Thomas MacDonald
Ground-launched mobile missiles underpin the survivable second-strike capabilities of the United States’ two primary nuclear-armed adversaries: Russia and China. If the United States could use persistent overhead imagery to hunt and destroy these missiles, the nuclear deterrents of those countries would be fatally undermined. Continuous advances in remote sensing, signal processing, and artificial intelligence technologies, as well as in weapon accuracy, have led many analysts to conclude that a serious erosion of survivability is underway that will be difficult for the United States’ adversaries to adapt to.
There is a broad consensus that the consequences of the United States’ attaining the capability to eliminate an adversary’s nuclear arsenal would be far-reaching, even if there is disagreement about whether those consequences would contribute to or detract from U.S. security. Some authors have argued that a first-strike or damage limitation capability, that is, the ability to preemptively disarm or degrade an adversary’s ability to retaliate to an acceptably low level in a nuclear exchange, would strengthen deterrence and improve the United States’ bargaining position in conflicts and that is it likely to be technically feasible in the near future.Footnote1 Conversely, some authors have emphasized the potential costs of developing such a capability, creating incentives for arms racing and pressures for states to go first in a nuclear war, driving crisis instability, and that damage limitation capability is difficult to achieve.Footnote
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