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ABSTRACT
Will China’s nuclear modernization threaten U.S. security? Will it destabilize East Asia, creating new strategic problems for U.S. allies and partners? And will it make conventional war more likely by giving China the confidence to act under the cover of advanced nuclear weapons? Despite the centrality of China in debates over contemporary strategy, there is no consensus answer to these questions. This article surveys U.S perspectives on the meaning of China’s nuclear modernization. It describes three competing interpretations, each reflecting a different theory of nuclear strategy: the Nuclear Revolution; Nuclear Superiority; and the Stability-Instability Paradox. We describe the theoretical logic and empirical evidence in support of each claim, and derive future indicators that could help resolve the debate over China’s intentions as more evidence becomes available. This exercise also reveals some counterintuitive views about China’s nuclear efforts and the prospects for conventional war. The conclusion discusses the implications for theory and policy.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Bradley Hazen, Samanvya Hooda, Surya Midha, and Lisa Michelini for excellent research assistance, and M. Taylor Fravel, Alexander T.J. Lennon, Austin Long, Vipin Narang, the editors, and the reviewers for helpful feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, ‘Chinese Nuclear Weapons, 2021’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 77/6 (2 Nov. 2021), 323.
2 Jeffrey Lewis, ‘China’s Hypersonic Orbital Weapon Is Scary but Not New’, Foreign Policy, 18 October 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/18/hypersonic-china-missile-nuclear-fobs/.
3 Charles A. Richard, ‘Space and Missile Defense Symposium’, United States Strategic Command, 12 Aug. 2021, https://www.stratcom.mil/Media/Speeches/Article/2742875/space-and-missile-defense-symposium/.
4 Gerald Brown, ‘Understanding the Risks and Realities of China’s Nuclear Forces’, Arms Control Association, June 2021, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021–06/features/understanding-risks-realities-chinas-nuclear-forces.
5 Tong Zhao, ‘What’s Driving China’s Nuclear Buildup?’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 5 Aug. 2021, https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/05/what-s-driving-china-s-nuclear-buildup-pub-85106.
6 We do not seek to ascribe any certain motives to researchers studying China’s nuclear arsenal, many of whom do not work deductively from any particular theory of nuclear strategy. Our purpose, instead, is to note that their findings map well onto a body of preexisting theory about nuclear deterrence. We highlight these connections to shed light both on the policy debate over China and the underlying theoretical implications for strategic studies.
7 There are, of course, still other explanations for China’s nuclear behavior besides the popular strategic explanations we examine here. For example, see Susan Turner Haynes, ‘The Power of Prestige: Explaining China’s Nuclear Weapons Decisions’, Asian Security 16/1 (2 Jan. 2020), 35–52. See also the discussion of explanations in Phillip Saunders and David Logan, ‘How Does the PLA’s Nuclear Expansion Impact China’s Crisis Behavior?’ Paper prepared for NBR and U.S.-Indo-Pacific Command conference ‘PLA Actions and Behavior in a Crisis’, West Point, NY, 16 July 2022.
8 See, for example, Dan Altman, ‘The West Worries Too Much About Escalation in Ukraine’, Foreign Affairs (online), 12 July 2022.
9 M. Taylor Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros, ‘China’s Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure’, International Security 35/2 (2010), 48–87.
10 Tong Zhao, ‘China and the International Debate on No First Use of Nuclear Weapons’, Asian Security (published online, 20 Dec. 2021), 1.
11 Fravel and Medeiros, ‘China’s Search for Assured Retaliation’, 58; Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2014), chap. 5.
12 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense 3 Nov. 2021), 62.
13 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021, 91; and Austin Long, ‘Myths or Moving Targets? Continuity and Change in China’s Nuclear Forces’, War on the Rocks, 4 Dec. 2020, http://warontherocks.com/2020/12/myths-or-moving-targets-continuity-and-change-in-chinas-nuclear-forces/.
14 Kristensen and Korda, ‘Chinese Nuclear Weapons, 2021’; Caitlin Talmadge, ‘The U.S.-China Nuclear Relationship: Why Competition Is Likely to Intensify (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Sept. 2019). https://www.brookings.edu/research/china-and-nuclear-weapons/. The Pentagon reports that the road-mobile DF-41 has ‘improved range and accuracy over DF-31 class ICBMs’. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021, 60–61.
