Correspondence - New Era or New Error? Technology and the Future of Deterrence

Ryan Snyder and Benoît Pelopidas respond to Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press's spring 2017 article, “The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence.

Correspondence - New Era or New Error? Technology and the Future of Deterrence

Ryan Snyder and Benoît Pelopidas respond to Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press's spring 2017 article, “The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence.

Coercive Nuclear Campaigns in the 21st Century; Understanding Adversary Incentives and Options for Nuclear Escalation

This report is the product of collaboration between Keir Lieber, Daryl Press, the Naval Postgraduate School Center on Contemporary Conflict, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency"This report examines why and how regional powers armed with nuclear weapons may employ those weapons coercively against the United States or U.S. allies during a conventional war. We argue that the problem of intra-­†war deterrence -- preventing nuclear-­†armed adversaries from escalating during a conventional conflict -- is arguably the most important deterrence challenge facing the United States in the 21st century. The strategic environment facing the United States, its allies, and its potential adversaries has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War. For nearly four decades, the United States and its NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies planned to use nuclear weapons to defend themselves from a major Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. The armies of the Warsaw Pact were perceived to be too formidable to confront with a strictly conventional defense -- at least at spending levels that would be acceptable to the North Atlantic alliance. Nuclear weapons were thus NATO's 'trump card': NATO planned to employ nuclear weapons coercively during a war to raise the costs and risks to the Warsaw Pact and thereby convince them to halt their military operations before they could inflict a total defeat on NATO. Today, the global balance of power is reversed. Now U.S. military forces are the most formidable, and potential U.S. adversaries need trump cards of their own to stalemate the United States. This reversal in the balance of power helps explain why the United States now seeks to delegitimize nuclear weapons and reduce their role in the world. Unfortunately, the same conditions that once made NATO rely on nuclear weapons will now likely compel other countries -- including several potential U.S. adversaries -- to rely upon nuclear weapons."Funded by the Naval Postgraduate SchoolCenter on Contemporary Conflict (CCC)Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC)Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Preventing Escalation During Conventional Wars

PASCC Grant No. N00244-­‐14-­‐1-­‐002

Appendix for Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, "The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence," International Security, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Spring 2017), pp. 9–49.

This document is a technical appendix, which accompanies the article, "The New Era of Counterforce.

Coorespondence, The Short Shadow of U.S. Primacy?

Keir Lieber and Daryl Press’s recent article presents a compelling case for the rise of U.S. nuclear primacy in the twenty-ªrst century. The authors, however, fail to address what they maintain is a central question in international relations scholarship: “Does nuclear primacy grant the superior side real coercive leverage in political disputes?”1 Their passing discussion of the theme does little justice to the merit of the question, and as a result the article seems incomplete. In fact, the United States already enjoys primacy in the vast majority of its relations with other countries, but recent events suggest that this preponderance of power has not led to coercive leverage