(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Is There a Strategic Nuclear Arms Race?)

Yes, there is a nuclear arms race. But the U.S. is not in it and has not been since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR. On the contrary, the U.S. has significantly reduced both its reliance on nuclear weapons and its inventory of nuclear forces by over 90%.

Two major countries engaged in an accelerating nuclear arms race are Russia and China. Trouble remains as while thankfully, the U.S. has now taken critical steps to modernize its strategic nuclear forces, replacing its aging forces on a one-for one basis—the U.S. remains from 2.5 to 6 times worse off in the nuclear production business as the United States is racing only to stay in place.

Russia has not only modernized its strategic nuclear forces, (over 90% completed) they have also significantly increased the number of nuclear warheads they can deliver, replacing, for example the single warhead Topol ICBMs with multiwarhead Yars ICBMs, creating a warhead count potentially far in excess of New Start Treaty limits.

Russia currently has 168 Yars ICBMs (24 silo, 144 mobile), each carrying 4-6 RVs, 36 Yars-S each carrying three heavy re-entry vehicles (RVs); 46 SS-18 ICBMs each carrying 10 RVs, being replaced by the Sarmat each carrying up to 15-20 light (90-150 kt) RVs. The SS-19s are largely retired except for eighteen carrying the Avangard hypersonic vehicle. Current total ICBM warheads are between 1916-2190 if fully uploaded.

Russia has 5 Delta-IV SSBNs each carrying 16 Layner SLBMs and each capable of carrying 8-12 RVs. Russia also has 8 Borei SSBNs with two more under construction and two to four more planned after that. Each Borei caries 16 Bulava SLBMs, each SLBM carries 6 RVs for a total of 1312-1632 warheads. Votinsk, the production plant, can produce Yars and Bulava missiles at a rate of ~40/year.

Russia’s bomber force is rapidly decaying—The ~52 Tu-95 Bears were to be modernized with new engines and avionics, but that program is moving slowly due to sanctions, and the same is true for the 13 Tu-160 Blackjack bombers to be modernized to the Tu-160 M2 standard. Russia planned on building fifty additional Tu-160M2s, but that program is also delayed, as is Russia’s new stealth bomber the PAK-DA. Total current bomber weapon numbers are 964 bringing total Russian strategic nuclear force totals to 4192-4786 warheads.

China’s rapid nuclear build up has been characterized as “breath-taking” by U.S. officials. Although China continues to claim a minimum deterrent posture retaliatory only in nature, their forces as deployed enable them to execute any policy/strategy they wish.

China has 96 DF-31 mobile ICBMs each with 1-3 RVs; 84 DF-41 ICBMs with 2-10 RVs; 40 DF-5 B/C liquid fuel silo based ICBMs with 10 RVs (DF-5C); 320-360 silo based DF-31/41 in three ICBM fields. China recently show-cased the new DF-61 ICBM, close in size to the DF-41 and more technologically advanced. A recent DIA report stated that China would have 700 ICBMs by 2035, some 75% greater than the United States.

China’s sea leg of their nuclear TRIAD consists of 6 Type 094 Jin class SSBN, each with 12 JL-3 SLBMs with 1-3 RVs for a total of between 72-216 SLBM warheads. Another 6-8 Type 096 SSBNs are expected to be deployed by 2035, each carrying 16-20 JL-3 or new class SLBMs. Total current SLBM warhead count is 216, but the new 096 SSBN would add another 288-480 warheads.

China’s air leg of the TRIAD consists of 90-100 H-6K bombers carrying 6-7 CJ-20 cruise missiles (2000 km range) as well as 20-30 H-6N carrying one new JL-1 nuclear missile revealed in the recent military parade. China can produce 15-20 H-6 bombers/year, but H-6 production will likely be replaced by production of the H-20 stealth bomber. China’s stealth bomber is expected first flight in 2025/26 and will have a range of 8,500 km and be capable of carrying 10-16 weapons. Current total bomber weapon count is 630 warheads.

China current total strategic nuclear weapons count is 4846 if fully uploaded. This is in stark contrast to the U.S. Intelligence Community statement that China only has ~ 600 strategic nuclear weapons. However simple math shows that if you take the current Russian and Chinese missile numbers stated by FAS and the Intelligence community and multiply by the estimated WH carriage capability you produce far more WH numbers than 600.

The strategic nuclear modernization and build-up programs of China and Russia are largely completed, with Russia completing deployment of at least 46 Sarmat ICBMs with 15-20 RVs as well as the Arcturus SSBN with a 2035 IOC, and eventually the PAK-DA bomber.

China’s strategic nuclear force is forecast to continue to grow to 700 ICBMs by 2035 as well as the addition of the Type 096 SSBN, additional H-6 bombers and a new H-20 stealth bomber.

In contrast, the U.S. is only modernizing its TRIAD, not increasing its force size or capabilities, replacing ageing systems on a one-for-one basis with no increase in deployed nuclear warheads—in no way can these modernization actions be viewed as “Arms Racing.”

The Sentinel ICBM with one warhead will replace the existing 450 MM III ICBM which are 55 years old and armed with one warhead starting in the 2030’s and completed by 2040’s. The Columbia SSBN, with 16 D-5 SLBMs (Currently armed with ~4 RVs) will replace the OHIO SSBN with 20 D-5 SLBMs on a one-for-one basis starting in 2030-2 and completed by 2042. D-5 SLBMs from Ohio D-5 SSBNs will go into the Columbia SSBNs. The U.S. sea leg of the TRIAD could have 1536 warheads if fully uploaded w/8 RVs/SLBM.

The B-21 dual role conventional/nuclear bomber will enter the force in 2027 at a rate of 7-10/year for a total of 100 bombers. They can carry B-61 bombs or eight nuclear AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) cruise missiles. They will replace the 45 B-1 conventional bomber and the 20 B-2 bombers. The 76 strong B-52 force will be modernized into the B-52J configuration with new engines and avionics and fly until ~ 2070, when it will be 100 years old. The B-52J will be capable of carrying up to 20 long range strike options or cruise missiles.

In summary, while China, Russia and North Kores have been “Arms Racing” since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has been a side-line observer, and the current long delayed U.S. strategic force modernization program is replacing systems ageing out on a one-for-one basis.

without increasing capability while Russia, China and North Korea have not only modernized their force they have also significantly increased capabilities. The U.S. is facing a two-peer deterrence dilemma—a Russia with as many as 4786 strategic nuclear warheads; China with potentially upwards of 4846 strategic nuclear weapons for a combined force of 9632 strategic nuclear warheads.

The U.S. will have 3010 strategic nuclear weapons and approximately 200 theater weapons if we upload all our missiles. As stated by the U.S. Strategic Posture Commission as well as a growing number of U.S. officials, the U.S. will have to increase its nuclear forces—but how and how fast?

2025-2045 Annual Production & C&R/U.S. Ratio

	United States	Russia	China	C&R/U.S. Ratio
SLBM Missiles/yr	10	19	34	5.3/1
ICBM Missiles/yr	20	13	35	2.651
Nuclear Bombers/yr	3	3.3	5	2.8/1
Cruise Missiles/Brs	28	40	34	2.6/1
SNDV/yr Total	61	105	108	3.5/1
Strategic Nuclear WH/yr	80	235	235	5.9/1

*The chart represents the average annual production rate for three alternative nuclear forces if built over twenty years from 2025-45 based on projected force structures planned by the United States and in part planned and announced by Russia and China.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Mutual Assured Destruction Doesn’t Deter Escalate to Win)

Mutual assured destruction or MAD is not an American doctrine or military strategy. Those who believe MAD is how America deters nuclear armed adversaries assume that any use of nuclear weapons by the United States will be massive. And that any alternative such as the limited initial use of nuclear force, will quickly escalate to a full scale nuclear conflict with both attacker and retaliatory nation being destroyed. Given such assumptions, it is considered logical to assume U.S. deterrent strategy is fixed on massive retaliation and destroying most of the industry and population of our adversaries as that is the only possible use of such weapons.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a MAD strategy was indeed considered but jettisoned by the United States some 65 years ago. For example, President Kennedy noted an all or nothing strategy made no sense: “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy – or of a collective death-wish for the world.” Kennedy succeeded in adopting a strategy far short of all-out retaliation that came to be known as “flexible response” which in 1974 was fully developed by James Schlesinger and eventually codified in a 1980 PDD or Presidential Defense Directive 59.

Whether the United States has 10,000 or 1500 strategic nuclear weapons, our forces were designed to have a secure retaliatory capability at any level of conflict. The objective was to end any conflict as soon as possible and at the lowest level of destruction. But the U.S. goal was not to burn an adversaries cities to the ground. U.S. deterrent strategy was to hold at risk what our adversary valued—an adversary’s leadership, security forces that keep the leadership in power, key war supporting industries and the key weapons used to propel aggression.

Critics of current U.S. deterrent strategy assume that no nuclear armed adversary of the United States believes in “fighting” a nuclear war, so the U.S. should drop its long held deterrent strategy and go “back to MAD” or something like it. But at the same time, many of these same critics join the abolitionists to support a minimal number of nuclear weapons but only to “deter” but not engage in “warfighting.” If conflict breaks out and these weapons will not be used even in retaliation. This takes our nuclear deterrent off the table and reduced to only a bluff.

What then of the multiple nuclear threats by Russia over Ukraine? Such threats are often dismissed as mere bluff. Many may find this idea comforting. After all, if no nuclear armed nation has plans for the limited use of nuclear weapons, and everyone has adopted MAD, the United States need not be concerned with the nuclear balance.

Thus, the mistaken notion that the U.S. has a MAD strategy plays into the hands of Russia and China. These two nations both seek to be able to escalate or threaten to escalate in a crisis or conflict with a limited use of nuclear weapons. The objective is to get the United States to stand down and not come to the defense of her allies, a restraint to give Russia and China a strategic advantage.

Unfortunately, much of the current commentary on nuclear threats still assumes the U.S. and its adversaries maintain a mutual assured destruction strategy as the best means to avoid any use of nuclear weapons. Annie Jacobson’s recent book “On Nuclear War: A Scenario” describes mutual assured destruction strategy—which she assumes the U.S. maintains—as simply MAD or crazy. She posits that any initial use of nuclear weapons would almost automatically result in the all-out use of such weapons, leading to nuclear winter and killing billions. And as such, she calls for the entirety of American nuclear deterrence to be jettisoned.

What Jacobson ignores is that our adversaries of the West have sought military advantage through enhanced nuclear weapons. The Soviets sought to put nuclear weapons in space; then built a huge first strike missile force; then deployed thousands of medium range SS-20s to intimidate and split NATO; and most recently built a theater strike capability to keep the United States and NATO from coming to the robust defense of its allies.

The U.S. nuclear deterrent was never a one size fits all and automatically “fit for purpose.” For example, the U.S. and NATO faced a huge conventional military threat from the USSR from the beginning of the Cold War on the plains of central Europe. The Warsaw Pact tank armies were not matched by U.S. conventional forces whose cost would have bankrupted the U.S. Treasury. The alternative was an extended nuclear “umbrella” over Europe, primarily aimed at Soviet tank armies. Thus, in the initial Cold War period, the U.S. assumed a nuclear conflict would most probably grow out of an initial conventional war.

As technology improved, however, a new threat emerged: a potential Soviet pre-emptive first strike seeking to eliminate much of the U.S. nuclear extended deterrent, followed up by a subsequent conventional invasion of Europe.

In 1963, the U.S. strategic nuclear deterrent consisted of 6000 nuclear warheads while the Russians had 600 warheads. As President Kennedy remarked, this strength and particularly the newly deployed Minuteman missiles were as he said, “my ace in the hole,” that gave the United States the strategic advantage that peacefully ended the Cuban missile crisis.

However, by the time the next decade ended, the 1972 SALT “arms control” treaty process allowed the USSR to deploy 7800 warheads compared to the U.S. force of 8700 warheads, (revealed by a 1983 DoD Net Assessment.) Most worrisome were 3000 highly accurate SS-18 missile warheads, with the overall Soviet nuclear force projected to grow to over 24,000 warheads by 1993. As Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird told Congress in 1974, “the Soviets are going for a first strike force and there is no doubt about it.” The SS-18 eventually did indeed hold at risk the entirety of the U.S. land-based ICBMs, the only highly accurate U.S. deterrent force, leaving the U.S. without the ability to hold at risk key Soviet assets.

This perceived imbalance was known as the “window of vulnerability” and leave U.S. leaders exactly where President Kennedy had previously worried would be the case. The U.S. solved the strategic equation of the window of vulnerability—the USSR empire was brought down. The U.S. deployed the accurate D-5 submarine launched missile and Peacekeeper land based ICBM to its deterrent, the Soviet SS-20s were banned by treaty, SDI was initiated, and the START arms control process brought Russian warheads down to under 2000, a near 80% reduction.

In April 1999 Russia’s President Yeltsin decreed that Moscow develop highly accurate, small, low yield, battlefield useful nuclear weapons. And as former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Hyten warned decades ago, these nuclear weapons were designed precisely to “escalate to win” a conventional conflict or crisis between Moscow and Washington.

Putin thinks the U.S. will not want to risk escalation and the possible massive use of nuclear weapons. That is why Putin has made exactly these threats over NATO’s intervention in the war against Ukraine. The previous administration stood down and did not provide Ukraine the needed military capability to effectively take the fight to Moscow. In addition, Russia assumes the relative weak U.S. theater nuclear forces cannot deter escalatory threats from Moscow. This point was emphasized by the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission report in laying out the opening of what could be described as a new window of vulnerability.

The U.S. is indeed now developing a greater theater nuclear deterrent to close the technology gap. However, simply improving conventional deterrent would not be sufficient. As the U.S. military has repeatedly emphasized, if adversarial nuclear forces are introduced into a conventional conflict, the assumed U.S. advantage “does not hold.” In short, the U.S. conventional military advantage disappears.

In conclusion, the central tenets of mutual assured destruction no longer apply as MAD itself has long been jettisoned. More importantly, our adversaries believe the actual first use of nuclear weapons must no longer be assumed to be taboo. That is the new threat that must be deterred by the U.S. and its allies. The dilemma is that the U.S. needs time to resolve this theater deterrent shortfall but the aggression calendar of our adversaries may not necessarily wait until completed.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Deterrence: Peace Through Strength Works)

The United States relies on deterrence to protect our country from all enemies foreign and domestic. The police and border patrol protect our cities and borders by deterring criminals and their associated organized criminal cartels.

The U.S. military, including all five services from the USAF to the Marines and Coast Guard, protects our nation’s interests and sovereignty and our allies overseas through displays of deterrent forces that give pause to our enemies.

However, there are pressures in the U.S. that are deliberately proposing the U.S. stop deterrence both internal to and external to the United States even atop the already serious loss of deterrence to date.

For example, HASC Chairman Mike Rogers explained at a recent hearing on the Mideast and Africa that:

“American deterrence in the Middle East and Africa eroded under the last administration. The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan emboldened our adversaries. The Biden administration’s appeasement of Iran only made matters worse. After Hamas’ barbaric onslaught, Iran opened a second front—activating the Houthis to strike Israel and disrupt global trade. Since 2023, the Houthis have launched hundreds of attacks on U.S. warships and commercial vessels. Yet, instead of holding the Houthis accountable, the Biden administration pulled them off the terror list.”

Previous administrations said Ukraine was either of no security interest to the United States (2014) or feared (2022) Russian escalation to the nuclear level and therefore reduced weapons provided to Ukraine and failed to develop any strategy to win the war against Putin and Moscow.

These policies in the view of our adversaries were interpreted as a show of weakness and of a limited faith in conventional or nuclear deterrence in 2014 and 2022. America thus sent signals to Moscow that Russia largely remained in a sanctuary free from Ukraine attack. What possible incentive would Moscow then have to negotiate a settlement that restored Ukraine sovereignty?

The same foreign policy mistakes were duplicated with respect to Iran. Taking Iran proxy Hamas off the terror list, providing $100 billion in frozen oil and gas funds back to Iran, and undermining Israel deterrent capability against Iran, collectively again took the U.S. deterrent off the table dealing with Iran proxy terrorism and missile strikes for example, and the Iran objective of exporting its Islamic jihad revolution worldwide.

There is a domestic corollary as well. Leaving the U.S. border largely open to those seeking illegal entry and providing them residency rights by the multiple millions took our border deterrent off the table.

Over 2021-4 ten-twelve million illegal aliens crashed our borders but with approximately 8-10 million given permission to remain in the United States and many to receive Medicaid and food stamps, as well as work permits on top of a free plane ride to the city of their choice.

