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Government Shutdowns and National Security with Former Congressman Chris Stewart was originally published on Global Security Review.

The international system is now firmly bipolar, with China’s global power rapidly increasing at a time when Russia regularly threatens to use nuclear weapons against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), influencing the administration of President Donald Trump. The combined Chinese and Russian threats are leading President Trump to warn of a possible World War III.

American power is increasingly contested, bringing new operational challenges to extended deterrence. A fundamental question is now in play—should the US abandon the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it created in 1960s and instead push its allies to field nuclear weapons?

Allies are already reconsidering their nuclear stance. In the Asia-Pacific, American ally Australia provides useful historical insights.

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Australia sought to acquire nuclear weapons in response to an unstable international order where it felt threatened by China. In 1967, Secretary of US Defense Robert McNamara said it would be “entirely natural” and “an obvious thing to happen” for Australia to acquire nuclear weapons in response to China developing them. He also expressed interest in establishing a collective nuclear organization for the Far East, “starting with Australia and the Philippines.”

Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk earlier suggested a “US-supplied Far Eastern nuclear stockpile” open to Japan and India. In 1958, others proposed the US could base intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in Australia, in the event the US decided to keep tight control of nuclear weapons in its own hands and actively worked to push its allies to agree to the NPT treaty.

There were similar debates around friendly nuclear proliferation in Europe around the same time. Aiming to regain leadership in Europe, the US proposed a multilateral nuclear force within NATO. While there were doubts over its military utility, the diplomatic discussions that started around sharing nuclear hardware and control did allow time to develop a European non-proliferation solution. In 1966, the NATO nuclear planning group was established, allowing some European allies to be involved in how and under which circumstances American weapons might be used.

The structural changes in the international system that prompted these earlier ideas are happening again. It is time to start thinking seriously about the next steps to take. The nuclear history noted suggests three broad approaches.

First, allies might build their own nuclear forces. The logic is that in a high-intensity conflict between the US and a nuclear power, the adversary may target American allies with nuclear weapons. Such an escalation demonstrates an adversary’s willingness to coerce allies into ceasing support for the United States.

This is the worst-case scenario that extended deterrence was created to prevent. If allies seriously doubt American credibility, fielding independent nuclear forces is a solution.  Indeed, economically challenged Pakistan and North Korea took this path already. For America’s allies, acquiring nuclear forces may be a lower cost option than growing their conventional forces.

Second, allies might work together to devise a modern multilateral nuclear force as considered in 1960s Europe. In the Pacific, Australia considered working with Britain on nuclear weapons in the late 1940s and 1950s; some still favor this effort. In that regard, Japan and Australia have recently acquired Tomahawk cruise missiles, which the US armed with nuclear warheads to deter Russia in the 1980s. Such weapons might be a starting point for an allied nuclear force in the eastern Pacific. As noted, the US considered deploying ICBMs in the Australian outback.

Third, another option, arguably better for American global leadership, is to address the allies’ deepening concerns over extended deterrence. This would involve the current administration actively reassuring allies that it still places importance on existing security treaties, increasing nuclear sharing and including more nations in nuclear planning, especially in the Pacific. Such steps would be at marginal cost to the US.

The most important might be nuclear sharing as this appears a tangible example of commitment. Of course, nuclear sharing is actually a misnomer since the US shares in the employment of certain nuclear weapons. It retains full control of the weapons prior to an authorization to strike a target.

The US could increase nuclear sharing with Pacific allies, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, and broaden out to other NATO nations like Poland and the Scandinavian nations, which appear to be Russia’s next target after Ukraine. These nations could then reciprocate in hosting US nuclear weapons as Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands do now.

This discussion hinges on American ambitions for global leadership. As the Trump administration pushes allies to bare a greater share of their own security while attempting to close a $2 trillion annual deficit, the US must necessarily cut costs everywhere. Thus, American allies must take a realistic look at what President Trump is seeking to accomplish with the federal budget and understand that they must step into the breach while the US sets its house in order.

Sometimes, a great power must admit that it may be in its interests to change direction and push its allies down a new, different path. In that case, the Trump administration might declare the NPT finished and instead encourage its allies to go nuclear.

Dr. Christine Leah is a Fellow at the US National Institute for Deterrence Studies and has worked on nuclear issues at Yale, MIT, and RAND and in London, Singapore, and Canberra. She is the author of The Consequences of American Nuclear Disarmament and Australia and the Bomb. Dr. Peter Layton is Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He is author of Grand Strategy and coauthor of Warfare in the Robotic Age.

Time to Proliferate Nuclear Weapons (or Not?) was originally published on Global Security Review.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Canyon begins her article by employing the Cuban Missile Crisis as an example of where diplomacy rather than military force carried the day. Her explanation is simple disinformation and misunderstands how nuclear deterrence works.

Early in the crisis, President John F. Kennedy moved nuclear-armed bombers to Air Force bases in Florida, lining them up wing tip to wing tip, as a visible display of the nuclear hell both Cuba and the Soviet Union would face if Nikita Khruschev did not remove nuclear weapons from Cuba. That signal was seen by the Soviets.

President Kennedy also called the then-recent deployment of Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) his “ace in the hole.” He credited his ICBMs with forcing the Soviets to back down. Minuteman I was very much American escalation dominance that the Soviets could not match.

