Since the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) of 2010, the United State’s nuclear weapons strategy has been updated to face 21st-century threats.
The threat against the United States is no longer a powerful nuclear-armed adversary but a single terrorist in an American city. However, the United States’ commitment to negative security assurances is still strong and will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against a country that does not possess them or is in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The 2010 NPR affirmed the United State’s commitment to European missile defense. The NPR also took US nuclear forces off hair-trigger alert and reprogrammed their initial guidance to land in the ocean if launched accidentally.
The United States recently signed the New START agreement with Russia that reduces both arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads by 2018. This, along with previous arms control agreements have decreased the number of nuclear weapons and have increased the safety of the United States.
The American Security Project believes that the United States should continue to reduce the size of our nuclear arsenal to an appropriate level for 21st-century threats, increasing American security and reducing an anachronism of the Cold War.
We believe that the United States must stop nuclear proliferation to prevent a weapon from falling into the hands of a terrorist group or rogue state.
Finally, the United States should develop advanced, flexible, and accurate conventional systems that are more applicable to today’s threats.
