Scenario-based Planning to Maintain the Credibility of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent Against Emerging Threats

The Biden administration, like its predecessors, will review U.S. nuclear policy. Whether as a stand-alone process and document, or integrated into a broader national strategy, this nuclear policy and posture review will primarily need to address challenges of deterring or managing regional conflicts with Russia, China or North Korea. It will need to do so in ways that reassure (as much as possible) allies and partners and yet do not exacerbate instabilities with Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang, and at the same time shift international demands for nuclear disarmament onto the governments that are most likely to aggress against their neighbors. "Proportionate Deterrence: A Model Nuclear Posture Review" offers analyses and recommendations for policies to meet these objectives – declaratory, operational, force posture, ballistic missile defense, and arms control.

George Perkovich is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Chair and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, overseeing the Technology and International Affairs Program and Nuclear Policy Program. He works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues; cyberconflict; and new approaches to international public-private management of strategic technologies. He is the author of the prize-winning book, India's Nuclear Bomb (University of California Press, 1999), and co-author of, Not War, Not Peace? Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2016). He has been a member of the National Academy of Science's Committee on Arms Control and International Security, the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Nuclear Policy, and was a principal adviser to the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament.

Pranay Vaddi is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His current research is focused on developing future U.S. nuclear posture and arms control proposals, and Congress' role in arms control policy. A lawyer by training, Vaddi brings years of practical experience from his time at the U.S. Department of State, in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance Office of Strategic Stability and Deterrence Affairs. Vaddi also served in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs.