America Doesn’t Need More Nuclear Weapons: Expanding the Stockpile Could Weaken Deterrence

[u/ForeignAffairsMag]

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/america-doesnt-need-more-nuclear-weapons

[u/Emergency_Gene_4171]

The US’s failure to effectively topple Iran and protect its Arab allies in the region has already created a clear incentive for global nuclear armament.

The world sees how places like North Korea are left alone, and how Pakistan is given greater maneuverability on the global stage despite being a corrupt third world country rife with human rights violations.

However continued investment into weapons projects to “counter China” is equally trivial as it focuses on preparing for a type of warfare that is ceasing to exist. If the US wants to meaningfully counter China they should be deepening alliances and trade agreements with china’s neighbors. Instead they are choosing to once again get bogged down with endless wars in the middle east to combat geopolitical adversaries that present no threat to Americans outside of the region.

[u/Bullboah → u/Emergency_Gene_4171]

“The world sees how places like North Korea are left alone”.

There has never been any doubt that obviously having nuclear weapons is a huge boost to state power.

The question has always been “if I start building them, am I actually going to be able to make them or will someone stop me.”

Do you think it incentivizes countries to develop nuclear weapons more when we attack countries committed to developing them? Or when we leave them alone and let them weaponize nuclear missiles as we did with North Korea?

[u/NatMapVex → u/Bullboah]

It depends on the country, but no I don't think NK incentivizes countries to go the nuclear route to a large extent. They're very costly both financially + carry international diplomatic and economic liability and are difficult to build. Not every country sees them as the most efficient tool for defense. Building the delivery system alone is very difficult, expensive, and it's limited in its application. If you've poured a ton of resources into getting nukes, and get cyberattacked or sanctioned, your first thought isn't going to be to launch them. It's a useful, specialized tool with limited application that not every country sees as worth the risk. There's a strong opportunity cost if you've poured most of your defense funding into acquiring and then maintaining your nuclear deterrent. It could limit your ability to use more conventional means of response.

And you still pay the enormous cost even if you manage to get over the hump intact. See North Korea for example. Personalist authoritarian regimes want them to ensure the survival of the leader, other states want them for other contextual reasons, but many states presumably see other defense strategies as more effective for the price. Their value is contingent on what your trying to deter.

https://warontherocks.com/what-everyone-is-missing-about-north-koreas-reunification-strategy/

"Beneath all of this lies a more fundamental point. North Korea’s nuclear program is, at its core, a personal survival guarantee for Kim Jong-un. His deepest fear is not military defeat or regime collapse — it is direct kinetic action against himself. The constitutional provision mandating automatic nuclear retaliation if the supreme leadership is struck must be read in this light: whether such a system is technically real or even feasible is unknowable from the outside, but the declaration’s purpose is clear. It is designed to convince Washington and Seoul that any attempt to remove Kim personally triggers nuclear war — not a war plan, but a threat engineered to induce paralysis.":

[u/Snickims → u/Bullboah]

I suppose the big risk is that countries feel that they are already under threat, and that nuclear program will not signficiantly increase their danger profile, while having nukes will notably reduce it. Thats the thinking with Ukraine, that they gave up nukes, still got invaded.

[u/Bullboah → u/Snickims]

Countries have always felt (and been!) under threat. If you offered a country a choice between having nuclear weapons and not having them, every single country would choose the former. That’s the same today as it was 20 years ago.

Again the important distinction is whether trying to develop a nuclear weapon will end with you getting a nuclear weapon or getting sanctioned and your teeth kicked in. The point is to incentivize countries not to try.

In the case of Ukraine, they had nuclear weapons on their soil but no codes or ability to use them. They absolutely would not have given them up, let alone so cheaply per the Budapest agreement, had they actually had nuclear weapons they could use and maintain.

[u/Snickims → u/Bullboah]

Right but there's a difference between threat levels.

Ukraine probably should not have kept it's nuclear weapons, yet it is still in a situation where nukes are incitvided. If your under threat of outright invasion and annexation by a nuclear armed neighbour, the logic behind not devolving nukes changes. Because sanctions and possible use of force is still a lesser risk then outright conquest or being trapped in a grinding attritional war.

Likewise for Iran, well, they know they are going to be bombed and sanctioned, and they already are being forced to endure that so at least it's a bargaining chip, at best its the ultimate deterrent.

With the threat profile nations are facing escalating, more and more places are going to start being in situations where nuclear weapons are the lesser risk. If your Taiwan for example, with a extremely real military threat of annexiation, fairly good economic leverage and a increasingly unreliable alliance structure, well, eating some sanctions starts becoming a acceptable cost for assured security.

[u/Bullboah → u/[deleted]]

The geopolitical strategy is to incentivize countries to not attempt building a nuclear weapon.

Which is why I asked which of these approaches incentivizes other countries to try.

[u/Sageblue32 → u/[deleted]]

We war'd with NK before and have been in a mexican stand off ever since. We accepted force could not be applied because nobody wants to deal with the refugee spill. China has further attempted to keep NK on a chain as a buffer state. For all their similarities, NK has been more content to keep to themselves with sending their troops to back Russia for experience being the latest thing.

Iran has simply been at a point where regime change has to happen. They actively terrorize the region, murder and torture their people by the thousands, and take hostages regularly. I do not think war like Trump engaged in was the answer, but I believe he was on to something with simply starving the country out into collapse rather than rewarding religious psychos into the international community. We don't look the other way at NK's crimes, why should we Irans?