The New American Nuclear Consensus—and Those Outside It - Robert Peters

Finally, nuclear disarmers sought to rid the world of nuclear weapons and wanted the United States to lead by example by cutting the size of the American arsenal. [...] Vladimir Putin almost immediately began threatening to use nuclear weap- ons against Ukraine, the United States, and much of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).14 Russia suspended the New START treaty, which capped the number of strategic nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia.15 Moscow also “de-ratified” the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the international treaty that prohibit. [...] The New Nuclear Mainstream Emerges Against this backdrop of nuclear expansion by Russia and China, the destruction of the nuclear arms control regime by Russia, emboldened auto- crats, reduced conventional munitions stockpiles due to ongoing conflicts, a United States that is falling behind in the production of conventional munitions and weapons platforms, and the cost and schedule overruns of a m. [...] theater nuclear forces deployed or based in the Asia-Pacific”33 (which was seen by many in the nuclear policy community as code for fielding SLCM-N); develop additional low-yield nuclear options; and reinvest in the nuclear enterprise.34 For many in the nuclear policy community, including the nuclear realists, the arms control- lers, and the disarmament sub-communities, the fact that such a bipart. [...] Indeed, this last point encapsulates the overarching goal of the new, nuclear policy mainstream: to stabilize the strategic environment and deter a nuclear war, which the United States may not be postured to win by the mid-2030s given Russian and Chinese nuclear expansion and the problems within the U.