The New Arms Race

The term "arms race" is a figure of speech widely used during the Cold War to reduce a complex strategic interaction into terms that a large audience could comprehend. The phrase conjures an image that was quite accurate when the United States and the Soviet Union were the two principal racers, developing and deploying new nuclear weapons and delivery systems at a rapid pace. The major currencies of the old arms race were missiles, bomber aircraft, and nuclear weapons. The race was between two competitors, roughly equal in nuclear capability, who strove mightily to maintain that equality--plus a little edge. The future plans of the other party were never entirely transparent, and a tendency to assume the worst existed.

This old nuclear arms race is over and unlikely to be reborn in the foreseeable future. Today, the new security environment could be termed a new arms race, but it is very different from the competition of the Cold War era. Few recognize the new arms race as such yet because both the competitors and the currencies of competition have changed. This new arms race involves several countries and a variety of weapons. Although the United States has superior military capabilities, competitors are seeking ways to offset that superiority. The new arms race requires a different U.S. strategy toward arms control and force planning.

The Old and the New

Exploration of the factors underlying the arms race that took place during the Cold War provides a basis for understanding the current system. Of the seven major drivers of the old arms race, many are not present today, while others have changed radically.

Geopolitics

The Soviet Union posed a major military threat to Western Europe (and Japan to a lesser extent), and the United States helped its allies defend against this threat. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the demise of the Warsaw Pact, and severe economic and social problems within Russia have radically changed that threat. The Russian Army--now withdrawn from Central Europe--is a shadow of its past glory, unable to end warfare in Chechnya and unable to pay its troops.

Strategy

The United States, facing superior Soviet conventional forces in Central Europe, relied heavily on a strategy of deterrence, based on the threat of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons. Today, the United States is militarily superior to any likely adversary and therefore has much less need to make nuclear deterrence central to its strategy. Contemporary threats are characteristically more conventional and asymmetrical, and the United States will have to meet them on that level. Nuclear weapons still have a role to play, particularly to deter the use of weapons of mass destruction. No one, however, has yet clearly defined that role.

Diplomacy

During the Cold War, the United States committed its nuclear forces to protecting its allies from attack and nuclear blackmail and hence discouraged the proliferation of independent nuclear capabilities. Although the need for reassurance remains, nuclear weapons play a lesser role in diplomacy due to changes in threats and in U.S. nonnuclear capabilities relative to major potential adversaries. U.S. allies, who saw nuclear deterrence as a mixed blessing, now want to push nuclear planning into the background.

Economics

In the early 1950s, when Western allies decided not to match Soviet conventional strength in Europe, the reasoning was basically economic. The West possessed the potential economic and manpower resources to match Soviet conventional military strength, but the cost would have been very high, and the West chose instead to increase its dependence on nuclear weapons. This decision freed resources for investment in the recovery of Europe and economic expansion in the United States. Today's security challenges demand major changes in U.S. military forces, but budgetary pressures within the military establishment are drawing resources from strategic nuclear programs, not toward them.

Technology

In the period from 1950 to 1980, changes in the technologies affecting nuclear deterrence were dramatic. Nuclear warheads shrank in size as well as weight...