent protects, includes a “European dimension” is not new. Nicolás Bardio admirably reviews the discourse of French presidents on Europe and French nuclear deterrence dating back to Mitterand, which Emmanuelle Maitre and Étienne Marcuz summarize:

…the Presidents of the French Republic have on several occasions referred to the ‘European dimension’ of French nuclear deterrence. In his 2015 speech at the Air Force Base in Istres, François Hollande stated unambiguously that the definition of “France’s vital interests cannot be restricted to the national scale”, that they have a European dimension, and that “the existence of a French nuclear deterrent has made a strong, essential contribution to Europe”. His remarks clarified the notion and have since been systematically echoed in official documents. Emmanuel Macron has continued in this vein, and accentuated the trend…

Indeed, in his February 2020 speech on the French defense and deterrence strategy Macron declared:

Furthermore, our nuclear forces have a deterrent effect in themselves, particularly in Europe. They strengthen the security of Europe through their very existence and they have, in this sense, a truly European dimension.

On that point, our independent decision-making is fully compatible with our unwavering solidarity with our European partners. Our commitment to their security and their defence is the natural expression of our ever-closer solidarity. Let’s be clear: France’s vital interests now have a European dimension.

Macron reiterated this view in a speech in April 2024:

Nuclear deterrence is indeed at the heart of French defense strategy. It is therefore, by its very nature, an essential element of the defense of the European continent. It is thanks to this credible defense that we will be able to build the security guarantees that all our partners expect, throughout Europe, and which will also serve to build a common security framework, a guarantee of security for everyone.

Finally, on March 2, 2026, Macron went even further:

Can we imagine that the survival of our closest partners could be jeopardized without affecting our vital interests? Or conversely, that an extreme threat in Europe could concern only ourselves? For these fundamental reasons, successive Presidents have emphasized the European dimension of France’s vital interests. In February 2020, I reiterated the offer made by all my predecessors, since President François Mitterrand, to engage in dialogue with European countries willing to explore this dimension further with us. I even proposed involving these countries in our deterrence exercises.

Six years later, we are in a different strategic landscape. We must move to a completely different stage and formulate for our time what General de Gaulle already intuited. I believe I can confidently say that our partners are ready for this…

Today, a new phase of French deterrence can therefore take shape. We are embarking on what I would call forward deterrence.

Yet this European dimension of vital interests- which is at the heart of “forward deterrence”- is in tension with the underlying rationale and origin story for the French deterrent.

“Never Again!” Deterrence, Independence, and Autonomy

France’s nuclear deterrent was profoundly influenced by those who fought Nazi occupation, as captured in the edited volume France and Nuclear Deterrence: A Spirit of Resistance. The rallying cry of “Never again!” appears from multiple contributors to that volume, perhaps best captured by François Geleznikoff, a former Director of Military Applications at the French Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique-CEA):

“Never again!” (Plus jamais ça!) had been the leitmotif of the French Resistance during the war; the same refrain accompanied the creation of the CEA by General de Gaulle in October 1945, and then the secret launch of the French nuclear defence programme nine years later by Pierre Mendès France. This spirit was all the more prevalent since the initial leaders of the military arm of the CEA often came from the French Resistance, with their experience of highly sensitive secret missions and their determination to achieve the goal set in the name of safeguarding the nation.

Cover of Résistance et Dissuasion. Image courtesy of CEA.

Beyond simply ensuring that France would never again be occupied by a foreign invader, those who built the deterrent saw it as a prime means to ensure French strategic autonomy and sovereignty. Macron’s announcement of forward deterrence, for all its discussion of dialogue, exercises, and even moving French strategic assets to allied territory, reiterates this autonomy- in definition of interests, planning, execution and above all decision- in the starkest terms:

French nuclear deterrence is designed to deter any state from attacking our vital interests. What are they? We have never defined them precisely. We have never defined them precisely, intentionally. Our red lines are not clearly visible. They cannot be… I prefer to state this clearly from the outset: there will be no sharing of the ultimate decision, nor of its planning, nor of its implementation. Under our Constitution, this rests solely with the President of the Republic, who is accountable to the French people.