Multi thousands of these aliens are criminal elements escaping law enforcement in their origin country, while smuggling drugs and engaging in human trafficking to the tune of at least $42 billon each year.

The United States took border deterrence off the table, and as consequence 107,000 Americans dye of drug overdoses annually, escalating crime hits our cities, while the U.S. has lost some 400,000 young unaccompanied migrant children, many of whom are believed to being sexually trafficked.

The Trump administration restored border deterrence quickly as the laws on the books allowed enforcement and return of deterrence. Adding thousands of ICE and border patrol officials plus detention centers are all in the reconciliation budget and will allow the continued enforcement of border security.

Foreign policy deterrent choices have also been correctly identified by the new administration. But no laws on the books are alone adequate to win back deterrence. Both major new investments and strategies are needed.

On Ukraine the administration determined there was no strategy to win and thus a cease fire was superior to turning Ukraine into an extended Verdun.

On Iran the administration correctly laid out the options. A negotiated agreement is possible but only one which ends the fiction that Iran has a right to enrich uranium. Or the United States and Israel either together or separately will take whatever military action necessary to put Iran’s nuclear enrichment technology out of business.

But the most serious threat is to take deterrence off the table involves our extended nuclear deterrent. Writer Annie Sorensen’s book “Nuclear War: A Scenario” called all U.S. nuclear deterrent strategy immoral, unworkable and therefore “mad”! Following suit, global zero and other disarmament groups support doing away with U.S. nuclear deterrent including unilaterally taking down 400/700 of the strategic nuclear delivery vehicles allowed by the New Start treaty. One new book describes the U.S. nuclear deterrent as “temporary.”

U.S. nuclear deterrent strategy holds at risk key enemy leadership, security and military assets, and has done 100% successfully for some 7 decades. It has emphasized having a secure second strike nuclear strike capability. How strange then that abolitionists want to change U.S. policy to “no use” of nuclear weapons even in retaliation to first being attacked by nuclear weapons. This would literally take down the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Unilaterally.

Deterrence has worked because the country has always (but often late) made the necessary investments. Today the new defense budget adds funds for key nuclear assets including the Sentinel ICBM, the Columbia submarine, the B-21 Raider strategic bomber plus the D-5 missile and LRSO. And work is being done to build a sea launch cruise missile, new NC3 and the entire warhead building enterprise. The total modernization investment of $27 billion, out of a total federal nuclear effort of $62 billion, is a modest investment out of a Federal budget of $6.8 trillion or .39%.

Modernization thus comes to a relatively modest $350 billion over the next decade, far less than the projected CBO numbers of over $1 trillion. Proposed FY26 defense spending is $870 billion including DoD and NNSA, and thus with nuclear modernization spending (not sustainment of legacy systems) at a reasonable annual cost of 3.5%.

Nuclear Deterrence has worked extraordinarily well even in the midst of crises. After Berlin in 1961, President Kenndy credited the Polaris submarine small warhead developed by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory for giving the U.S. the technological edge to stand down the Soviet threat to attack the U.S. military forces in Berlin. In 1962 the Cuban missile crisis brought the world close to nuclear Armageddon, but as President Kennedy later said the deployment of the new Minuteman I missile at Malmstrom USAF base was “my ace in the hole” that resolved the crises peacefully.

The U.S. Minuteman deployment was just in time; the very same day the U.S. intelligence community determined the Soviets had employed nuclear armed offensive missiles in Cuba. The Minuteman deployment gave the U.S. the leverage to blockade Soviet trawlers bringing missiles to Cuba and remove the existing missiles as well.

In short, key U.S. nuclear technology development, part of ongoing Eisenhower and Kennedy administration modernization, saved the world from nuclear disaster.

Peace through strength works. It’s called deterrence. And modernization is deterrence, thus the urgent need to deploy as soon as possible the current modernization plan put forward to Congress for FY26 and beyond.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. The Right Path to Better Deterrence)

Is the West in increasing danger of being attacked with nuclear weapons, whether from a nuclear armed state or a terrorist organization? And if the nuclear threat has accelerated, is the current U.S. deterrent strategy adequate and cost-effective to prevent any such attack? And does an alternative strategy seeking abolition make sense?

Nuclear dangers have indeed increased. And nuclear weapons have become key elements of state strategy particularly with respect to Russia, China, North Korea and potentially Iran. Most importantly has been the adoption of an “escalate to win” options where nuclear weapons are introduced into a conventional conflict.

To counter these threats, U.S. deterrence strategy is in transition along multiple paths. Legacy deterrent forces represented by the U.S. nuclear Triad are being both significantly upgraded and replaced. The Administration and Congress understand the country is lacking in theater nuclear forces and is seeking to remedy that shortfall with the development of such technologies as nuclear capable sea and air-based medium range cruise missiles. The nation’s nuclear command, control, and communication (NC3) is also being upgraded to overcome cyber and other threats. And the nation’s nuclear legacy warheads are being replaced as service life extensions have run their course.

This effort has been moving forward since roughly the middle of the Bush ‘43’ and beginning of the Obama administrations, but lacked the urgency required to move forward quickly. The good news is that the current administration has repeatedly made the case that such modernization is of the highest national priority and will be accelerated.

Most importantly, the U.S. is not initiating any kind of arms race. Far from it. The U.S. program of record including upgrading the entirety of the U.S. nuclear TRIAD is consistent with the 2010 New START arms control agreement, even though it expires within the next year. The modernized force as currently planned is even smaller than the current legacy force—two fewer submarines (12 vs 14) and 48 fewer (192 vs 240) sea-launched ballistic missiles.

The U.S. has not modernized its nuclear deterrent for three decades and will not complete the task until somewhere between 2042-50. A little more than half of the current cost of U.S. nuclear deterrent investment is for sustaining and maintaining the current legacy systems. As modernization accelerates, that will change as the legacy systems are retired and the modernized systems come into the force. These legacy systems include 400 Minuteman III (1970), 14 Ohio class submarines (1982), twenty B2 and 40 B52 strategic bombers (1997 and 1962), along with 240 D-5 SLBM (1990) and LSRO or cruise missile (1982).

Unfortunately, the U.S. went on an extended procurement holiday and simply stopped upgrading its nuclear deterrent after the collapse of the USSR, except for a service life extension for the Minuteman missile and most of the Triad’s warheads. Thus, extending the life of the current nuclear deterrent will still be required for some decades, probably through 2042-50.

Can We Afford Survival?

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis answered this question in the affirmative. He got the numbers right. However, popular narratives claim the U.S. is spending $1.7-2.0 trillion over the next 30 years on nuclear modernization and are routinely cited by Congressional opponents of nuclear modernization and their global zero accomplices. Such estimates are bogus.

Modernization is actually a smaller part of the nuclear expenditures than the support needed for our legacy system. According to Senator John Hoeven, a senior member of the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the new Sentinel ICBMs, Columbia class submarines, B21 Raider bombers, LRSO or cruise missiles, and the upgraded D-5 SLBM missiles, will collectively cost $17.1 billion this fiscal year (FY2025), and shortly after 2030 peak and begin to decline as modernization moves forward.

The research, development, and acquisition costs of the new ICBMs, submarines and their missiles, the nuclear portion of the new bomber, as well as new warhead and NC3 work, are $350 billion over the next decade. That comes to 3.5% of a ten-year flat DoD budget, and some .4/10ths of one percent of the projected 10-year Federal budget or one out of every $257,000 spent by Uncle Sam. This modernization is not “nice to have.” Its “have to have.” The only other choice is to rust to obsolescence as Clark Murdock once quipped as the current legacy forces are aging out. The choice is thus between recapitalization of the force or going out of the nuclear deterrent business. Our legacy force is between 28-63 years old and will be 45-80 years old when fully replaced. If this qualifies as “arms racing,” every tortoise in the United States could qualify for the Olympic 100 yard dash!

Deterrence Strategy

A plethora of global zero enthusiasts—the Arms Control Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ploughshares, Global Zero, the Carnegie Endowment—have embraced Annie Jacobsen’s thesis in her “Nuclear War: A Scenario” that current U.S. deterrent strategy is as Jacobsen writes, “Mad” and no longer viable.

Her thesis, long also held by those who support abolition, is that any initial use of nuclear weapons, however limited, will quickly escalate to an all-out nuclear war, which in turn will trigger “nuclear winter,” and billions of people around the globe will die. Part of her thesis is that the U.S. military has a built-in bias toward using nuclear weapons, and they will collectively “jam up” the President to unleash the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal no matter how limited an initial attack is on the United States.

