Nipp

A New Nuclear Review for a New Age examines why and how to adjust US nuclear policy to the new realities of the post-Cold War world. The new realities of the threat environment are very different from those of the immediate post-Cold War period and the three previous NPRs—1994, 2001, and 2010. The contemporary threat environment is highly dynamic, and self-declared opponents have embarked on foreign policies designed to overturn the existing international order, elevated the roles of nuclear weapons in support of these policies, and continued to modernize and expand their nuclear arsenals. The hoped-for “new world order” has been superseded by the emergence of a new threat environment that includes expanding nuclear and non-nuclear threats.

US nuclear policy must now shift to address these new threat realities and again promote as priority US goals the deterrence of enemies, the assurance of allies, and the limitation of damage in the event deterrence fails. US nuclear capabilities and strategies to support these priority goals must be adaptable to the uncertainties of a highly-dynamic threat environment and the great variability in opponents and contexts. Correspondingly, flexibility and resilience must be priority metrics for US nuclear strategy, forces and infrastructure. Advancing flexibility and resilience across US nuclear policy will provide the most prudent basis possible for having the capabilities and strategies needed to meet the diverse and shifting demands of deterrence, assurance and damage limitation for decades to come.