Loss of US tech leadership makes military challenges likely, risking global nuclear war

The world is experiencing a fourth industrial revolution (4IR) in which a wave of new and transformative technologies is being developed, including artificial intelligence (AI), additive manufacturing, quantum information technology, hypersonic missiles, biotechnology, and directed energy.4 While these technologies are expected to have profound implications for societies and economies, most are dual use and will also affect national security, including nuclear strategic stability.

According to an emerging conventional wisdom, new technology may upset nuclear strategic stability by calling into question the survivability of nuclear forces.5 The solution, according to some analysts, is for nuclear- armed states to eschew military applications of at least some of these technologies and lead an international effort to control their spread.6 But these studies too often consider new technology and nuclear strategy in the abstract without adequately considering the prevailing geopolitical context into which these new technologies have been introduced.

This article argues understanding the link between new technology and nuclear stability must consider the prevailing geopolitical context. For the past several decades, the United States, its Allies, and like- minded partners have formed the core of the existing international order.7 They have benefited from this system and would like to see it strengthened, revitalized, and defended. If the new technologies of the 4IR are incorporated into US, Ally, and partner militaries, then any advantages they provide will likely reinforce the prevailing distribution of power and existing sources of strategic stability.

In contrast, China and Russia are revisionist powers intent on disrupting or displacing the US- led system, and they would likely employ new technological advantages to pursue revisionist aims. The greatest danger from emerging technology for nuclear stability, therefore, may result from the possibility that new technology provides Russia or China an enhanced military advantage over vulnerable US Allies and partners, leading to a regional conflict with a significant risk of nuclear escalation.

This article contributes to the growing literature on new technology and nuclear stability by emphasizing politics take precedence over technology.8 Technology rarely transforms states. More commonly, states employ technologies to achieve preexisting ends. It is not simply the technologies themselves that are destabilizing but the geopolitical ambitions of the states that possess them.

In emphasizing the divergent positions of the United States of America and its nuclear- armed rivals in the international system, this article also contributes to a growing body of literature that takes seriously hierarchy in international relations theory.9 The United States, the international system’s leader for the past several decades, is likely to use new technology to reinforce its advantageous position within the existing international order. China and Russia will most likely employ new technology in bids to erode America’s privileged position. Analyses not grounded in an understanding of these states’ different positions in the prevailing international order risk overlooking this important source of variation in conflict behavior and nuclear-escalation dynamics.

This framing of the problem leads to a different set of policy implications. The United States and its Allies and partners must retain second- strike capabilities, preserve current power distributions, maintain an innovation edge, and prevent the proliferation of destabilizing military technologies to revisionist powers.

Emerging Technology and Nuclear Stability

A growing body of literature expresses concern that emerging technology could undermine nuclear strategic stability through its effect on nuclear second- strike capabilities or on dual- use systems, including nuclear command, control, and communications.10 For example, cyberattacks and conventional hypersonic missiles might be combined to provide credible first- strike capabilities against an adversary’s nuclear forces, and advanced, directed- energy missile defenses could be employed to absorb enemy nuclear retaliation.

By threatening an enemy’s secure, second- strike capabilities, these new technologies might undermine nuclear strategic stability. If leaders believe they can disarm their opponents, they may be motivated to use nuclear weapons first in a crisis. Alternatively, leaders fearing a disarming attack may choose to use their nuclear weapons first before they lose them.

New technology may also contribute to accidental or inadvertent nuclear escalation by threatening dual- use command and control assets in space and cyberspace or by compressing time for leadership decisions. Leaders may choose to initiate a nuclear war under the mistaken belief that an enemy nuclear attack has already begun or is imminent.11

There are several limitations, however, to the existing analysis. First, the underlying theory of nuclear conflict this body of thought advances is debatable. It rests heavily on the “use it or lose it” cause of nuclear war, but use it or lose it is rooted in the logical fallacy of the false dilemma.12 States have many options in a crisis other than suffering a disarming nuclear attack or launching one. Moreover, faced with a range of choices, the use-itor-lose-it logic assumes a state will intentionally choose to initiate a nuclear war—the most risky and costly available option. The use-it-or-lose-it pathway to nuclear war, therefore, is in tension with mainstream nuclear deterrence theory that maintains states will be reluctant to conduct a deliberate attack on another nuclear- armed state.13

A second limitation of this approach is that theories of nuclear instability developed in the early days of the Cold War are in tension with current understandings of the causes of war in contemporary international relations theory. The nuclear stability framework rests on the notion that parity in the balance of power is associated with peace. The prevailing bargaining model of war, however, maintains that parity contributes to uncertainty about the balances of power and resolve, which hinders efforts to reach negotiated settlements short of armed conflict.14 The empirical record supports this theory and demonstrates parity in the balance of power is associated with conflict, and uneven balances of power are associated with peace.15 Situations of obvious strategic nuclear superiority, therefore, may be more stable than situations of strategic parity.