For abolitionists, nuclear weapons are only good to “show deterrence” but cannot ever be used in retaliation should deterrence breakdown. That this essentially reduces our deterrent to a “bluff” seems to have been missed by the abolition folks, as well as the obvious consequence that if adopted a “no use” strategy means no U.S. adversary will now take our nuclear “deterrent” seriously. The corollary is that numbers also don’t matter because for the United States nuclear weapons won’t ever be used first or second, in a retaliatory manner.

However, as numerous U.S. military officers have testified to Congress, every war game concludes that “nothing holds” when our enemies introduce nuclear weapons into a conventional military conflict. “Nothing holds” means all the assumed advantages the U.S. holds on the conventional battlefield disappear. This is the rationale behind the adoption of “escalate to win” strategies by Russia and China. They believe the threat of introducing nuclear force into a conventional conflict will drive the United States out of the conflict and force the United States to stand down.

Conclusion

As the U.S. searches for the right strategy to secure deterrence in this troubling new nuclear age, there are five principles we should keep in mind.

First, without nuclear modernization we are out of the nuclear business—and facing unilateral disarmament.

Second, deterrence fails, and the U.S. loses if enemy nuclear weapons are introduced into a conventional conflict. The U.S. thus needs better deterrence at every level of conflict, especially involving theater nuclear forces.

Third, discarding a nuclear retaliatory option reduces nuclear deterrence to bluff.

Fourth, the United States is modernizing but only “racing” to get to where it already is—the 2010 New START allowed level of warheads.

And fifth, abolition doesn’t make sense. Particularly the daunting task of all nuclear powers abolishing their nuclear arsenals simultaneously. As the leader of North Korea is reportedly to have said when asked by a U.S. representative to join an effort to abolish nuclear weapons— “sure, you first.”

But unilaterally eliminating U.S. nuclear weapons as a deterrent force–as abolitionists are proposing– only invites more war, as such weakness is provocative.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Defending America or Inviting an Attack?)

Many Americans want to avoid entangling the USA in unnecessary foreign wars. They also want the government to spend money smartly. But given the serious nuclear and missile threats facing the United States, meeting such objectives will take clear thinking and smart strategy.

One new idea from research analysts at the CATO and Quincy Institutes to both save money and avoid wars is to stop the Golden Dome missile defenses now being proposed by the Administration.

These critics have adopted the strange idea that the U.S. will use a missile defense shield not to defend the country but to hide behind such defenses while making dangerous preparations for a first strike against the Russians and Chinese.

Years ago, this was described by Ploughshares Joe Cirincione as a “first the shield and then the sword” strategy. Such critics opposed even the Congressionally initiated limited shield of 44 interceptors the Bush administration deployed in California and Alaska twenty years ago to defend against missile attacks from states such as North Korea and Iran.

So, these missile defense critics are now standing reality on its head. The good guys—the United States—are really the bad guys. And nations whom we thought were evil— such as North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China—are now understandable, even benign—they may be planning to attack us but only because the “evil” U.S. is planning on building defenses.

Just so you understand, let me go over this again. For the United States, the critics now contend that building a defense would apparently be riskier than not building any defense at all. The United States would be making the world more dangerous because Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, fearing the U.S. was planning to strike first, would plot to get in the first punch. So, to prevent such a pre-emptive strike, the United States has to make it easy for the bad guys to strike us first.

Now the critics’ logic is not clear, but apparently by eliminating any defense of our homeland from ballistic or cruise missiles in the first place, the bad guys would refrain from ever attacking us. Sort of a “peace through submission” strategy. Leave the U.S. at risk, totally vulnerable, as we can then rely on enemy totalitarian powers and their terrorist agents to solely decide whether to keep us safe. Strangely, on this the critics such as Joe Cirincione agree with China and North Korea—the Golden Dome says Pyongyang would be “highly dangerous” and “could be used for offensive purposes” while Beijing says Golden Dome will “start an arms race.”

The opponents also think the Golden Dome defenses won’t work because they assume the technology being sought will be based on the Israel Iron Dome missile defense technology. Even though Israel has successfully intercepted thousands of incoming missiles and rockets from Hamas and Hezbollah over many years, those destroyed targets have not been intercontinental ballistic missiles of hypersonic speed.

However, the Israeli accomplishments were still extraordinary. Its interceptors were able to shoot down rockets even updating their software in real time. Given the very limited number of terrorist rockets and missiles that have broken through Israel’s defenses, the coercive and blackmail nature of the terrorists weapons have been much diminished. Even though perfect protection isn’t possible, the central purpose of missile defenses was nonetheless achieved.

Critics, however, still insist that since the U.S. would probably be defending against much longer range missiles, Golden Dome cannot duplicate the Israeli success. And that high speed missiles coupled with decoys and counter measures can spoof a defense unlike shorter range rockets.

But to date tests show the missile defenses against long-range missiles succeed as high as seventy percent of the time, and against all missiles and rockets, even upwards of more than ninety percent in the real world. And unlike many critics, missile defense proponents such as Uzi Rubin, Hank Cooper and Trey Obering have actually directed the building of real-world workable missile defense systems including elements in space. Which are now deployed around the world. And with a technology now vastly more capable than when missile defenses such as SDI were first proposed.

Now is the United States shaking up international stability by building the Golden Dome? Actually, the United States has shown remarkable restraint in building only 44 missile interceptors to protect the continental United States. While also markedly reducing our deployed nuclear forces from near ten thousand strategic long range systems to 1550 under New START, while also in 1991 simultaneously and unilaterally eliminating over 90% of our theater nuclear systems.

Despite U.S. restraint, Russia and China have major dual use defenses deployed in far greater numbers than any U.S. systems. According to the Atlantic Council, “Russia’s and China’s extensive development of homeland missile defenses gives lie, to an extent, to [the] contention that U.S. missile defenses are uniquely destabilizing.” Further explains the Council, “Numerically extensive Russian and Chinese missile defenses… could alter the strategic-forces balance with the United States if not accounted for in U.S. strategic forces policy.”

In addition, critics don’t understand the likely missile threats the U.S. seeks to neutralize and why such a challenge can be met. An effective EMP threat, for example, could be from a single missile. A terror attack aimed at a major American city could be a few missiles surreptitiously launched from the sea, from a freighter with a pop-up missile. Russia could be threatening an escalate to win strategy, as Putin has done in Ukraine, where an attack might involve a limited number of missiles aimed at U.S. forces or allied bases overseas. In addition, Russian LRCM performance in Ukraine shows severe survivability issues with up to 70-90% being intercepted by missile defenses. And an attack could be inadvertent or accidental, and by definition limited, where a missile defense would be a great protective asset.

Now an attack on the United States involving an all-out massive use of missiles could also occur. And to be sure, defenses could not stop 100% of such an attack. Although defenses could defeat or blunt or seriously complicate any attempted disarming strike. However, Russian development of nuclear attack options such as escalate to win but short of an all-out disarming strike is seriously worrisome. As James Howe argues, Russia is deploying nuclear forces to conduct selected nuclear execution options on adversary nuclear forces, bases, admin/political centers and war production with the objective to limit damage, control escalation and achieve victory. Missile defenses such as Golden Dome makes such attacks less likely to succeed or heighten the uncertainty in the minds of the attackers, which is the essence of deterrence. Adding a theater nuclear capability such as a Navy based cruise missile also would strengthens deterrence.

Nonetheless, the ability to intercept one or a limited number of missiles could be the difference between the survival of a nation or its destruction. As former House Speaker Gingrich has explained, an EMP attack could send the United States economy back to the early 18th century. And defenses need not protect the airspace above Paraguay or Lichenstein or the Himalayas and can be deployed preferentially to target missiles launched from Russia, China, North Korea or Iran.

The 2003 Gilmore Commission concluded it was critical that the U.S. protect thirty two of its most important infrastructure nodes, the destruction of which would cause widespread harm amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars and even millions of lives. And whose destruction former IRGC head Soleimani explicitly referenced as an Iranian objective. Israel’s ability to defend its nation from Hamas and Hezbollah missiles and rockets reportedly prevented in 2015 what was estimated to be a possible two-thirds sudden drop in Israel’s GDP.