15 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021, 60–61.
16 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2022 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense 29 Nov. 2022), 64–65.
17 Tong Zhao, Tides of Change: China’s Nuclear Ballistic Submarines and Strategic Stability (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2018).
18 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021, 91.
19 Ibid., 56.
20 Jeffrey Lewis and Decker Eveleth, ‘Chinese ICBM Silos’, Arms Control Wonk, 2 July 2021, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1212340/chinese-icbm-silos/; and James Acton, ‘Don’t Panic about China’s New Nuclear Capabilities’, The Monkey Cage Blog at the Washington Post (blog), 27 July 2021.
21 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2022, ix.
22 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2022, ix.
23 Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille, ‘China Tests New Space Capability with Hypersonic Missile’, Financial Times, 16 Oct. 2021.
24 For an excellent technical explanation and historical perspective on this test, see Lewis, ‘China’s Hypersonic Orbital Weapon is Scary but Not New’.
25 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2022, 65.
26 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2022, 94.
27 Bernard Brodie, ed., The Absolute Weapon (New York: Harcourt Brace 1946); Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1989); Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1985); Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘More May Be Better’, in Scott Douglas Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz (eds.), The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2013), 3–40; and Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1990). For a useful discussion of the Nuclear Revolution literature, see Brendan Rittenhouse Green, The Revolution That Failed: Nuclear Competition, Arms Control, and the Cold War (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press 2020), 1–27. For recent historical work on MAD, see Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko, ‘MAD Not Marx: Khrushchev and the Nuclear Revolution’, Journal of Strategic Studies 41/1–2 (2021), 208–233.
28 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense Feb. 2018).
29 David Logan, ‘The Dangerous Myths About China’s Nuclear Weapons’, War on the Rocks, 18 Sep. 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/the-dangerous-myths-about-chinas-nuclear-weapons/.
30 Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen, ‘A Closer Look at China’s Missile Silo Construction’, Federation of American Scientists (blog), 2 Nov. 2021, https://fas.org/blogs/security/2021/11/a-closer-look-at-chinas-missile-silo-construction/.
31 Fred Kaplan, ‘Let’s Not Get Into a Nuclear Arms Race With China’, Slate, 13 July 2021, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/nuclear-weapons-china-missiles-yumen.html.
32 Hui Zhang, ‘Assuring Destruction Forever’, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Jan. 2022, 30.
33 Christopher P. Twomey, ‘Opening Statement of Christopher Twomey, Associate Professor, Naval Postgraduate School’, Washington, DC, 10 June 2021; and Acton, ‘Don’t Panic about China’s New Nuclear Capabilities’; Lewis and Eveleth, ‘Chinese ICBM Silos’.
34 Tytti Erasto and Matt Korda, ‘Time to Factor Missile Defence into Nuclear Arms Control Talks’, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 30 Sep. 2021, https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2021/time-factor-missile-defence-nuclear-arms-control-talks.
35 Fiona S. Cunningham and M. Taylor Fravel, ‘Assuring Assured Retaliation: China’s Nuclear Posture and U.S.-China Strategic Stability’, International Security 40/2 (2015), 10.
36 Eric Heginbotham et al., China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent: Major Drivers and Issues for the United States (RAND Corporation 2017), 57, 61, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1628.html.
37 Gregory Kulacki, ‘China’s Nuclear Arsenal: Status and Evolution’, Union of Concerned Scientists, 4 Oct. 2011, https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019–09/UCS-Chinese-nuclear-modernization.pdf.
38 Zhao, ‘What’s Driving China’s Nuclear Buildup?’
39 Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2020); and Daryl G. Kimball, ‘Calls for Start of Talks on Arms Control and Risk Reduction to Head Off Dangerous Arms Race’, Arms Control Association, 3 Dec. 2021, https://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2021–11/arms-control-association-says-chinas-nuclear-buildup-deeply-troubling.
40 Acton, ‘Don’t Panic about China’s New Nuclear Capabilities’; Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2022, 96–97. See also Twitter thread by Pavel Podvig, 25 Jan. 2023, https://twitter.com/russianforces/status/1618193070939574272.