This hyperfocus on autonomy and independence is thus, to use a term Vipin likes, central to French “nuclear DNA.” It is fundamental- legally, culturally, philosophically, and perhaps even spiritually- to France’s deterrence and has been since the end of World War II. For France, this nuclear essence preceded nuclear existence by nearly twenty years- it is unlikely to change. This has implications for the efficacy of forward deterrence (at least as a potential substitute for U.S. extended nuclear deterrence)- implications that would be very familiar to American strategists of the early Cold War.

Credibility: The Peril of Chemically-Impure Deterrence

From the beginning of the Cold War, Western Europe was clearly a vital interest of the United States and one it was clearly willing to defend with nuclear weapons in the early years of the Cold War. Through multiple crises over Berlin, U.S. nuclear superiority over nascent Soviet strategic forces meant the United States could threaten large scale nuclear use that would cripple Soviet retaliation (a story I have told elsewhere). In a prescient piece written a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis future Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger summarized the military balance and thus the efficacy of U.S. deterrence in Europe:

During the next four or five years, because of nuclear dominance, the credibility of an American first strike remains high. A selective counterforce strike of soft Soviet military targets could cripple a sizable part of the Soviet military machine. The sparing of Soviet cities, in light of the increased strategic imbalance, would provide the Soviets with every incentive to avoid reprisals against NATO cities. At the same time, the possibility of a crippling American strike against [U.S.] military targets will in all probability dissuade the Soviets from very provocative moves against Western Europe. For the time being the argument is sufficiently persuasive to convince the Europeans…

The nuclear imbalance- and the possibility of counterforce strikes- thus underwrote nuclear deterrence. The Soviets did not have anything like an assured destruction capability and the outcome of crises over Berlin and Cuba showed the importance of this imbalance. In short, nuclear superiority and counterforce capability were an important part of the credibility of the U.S. extension of nuclear deterrence to Western Europe. Yet it was clear even in 1962 that this imbalance would not prevail indefinitely, as Schlesinger noted:

What about the future? Unless the Soviets are less shrewd or less technically competent than we think them to be, eventually they will provide themselves with a relatively invulnerable counter-deterrent, which, permitting a much higher percentage of Soviet military might to survive, will increase the risks to the United States of a large-scale counterforce strike. Will this be in 1965, 1968, or 1970? If massive nuclear exchanges are to be avoided—and both superpowers have a dramatic incentive to do so—the chief possibility for dissuading the Soviets from major provocations is to threaten carefully measured attacks against military targets or cities—deterrence on a tit-for tat basis.

Schlesinger was thus articulating one key U.S. response to Soviet nuclear parity- which arrived as he predicted later in the late 1960s. This was the idea of limited nuclear options- options backed by the capability to launch discrete and discriminate nuclear attacks across multiple rounds of nuclear exchanges. As Secretary of Defense, Schlesinger would direct the military to plan for such options in 1974.

James R. Schlesinger. Image courtesy of Famous Pipe Smokers.

Yet in his piece written in 1962, Schlesinger identified a potential limit to the efficacy of such options- the asymmetry of stakes and the higher tolerance for casualties of autocracies:

In a war of nerves, with limited encounters, which side will prove the stronger—especially when we have reached the city-swapping stage? How long will the American public accept a game played by these rules? Thus the final question appears: what does the decline of nuclear dominance do to the protection offered to Europe by a sophisticated deterrent [that] remains under American control?

The bulk of U.S. nuclear strategy and posture in the late Cold War was focused on answering Schlesinger’s final question- including both continued development of limited options and a renewed emphasis across U.S. presidential administrations on counterforce and damage limitation.

France in the Cold War had a debate about whether to pursue similar lines of effort and ultimately rejected them. As articulated by Corentin Brustlein, in my view contemporary France’s foremost nuclear strategist, what emerged from the debate was that:

France’s nuclear doctrine was tailored to its financial and technological capabilities while fitting in with De Gaulle’s grand strategic vision, putting independence at the center… Proportional deterrence was thus crafted as a way to deter a much more capable adversary despite France having limited resources. To achieve that objective, those limited resources were offset by a narrowly defined ambition: to protect only France’s vital interests, as identified by the president of the Republic. Even though those vital interests have been portrayed in multiple occasions since the 1970s as possibly extending beyond France’s borders, Paris has so far refrained from offering explicit security guarantees backed by its nuclear forces. This rejection of extended deterrence made it possible to adopt what is sometimes qualified by French experts as a “chemically-pure” form of nuclear policy that focuses only on so-called “central” deterrence and has, for that reason, rejected the wide diversity of concepts which spawned over the decades from U.S. strategic community out of the need to deal with the risk of extended deterrence failure—flexible or graduated response, of course, as well as escalation control, damage limitation, limited nuclear war, nuclear warfighting, and protracted nuclear war, among other examples.

Forward deterrence is an articulation of a more robust connection between France’s nuclear deterrent and the European dimension of France’s vital interests- without fundamentally changing doctrine. Macron specifically reiterated the rejection of U.S. concepts that Brustlein notes were developed for extended deterrence:

With forward deterrence, our doctrine will retain its original foundations: its strictly defensive character, the rejection of nuclear warfare, and the complete and deliberate separation between conventional and nuclear forces. The same applies to the option of a single, non-renewable nuclear warning. This warning will always be issued, at France’s sole discretion, to signal very concretely that the nature of the conflict has changed and that France intends, by this means, to preserve a final chance of restoring deterrence.

Macron today seeks to retain a “chemically-pure” doctrine while introducing impurity in the form of a more ambitious role for its nuclear deterrent. Forward deterrence (at least as a potential replacement for U.S. extended deterrence) is thus an anomaly that strains credibility.

Yet some may argue that the asymmetry of stakes that the United States faced over Western Europe in the Cold War is fundamentally different than the stakes of the European dimension. France is after all geographically and economically anchored in Europe in a way the United States never was- therefore the credibility of forward deterrence is high even without the elaborate nuclear apparatus the United States developed for extended deterrence. While this argument is plausible, upon scrutiny it has many challenges.

Credibility Redux: Le Bleus du Général Mandon

For this argument of the inherent credibility of forward deterrence as a meaningful substitute for extended deterrence to be true, the French president (and by extension the French people) would have to see Europe as just as vital to the survival of the metropole as the metropole itself. Otherwise, one is running existential risks for vital but non-existential interests- and without the options the United States developed for this exact problem. In short, are the French people willing to issue the “single, non-renewable warning” on behalf of Poles or Greeks or Swedes? This step would be to the brink, risking the prompt end of French existence much less independence- the sine qua non of French nuclear DNA. There are at least three related reasons to question this level of French commitment to the rest of the continent- or at least the continent far from French borders.

The first is the political reaction to recent remarks by Général Fabien Mandon, the current chief of defense staff and previous chief of the military staff of President Macron (a uniquely important position for French nuclear issues). In November 2025, Mandon remarked in a speech to French mayors:

We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to deter the Moscow regime from trying its luck by going further. What we lack, and this is where you have a major role to play, is the strength of spirit to accept suffering in order to protect who we are. If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept – let’s be honest – to lose its children, to suffer economically because defense production will take precedence, then we are at risk.

Général Fabien Mandon. Image courtesy of Anopex.

The reaction from across the French political spectrum was prompt and critical. According to France24:

The left-wing France Unbowed‘s Jean-Luc Mélenchon said that he was in “complete disagreement” with Mandon.

“It is not his place to invite mayors or anyone else to participate in war preparations decided by no one: not the President, not the government, not Parliament,” he wrote on X. “Nor is it his place to anticipate sacrifices that would result from our diplomatic failures, on which his public opinion has not been sought! Where is President Macron? Why is he allowing this?”

Louis Aliot, deputy leader of the far-right National Rally, said: “One must be prepared to die for one’s country ... but the war being waged must be just, or understood, or the necessity must dictate that the very survival of the nation is at stake…”

“It’s a NO! 51,000 war memorials in our towns and villages are not enough?,” said French Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel, referring to the number of memorials nationwide to those who fell in war…

“It’s shocking,” said Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice and a member of the centre-right Horizons party which is part of Macron’s ruling coalition.

“Is it the role of the chief of staff of the army to worry the country in this way? It’s an act of weakness…”

While the context for Mandon’s remarks was Ukraine, it is not clear nuclear exchange for Poland or Greece or Sweden would merit substantially different political responses. As France24 concludes “the message is struggling to make inroads among a polarised population that feels far from the frontline and protected by a nuclear deterrent”- a nuclear deterrent clearly focused on the borders of the metropole.

