We are entering a new nuclear age. Although no nuclear weapons have been used in conflict since World War II, the world is riven by great-power rivalries, regional instability, and revolutionary technological disruption. These trends place us “At the Precipice of Armageddon,” as the subtitle of Ankit Panda’s recent book warns.[1] He is not alone. With arms control agreements eroding and the global security becoming more volatile, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the Doomsday Clock to a record-shattering 89 seconds to midnight.
Indo-Pacific actors are at the center of this emerging era of global peril. The actions taken by the United States, People’s Republic of China, Russian Federation, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—as well as America’s allies and partners such as the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Taiwan, Japan, and India—will determine whether the four-score-long postwar nuclear taboo is broken.
Four Major Actors
Russia Normalizes Nuclear Coercion
Russia has gone a long way in the past three years to normalize nuclear coercion. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 undermined the core commitments of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and revived fears of nuclear blackmail and brinkmanship. Moscow wields the world’s largest stockpile of non-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons, and it has clasped nuclear saber-rattling as a tool of statecraft. Vladimir Putin’s 2024 military doctrine lowers the threshold for nuclear use by authorizing the use of nuclear weapons in scenarios that are thought to pose an existential threat. Perhaps, this broad doctrine is simply designed to manipulate foes. But other nations cannot ignore Russia’s “escalate to de-escalate.” Kremlin rhetoric and military drills simulating limited nuclear strikes make the unthinkable thinkable.
Simultaneously, Moscow has dismantled the legal foundations of nuclear arms control. Russia’s violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty led to U.S. withdrawal from the agreement in 2019. Four years later, Putin revoked ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; he also suspended participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which limits the United States and Russia to 1,550 strategic weapons.
China Moves Beyond Minimal Deterrence
Russia’s contributions to heightened nuclear dangers would be less remarkable were it not for China’s rise as a second nuclear peer (or at least peer-ICBM) threat.[2] Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s ideological shift toward “Marxist Nationalism” is backed by as an unprecedented nuclear expansion, and China has departed from its historical “minimum nuclear deterrence” posture. Xi believes nuclear weapons bolster China’s strategic power. At a minimum, China’s more robust nuclear arsenal may make the region “safer” for conventional war, perhaps even protracted conventional war.
According to the most recent annual U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) report on People’s Liberation Army (PLA) capabilities, Beijing’s nuclear arsenal grew from an estimated 200 warheads in 2018 to more than 600 by mid-2024, and is on track to reach 1,500 by 2035. The PLA’s modernization includes the addition of 320 new silos for solid-fuel ICBMs and expansion, perhaps doubling, DF-5 silos for liquid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles. China is also making advancements in other parts of the nuclear triad, including the H-20 stealth bomber and future Type 096 SSBNs, which will augment existing H-6N bombers carrying air-launched ballistic missiles and augment the Type 094 Jin-class SSBN.
Worryingly, China has also deployed regional nuclear forces to ensure “usable nuclear options on every run of the escalation ladder.” The nuclear-capable DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile is thought to be capable of regional precision strikes using low-yield nuclear warheads, and the hypersonic-capable DF-27 ballistic missile reportedly carries hypersonic and nuclear land-attack payloads that can target Guam, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Nuclear modernization will bolster China as it seeks to become a “world-class” military power by mid-century. As a 2023 DoD report explained, China’s armed forces are increasingly preparing for high-intensity conflict with the United States—intelligentized, multi-domain counter-intervention warfare backed by the expanded nuclear arsenal. Together, the entire “system of systems” approach is meant to preempt all American military threats, most especially U.S. power projection capabilities within the first and second island chains.
North Korea Seeks Nuclear Utility
Indo-Pacific deterrence and dangers are not restricted to near-peer nuclear powers. North Korea is completing an ambitious five-year military buildup that has moved Pyongyang from survival strategies toward coercion and even warfighting concepts. At a minimum, Kim Jong Un wants to be a de facto nuclear power. Kim has repeated this objective, declaring that he will “never abandon” his nuclear weapons and that his nuclear weapons will “exist forever,” buttressing such declarations by amending the North Korean constitution. Kim also reminds the world of North Korea’s extensive and very real nuclear weapons program by publicizing moves such as visiting a previously secret uranium enrichment facilityand a new airborne early warning and control aircraft.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons help ensure regime survival by deterring the superior conventional forces of the United States and South Korea. The nominee to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired USAF Lt. Gen. John Caine said during his confirmation hearing testimony that “North Korea’s long-range missile and nuclear programs represent an immediate security challenge.” He underscored Pyongyang’s cooperation with Moscow and its testing of a solid-fuel ICBM and hypersonic systems and unveiling a new “tactical” nuclear warhead and exercising a simulated tactical nuclear attack. As Caine commented, “Pyongyang has tested multiple missile systems capable of striking U.S. forces in the ROK and Japan, as well as Guam, Alaska, Hawaii, and CONUS.” And despite a possibility of potential new Trump-Kim summitry, Pyongyang is not about to negotiate away its nuclear lift insurance. Even Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has testified that “Kim has no intention of negotiating away his strategic weapons programs.”