Our adversaries may in all likelihood seek to surreptitiously attack the United States. That is the basis of the decades long tactics of terrorists and their state sponsors. Nation state sponsors of terror and wars of national liberation hide their shadowy role precisely to avoid retaliation, and to render impotent U.S. deterrent capabilities. Defense helps solve that dilemma and buys the defending nation the time and space to eventually strike back. That strengthens not weakens deterrence.

Such future surreptitious attacks are not going to be a massive, all-out missile attack the U.S. can see coming. Any deliberate such enemy attack with multiple hundreds or more warheads [the Armageddon option] would only be coming from China or Russia. Both would understand that any such attack would probably immediately precipitate a massive U.S. retaliatory response that would essentially cripple and destroy the leadership and key military assets of the bad guys. Any such initial strike on their part would thus be suicidal. And adding a robust U.S. defense against just such an attack further complicates the objectives of these rogue attackers, making any such attack even more suicidal.

Opponents of missile defense are apparently blind to these geostrategic realities. Yes, the U.S. territory to be protected is indeed vastly larger than Israel. But Israel has protected its country from literally many thousands of missiles, rockets and drones, while the U.S. would most likely have to protect itself largely from multiple dozens of such missiles, a technology challenge we can win.

To be clear, few are arguing that a massive attack against the United States involving thousands of warheads can be effectively stopped by missile defense. That Armageddon type attack would definitely invite a major U.S. retaliatory strike, and one potentially involving a retaliatory strike of more than one thousand nuclear warheads of all kinds. The U.S. is markedly improving its nuclear deterrent to stop just such threats. Golden Dome is not a substitute but an adjunct to this deterrent capability.

Thus, proceeding with Golden Dome adds to deterrence and involves collectively putting together in a layered approach some dozens of existing and new missile defense systems, sensors, interceptors and other technologies, many acquired over the past four decades.

All can now be fully developed, tested and integrated, and put into the field, especially in space. Interceptors are now defending the United States and its allies here and abroad, involving air, land and sea missile and air defense components including Patriot, Aegis, THAAD, Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, and GBI’s, as well as ground and sea-based sensors and radars. Golden Dome will integrate everything and add the key missing technologies such as space based and laser technologies.

In conflicts involving Ukraine, Korea, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS, spanning nearly four decades, the United States and its allies have used missile defense for protection or had it available to deter attacks. Thousands of lives and billions in treasure have literally and proactively been saved. Thus, the slander from one Quincy analyst that missile defense is a multi-hundred billion dollar scam is itself a scam.

Apart from how missile and air defenses have worked in the real world, does missile defense make arms control more difficult and create grave strategic instabilities, as critics assert? What does history tell us?

First, the United States signed the ABM treaty ban on defenses in 1972 at the insistence of the Soviets. The Soviets first pushed for the ban in late 1968 as they wanted to catch up with the American offensive forces as they trailed by multiple thousands of strategic warheads. The Nixon administration sold the SALT “arms control” and ABM agreements as a package. Since U.S. missile defenses would be unavailable to limit Soviet first strike capabilities, such offensive capabilities would have to be curtailed through “arms control” or SALT, which was added as an executive agreement to the ABM treaty.

Nonetheless the promises of SALT were false. There was no real arms control but a joint agreement to build up to an agreed upon but very high level. The Soviets deployed at least 3000 SS-18 ICBM first strike offensive warheads despite the ban on defenses, the opposite of what had been promised. In fact, the SALT process codified massive increases and not decreases in Soviet strategic warheads, amounting to a Soviet growth to over ten thousand strategic nuclear warheads from a base of roughly two thousand.

A 1983 net assessment by the U.S. DoD projected Soviet strategic forces by 1993 would reach 24,000 warheads under the SALT process. The Reagan/Bush START reductions became a reality only with the end of the Soviet empire and the leverage the USA created with its offensive modernization, investment in SDI and economic warfare against Moscow.

Ironically, many of the opponents of both SDI and now Golden Dome supported at the time a 1980 Moscow initiated nuclear freeze just as the USSR was completing its nuclear modernization. While simultaneously opposing much of the Reagan-era American nuclear modernization which was just beginning.

Subsequently, some decades later in 2002 the United States finally got rid of the ABM treaty. Shortly afterward, in 2002 and then in 2010, respectively, the United States proceeded to sign two treaties cutting nuclear warheads, under the Moscow and New Start treaties, which reduced strategic nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States from 6000 to 1550, or by 75%. Russia commented at the time that eliminating the ABM treaty was of no adverse consequence.

With the defensive ban in place in 1972, deployed offensive nuclear weapons went up 500%. With defenses possible, after 2002, deployed strategic offensive weapons were cut 75%.

It may be that the era of arms reductions is now over. But we now have the ability to counter a Chinese buildup with both nuclear expansion and a robust defense. And also counter an emerging Russian nuclear breakout, both of which reflect the hegemonic ambitions of Moscow and Beijing. With a combination of offense and defense capabilities, the U.S. does not necessarily have to match Russia and China warhead for warhead but still work to improve deterrence.

Long before the ABM treaty was junked, Russia built its own defenses as now reportedly has China. Blaming America for Russian and Chinese hegemonic ambitions is right out of the propaganda playbooks of the Kremlin’s SVR and Chinese Ministry of State Security. The United States needs to get on with building up its security and dismissing the foolish idea that we are the bad guys and the bad guys are good.

As former defense official and defense expert Pepi DiBiaso explains, “the Golden Dome signals a welcome interest in more comprehensive air and missile defenses for the homeland. It aims to move beyond the missile defense policy framework established decades ago in a far more benign strategic threat environment. That policy narrowly confined the homeland defense posture to a small number of ground-based interceptors and radars to defend against a handful of ballistic missiles from regional powers.

DiBiaso concludes: “Given the ascendance of Russia and China as significant great power competitors, the role of missile defense should be realigned to provide a measure of protection from any adversary who might seek to threaten or strike the United States.” Alternatively, eliminating defenses puts U.S. security at high risk and would give the totalitarian powers and enemies of the United States a big head start in securing hegemonic power over the free world.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. The Current Nuclear State of Affairs)

With the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and for now the passing of the immediate danger of a nuclear conflict in South Asia, it would make sense to review the current world-wide nuclear state of affairs, especially as we honor those who sacrificed to protect our freedoms.

Much of the recent news has concentrated on the buildup of China’s nuclear forces and the Russian threats to use their nuclear forces against Ukraine and its allies. In addition, there have been reviews of North Korean missile tests and to what degree Iran has enriched uranium.

Although all serious developments, what is missing is an appreciation of what these four rogue states wish to do with their nuclear capability, whether numbering in advance centrifuges or dozens, hundreds, or thousands of nuclear warheads.

As has been often argued, numbers do matter in the nuclear balance. And thus, increasing numbers should be of growing concern to US security analysts.

But what is it that these states wish to do with these nuclear weapons? That’s where the rubber meets the road.

Three of the four are seeking to build “empires” of sorts while the fourth (North Korea) is a cooperative adjunct of the other three and undertakes whatever the three require.

President Putin has said he does not wish to re-create the Soviet Union. However, he apparently does want to re-create Russia as an empire, including and particularly incorporating Ukraine, the Baltics, Finland, and much of Eastern Europe. Russia is not only terrorizing Ukraine with drones and missiles but also engaging in sabotage and cyber war against nations in eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

China sees its rightful place in the international firmament as the world’s hegemon having a right under heaven to be the world’s premier power, even as Gordon Chang has cautioned, including dominion over outer space, the moon, and even Mars to achieve these goals. China has unleashed unrestricted warfare against the United States and its allies especially in the economic field and harms our social cohesion with what Xi calls a reverse opium war.

Iran is guided by its constitutional mandate to export its violent and terrorist Islamic doctrine through the use of multiple proxy, terror organizations, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

After 56 years of such terror, Iran has caused the death of tens of thousands at a cost of multiple trillions of dollars. Contrary to popular belief, Iran’s terror campaigns are not going to be settled with the adoption of an unattainable but pretend two state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

Iran seeks to build an Iranian condominium of allies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria as well as Gaza and the West Bank with which to attack Israel and US interests in the Middle East. That Israel and the United States have seriously eroded this Iranian objective is good news, but the bad news remains that Iran fiercely holds onto this objective.

As long as the United States maintains military forces in the Republic of Korea, North Korea will probably not invade. However, North Korea‘s role is to pin down American resources in and around the Republic of Korea and Japan, in order to force the United states to provide resources in the area while Chinese created conflict is initiated elsewhere in the western Pacific, particularly with respect to Taiwan. You can be sure that the CCP will cleverly use North Korea as a proxy force to make it all the more difficult for the United States to defend its other allies in the region.