He also implemented a blockade around Cuba. When the Soviet submarine B-59 attempted to run the blockade, the USS Beale depth charged the submarine. Rather than launching its nuclear torpedoes against the Beale, B-59 retreated.

Contrary to Canyon’s assertion that diplomacy carried the day, it was military strength and nuclear superiority that carried the day. General Secretary Khruschev knew that the United States had a superior nuclear arsenal and backed down.

Arms Racing

Canyon is also concerned that the United States will invite an arms race should it develop the full spectrum of capabilities that are required to effectively deter China, North Korea, and Russia. The reality is the race has already begun. The only participant that is yet to leave the starting block is the United States.

Russian strategic nuclear modernization is nearly complete, with Russia also maintaining at least a 10 to 1 advantage in theater nuclear weapons. China is adding at least 100 new nuclear weapons per year and will soon outmatch the United States.

North Korea is now capable of striking the homeland with intercontinental ballistic missiles. According to Kim Jung Un, North Korea will build an arsenal of 500 nuclear weapons.

It is only the United States that is yet to field a new nuclear delivery system. The newest American nuclear delivery vehicle, the B2 bomber, is three decades old.

Contrary to the aspirations of nuclear disarmament advocates in the United States, not a single nuclear-armed adversary is willing to follow the United States down the path of disarmament. The post–Cold War era, three decades now, is a glaring example of the failures of the disarmament delusion.

Canyon is completely wrong when she asserts that China and Russia are modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals because of American nuclear modernization. They began their own nuclear modernization and expansion efforts long before the United States began its effort to replace aging weapons with new variants.

It was not American nuclear weapons that drove Chinese and Russian modernization to begin with. It is American superiority in conventional precision-guided weapons, which neither adversary can match, that led them to follow a strategy like President Dwight Eisenhower’s New Look Policy.

For some reason, Canyon claims that the ability to maintain nuclear escalation dominance is advocating “unchecked militarization.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Nuclear forces are a deterrent to conventional military aggression. Historically, great powers wage war four to six times per century, killing millions in the process. Nuclear weapons put an end to great power war and led to a more than 90 percent decline in conflict-related casualties. Lest Canyon forget, the last great power war, World War II, led to the death of 70 million people and saw the United States spend almost half of its gross domestic product fighting the war.

Canyon, like many in the disarmament community, mistakenly believes that weakness leads to peace. They incorrectly impose their own aversion to conflict onto Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jung Un. In reality, these authoritarians, who are actively seeking to topple the American-led international order, only see American passivity as weakness and an opportunity to coerce the United States.

Peace through strength is no mere slogan. It is the most accurate and effective way to deter America’s adversaries and ensure they never believe that they can achieve their objectives through conflict.

Defense Spending

Canyon also argues that defense spending is too high and the need to modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad is wasteful. Instead, she proposes increasing spending on social programs. Any examination of federal, state, and local budgets illustrates that Canyon is again incorrect.

In 2024, the federal budget was $6.75 trillion. Of this, $841.4 billion, 14 percent, went to defense spending. Of defense spending, about $50 billion was dedicated to current operation and modernization. This was about 6 percent of defense spending and less than 0.1 percent of federal spending.

Federal, state, and local governments spent more than $10 trillion in 2024. The federal government alone spent 69 percent of its budget on social programs. That is approximately $4.6 trillion—more than all federal revenue collected ($4.4 trillion) in 2024. Excluding federal pass-through funds, state and local governments spent an additional $4 trillion in 2024. State and local governments spent 65 percent of their budgets on social programs—another $2.6 trillion. Federal, state, and local governments spent $1.8 trillion just on anti-poverty programs—more than twice the defense budget.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that runs these two programs, Medicare and Medicaid lose more than $100 billion every year to waste, fraud, and abuse. That is twice the cost of the entire nuclear enterprise. Surprisingly, Canyon is not bothered by this and other waste, fraud, and abuse in federal, state, and local programs. They are affordable. In her mind, it is nuclear spending that is breaking the bank.

The simple fact is that social justice warriors have never seen a dollar they do not want to spend. After all, more than 100 percent of federal revenues are already spent on their preferred programs. State and local governments spend two-thirds of their budgets on social programs. Americans also spend more than $450 billion a year in charitable donations. Despite the spending on social programs, the demand only grows.

Defense spending, however, is at a 70-year low. At 3.4 percent of gross domestic product, these rates of defense spending have not been seen since prior to World War II.

Thus, when Canyon argues that too much is spent on defense and nuclear modernization, she is flat wrong. It is just the opposite.

Americans now live in a nation where social programs crowd out defense spending at a time when avoiding war is only possible by fielding a military and a nuclear force that is powerful enough to not only deter Russian aggression, but Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian as well. That can never be done by good intentions. Weakness is provocative. Peace comes through strength and an unwillingness by aggressive adversaries to challenge the United States.

Canyon is wrong in her reading of history, wrong in her understanding of strategy, and wrong about government spending. The time is now to have a guns-versus-butter debate because it may soon be too late.

Joe Buff is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are his own.

Escalation Dominance Does Matter was originally published on Global Security Review.