The United States Responds
Six years ago, after North Korea demonstrated a successful ICBM test and China began building new ICBM silos, the first Trump administration took moves to break out of the post-Cold War mindset that nuclear weapons were exclusively intended to deter an adversary’s use of nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) sought to accelerate flexible nuclear options that could address lower runs on the escalation ladder and included an explicit reference to the possibility that nuclear weapons could be used to respond to “non-nuclear strategic attacks.” Among other initiatives, a low-yield warhead for the Trident missile and a new nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile were set out as responses to emerging nuclear threats.
The Biden administration upgraded but did not enlarge the existing inventory by transitioning to the fifth-generation, nuclear-capable F-35 aircraft, seeking a new B-61-13 gravity bomb designed to attack harder and deeper targets, and developing a new nuclear sub-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N). It also sought measures to extend the service life of Ohio-class submarines; it also mulled a range of options including advanced non-nuclear systems and allied cooperation.
The second Trump administration inherited a range of options from the Biden administration, as well as from the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission that examined threats out to 2035. Strengthening all legs of the triad is seen as essential. Adding warheads to land-based Minuteman III missiles, converting B-52 bombers to carry nuclear weapons, adding more missiles to Ohio-class SSBNs, developing a SLCM-N were among the steps recommended from officials in both parties. Secretary of the Air Force nominee Troy Meink’s Senate Committee on Armed Services testimony in March placed priority on nuclear modernization, particularly the land and air legs of the triad: containing cost overruns of the LGM-35A Sentinel (designed to replace about 450 50-year-old Minuteman III nuclear missiles) and moving forward with the B-21 Raider stealth bomber.
A signal challenge for the United States is retaining credible combat power against capable foes, including a near-nuclear weapon state. For instance, the Islamic Republic of Iran is deemed to have a sufficient stockpile of fissile material to make several weapons in a matter of weeks (and perhaps a year or 18 months to produce a weapon). But threatening to bomb Iran unless it negotiates a deal has simply prompted the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to vow “a strong counterattack,” and declare that Iran would have “no choice” but to build a nuclear arsenal. In the meantime, Iran has moved to quadruple near-bomb-grade fuel to 60 percent purity—not far from 90 percent needed, according to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi.
The challenges do not stop with the aforementioned countries, as the next section of this paper tries to clarify.
Five Major Issues
The new nuclear age raises at least five consequential issues related to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region. The first is the growing credibility gap regarding America’s nuclear umbrella or extended deterrence. A second issue is the increased blurring of conventional and nuclear thresholds. The third issue involves growing linkages among some of the “axis of upheaval” countries and the apparent danger of a polycrisis or multi-front war involving several nuclear weapon states. A fourth concern is how emerging technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and other leading-edge technologies, may precipitate the breakdown of deterrence. Finally, the stress on an already beleaguered nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime begs for leadership and multilateralism at a time when both seem to be in short supply.
Rising Doubts about Extended Deterrence
Extended deterrence is inherently anxiety-ridden, particularly when reduced to the canonical question of whether one would risk one’s capital for the capital of any ally. The question of U.S. reliability preceded the reelection of President Trump, and the problem also transcends the Indo-Pacific. As threats multiply, the United States is supercharging distrust and fears of alliance abandonment. Europeans are talking openly of some form of nuclear sharing or multilateral strategic arsenal, however difficult that challenge may be to implement practically. French President Emmanuel Macron has long advocated European nuclear autonomy.
Still, talk about significant steps to bolster deterrence are sure to be on the agenda of the next South Korean government, and they will be discussed with equal vigor in official circles in Tokyo and perhaps Canberra.
Take the case of South Korea, a close U.S. treaty ally under enormous pressure to prevent the gap between regional threats and alliance security guarantees from widening further. After the election of Yoon Suk-yeol in 2022, the allies resumed large-scale military exercises and signed the Washington Declaration to reinforce extended deterrence. President Biden embraced President Yoon’s desire for South Korea to play the role of a “global pivotal state,” and the two leaders aligned their approaches not just toward North Korea but through overlapping Indo-Pacific strategies and with respect to democratic values. The Korean debate flared up as the Yoon administration announced a possible nuclear option policy in 2023. A trilateral summit at Camp David in 2023 bolstered US–South Korea–Japan cooperation. But South Korea’s fear of North Korea’s and China’s nuclear buildups, combined with lingering doubts about America’s, rekindled discussion about the need for a nuclear threshold capability. The allies can achieve better strategic alignment that will build on the Nuclear Consultative Group process and other alliance mechanisms to prevent decoupling and catalyzing an alliance crisis over extended deterrence.