In addition, it is well known North Korea and Iran cooperate on missile and nuclear technology developments. North Korea and Russia cooperate similarly, as well as having the former provide troops for Russia’s war against Ukraine. In addition, North Korea serves as China’s agent whenever the CCP decides to create military mischief somewhere against American interests. And China buys Iran and Russia energy, helps Iran arm the Houthis piracy, and underwrites most of the North Korean economy.

These enemy forces in Europe, the Middle East and Asia confront the United States with serious military threats that cannot be thwarted by any US quick pivot to Asia. All our allies must pivot as well to all three geographic areas as the United States cannot deter these threats alone. That is why the administration as far back as 2017 pushed hard to get NATO to the 2%GDP defense level and why now in 2025 that goal has rightly extended to 5%.

Europe has a GDP closing in on $20 trillion, with a population of 449 million, and a per capita income of $62,000. America’s Indo-Pacific allies number two billion people, with a GDP of $20 trillion and a per capita income reaching $34,000 in the Republic of Korea and Japan, $84,000 in Singapore and $10,000 in India.

All can contribute to freedom’s collective security which is precisely what the Administration is seeking, and putting America first is not putting the US alone. The US investment in defense is now approaching $1 trillion which is necessary to protect our security and deter bad “hombres.” When measured in what it would cost the United States to buy the military fielded by China and Russia, the US defense spending matches but does not exceed Moscow and Beijing. Given the United States has global obligations and security requirements, the resources applied to defense and security make sense but cannot be expected to meet all our collective and joint security needs. Real allies pull their own weight and do not depend solely on their friends for security.

Together America and her allies can pivot to the growing dangers. And if proceeding with the moral clarity of peace through strength, we can protect our security through deterrence and welcome indeed many future decades of peace and prosperity.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Eight Deadly Nuclear Sins)

The critics of U.S. nuclear modernization have a set of nuclear catechisms of which they accuse America’s nuclear enterprise of being guilty. The latest rendition of this was by Jimmy Tobias in the Nation magazine. He cites eight deadly nuclear sins. They are: (1) The U.S. is starting an arms race; (2) America’s allies are contributing to the arms race as well; (3) The U.S. is needlessly expanding its nuclear arsenal; (4) For dozens of American aerospace companies, nuclear weapons are simply a profit making business of $1.7 trillion; (5) ICBMs are on a dangerous hair trigger alert; (6) ICBMs are nothing more than a sponge to draw enemy missiles away from hitting U.S. cities but would still lead to tens of millions of U.S. deaths; (7) The U.S. is not pursuing arms control with enough vigor; and (8) Threatening retaliation as the basis for nuclear deterrence is wrongheaded and must be discarded.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Well first he actually starts off by—albeit grudgingly– getting one thing right. He cites Dr. Jil Hruby, the recently retired Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administrator, laying out the nuclear threats to the United States: Russia, Hruby said, “has in recent years stationed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus; withdrawn its ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and lowered its threshold for nuclear weapons use. It also seems to be exploring new nuclear-weapons delivery technologies, including space-based weapons. Further south, China is rapidly expanding the size of its nuclear arsenal and appears to be moving away from a no-first-use policy for launching nuclear weapons. North Korea persists in building up its nuclear program, rattling the region with its regular missile tests, while Pakistan is developing its own intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, and Iran continues to enrich uranium.”

But then Tobias turns to blaming America and its allies for contributing to what he describes as a nuclear “disequilibrium.” But while Russia, China and North Korea are adding hundreds of warheads annually, the only U.S. ally adding warheads is India, which one analysis has guessed that New Delhi has added all of 8 warheads to its arsenal since 2023, reaching 172 warheads compared, for example, to 160 in Pakistan.

The U.S. on the other hand is adding no new warheads to its strategic long-range nuclear arsenal. The nuclear program of record, fully adopted by Congress in December 2010, builds only to the 2010 New START arms control level of an official 1550 warheads (but actually around 1800-1900 if bomber weapons are actually counted.) No new theater nuclear weapons are being acquired, and all such weapons except a couple of hundred gravity bombs in Europe were eliminated unilaterally by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 in the UPI, or Unilateral Presidential Initiative.

In the decade after the end of the USSR, the United States stopped production of the Ohio class submarine, the Peacekeeper (MX) missile, the SICBM or Midgetman missile, and the B2 bomber. The U.S. did continue production of rocket motors for the D-5 missile and begin to extend the life of the Minuteman missile. The D-5 motors were the only such rocket motor production line open in the country for civilian and military space purposes or for the U.S. nuclear Triad.

In 2002 and 2010, the U.S. and Russia signed two arms control deals that brought strategic force levels in the United States down from 6000 to 1550 warheads. While Russia agreed to these deals, current strategic force levels held by Moscow now exceed the New START numbers considerably, even as all inspections required by the New START agreement of 2010 have been terminated by Moscow.

So, who is doing the arms racing? Certainly not the United States and its allies.

Russia embarked on its massive nuclear modernization effort at least as far back as April 1999 when President Yeltsin ordered the development of 10,000 low-yield, small, highly accurate battlefield nuclear weapons, along with the full modernization of Moscow’s strategic nuclear forces. As of today, U.S. Strategic Command says that Russia’s modernization force acquisition is 92% complete.

China’s decision to build up a nuclear force numbering well over one thousand nuclear weapons was probably made no later than 2008-9. According to Dr. Chris Yeaw, Dr. Rich Fischer, and Dr. Mark Schneider, China is building to a force of nuclear weapons exceeding 3000 by 2035-40, including dual use theater missile forces and a complete Triad of strategic nuclear weapons.

North Korea is adding to its nuclear arsenal even as the Republic of Korea remains within the confines of the NPT or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and under the U.S. nuclear deterrent umbrella which Tobias wants to jettison.

Now does the U.S. nuclear force modernization cost too much?

Here again the numbers used by critics don’t make sense. The $300 billion estimate by Tobias for 100 B21 bombers is nonsense. The nuclear bomber cost is only a proportion of the conventional force, or the 20 bombers assigned to the nuclear mission. An adjusted bomber cost plus $140 billon for Sentinel, $130 billion for Columbia and $30 billion for upgrading the D-5 SLBM brings the platform costs to around $325 billion over three decades, to which one can add the costs of replacing the warheads and nuclear command and control. Both submarines and ICBMs are projected to last to 2070-80 which implies an average annual acquisition cost of less than $10 billion. Total costs for the next 30 years for the nuclear platforms and warheads and NC3 will probably reach $400 billon, with the remaining 2/3rds of all costs consisting of operations, maintenance and sustainment of the current legacy forces. Which must be spent unless the U.S. goes out of the nuclear deterrence business.

Is our ICBM force dangerous or destabilizing?

ICBMs are in key respects actually the most stabilizing part of our nuclear deterrent. The ICBM force has been on alert now for over 60 years and not once has the President ordered a missile to be launched. In fact, President Kennedy said the initial deployment of the Minuteman missile at exactly the same day the U.S. intelligence community discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba, was “my ace in the hole,” that allowed the U.S. to pressure Moscow to withdraw their missiles from Cuba and avoid nuclear Armageddon. And having a new Minuteman missile, solid fueled, on alert 99% of the time, able to reach targets throughout the USSR, also enabled the U.S. to withdraw its liquid fueled rockets from Turkey which was part of the secret deal made with Moscow.

The Minuteman is not a sponge, but a target set impossible for Moscow to credibly threaten given the U.S. geographical expanse of the 400 Minuteman silos compared to Russia’s arsenal of 1550-1800 nuclear warheads—assuming that Russia is complying with the New START agreement. If Moscow breaks out of the 2010 agreement, the U.S. does have the ability to add warheads to both its ICBM and SLBM arsenal, up to around a new total of 3100 warheads over a period of four-plus years. And the U.S. could protect its silos with the Golden Dome missile defense, which increases the U.S. retaliatory capability and thus stabilizing deterrence for the United States and its allies.

To launch a Minuteman missile requires a launch conference to be held by top defense officials assessing an enemy missile launch, followed by an assessment of the target where the enemy missile will strike, and only then after such real confirmation, does the President decide if and when to launch a U.S. retaliatory strike. And in the event of an enemy strike of U.S. assets overseas, the issue of prompt launch does not even arise.

