The United States has been the most powerful country in the world for a long time. As nations like China, Russia, and others begin to retaliate against US advantages, America's dominance is beginning to diminish.
What should be done? Washington is worried about the decline. One solution is for America to increase its defense spending. This is happening in part. The United States is encouraging its allies to do the same. Allies in Europe and Asia have resisted spending more on defense because Americans seem unenthusiastic about major tax increases.
Lloyd Austin, the US Defense Secretary, has put forward an attractive alternative. America can move to more closely integrate its nuclear weapons within its overall defense structure rather than simply doubling down on its conventional military capabilities.
Austin's grand strategy, referred to as "integrated deterrence," sounds like a magic bullet. America has to threaten an adversary with nuclear destruction and it will fold. There is a catch that the veteran military commander seems to have ignored or discounted.
Nuclear weapons are not the same as other weapons of war. These are not supposed to be fired. Nuclear weapons in the US arsenal have been based on deterrence, an approach to war that Austin seems to embrace.
August 6, 1945 was the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Stanley Troutman is a photographer.
Deterrence is a different kind of game than warfare. The side that is stronger is usually the winner. The proverb says that victory favors the side with the bigger battalions. America's recent adventures in the Middle East attest to this. It is the most common outcome.
Nuclear deterrence is won by the side that wants to win more than the side that is capable. The game of chicken is an example of this reality.
Imagine two teenagers getting ready to hurtle toward each other. The driver who is willing to risk destruction to have his or her way is the winner. The driver that cares more about survival and less about the stakes in the contest is the loser.
The shift from tests of capability to tests of will is consequential. Expanding the nuclear "brinkmanship" game of chicken to more issues and contexts plays to American weakness. Integrated deterrence seems to increase decline rather than stem it.
Chicken isn't as favorable to the country that is more capable. It rewards those who are willing to risk their lives. Status quo actors tend to be those with the biggest stake in keeping things as they are.
Taking disputes to the brink of nuclear destruction favors revisionist challengers, emboldening aggression on the margins of the US security cordon, where American resolve appears to be, and is, most tenuous.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Navy deputy commander Mikhail Zakharenko were on a nuclear missile cruiser.
ITAR-TASS
Having nice things is a liability in the game of chicken. Increased assertiveness can be achieved by those with old, dented, rusty, or otherwise tarnished jalopies. The platforms that would pose a liability in other contests become more potent. Chicken favors the reckless.
Russia and North Korea have less to lose in a confrontation than other countries, and they are now more potent. When NATO imposed sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Putin reminded the world that Russia had a low-yield nuclear capability.
This is not speculative. The limits of chicken were a point of contention in the 1950s.
Eisenhower relied on the concept of "massive retaliation" to deter Soviet aggression in Europe and Chinese advances in Asia. Our nuclear threats failed in most cases. The model of deterrence reverted to a hybrid one, where the deterrent was implemented by US conventional forces abroad.
Austin and the US military face a new dilemma today. In most places where the status quo is challenged, US resolve is marginal.
Nuclear deterrence is likely to work well where America cares enough to risk everything. Integrated deterrence will backfire in many situations where America is more capable but less resolved than its adversary.
The nation will be better off in the midst of a nuclear crisis because deterrence relies on values, and how much Americans are willing to risk in pursuit of a particular outcome.
There is a decided risk of war in places where there are question marks about America's resolve. US defense planners may best equip the nation for the future by confronting tough decisions about what conventional capabilities America can afford and where it is willing to deploy them. In 2007, the current leader of the free world said "Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value."
There are no cheap or easy tricks to help President Joe Biden with his logic. The most straightforward way to confront military decline is to reconcile America's commitments with its willingness to pay.
The Center for Peace and Security Studies (cPASS) at the University of California, San Diego is headed by professor of political science and director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies.
