Washington should aim to avoid a full-scale nuclear war if Beijing takes military action against Taiwan, experts say, but they disagree on how to achieve that goal, according to a US think tank report.
The report presents the responses of five academics to “strategic deterrence failure” scenarios involving nuclear strikes against US allies by Beijing and Moscow in the Indo-Pacific and Europe as they try to take Taiwan and Ukraine by military means.
It was released by the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies on Monday.
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All of the authors agreed on the importance of avoiding a full-scale nuclear war if deterrence fails, but they disagreed on other strategic objectives.
Melanie Sisson, a fellow in the foreign policy programme’s Strobe Talbott Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution, identified only two US strategic objectives – preventing a general nuclear war and further nuclear detonations in any location.
Ankit Panda, Stanton senior fellow in the nuclear policy programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also wrote that “no objective should be greater” for Washington than securing the survival of the country from the “prospect of uncontrollable escalation into a general nuclear war”.
Christopher Ford, professor of international relations and strategic studies at Missouri State University, and Rebecca Davis Gibbons, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine, both identified a range of secondary strategic objectives, along with avoiding nuclear war as the primary US goal.
The objectives included denying the adversary a victory on the battlefield, denying the adversary any advantage specifically from having used nuclear weaponry, and maintaining alliance relationships.
Gregory Weaver, principal of consulting firm Strategy to Plans, listed four strategic objectives in avoiding nuclear war – restoring the territorial status quo ante, nuclear deterrence, avoiding general nuclear war, and denying the adversary any benefit from nuclear use.
The authors also differed in their positions on the importance and feasibility of assuring allies in the scenario of nuclear use by Beijing and Moscow.
Panda wrote that the American president would be likely to prioritise protecting the US homeland above all. He said Washington would face “insurmountable” assurance and credibility challenges following nuclear use by Beijing or Moscow and it was “highly likely that following strategic deterrence failure, allied perceptions of the credibility of the United States would suffer drastically”.
In contrast, Ford, Gibbons and Weaver argued that assuring allies should be “one of the primary strategic objectives” for the US.
The authors agreed on the need for a military response in the event of Beijing and Moscow carrying out nuclear strikes against US allies in future conflicts over Taiwan and Ukraine.
Panda, Ford and Gibbons supported conventional responses to any nuclear use, such as non-nuclear strikes against Chinese and Russian forces that were directly responsible for nuclear strikes against US partners and allies, or preparation to do so as a deterrent.
Weaver proposed a nuclear response, arguing that conventional retaliation could encourage further escalation from Beijing and Moscow.
Sisson, meanwhile, suggested that the defence of Ukraine and Taiwan should be a primary US war aim, and that avoiding further nuclear use should be the first US objective. Her proposed response was for the US and its allies to cease offensive military operations to avoid further escalation and rely on non-kinetic options.
Based on insights from the authors, the CSIS report suggested three principles for intra-war deterrence in the scenarios – regional deterrence, restoring assurance, and pre-crisis planning and decisions.
For regional deterrence, the report said the US would need a “diverse and flexible toolkit” that included regional nuclear capabilities, and that it was important for Washington to have “a breadth of nuclear response options”.
“These and other points make a case for the United States to improve its regional deterrence posture through increased regional capabilities and flexible options in order to prepare for a proportionate nuclear response in a limited-use scenario,” according to the report.
“US policymakers should strive to diversify US nuclear forces through investments in new regional capabilities so that the president will have a broader range of credible options, particularly if an adversary threatens limited nuclear attacks.”
With a strategic deterrence failure possibly causing a crisis of confidence among US allies, the report also noted the importance of assuring those allies – who would join the conflict against mainland China and Russia – through means such as an engagement plan on potential battlefield nuclear use.
It also said intra-war deterrence would “largely depend on pre-crisis decisions and planning ... taken with adversaries, allies, domestic audiences and wider international ones”.
The report comes amid increasing nuclear tensions in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for nuclear use against a conventional attack on Russia by any nation supported by a nuclear power, following Washington’s decision on Monday to allow Ukraine to fire long-range US missiles into Russia. Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In September, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army conducted a launch test of its DF-31AG intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry nuclear warheads – its first such test in more than four decades – sending the ICBM into the Pacific Ocean near French Polynesia.
Beijing regards Taiwan as part of China and has never renounced the use of force to bring the self-ruled island under its control. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington opposes any attempt to bring the island under Beijing’s control by force and is committed to arming it for defence.
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