U.S.-China War: A Nuclear Strategy for American Defeat | Opinion

"Credible nuclear threats on behalf of allies and partners, or extended deterrence, will be hard to achieve in a world where China's nuclear weapons pose an increasingly robust threat to the U.S. homeland," Michael O'Hanlon, Melanie Sisson, and Caitlin Talmadge write in "Managing the Risks of U.S.-China War: Implementing a Strategy of Integrated Deterrence." "In fact, China may believe that its more robust nuclear arsenal endows it with greater freedom to engage in aggression as its conventional capabilities also continue to grow, knowing that the United States' long-standing nuclear trump card is likely off the table," they write. Extended deterrence-the threat of American nuclear retaliation to deter attacks on friends and allies-is precisely what kept the peace in, particularly, Western Europe during the Cold War and the Korean peninsula since the mid-1950s. Now, in the post-Cold War period, America faces the prospect of a combined Russian and Chinese nuclear threat, as Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center tells Newsweek. The primary deterrent to a Chinese first strike with tactical nuclear weapons is the threat of a second strike with American nukes. The American arms-control community, arguing that low-yield weapons would make nuclear war more likely, in recent years persuaded American presidents not to build them. President Biden is absolutely committed to a nuclear strategy that can only result in catastrophe for Taiwan-and defeat for the U.S. Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China.