The Blurring of Nuclear and Conventional Thresholds
As governments think harder about conventional-nuclear integration, it seems as if the line between potential conventional and nuclear use becomes even more muddied. A trenchant example of the blurring between nuclear and conventional thresholds is India’s development of the Agni-V ballistic missile equipped with MIRVs in March 2024. These dramatic new capabilities shift India away from a “credible minimum deterrent” and no-first-use doctrine toward a potential first-strike or warfighting capability. This shift is particularly destabilizing vis-à-vis Pakistan, which maintains a broad-spectrum deterrence strategy with low-yield tactical nuclear weapons. One danger derives from the possibility that Indian officials might think they can neutralize Pakistan’s second-strike capability in one blow—a concept strengthened by the addition of an indigenous Phase II Air Defense and Russian S-400 air defense systems. Fearing a preemptive strike, the threshold for nuclear use in a conventional conflict could lower. And this is just one of many examples.
Polycrisis and Multi-Front Wars
A multipolar world filled with multiple nuclear powers also complicates intra-crisis stability. In the Indo-Pacific, there is increased discussion about the possibility of near-simultaneously contingencies involving China and North Korea. Russia could also be involved in an idea made more credible by Article 3 of the Russia-DPRK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty that says they will consult if either is subject to armed attack. Recognizing these trends, President Biden’s 2024 Nuclear Weapons Employment Planning Guidance directed the Pentagon to adapt to and develop options for simultaneously deterring aggression by China, Russia, and North Korea. This problem is likely to grow rather than dissipate over time. Thus, the United States and its allies must be ready to deter a two-front war and nuclear attacks in East Asia, as Markus Garlauskas has argued. Allies must be ready to take on China and North Korea including in a contingency involving limited nuclear attacks or multiple adversaries.
Emerging Technology and Strategic Stability
Technological innovation compounds the deterrence quandary. The appetite for focusing on ethical AI, for instance, appears to have lost the battle for now about whether it is possible to erect or negotiate guardrails for their use. Yet, reducing the risk of nuclear escalation stemming from AI-enabled weapons remains an obvious concern. As Oxford University’s John Tasioulas puts it, “The annihilation of the human race in a nuclear war is much more likely than annihilation of the human race by robots.” Decision-making timelines are shrinking, and the diffusion of technology is creating new threats. Even actors like Kim Jong Un is showcasing “suicide attack drones” powered by AI.
Paradoxically, the more we live in an advanced information age, the less reliable information seems to become. The lessons from malign uses of disruptive technology—from Stuxnet to exploding pagers to Pegasus eavesdropping to Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon campaigns—are creating case studies for the future of warfare and gray-zone and hybrid operations. All of them represents efforts that could neutralize systems vital for the maintenance of deterrence of nuclear war, as well. Consider the recent testimony of General Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, who shone a spotlight on China’s rapidly developing ground-based laser threat that will soon be able to destroy U.S. satellites. The power to neutralize an opponent’s eyes and ears could wind up being the reason for deterrence failing in the future.
Strains on the Nonproliferation Regime
Finally, we appear to be in a proliferation moment. At a time when pillars of the postwar security and economic order have been called into question, global nonproliferation institutions and norms appear to be fraying. It is difficult to be optimistic about the NPT regime and nuclear arms control in general.
Vipin Narang, then acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, declared last year, “We must prepare for a world where constraints on nuclear weapons arsenals disappear entirely,” adding that China’s strategic buildup alone may require “a modernization program sized for a completely different security environment . . . [a] multiple, nuclear challenger world.”
It is not yet clear where the Trump administration may push the boundaries of nonproliferation. But it is worth noting that former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien wrote in Foreign Affairs that President Trump should resume nuclear testing—even if it meant breaching the 1971 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty—to ensure new nuclear weapons could be grounded in physical rather than just virtual tests. Some of the pressure may simply accompany efforts to modernize the nuclear force, including the question of testing the W93 warhead for Trident II D5LE SLBMs and the dial-a-yield B61-13 gravity bomb for strategic bombers.
President Biden wanted to make sure nuclear weapons are used exclusively to deter nuclear attack, but his 2022 reviewultimately gave way to the reality that such a principled stance might undermine rather than strengthen deterrence. Encapsulating Biden’s review in the context of other NPRs since their inception more than three decades ago, Tom Nichols concluded that nuclear weapons remain a possible option against nuclear weapon use but also potential non-nuclear strategic attacks. The dilemma for the United States is whether it can decide on the purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons: are they strictly for deterrence or might they be a warfighting tool? Just as Russia, China, North Korea, and others grapple with this question, so, too, must the Washington.
Concluding Thought
Despite growing tensions and troublesome trends, the number of nuclear-armed states remains limited, and the nuclear taboo still holds. No nuclear use has occurred on the Korean Peninsula, and India-Pakistan clashes remain contained. The United States is at least talking with all potential adversaries about nuclear weapons and tension reduction; perhaps little will change as a result, but as Harold Macmillan famously said, “jaw-jaw is better than war-war.” While challenges multiply, deterrence in the Indo-Pacific has not failed. At least not yet.