41 Wu Riqiang offers a slightly different perspective. China’s modernization, he argues, seeks to increase U.S. first strike uncertainty rather than assuring retaliation. Increasing uncertainty is a less demanding goal, and it also helps Chinese leaders maintain control over nuclear forces. (Assured retaliation would benefit from delegation.) Nonetheless, his bottom line is that Chinese investments are a force for stability because they will remind U.S. leaders that they cannot reliably execute a first strike. Wu Riqiang, ‘Certainty of Uncertainty: Nuclear Strategy with Chinese Characteristics’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/4 (2013), 579–614.
42 Albert Wohlstetter, ‘The Delicate Balance of Terror’, Foreign Affairs 37/2 (Jan. 1959), 211–34; Lieber and Press, The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age; Green, The Revolution That Failed; Austin Long, ‘U.S. Nuclear Strategy toward China: Damage Limitation and Extended Deterrence’, in Caroline Dorminey and Eric A. Gomez (eds.), America’s Nuclear Crossroads: A Forward-Looking Anthology (Washington, DC: Cato Institute 2019), 47–55; Colin S Gray and Keith Payne, ‘Victory Is Possible’, Foreign Policy, 39 (Summer 1980), 14–27; and Matthew Kroenig, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters (New York: Oxford University Press 2018).
43 Charles A. Richard, ‘Statement of Charles A. Richard Commander United States Strategic Command Before the Senate Committee on Armed Services’, Washington, DC, 20 April 2021.
44 Thomas Bussiere, ‘Nuclear Deterrence Forum: Lt Gen Thomas A. Bussiere’, 27 Aug. 2021, https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/event/nuclear-deterrence-forum-lt-gen-thomas-a-bussiere-august-27–1130-am/.
45 Frank Kendall, ‘VIDEO: Kendall on the State of the Forces at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber’21’, Air Force Magazine, 23 Sept. 2021, https://www.airforcemag.com/video-kendall-on-the-state-of-the-forces-at-afas-air-space-cyber-21/.
46 John Hyten, ‘Exclusive: No. 2 in U.S. Military Reveals New Details about China’s Hypersonic Weapons Test’, CBS News, 16 Nov. 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-hypersonic-weapons-test-details-united-states-military/.
47 John Hyten, ‘Transcript of Defense Writers Group Event with General John E. Hyten’, Defense Writers Group – Project for Media and National Security, 28 Oct. 2021, https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu.edu/dist/2/672/files/2018/02/DWG-Hyten-211028.pdf.
48 Matthew Kroenig and Jeffrey Cimmino, ‘Global Strategy 2021: An Allied Strategy for China’, Strategy Papers The Atlantic Council, 16 Dec. 2020, 28, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Global-Strategy-2021%E2%80%94An-Allied-Strategy-for-China-V1-FINAL-1.pdf.
49 Patty-Jane Geller, ‘China’s Growing Nuclear Threat’, The Heritage Foundation, 3 May 2021, https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/chinas-growing-nuclear-threat.
50 Emma Ashford and Matthew Kroenig, ‘Does Beijing’s Belligerent Birthday Party Herald a New Arms Race?’ Foreign Policy, 9 July 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/09/beijing-belligerent-birthday-party-nuclear-missiles-new-arms-race/.
51 Matthew Kroenig and Emma Ashford, ‘Will China’s New Missile Lead to Escalation or Stability?’, Foreign Policy, Oct. 22, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/22/china-hypersonic-missile-fobs-arms-race-deterrence-stability/.
52 Kroenig and Ashford.
53 Long, ‘Myths or Moving Targets?’
54 Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 17–19.
55 On the stability-instability paradox and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, see Caitlin Talmadge, ‘The Ukraine Crisis is Now a Nuclear Crisis’, The Washington Post, Monkey Cage blog, 27 Feb.2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/27/ukraine-crisis-is-now-nuclear-crisis/. On the idea that a similar logic could play out in East Asia, see Stacie L. Pettyjohn and Becca Wasser, ‘A War in Taiwan Could Go Nuclear’, Foreign Affairs (online), 20 May 2022, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2022-05-20/fight-over-taiwan-could-go-nuclear.