This skepticism of political commitment is not just the view of a jaundiced American. In an excellent report released at the 2026 Munich Security Conference, a pan-European nuclear study group concluded:

Absent a counterforce posture and damage-limitation capacity, neither France nor the UK could seamlessly replace the United States as a provider of extended nuclear deterrence. In addition, French and British political resolve to assume the substantial nuclear risks on behalf of all European Allies – risks generally associated with a countervalue posture – is widely seen as insufficient.

This question of resolve leads to the second reason for questioning the credibility of forward deterrence- the overall state of French politics. The French parliament is deeply divided and only avoided a government shutdown with an emergency budget in December 2025. In early February 2026, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu finally forced through a 2026 budget without a vote after multiple no-confidence votes from the parliament. This is not the sort of legislative politics that readily yields credibility (and to be fair is not just a French problem, as any observer of U.S. politics would note).

Further, President Macron has just over a year left in his second and final term. While that is a long time in political terms, Jordan Bardella of the National Rally is probably the leading candidate to replace Macron. Bardella is, by the standards of the far right, relatively open to the European dimension of French vital interests, remarking recently "The defense of French interests does not stop at [French] borders. Since de Gaulle, the French nuclear umbrella protects, by definition, certain neighbors and certain European partners." Yet the National Rally as a whole is skeptical of both Europe and the threat posed by Russia. It is thus hard to imagine Macron’s speech today as anything other than the political high-water mark of forward deterrence- even if his successor does not repudiate it, he or she is unlikely to advance it further.

Even while Macron remains in office there are signs that France’s vital interests in Europe are, to put it mildly, less than existential. The furor over the fate of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS or SCAF), the Franco-Spanish-German project to develop a sixth-generation system of systems for air combat, underscores the limits of European common interests. Two of the titans of European aerospace- France’s Dassault and the more pan-European Airbus- are at seemingly intractable loggerheads on the future of the fighter component of FCAS. The government of France and Germany have to date been unable to resolve this defense industrial dispute- despite FCAS having previously been identified as the future platform for the air leg of France’s nuclear deterrent.

The requirement for FCAS to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons is important for the choice of prime contractor- a choice that would likely favor Dassault and a requirement that Germany is questioning. This has led some reporters to claim there “is palpable unease at the Élysée Palace regarding Germany… Emmanuel Macron is making progress on nuclear deterrence conditional on ‘the continuation of the SCAF [future combat aircraft] program as initially defined.’ According to a source close to the matter, ‘the Germans consider this to be blackmail.” Even if this is overstated, the dispute underscores that France’s vital interests in Germany may taper off where French defense industrial concerns begin. Conversely, Germany’s faith in the credibility of forward deterrence seems insufficient to lead it to give ground on industrial questions.

A Useful Complement but No Substitute

The foregoing may seem entirely dismissive of forward deterrence, but this is true only in the sense of forward deterrence as substitute for U.S. extended nuclear deterrence. As an enhancement of France’s existing role in the trans-Atlantic alliance, forward deterrence is all to the good- expanding French collaboration with allies while preserving the unique nature of French nuclear deterrence and nuclear DNA. Potential alignment of France’s Poker exercise of its nuclear aviation with other allies (and allied exercises like NATO’s Steadfast Noon) is particularly valuable. Yet it is important that neither Americans nor European allies conflate forward deterrence with extended deterrence. The requirements of the latter will remain uniquely met by the doctrine, capabilities, and posture of the United States.

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Poster image for the original AI and nuclear weapons film

AI and Nuclear Weapon Design

Nuclear weapons and AI intersection can begin with design of weapons. As with other bespoke technical design areas such as pharmaceuticals, AI can potentially accelerate design cycles for weapons. However, such advancement requires substantial data on nuclear weapons performance, mostly only available from a substantial empirical record from nuclear testing as well as investments in modeling. AI will thus likely provide design benefit primarily to the United States and potentially Russia. In a sense then the rich will get richer from this interaction- the largest/oldest nuclear powers will reap the most benefit. AI and nuclear weapons design is thus a logical extension of the United States decades old scientific stockpile stewardship effort, which combined high performance computing and simulation with the data from decades of nuclear testing.

