Nuclear deterrence and the US–China strategic relationship

Stephan Frühling and Andrew O’Neil

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Ever since the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, countries have had to consider the impact of nuclear weapons on their security and stability more broadly. Nuclear weapons were central to the great power competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. The US–Soviet nuclear balance relied on ‘a very high degree of mutual vulnerability’, in which peace was maintained through both sides’ belief that the other could inflict widespread destruction. In the late 1960s, the nuclear stockpiles of both powers numbered in the tens of thousands, but mutual reductions were gradually achieved through a series of arms control agreements and initiatives.

But there are several reasons to suspect that the nuclear dynamics between the US and China are different from those that existed between the Soviet Union and the US during the Cold War. For one, China’s approach to nuclear weapons is fundamentally different from the US and Soviet approaches of assured destruction capability. Instead, China’s policy of

The great power nuclear relationship also impacts US allies differently. European countries are committed to collective defence, but no North Atlantic Treaty Organization – style construct exists between US allies in Asia. Additionally, key US European allies such as France and the United Kingdom have their own nuclear capabilities while Asian allies rely exclusively on the US to deter nuclear attack against their countries.

This chapter evaluates the role that nuclear deterrence plays in the US–China strategic relationship. It lays out the pathways to conflict and the implications for nuclear use, evaluates how allies influence nuclear dynamics (the conditions under which nuclear weapons would most likely be used and how) and explores how escalation to nuclear conflict may affect US allies in the region depending on their level of involvement in the contingency. In doing so, it highlights that, when it comes to nuclear use, there is a sizeable difference between what is possible (the operational realities) and what is plausible (the strategic logic behind potential use).