Is the U.S. not seeking arms control?

Here the record is clear. The U.S. initiated the SALT process. Moscow insisted on banning missile defenses, even as offensive nuclear arsenals grew multifold under the SALT process. It was the United States that pursued the START reductions process and the INF treaty. And it was the USSR and then Russia that violated them all.

The United States put the Moscow or SORT treaty on the table and New START. The Trump administration has indeed noted that with major further reductions in nuclear weapons, the U.S. and others would not need to completely modernize our nuclear arsenals. But it takes two to tango, and in this world, it will take at least three (China, Russia and the U.S.) to tango. And the Trump administration has been clear: the only current alternative in the absence of major arms control or abolition, is to fully modernize its deterrent under a peace through strength umbrella.

But China and Russia have shown little interest in arms control; China said if the U.S. reduced its arsenal unilaterally to China’s level, they might begin to talk. As for Russia, much of their arsenal including thousands of warheads, are not even limited by the New START agreement, while only a few hundred theater weapons in the U.S. arsenal aren’t covered. Experts now estimate that Russia and China combined will have more than four-fold the level of nuclear weapons as the United States under current trends by 2035.

Ending Retaliatory Nuclear Deterrence

Finally, this essay calls for the U.S. to jettison its nuclear retaliatory doctrine for deterring the use of conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons against the United States. Implicitly that would have the United States rely solely on its conventional capability to deter our enemies. But as every miliary expert has testified to Congress, relying on conventional force in the face of an adversary using nuclear weapons, does not hold water. All the assumptions the U.S. makes re prevailing with conventional forces go out the window. The U.S. would lose every fight. Deterrence thus disappears and enemy aggression then becomes a fait accompli. In short, jettisoning our current deterrent strategy is a nuclear sin of the first order.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Is Nuclear Modernization Bankrupting the Country?)

CBO has once again published a ghost story trying to scare Congress and the public into jettisoning our nuclear modernization efforts due to estimates that the $1 trillion ten-year cost of such an effort is not affordable. Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, echoes these conclusions with a call to reign in the “skyrocketing” costs of nuclear modernization. He calls for the Sentinel ICBM program to be eliminated and instead keep the legacy Minuteman III ICBM force as a means of saving money.

Kimball references a 2014 Rand report that recommended the MMIII missile system go through a life extension program, to be followed after a number of decades by a new missile system, then known as the GBSD (ground based strategic deterrent) and now the Sentinel.

In fact, the USAF requested, and Congress approved in the late 1990s a near decades long effort to redo the guidance and propulsion systems for MMIII. Both were replaced and the system was given a life extension to keep the land based deterrent in the force “through 2030” as required by law. And the USAF will now continue to keep MMIII on alert until fully replaced by the Sentinel, now estimated by 2050.

However, Kimball ignores that the MMIII missile, including its guidance and propulsion elements, have a service life that is not unlimited and cannot be in force through 2080 which is the current plan for Sentinel. This is also true of the ICBM warheads, as now retired NNSA administrator Dr. Jill Hruby explained at a Hill seminar in 2023.

As noted, the Sentinel is designed to be deployed through 2080, which brings its annual average cost to $2.8 billion, which is hardly unaffordable. The MMIII missiles will continue in operation as previously reported but as a total force the MMIII ICBMs have to be replaced, especially as the cost of operation and sustainment continues to escalate. The HASC just passed reconciliation legislation added $500 million for MMIII enhancements including guidance and propulsion work, test and repair equipment, ground mechanical and electrical needs, and infrastructure.

Without Sentinel, the ICBM force would eventually have to stand down. But the Strategic Command requirements is a force of very close to 400 ICBM warheads on daily alert with the ability to penetrate defenses and operate more efficiently. A MMIII force being retired and trending toward obsolescence does not provide that. And as previous studies have revealed, replacing the current ICBM on alert warheads with those on submarines, as one alternative, would cost over $100 billion. If one replaces the 800 ICBM warheads Sentinel could have if deployed with a partial force of multiple warheads per missile, the acquisition costs to buy submarines and SLBMs instead would be north of $200 billion.

Kimball also misses that the CBO cost numbers are not for modernization alone. Nearly 60-65% are for operations and sustainment of the current, New START bounded force. The CBO estimates also do not include any additional buildup in nuclear forces except for some modest RDT&E for the SLCM-N. Otherwise the CBO report is an estimate of the program of record as agreed to by the US Congress and the Obama administration in December 2010 during negotiations over the 2010 New START treaty and subsequent Senate ratification of the agreement. Hardly a dangerous start to an arms race as the planned force fits entirely within the framework of the New START arms control agreement.

To their credit, Arms Control Today (ACT) correctly reported the cost of the bomber leg of the Triad has not “skyrocketed” but has fallen dramatically. Reports ACT, the B-21 program is, according to the nominee to direct DoD acquisition, “a successful acquisition program by all accounts,” as the five-year production costs have fallen 28 percent from $19.1 billion, as estimated in fiscal year 2023, to $13.8 billion in fiscal 2025.

In short, some two-thirds of the CBO budget estimate is the cost of the nuclear deterrent without any platform modernization that so worries Kimball. And whatever “arms race” Kimball thinks the current program of record is undertaking was initially agreed to in 2010, not 2023 or 2025, and as noted within the boundaries of the New START arms agreement.

Much of the cost Kimball worries about is for critically needed elements of the nuclear deterrent which have to be upgraded even if the US did not build a single new bomber, ICBM, SLBM, submarine or cruise missile. The warheads for the entire TRIAD also have to be replaced, as mentioned above, and the nuclear command and control needs to be fully upgraded to overcome, for example, current cyber and other threats while ensuring complete command of the nuclear force by US officials. These efforts come to fully one-third of the costs identified by CBO, with close to another third for the operations and sustainment—not modernization—of the current legacy and nuclear force, which is now between 30-55 years old.

A significant part of the increase in costs CBO identified is that years of high acquisition over the ten year estimate replaced years of low level research and development, which is normal during the acquisition process.

If one looks at the research, development, and acquisition costs of the new ICBMs, submarines and their missiles, the nuclear portion of the new bomber, as well as new warhead and NC3 work, the $350 billion over a decade comes to 3.5% of a ten-year flat DoD budget, and some .4/10ths of one percent of the projected Federal budget or one out of every $257,000 spent by Uncle Sam. The annual FY25 budget cost for these platforms comes to $17.1 billion according to Senator John Hoeven (R-ND), a member of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee which handles these programs, or 2% of the current defense budget.

And while it is true all elements of the nuclear Triad including warheads and command and control are being modernized or replaced, the purpose is to sustain and make credible nuclear deterrence. The cost to upgrade our nuclear deterrent simultaneously is due to the US Congress and subsequent administrations– after the collapse of the USSR– putting off or kicking the modernization can down the road, with the full throated support of Mr. Kimball and his arms control colleagues. That “holiday from history” as retired USAF General Garret Harencak called it, had serious consequences, indeed. Given the nuclear threats cascading around the globe, the American nuclear upgrades come not a moment too soon. More delay will simply play into the hands of our nuclear armed enemies and undermine our assurances of our extended deterrent to our allies.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. How to Stop Arms Racing)

How to Stop Arms Racing: Modernization, Sustainment and Disarmament Options

One search engine has 18 million entries for the charge that the United States is triggering a nuclear arms race by modernizing its nuclear forces. But apparently, if the United States just maintains its current nuclear force, and builds nothing new, it will still trigger a nuclear arms race. So writes Stephen Young from the Union of Concerned Scientists while adding that building a modern force will simply exacerbate the deteriorating international security environment.

Explains Young: “The geopolitical risk perception is more complicated and has become profoundly more so since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced proposals for multiple new types of nuclear weapons, focused on defeating U.S. missile defenses. In 2021, China’s new land-based missile silos were uncovered, with 250 or more eventually spotted. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and since then has made frequent nuclear threats and posture changes, including stationing nuclear weapons in Belarus.”

Then Young asks whether any of these adversary actions could have been stopped if the U.S. had expanded its nuclear capability including for example building 80 nuclear pits a year, a key part of the United States current nuclear modernization plan of record.

Apparently, Young is under the strange perception that a modernized deterrent is meant to stop arms racing or in this case, stop Russia and China from having their own modernized nuclear forces. As opposed to the idea that the U.S. wisely modernizes its legacy, old nuclear force to sustain and improve deterrence. Nothing more.

