The Pentagon is reportedly drafting a new nuclear strategy that’s expected to emphasize the use of tactical nuclear weapons to give the president more “options” in a potential nuclear conflict.
The strategy, first reported by NBC News, is being drafted by the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby, who has for more than a decade called for the US to develop additional capabilities to fight a “limited nuclear war.”
The idea would be to shift the US nuclear strategy away from the focus on using strategic nuclear weapons to wipe out an adversary’s nuclear capabilities and focus more on the possibility of using smaller, tactical nuclear weapons in a “regional” conflict.
“If you actually want extended deterrence to be credible, you have to provide the nation’s political leadership with nuclear capabilities that common sense indicates you could actually use,” a source told NBC. “Otherwise you’re reducing our leadership’s options to extreme choices that the adversary won’t find credible.”
While the potential strategy would be carried out in the name of deterrence and preventing war, arms control advocates have strongly warned against the idea of developing more tactical nuclear weapons to prepare for a potential limited nuclear conflict over concerns that it would make nuclear war much more likely and that any nuclear exchange would likely lead to a global catastrophe.
“Without a firm rejection of the option to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict, by building and fielding more tactical nuclear weapons the administration is signaling its intention to use them against enemy forces and industrial infrastructure in a conflict,” the Arms Control Association said in response to the NBC report.
The ACA said that it “strongly opposes the administration’s decision to build more tactical nuclear weapons to supplement the options that exist” and pointed to the fact that the US already has at least two types of tactical nuclear weapons, including B61-12 gravity bombs, which are deployed in Europe, and the W76-2 low-yield warhead for the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile.
The ACA said the US Navy is also “acquiring a new nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) that may be available at the end of the decade for possible use in conflict with China.”
Breaking Defense reported that Colby announced on August 5 that the Pentagon was reviewing the US nuclear posture and repeatedly emphasized the term “options” in a speech he delivered that has not been made public.
Colby has been one of the leading voices in Washington’s policy circles advocating for the US to prepare for limited nuclear war. In a 2015 paper for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) titled “A Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2030,” Colby said the US “should make a special effort to develop the platforms and weapons, doctrine, planning capacity, and other capabilities needed to fight a limited nuclear war more effectively than plausible adversaries.”
He said that the ideal US nuclear force is “one that is not only highly survivable and able to issue a devastating blow against any adversary under any scenario but that is also capable of conducting effective limited nuclear operations in a controlled fashion while maintaining the ability to escalate to full-scale war if necessary.”
Colby made a similar argument in a 2018 piece written in Foreign Affairs titled “If You Want Peace, Prepare for Nuclear War,” published just a few months after he left the first Trump administration, where he led the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
“Washington’s task is clear. It must demonstrate to Moscow and Beijing that any attempt to use force against US friends and allies would likely fail and would certainly result in costs and risks well out of proportion to whatever they might gain,” Colby wrote. “This requires conventional military power, but it also means having the right strategy and weapons to fight a limited nuclear war and come out on top.”
