US Needs Tactical Nukes to Keep the Peace

Within the next decade, the US will confront an unprecedented security challenge: Not one but two rival powers, Russia and China, will likely possess nuclear arsenals equal in size and potency to America’s — including tactical nuclear weapons that could be used to threaten US interests around the world. Can the US still deter such a possibility?

A report last month by the Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, a bipartisan group created by Congress to assess nuclear threats, considered the challenge. It found that China is “pursuing a nuclear force build-up on a scale unseen” since the US-Soviet arms race and that its deployed warheads will reach “quantitative parity” with the US by the mid-2030s. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled his intention to scrap previous arms-control agreements and move forward with plans to “expand and enhance” Russia’s nuclear forces.