Contriving Imaginary Gaps in Nuclear Deterrence

Among some nuclear strategists, military officers, and lawmakers, a belief bordering on the canonical has taken root that the United States is on the short end of a “deterrence gap” with Russia and China. Both countries, and especially Russia, possess theater-range nuclear weapons, whose comparatively small yield is thought to lower the threshold for their use. The relative dearth of these capabilities on the American side, so the thinking goes, denies Washington the ability to answer a limited regional nuclear strike with a comparable response and thus deter such an attack in the first place. Adversaries may therefore see an

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