Over the next 25 years or so, the United States plans to
recapitalize its triad of submarines, bombers, and missiles that
deliver strategic nuclear weapons, building new versions of
these weapons to extend a 50-year-old force structure for
another half century. Yet today’s strategic environment is not
that of the 1960s, and tomorrow’s may differ even further, if
only because of regional nuclear powers and non-state
adversaries. Are the challenges of that environment best met by
replicating, presumably with fewer weapons, a force structure
intended to survive, at least in part, a massive Soviet attack?
And is the thinking that produced the earlier plans the best way
to approach future challenges? A Hope, Not A Plan The central
concept underlying the current force structure, of course, is
deterrence, an aspiration embraced in the nuclear era as a
default option imposed on military planners by weapon
technologies. Unable to prevent a comparably-armed enemy from
destroying the United States, Americans could only