politicians and general are arguing about whether defence spending should be allowed to fall below 2% of GDP rather than about how the money should be spent. Finally, a warning. Despite the success of the second offset strategy, it never fully dealt with the possibility that a losing power might resort to nuclear weapons. The logic of nuclear deterrence, it was assumed (or hoped), would survive an intense conventional conflict. The cheerleaders for a new offset strategy rarely mention nuclear weapons. Yet if a foe comes to believe it might win what the great strategist Thomas Schelling called competition “a in risk-taking”—an idea that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, actively encourages—the rational response to the other side’s technological superiority might be nuclear brinkmanship. As Elbridge Colby of the Centre for a New American Security argues: more successful the offset strategy is in extending US “The conventional advantages, the more attractive US adversaries will find strategies of nuclear escalation.” The enemy always gets a vote.
politicians and general are arguing about whether defence spending should be allowed to fall below 2% of GDP rather than about how the money should be spent. Finally, a warning. Despite the success of the second offset strategy, it never fully dealt with the possibility that a losing power might resort to nuclear weapons. The logic of nuclear deterrence, it was assumed (or hoped), would survive an intense conventional conflict. The cheerleaders for a new offset strategy rarely mention nuclear weapons. Yet if a foe comes to believe it might win what the great strategist Thomas Schelling called “a competition in risk-taking”—an idea that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, actively encourages—the rational response to the other side’s technological superiority might be nuclear brinkmanship. As Elbridge Colby of the Centre for a New American Security argues: “The more successful the offset strategy is in extending US conventional advantages, the more attractive US adversaries will find strategies of nuclear escalation.” The enemy always gets a vote.
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