AI is thus unlikely, absent such data and modeling investment, to shift any of the underlying dynamics of vertical or horizontal proliferation. One possible exception is the People’s Republic of China, which has the resources to investment in modeling and computing but lacks a test base comparable to the United States or Russia. If it were able to gain such data- or simply chose to begin testing in a focused way- it could potentially advance its nuclear designs very rapidly compared to the progress of the United States or Soviet Union decades ago. The recent revelation that China has conducted significant yield producing nuclear tests and may intend to conduct more takes on added significance in this context.

AI and Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications

AI has multiple points of potential intersection with the command and control of nuclear weapons. This creates a spectrum of risk and benefit, from intersections of high risk and low benefit to those with low risk and high benefit. As each intersection has different implications in terms of risks and benefits, so it is useful to decompose nuclear command, control, and communications into different components or functions. Typically, nuclear command and control is defined as consisting of five functions: situation monitoring, decision making, planning, force management and force direction.

These functions can then be mapped to the risk/benefit spectrum. At one end of the spectrum are low risk/high benefit applications, where the inclusion of AI is likely to improve performance with little to no risk relative to existing command and control processes. At the other end are high risk applications, where whatever the benefits there are substantial risks over existing processes. Risk reduction approaches would seek to appropriately calibrate risks of AI and nuclear command and control intersections and then limit or eschew those that are at the risky end of the spectrum while encouraging appropriate adoption of those at the other end of the spectrum.

Situation monitoring encapsulates a spectrum ranging from early warning to assessing general geopolitical developments. AI clearly offers potential benefits here- the rapid assimilation and assessment of disparate inputs, for which there is often extensive historical data, is a core competence of AI.

For example, U.S. early warning of ballistic missile attack relies on both infrared and radar data, which are already processed with a high degree of automation. AI offers some benefit to speeding up the assessment of potential attacks by fusing sensor data with historical data (e.g. from observation of previous missile launches) as well as the potential for introduction of novel assessment tools. An example is rapid inclusion of intelligence data on adversary nuclear readiness levels and/or patrol patterns. While there is risk of AI false alarm, it is likely modest compared to the risk of false alarm with existing semi-automated assessment.

The intersection of AI and nuclear decision-making causes the most immediate visceral reaction- images of AI directed nuclear war haunt the modern consciousness. Yet decision-making tools- or more accurately aids to decision-making- have existed since the beginning of the nuclear age. In the United States the most notable is the decidedly analog Nuclear Decision Handbook (NDHB aka the Black Book), a binder with reference material to support nuclear decisions. If the same information contained in the Black Book were presented digitally- e.g. on a tablet- would it fundamentally change decision-making? What if the same information were made more visual- three dimensional displays rather than diagrams and words on a page? What if it were the same information but more interactive- with hyperlinks to additional existing data bases for example? A President can already ask for any information he or she wants in decision-making- would making information retrieval faster and without a human staff officer having to provide it change a decision? If so, for better or worse?

The Black Book as depicted in House of Dynamite. Image courtesy of TLDR Reviews.

Going one step further, what if the digital interface provided information that a President’s querying of data bases suggests he or she is actually seeking but is unsure how to ask for? Would this change decision-making? A further step would be the digital interface recommending courses of action with pros and cons- just as human advisors can. Each of these incremental steps away from a purely analog two-dimensional decision-aid to an interactive AI advisor are potentially reasonable but merits considerable caution given the early state of understanding of the interaction of human judgment with advanced AI. Each step probably shifts further towards the risky end along the risk/benefit spectrum

Beyond decision-aids, there is the possibility for purely AI decision-making. While nations such as China and the United States have rejected this approach, it could be potentially attractive to states with concerns about assured retaliation. In states with clear leadership succession and trusted civil military relations, such concerns can be addressed with delegation to lower echelon commanders or by ensuring clear succession and continuity of civilian leadership. The United States has pursued both courses at various points.

However, the Soviet Union- which lacked both clear succession and trust between civilians and the military to permit delegation- did not pursue either course. Instead, it built an algorithmic form of pre-delegation- a semi-automated command and control system known as Perimetr. When the system was activated and certain conditions were met the system would enable nuclear launch without further leadership action.