But Young seems to think even replacing legacy systems–soon to become obsolete– is not a good idea. He declares: “The answer to all those questions is a clear and resounding no. Russia and China are taking those actions because they already fear the United States and its massive, lethal, and threatening nuclear and conventional military forces.” According to Young, as noted earlier, moving now to resume pit production and make new nuclear weapons only exacerbates the problem, accelerating an already budding nuclear arms race.

However, Mr. Young is only the latest within the disarmament community to warn the country that the United States is causing a current nuclear arms race with the Russians and Chinese. For decades, the disarmament community believed if the U.S. builds more or updated nuclear capability, that’s bad. If the U.S. builds missile defenses, that’s also bad. If the U.S. builds better and safer nuclear warheads, that’s bad. The implication being that if the U.S. showed restraint, the arms race could be slowed, maybe ended.

But in a remarkable twist, Young says even if the U.S. stopped modernization completely, the Russians and Chinese would also keep building. Why? Young says what they fear is the current legacy U.S. nuclear and conventional capability which is “threatening” to them.]

But if that is the case, how does the U.S. become non-threatening? If doing nothing creates an arms race, then does getting rid of our nuclear and conventional arms bring the race to a halt? Young implies the way to stop the arms race is for the U.S. to disarm.

So, on the one hand Young implies the U.S. didn’t cause the expansion of the nuclear capability in Russia and China with our own modernization, a reversal of the common disarmament community charge over many decades.

But Young switches to blaming the United States for simply having old legacy forces which really scare Beijing and Moscow. And that is causing an arms race.

Young apparently now agrees with former Secretary Harold Brown who quipped about arms racing— “We build, they build. We stop; they build.”

In summary, Young seems to think both that the U.S. is pursuing an arms race with our current modernization effort, implying we are forcing China and Russia to follow suit. But without modernization, the U.S. would have to rely on the current legacy forces. That force is very old and will go out of service relatively soon even though it costs considerably more each year to sustain and operate.

Young simultaneously believes that whether we build or not build, we are not able to effectively restrain Chinese and Russian nuclear force building. Can we exercise any more restraint? After all, we have legacy forces built in 1961 (B-52), 1970, (MMIII), 1982, (Ohio sub), 1992 (the D-5 SLBM), and 1997 (the B2 bomber), currently 28-64 years old. The only option we have is to get out of the nuclear business altogether. That is called disarmament. Others would call it surrender.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Undoing Deterrence: The March Toward Armageddon)

The disarmament community in their pursuit of global zero makes a number of faulty assumptions. For example, they assume all retaliatory uses of nuclear weapons will quickly lead to the massive exchange of nuclear weapons and trigger a civilization ending nuclear winter. They assume even the use of a single nuclear weapon could devastate a large area from EMP damage and cause widespread panic and mass migration and would escalate to an all-out nuclear exchange as well. In short, no nuclear use, however limited, can be managed or controlled.

Thus, even the current U.S. deterrence strategy of nuclear retaliation, often referenced as a secure, second-strike capability, is dismissed as unworkable.” Consequently, we are told the U.S. can no longer rely upon such a deterrent strategy, as it is dangerous, immoral and a highly unreliable “war fighting” strategy that will not keep nuclear weapons from being used.

The only alternative? Ban all nuclear weapons, as called for by the United Nations treaty outlawing nuclear weapons as agreed to by the UN General Assembly.

In short what the disarmament community has concluded is that nuclear deterrence as now practiced is really a bluff. No rational (“sane”?) American President would order any nuclear retaliatory strike. Since any retaliatory use of nuclear weapons would trigger wholesale nuclear war, such a response has to be discarded. This means that a nuclear armed adversary of the United States could first use nuclear weapons against the United States without fear of a proportionate United States military response. And for all intents and purposes this would leave the enemy’s nuclear forces in a sanctuary free from American retaliatory nuclear strikes.

Absent the current deterrent strategy, what then should the United States do in the face of China and Russia adopting a strategy of escalation to win, or using limited numbers of nuclear weapons to either forestall conventional defeat or secure conventional victory? [Let alone the threat of a massive, pe-emptive strike that worried the United States through much of the Cold War.] As many U.S. military officers have explained, this is serious business, as once nuclear weapons are introduced into a conventional conflict, all the United States assumptions about prevailing in a conventional conflict “don’t hold” or go out the window.

Now both Russia and China have often claimed to have a minimal deterrent strategy, and assert they would not use nuclear weapons first, and threaten only a massive retaliatory strike if hit with nuclear weapons. But then how to explain the decree issued by President Yeltsin in April 1999 declaring for Russia to build highly accurate low yield small battlefield nuclear weapons, plans which the current President (Mr. Putin) has implemented over the past 25 years? Or China’s threat to Japan to repeat the World War II atomic strikes should Japan come to the defense of Taiwan?

Similarly, the disarmament community has ignored the very large current Chinese buildup of nuclear weapons, even claiming hundreds of newly discovered silos were nothing more than prospective energy producing windmills. When subsequently American high ranking military officials confirmed the very real “breathtaking” Chinese build in Congressional testimony, the military brass were falsely accused of warmongering.

What is most dangerous is that advocates of zero nuclear weapons don’t tell us what is to replace current deterrent policy while nations figure out how to get to zero—even though that goal has not been formally adopted by any power possessing nuclear weapons. Without deterrence of any kind, the likelihood of nuclear weapons use will actually increase as the current deterrent strategy would be revealed as just bluff. Especially at a time when America’s enemies are markedly building up their nuclear forces and increasing the salience of nuclear weapons in their national security strategies.

Worse however is the juvenile idea that diplomacy can substitute for current deterrent strategy. But diplomacy leading to what? If China and Russia threaten to use limited nuclear strikes for coercive purposes, what “diplomacy” changes that? As Dr. Kissinger once explained, “A free standing diplomacy is an ancient American illusion. History offers few examples of it. The attempt to separate diplomacy and power results in power lacking direction and diplomacy being deprived of incentives.” Or in a pithier manner, as Senator Malcolm Wallop put it, “Diplomacy without the threat of force is but prayer.” If the United States takes its nuclear forces off the deterrent table, whatever diplomacy we might exercise is going to ring hollow.

Advocates of better diplomacy argue that diplomacy is meant to help us discover the “underlying causes” of why nations have nuclear weapons. It is assumed the U.S. can root out the reason China and Russia are building larger nuclear arsenals just by talking to them.

Well, the United States would first have to figure out the origins of the CCP’s hegemonic ambitions. And its declaration that the moon and Mars to say nothing of Taiwan and the South China Sea, are Chinese territory! Or Russian centuries old paranoia that believes the only secure Russian borders are those that perpetually expand. Or why the end of the USSR was a great tragedy.

If one explores the disarmament literature, the most common explanation for Russia and China’s aggressive stance in world affairs is that “America made them do it” an interesting version of Ambassador Kirkpatrick’s 1984 refrain “They always blame America first.””

There are six common complaints by the global zero advocates.

First the United States started an arms race, although we simply replaced legacy nuclear forces allowed by the 2010 New Start agreement.

Second, the United States built or will build 44-66 missile defense interceptors in Alaska and California, although it is perplexing how dozens of interceptor missiles somehow threaten multiple hundreds and even thousands of enemy warheads.

Third, the U.S. was mean to North Korea, although all the U.S. did was call them out for cheating on the Agreed Framework.

Fourth, the U.S. withdrew from the INF treaty, although Russia was serially violating the treaty terms.

Fifth, the United States withdrew from the JCPOA, but that was because Iran never came clean, as required, on its nuclear military activities.

Sixth, Washington too energetically supports the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Israel, but since when was helping your democratic allies a sin.

Given this mindset, it is not a wonder that the “solutions” pushed by the disarmament community to jumpstart a movement towards global zero start with unilateral USA concessions which, just coincidentally, involve taking down USA nuclear capability whether cancelling the LRSO, the Sentinel or Minuteman III, the JSF or F-35, the SLCM-N, or the B-61 warhead. And not proceeding with any missile defense, dropping our hostile policy toward Iran and North Korea, and restore the INF and the JCPOA.

In short diminishing USA nuclear capability just as China and Russia are markedly expanding their nuclear capability is somehow going to turn out as a successful strategy that reduces strategic instability and magically restores deterrence. Although such unilateral restraint has never previously worked. And weakness is provocative and can lead to war. And a United States shed of a deterrent strategy will indeed be perceived as weak.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.