Nuclear weapons - A US perspective

FRANKLIN C MILLER of the Schlesinger Task Force for Nuclear Weapons Management asserts that nuclear weapons would continue to have a role in US national security strategy and that the US would need to maintain a modern and credible nuclear deterrent. In a Lowy Institute Perspectives article, "The vital place of nuclear weapons in 21st century US national security strategy", he states that the U.S. needed a credible deterrent that was always perceived as safe, secure, survivable, capable and should maintain strategic force levels over Russian and Chinese theatre arsenals that would enable U.S. allies have confidence in US decision-making.

A non-nuclear future

THOMAS C. SCHELLING, Professor at the University of Maryland expresses skepticism about global nuclear disarmament and argues that such an order would not necessarily be safer than the current nuclear deterrence based order. In an article in Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, "A world without nuclear weapons?", he states that global nuclear zero would mean a world wherein about a dozen countries would have hair-trigger mobilization plans to rebuild nuclear weapons, commandeer delivery systems, and plans to target others' nuclear facilities, with practice drills and secure emergency communications and that every crisis would be a nuclear crisis, and any war could become a nuclear war.