While not AI, the system highlights the potential attraction for certain regimes of AI decision-making. A leader concerned about assuring nuclear retaliation and unwilling to delegate or identify a successor could see AI as a convenient escape. Who better to succeed a leader that is killed or incapacitated than an AI simulacrum of the leader’s own nuclear decision-making? Whether such a simulacrum is possible- and if it is how faithfully it could recreate a leader’s decision-making- is an open question but one can imagine why a leader could invest in exploring it. This would be at the extreme end of the risk/reward spectrum.

The planning function of nuclear command and control probably sits at the less risky side of the risk/benefit spectrum, with different aspects of planning somewhat more or less risky. As an example, much of the initial processing of geospatial intelligence (e.g. satellite images) by the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is done with the aid of machine learning tools. The volume of images now available simply swamps humans so AI/ML-human teaming makes the volume tractable and useful. These images are the basis for much U.S. military targeting (nuclear or non-nuclear), so the targeting component of planning already has an element of AI embedded in it. This to date has not produced risky results and may reduce risks of the kind that led to the inadvertent bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 during operations against Yugoslavia.

Other aspects of planning- which often already rely on modeling tools, such as those for planning flight routes- could likely benefit from similar AI-human teaming. This would be particularly useful for so called adaptive planning, which is intended to enable generation of nuclear options that are not currently in existing deliberate or “on the shelf” plans for the U.S. president in crisis or conflict. Of course, rapid generation of options could lead to challenges in other aspects of nuclear command and control- such as decision-making- if other functions of nuclear command and control are not well integrated with AI-human enabled planning. This underscores the need to evaluate AI incorporation into nuclear command and control holistically across the five functions.

Force management, which involves all the prosaic but vital elements of logistics, maintenance, and readiness, is perhaps the function where the utility of AI is most likely to be evident at low risk. This is in part because many of the elements of force management most closely resemble civilian or other military applications of AI- large geographically dispersed logistics functions for example. The detection of patterns for predictive maintenance in nuclear systems and ensuring the routine updating of cryptographic keys and software are just two areas where agentic AI in particular could prove valuable in force management. Here the risks of incorporating AI again seem modest or negligible compared to the status quo- AI may even help limit future errors of the kinds the U.S. Air Force saw in handling nuclear weapons and component in 2007.

Force direction- the issuing of commands to the force to employ or terminate employment of nuclear weapons- offers a few different potential opportunities for the incorporation of AI, with more or less risk. At the lower end of risk is the use of AI to manage the communications systems and connections required to disseminate orders to nuclear forces. In the United States these orders are called Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) and, depending on the nuclear platform, can be delivered via landline or a variety of radio frequencies. In environments where adversary nuclear or non-nuclear attack may have disrupted communications AI could be useful in ensuring reconstitution of pathways for message transition. Indeed, early packet switching techniques- which now form the basis for internet communications- were developed for such environments so AI for similar effects may be simply a logical progression.

Another application at AI would be giving it a role in optimizing force direction to achieve presidential objectives. This would enable AI to optimize in near real time how weapons would be applied to targets based on the current real-world conditions. For example, if a missile failed at launch, AI could rapidly determine whether another missile was available to cover the same target, determine whether utilizing that missile would leave another target uncovered and assess the utility of employing the second missile. This could improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of force direction- which in turn might permit a state to deploy fewer nuclear weapons. However, giving AI autonomy to redesign attack structures in real time- even if the AI must be given authorization to do so in the same way a human operator would through a presidential authentication- would be at the risky end of the spectrum of AI interactions. The shadow of Skynet and the WOPR would be long here.

First point: The agenda laid out by Under Secretary DiNanno in his Geneva speech is ambitious. He points to a next era of arms control, the output of which will be verifiable, broad in scope, enforceable, and multilateral. In the ways we discussed on the pod, DiNanno is correct when he says that this will be neither quick nor easy.

My conclusion is that we face a potentially lengthy gap between where we are today and the conclusion of this ambitious new multilateral effort. It’s both important and interesting to think about what happens in arms control during that gap. I’d argue the answer can’t be “nothing,” and we need solutions that both increase U.S. and international security and help put us on the right course for the treaty DiNanno previewed. Consistent with that mindset are reports suggesting a “responsible” approach to U.S.-Russian bilateral nuclear engagement during the next period, although details on this approach remain far from clear. However, given the concern DiNanno and others have expressed about the importance of bringing China into the arms control conversation, the interim approach must also include China.

Given Beijing’s allergy to participation in arms control, where to start? I think the design of an interim approach should address three objectives: 1) providing real security benefits to the United States, and, presumably, other participants; 2) helping to set the stage for the more ambitious program DiNanno laid out for the longer term; and 3) demonstrating to NPT non-nuclear weapon states that we are serious about our Article VI obligations, not setting an impossibly high standard for arms control to continue.

There’s been a lot said and written about the approach to New START’s arsenal limits in this next phase; I think it’s at least as interesting to consider what New START’s other, non-limit provisions suggest for what we might want to do in this period, in parallel with the ambitious program laid out in Geneva. For instance:

1. Transparency: New START data exchanges stopped in 2023, and the State Department has since reported last January that the lack of these data (and other important verification tools) leave us unable to say with confidence whether Russia is currently within New START limits. As others have said, it would be useful to resume some form of voluntary data exchange with Russia, but with New START’s expiration there is no reason (beyond convenience, which I don’t discount!) that voluntary exchanges need to look identical to what was provided for under New START. We should analyze what particular aspects of Russia’s nuclear numbers, locations, or movements (whether provided under New START or not) we would find most valuable to exchange, while also considering what data would be most likely and useful as an entry point for Chinese participation.

The April NPT Review Conference is an immediate opportunity on this topic, as nuclear weapon state transparency will assuredly be a major theme of discussion. This is the chance for NPT non-nuclear weapon states to bring their leverage to bear, making clear that Article VI progress cannot wait until DiNanno’s announcement is realized, but also that action and transparency from all of the nuclear weapon states is needed. The United States has traditionally led the pack on transparency; it should lean into that, holding China to a higher standard, rather than holding ourselves to a lower one. The P5 should take this issue up in earnest between now and the end of the RevCon in order to have something positive to say. A written P5 product laying out thoughtfully the contours of the transparency we see as useful would be a massively positive contribution to the RevCon; absent that, a U.S. or P3 paper would also have value.

2. Inspections: While voluntary transparency is easy to imagine, inspections seem much harder to me without a legal structure in place. Maybe some level of comfort could be possible carrying out visits under a different agreement that provides relevant privileges and immunities, for example, but I’d be very nervous sending inspectors into Russia even with the protections of New START, and it’s hard to imagine any Chinese interest in this.

A baby step in this direction could be on the education side. A big chunk of New START and its predecessors focused on the administrative and procedural elements of inspections, much of which has less to do with the substance of the inspection and more to do with trivia like who provides meals and the role of embassy staff and air crews. It would be interesting (at least to me!) to explore how much of that is generalizable to any future arms control agreement, and how different it would need to look in a multilateral case. The P5 have received New START briefings before – while the administrivia of hosting inspections might not be the sexiest topic to take up in that venue, it could offer opportunity to explore with China (and the UK and France) some elements of what a future agreement will have to grapple with; without committing to any specific arrangement, this kind of work could have the benefit of implicitly endorsing a future role for all of the P5, most pointedly China, in future arms control efforts. More concrete than briefings would be demonstrations. Again, announcements in this area would redound well in the NPT.

3. Testing: As we discussed at length in the pod, the role of nuclear tests in all this is extremely interesting, and might open up a door in the above areas. DiNanno not only laid out U.S. accusations of Chinese activities counter to its moratorium on explosive nuclear testing, but also indicated that restoring “responsible behavior when it comes to nuclear testing” would be part of the new U.S. arms control efforts. I don’t know what the administration has in mind, but ideas along the lines we discussed on the pod involving mutual verification of our respective voluntary nuclear testing moratoria, whether through information or equipment or inspectors, seem like a great near-term step towards implementing the administration’s vision. In a 2023 speech, then NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby announced efforts to expanding transparency into activities at the former U.S. test site, providing live-streaming and radiation detection equipment as examples. NNSA followed up with in-person transparency at the site here and here. With last week’s announcement, dusting off the ideas floated by Hruby could provide a toolkit through which to verify the U.S. accusations against China. If at the same time these efforts can begin building greater Chinese familiarity and comfort with the presence of equipment or people in sensitive locations, so much the better for the future arms control treaties we now seek.

4. Other Constraints: New START had other provisions that are worth contemplating for what comes next. In her interview with Pranay, Rose Gottemoeller mentioned New START’s prohibition on interference with national technical means of verification. The treaty also precludes joint basing of heavy bombers for nuclear and non-nuclear arms. These kinds of commitments could be made voluntarily and multilaterally (recognizing the ambiguity as to what we’d be using NTM to verify in the absence of New START’s legal obligations…). Lacking new START’s Bilateral Consultative Commission, commitments to consult in the event of perceived risk of nuclear war, or maybe just when questions arise about activities observed by one nuclear weapon state in another, could be considered. Beyond New START, what constraints on basing of dual-capable strategic systems like Oreshnik would we welcome? I’d argue in favor of sifting through New START and other measures and considering which elements could be snapped up in a joint statement in some configuration.

Even these kinds of measures would be neither easy nor quick, but certainly they would be easier and quicker than a trilateral treaty setting limits on nuclear arsenals. Informed by Pranay’s interesting interviews over the past month, I think this kind of measure would have three near-term benefits:

1. (Partially) replace some of the non-limit provisions lost with New START’s expiration, with security benefits for the United States (and for Russia!)

2. (Potentially) expand the arms control conversation to include China, helping to build some familiarity in Beijing with the concepts we want to bring them into in the longer term

3. (Definitely) demonstrate seriousness with regard to fulfilling NPT obligations under Article VI, with nonproliferation benefits.

More generally, my point is that, while endorsing the U.S. arms control objective announced by U/S DiNanno and wishing the U.S. team luck in implementing it, I think they should also pursue smaller measures in the near term that point us in the right direction. There are many other examples (e.g. these good ones put forth by Joseph Rodgers and Doreen Horschig at CSIS, and touched on by others in the excellent compilation of expiration reactions in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists). The narrative today is that Russia offered to extend an arms control treaty and the United States refused, insisting on a next step with China that is known to be a very tall order. Bringing to the P5 and NPT parties a more modest, parallel approach for the interim would regain the initiative, and put China and Russia on the hook to respond. Whatever the first step, we should think small and get started!

Under Secretary of State Dinanno’s speech before the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (link)

National Academies report on Technical Issues related to CTBT (including clandestine test activities) (link)

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Strategic Simplicity is a collection of content provided for free by experts, many of whom worked with one another in a variety of jobs. The written or podcast content is solely for education purposes, and in no way reflects the views of the U.S. government, MIT, or other entities.

As always, please feel free to leave us comments and questions and we’ll look to address them in an upcoming podcast.

Background reading:

Frank Miller and Eric Edelman, “No New START: Renewing the U.S.-Russian Deal Won’t Solve Today’s Nuclear Dilemmas.” Foreign Affairs.

Frank Miller and Eric Edelman, “Time to End the Last U.S.-Russia Nuclear Treaty.” The Bulwark.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, “New Start and Trump’s Nuclear Test.” WSJ.

Strategic Simplicity is a collection of content provided for free by experts, many of whom worked with one another in a variety of jobs. In no way does written or podcast content reflect the views of the U.S. government, MIT, or other entities.

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We all worked together on New START, so there is a fair amount of reminiscing in this episode, but Greg and Mike also provide a detailed glimpse into the work that goes on behind the scenes in arms control negotiation and implementation. I hope young professionals wondering what it’s like to work in this field take particular interest in this episode. As always, please feel free to send comments or question our way here or in the subscriber chat.

Background reading (stuff I haven’t shared in previous posts, but seem pertinent to New START expiration).

• I really hope DoW doesn’t get rid of this resource - a searchable treaty text with can help you go down a few of the rabbit holes we referenced during the podcast.

• a 2024 RAND report on post-New START options.

• Erin Dumbacher’s recent CFR post on managing Putin’s offer to maintain New START limits.

• Frank Jones’ book “Obama on the Bomb,” covering New START and arms control efforts during the Obama administration.

Strategic Simplicity is a collection of content provided for free by experts, many of whom worked with one another in a variety of jobs. In no way does written or podcast content reflect the views of the U.S. government, MIT, or other entities.

Subscribe now