Perhaps the most important limitation of the existing debate is its tendency to theorize in the abstract, divorced from real- world geopolitical conditions. Proper nouns are rarely used. States, in these analyses, are treated as black boxes endowed with nuclear weapons and new technology, facing off against a mirror- image rival. The question of interest to scholars is whether the new technology could incentivize a generic nuclear- armed state to launch a nuclear first strike. The varying geopolitical positions, foreign policy ambitions, or ongoing political conflicts of interests among the major nuclear powers in the world today—the United States, China, and Russia—are not of immediate interest.

New technology is not acquired by black boxes, however. Emerging technology is diffusing into an international system in which the United States has been the world’s leading power for the past several decades. This system is increasingly being challenged by nuclear- armed competitors, including China and Russia. States will likely use the advantages provided by new technology in a bid to advance preexisting foreign policy objectives.

In short, scholars have devoted excessive attention to abstract conjectures about interactions among technologies and weapons systems. Missing from the literature is an examination of how the diffusion of new technology might affect the behavior of today’s principal nuclear- armed powers and, in turn, the strategic stability of the contemporary international system.

The next section provides a novel framework, grounded in the prevailing geopolitical context, for understanding how new technology might affect nuclear strategic stability. Namely, the spread of new technology to the United States and its Allies and partners—status quo powers at the core of the existing international system—will tend to shore up sources of strategic stability. Conversely, the spread of new technology to revisionist powers China and Russia presents the greatest risk of conventional conflict that might escalate and threaten nuclear strategic stability.

Geopolitical Context

The United States has been the most powerful country in the international system by almost any measure since 1945.16 In the aftermath of World War II, the United States and its Allies constructed the outlines of the world we inhabit to this day.17 They attempted to construct a security order that would prevent the recurrence of major conflict. Alliances in Europe and Asia—and the extension of the US nuclear umbrella—deterred conflict in those geopolitical regions and contributed to peace and stability.18 American nuclear security guarantees also dissuaded Allies from pursuing independent nuclear arsenals. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons slowed the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States and its Allies and partners in the free world competed with the Soviet Union for global preeminence. Through much of this competition, Moscow was a revisionist power with the explicit goal of exporting its Marxist- Leninist revolutionary model abroad.19 It challenged the status quo repeatedly, including by initiating crises in Berlin, Cuba, and elsewhere.20 Indeed, according to the International Crisis Behavior Project data set, Moscow initiated 13 of the 17 crises between the Soviet Union and its nuclear- armed opponents during the Cold War.21 Many of these crises entailed a significant risk of nuclear escalation, and fears of nuclear instability featured prominently in the discussions of defense analysts during this time.22

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States remained a unipolar power.23 Alongside its Allies and partners, Washington used this position to deepen and expand the US- led, rules- based international system. Countries previously locked behind the Iron Curtain in Europe rushed to join the West, adopting democratic forms of government and market- based economies and entering NATO and the European Union (EU). Some analysts predicted the “end of history,” as there was no obvious competitor to the Western model of free politics and open markets.24

As great power competition receded into the background, so too did fears of nuclear instability. The 2010 US National Security Strategy mentions Russia and China more often as partners for cooperation to address shared challenges than as military threats. Indeed, the document states the risk of nuclear war with these powers was extremely remote, as “the specter of nuclear war has lifted.”25 Reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons became a central objective of US nuclear policy.

In recent years, however, great power competition has reemerged.26 Russia is dissatisfied with the spread of the US alliance system to its sovereign borders. It has invaded its neighbors—Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014—with the goal of preventing them from joining Western institutions such as NATO and the EU. Putin has declared the collapse of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” and aspires to recreate a greater Russia.27 Russia desires the dismantlement of America’s alliance architecture in Eastern Europe.28 As Putin has said, he wants “new rules or no rules.” US strategists fear Putin may use military power in a bid to force that objective.29

China has also become more assertive in recent years.30 For decades, Chinese leaders followed former premier Deng Xiaoping’s dictum that China should “hide its capabilities and bide its time.” In recent years, however, Chinese president Xi Jinping has abandoned that doctrine. China has expressed its dissatisfaction with the territorial status quo in Asia. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province that will eventually be reincorporated into China. It has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this objective and has increased its military activities in the Taiwan Strait.31

Further, China has ongoing territorial and maritime disputes with several of its neighbors, including the land border with India, the Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands with Japan, and throughout the South China Sea with several claimants in Southeast Asia. These disputes have been sources of increased military contestation in recent years, and all are potential flashpoints for great power military conflict.

The unclassified Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge identifies the return of great power competition with Russia and China as the principal threat to US national security.32 Of particular concern is the risk that Russia or China could attack a vulnerable US Ally in Eastern Europe or East Asia, respectively, presenting the United States with a fait accompli.33

Washington would be faced with a difficult decision. It could fight a major war with a nuclear- armed rival to liberate a beleaguered Ally. Alternatively, the United States could back down to avoid conflict, but at the risk of failing to protect a treaty ally. This path would allow Russian and Chinese aggression to stand, undermine US credibility, and call into question America’s other formal alliance commitments. A congressionally mandated National Defense Strategy Commission report warns of the possibility of a major war with Russia or China—one that the United States and its Allies and partners might lose.34

This understanding of the geopolitical context provides the necessary baseline against which to assess the likely impact of new technology on global stability.