November 27, 2018
Against the Great Powers: Reflections on Balancing Nuclear and Conventional Power
The fundamental problem facing U.S. national security — and indeed grand — strategy is clear: The United States seeks to extend deterrence to dozens of allies in parts of the world that are increasingly shadowed by Russia and China, each of which fields survivable nuclear arsenals and conventional forces that are more and more formidable in their respective regions. An increasingly powerful China seeks ascendancy in Asia and ultimately beyond, while Russia has recovered some of its military potency and aspires to upend or at least substantially revise the post-Cold War European settlement. Both China and Russia have developed strategies and forces designed to enable them to attack or suborn U.S. allies or partners and make such an effort potentially worth the risks and costs. Their aspirations place them at odds — or at least in tension — with U.S. interests in defending its alliance architecture, and their increased capability to pursue these aspirations makes them more dangerous and the possibility of war with them more likely.
In the face of these challenges, Washington wants to deter and, if necessary, defeat attacks on its allies by Russia or China. The problem is that these alliances are, while of course important, still fundamentally secondary interests for the United States. Yet Washington wisely seeks to defend them from states that have the assured ability to conduct nuclear strikes on the American homeland, which, naturally, represents the profoundest type of peril to the nation’s ultimate primary interest: its survival as a functioning society.
Read the full article in Texas National Security Review.
More from CNAS
-
Saudi Arabia Halts Energy Sites as Houthis Claim New Attacks
Video
Becca Wasser, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, joins Bloomberg to discuss the latest on the Iran War, control over the Strait of Hormuz, and th...
By Becca Wasser
-
Where Do We Go from Here?
Commentary
Introduction Over the past nine months, The New American Defense Industrial Base essay series has brought together a wide range of participants to deliver a variety of views o...
By Susanna V. Blume
-
Manufacturing a New National Security
Commentary
Introduction The United States sits atop the world’s pedestal of military superpowers—particularly when it comes to developing and employing the most sophisticated technology—...
By James Swartout & Nick Doucette
-
The Impossible Middle East
Commentary
The Middle East today has some thinking to do. It will need to draw up new ways to preserve its wealth, to pursue greater self-sufficiency, and to diversify—and even own—its s...
By Becca Wasser
