Deterrence and Strategic Defense in the 21st Century

The United States experience with a deterrent security strategy is colored by more than 40 years of confrontation with the Soviet Union. Over the Cold War years, American political leadership wrestled with two foreign policy challenges the threat of communist expansion and the danger of nuclear weapons. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, communist expansion may be a thing of the past. Nevertheless, nuclear weapons are still with us in large numbers. Of the many challenges facing American statecraft in the 21st century, few are as foreboding as the accelerating proliferation of nuclear weapons and the means for their delivery. Although intelligence professionals cannot confidently predict the 21st century international environment, several trends characterize what we might find. There will still be ideological competitors, in some cases involved in intractable regional conflicts. Furthermore, nuclear and conventional military technologies will increasingly spread, militarizing old regional battles. As new nuclear regimes emerge, their political calculations will be tempered by these longstanding animosities, possibly escalating lower order regional violence to nuclear confrontation. The United States must address the significant issues raised by growing regional nuclear potential adversaries if it expects to influence the international order required to achieve the National Security Strategys envisioned Age of Democratic Peace.