56 Glenn H. Snyder, ‘The Balance of Power and The Balance of Terror’, in Paul Seabury (ed.), Balance of Power (San Francisco, CA: Chandler Publishing Company 1965), 184–201. For a recent discussion of the paradox in the context of Rusisa’s invasion of Ukraine, see Emma Ashford and Joshua Shifrinson, ‘How the War in Ukraine Could Get Much Worse’, Foreign Affairs (online), 8 Mar. 2022.
57 Examples include Mark S. Bell and Nicholas L. Miller, ‘Questioning the Effect of Nuclear Weapons on Conflict’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 59/1 (2015), 74–92; Bryan R. Early and Victor Asal, ‘Nuclear Weapons, Existential Threats, and the Stability – Instability Paradox’, The Nonproliferation Review 25/3–4 (2018), 223–247; Robert Rauchhaus, ‘Evaluating the Nuclear Peace Hypothesis: A Quantitative Approach’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 53/2 (2009), 258–77; and David Sobek, Dennis M. Foster, and Samuel B. Robison, ‘Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945–2001’, International Studies Quarterly 56/1 (2012), 149–62.
58 For a recent review of the literature on this case, see Christopher J. Watterson, ‘Competing Interpretations of the Stability-Instability Paradox: The Case of the Kargil War’, The Nonproliferation Review 24/1–7 (2017), 83–99. For an argument about how trends in the nuclear and conventional balance are affecting stability, see Evan Braden Montgomery and Eric S. Edelman, ‘Rethinking Stability in South Asia: India, Pakistan, and the Competition for Escalation Dominance’, Journal of Strategic Studies 38/1–2 (2015), 159–182.
59 Robert S. Ross, ‘Navigating the Taiwan Strait: Deterrence, Escalation Dominance, and U.S.-China Relations’, International Security 27/2 (Fall 2002), 56–61.
60 Thomas J. Christensen, ‘The Meaning of the Nuclear Evolution: China’s Strategic Modernization and US-China Security Relations’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/4 (1 August 2012), 452.
61 Brown, ‘Understanding the Risks and Realities of China’s Nuclear Forces’.
62 Abraham Denmark and Caitlin Talmadge, ‘Why China Wants More and Better Nukes’, Foreign Affairs Snapshot, 19 Nov. 2021.
63 Ashford and Kroenig, ‘Does Beijing’s Belligerent Birthday Party Herald a New Arms Race?’
64 Evan Braden Montgomery and Toshi Yoshihara, ‘The Real Challenge of China’s Nuclear Modernization’, The Washington Quarterly 45/4 (2022), 45–60.
65 On China’s conventional build up and regional actions, see Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021. For important commentary and context, see Andrew Erickson, ‘The Pentagon’s 2021 China Military Power Report: My Summary’, Personal Blog (blog), accessed 7 Nov. 2021, https://www.andrewerickson.com/2021/11/the-pentagons-2021-china-military-power-report-my-summary/.
66 Oriana Skylar Mastro, ‘The Taiwan Temptation’, Foreign Affairs, July 2021.
67 Long, ‘Myths or Moving Targets?’
68 James Samuel Johnson, ‘Chinese Evolving Approaches to Nuclear “War-Fighting”: An Emerging Intense US – China Security Dilemma and Threats to Crisis Stability in the Asia Pacific’, Asian Security 15/3 (2 Sep. 2019), 217.
69 Avery Goldstein, ‘First Things First: The Pressing Danger of Crisis Instability in U.S.-China Relations’, International Security 37/4 (Spring 2013), 49–89, at 65–66.
70 Caitlin Talmadge, ‘Assessing the Risk of Chinese Nuclear Escalation in a Conventional War with the United States’, International Security 41/4 (April 2017), 50–92; and David C. Logan, ‘Are they Reading Schelling in Beijing? The Dimensions, Drivers, and Risks of Nuclear-Conventional Entanglement in China’, Journal of Strategic Studies 46/1 (2023), 5–55.
71 James M. Acton, Thomas McDonald James, and Pranay Vaddi, ‘Revamping Nuclear Arms Control: Five Near-Term Proposals’, Working Paper (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2020), 23–27.
72 We thank one of our reviewers for suggesting this example.
73 Ed Pilkington and Martin Pengelly, ‘”Let it be an arms race”: Donald Trump appears to double down on nuclear expansion’, The Guardian, 26 Dec. 2016. The Nuclear Superiority school of thought also informed the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which treated continued modernization as a necessary response to a range of potentially dangerous foreign threats. U.S. Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, 5–7; https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf.
74 Demetri Sevastopulo, ‘Biden Steers Away from Big Change to US Nuclear Weapons policy’, Financial Times, 25 Mar. 2022.
75 Conversely, China may substitute ‘non-nuclear strategic weapons’ in limited wars, if it believes that nuclear coercive threats are hollow. Fiona Cunningham, ‘Maximizing Leverage: Explaining China’s Strategic Force Postures in Limited Wars’, Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018.
76 Robert Chesney, Max Smeets, Joshua Rovner, Michael Warner, Jon R. Lindsay, Michael P. Fischerkeller, Richard J. Harknett, and Nina Kollars, ‘Policy Roundtable: Cyber Conflict as an Intelligence Contest’, Texas National Security Review 3/4 (2020).
77 Andrew H. Kydd, ‘The Sturdy Child vs. the Sword of Damocles: Nuclear Weapons and the Expected Cost of War’, Security Studies 28/4 (2019), 645–676, at 650.
78 Kydd, ‘Sturdy Child or Sword of Damocles’; and Vipin Narang and Ankit Panda, ‘Nuclear Stability, Conventional Instability: North Korea and the Lessons from Pakistan’, War on the Rocks, 20 Nov. 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/nuclear-stability-conventional-instability-north-korea-lessons-pakistan/. Bell and Miller offer an excellent review of recent empirical work on the proliferation and war. Based on their own analysis of the data, they find little support for the claim that nuclear dyads are more likely to fight conventional conflicts, though they conclude that nuclear powers are more likely to use force against non-nuclear rivals. This raises difficult questions for extended deterrence. Bell and Miller, ‘Questioning the Effect of Nuclear Weapons on Conflict’.
79 Brodie’s views evolved over the years, however, and he wrestled with questions of limited nuclear war in later works. But critics of limited war theory reinforced Brodie’s original point. Lawrence Freedman, ‘The First Two Generations of Nuclear Strategists’, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1986): 735–778; and Andrew L. Ross, ‘The Origins of Limited War Theory’, in Jeffrey A. Larsen and Kerry M. Kartchner (eds.), On Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2014), 21–48. See also Charles L. Glaser and Steve Fetter, ‘Should the United States Reject MAD? Damage Limitation and U.S. Nuclear Strategy Towards China’, International Security 46/1 (2016), 49–98, at 94; and Kydd, ‘The Sturdy Child vs. the Sword of Damocles’, 660–61.
80 Glaser and Fetter, ‘Should the United States Reject MAD?’ 94–95.
81 Colin S. Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books 1986). For examples of different national approaches to nuclear weapons see Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes (eds.), Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age: Power, Ambition, and the Ultimate Weapon (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press 2012).
82 On the use of nuclear weapons as cover for conventional aggression, see Joshua Rovner, ‘After Proliferation: Deterrence Theory and Emerging Nuclear Powers’, in Yoshihara and Holmes (eds.), Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age. On the conditions that make aggressiveness more likely, see Mark S. Bell, Nuclear Reactions: How Nuclear-Armed States Behave (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2021).
83 On norms against nuclear use see Nina Tannenwald, ‘The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-Use’, International Organization 53/3 (1999), 433–468; and T.V. Paul, The Tradition of Nonuse of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2009). On nuclear restraint see T.V. Paul, ‘Self-Deterrence: Nuclear Weapons and the Enduring Credibility Challenge’, International Journal 71/1 (2016), 20–40; and Thomas M. Nichols, No use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 2013).
84 Francis J. Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation’, International Security 40/1 (2015), 9–46, at 22. See also Matthew Kroenig, ‘Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option’, Foreign Affairs 91/1 (Jan./Feb. 2012), 76–86, at 78.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Caitlin Talmadge
Caitlin Talmadge is Associate Professor of Security Studies in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Joshua Rovner
Joshua Rovner is an associate professor in the School of International Service at American University.