A Nuclear World Transformed: - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

A Nuclear World Transformed:
The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

Steven E.. Molinero

The end of the Cold War produced great hope that the risks and dangers associated
with nuclear weapons could be minimized or tamed in a cooperative international
environment heavily regulated by arms control. If arsenals could be reduced, nucle-
ar weapons marginalized, destabilizing factors constrained or eliminated, and pro-
liferation prevented in a world increasingly governed by negotiated arms control,
the nuclear perils of the Cold War would be left behind. Nearly three decades lat-
es, these hopes have been dashed. En cambio, relations among the major nuclear pow-
ers have grown more contentious, the spread of nuclear weapons to new states has
resulted in worrying regional nuclear orders, and technological advances are rais-
ing new threats and possibly introducing new instabilities, while arms control is in
a state of near total collapse. A new nuclear order, combining traditional concerns
with distinctive new dangers, is here. The perils of this new and still evolving nucle-
ar reality must be understood if they are to be safely managed.

T he end of the Cold War inspired hopes that the persistent threat of nu-

clear war could be left behind with the twentieth century. En cambio, en el
post–Cold War era, the contours of the global nuclear order have been re-
shaped, producing a new nuclear environment filled with distinctive risks and ad-
ditional perils. Nuclear weapons have regained a central place in the difficult and
competitive relations among the major powers, but in a framework that is less bi-
lateral and more triangular. The spread of nuclear weapons to additional states
has multiplied the sources of nuclear risk and introduced new pathways to the
use of nuclear weapons. Unprecedented fears of nuclear terrorism have haunt-
ed policy- makers and consequently had a major influence on policy. Además,
the advance of technology is creating new threats and challenges, such as cyber-
attacks and cyber espionage, while also potentially undermining the survivability of
traditional nuclear forces and hence eroding the deterrent stability that has long
been thought essential for containing nuclear dangers. All this has unfolded while
arms control has been nearly eliminated from the picture, moving toward an un-
constrained environment in which the new nuclear dynamics can play out, con
arms race pressures and potential instabilities already in view. What has emerged

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and is still emerging is a more complex, mas dificil, and less regulated nuclear
environment whose distinguishing hazards must be safely navigated if we are to
avoid the many nightmarish nuclear use scenarios. Understanding how much has
changed, and the implications of those changes, leads directly to the conclusion
that nuclear risks are dramatically increasing.

During the Cold War, the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United
States dominated the global nuclear order. These two states were preoccupied
with one another and amassed vast arsenals of nuclear weapons in efforts to gain
advantage and to deter the ambitions and capabilities of the other. Most of the for-
mative theoretical and policy-oriented thinking about nuclear weapons emerged
in this bilateral context: conceptions of stability and instability, the logic of arms
control, the nature of crisis management, deliberations about deterrence and the
adequacy of nuclear force postures, and arguments about how the powerful mu-
tual interest in avoiding nuclear war could best be pursued. This world was not,
por supuesto, purely bilateral. On the Western side, the United Kingdom and France
acquired small nuclear arsenals, but these states were formal allies of the United
States and their nuclear assets were seen as minor supplements to NATO’s nucle-
ar capability. On the Communist side of the great East-West competition, Porcelana
developed nuclear weapons, but its force was very small and limited, China itself
was still a weak developing country, China’s relationship with the Soviet Union
was less stable than that of the NATO allies, and the Chinese threat was massive-
ly overshadowed by a Soviet arsenal that peaked at nearly forty thousand nuclear
armas. It was the confrontation between the two great nuclear titans that struc-
tured the global nuclear order during the Cold War and dominated the politics,
políticas, and thinking associated with nuclear weapons. We must now come to
grips with the fact that this nuclear order no longer exists, and it is unclear wheth-
er the solutions and verities of the bilateral era will be adequate in today’s more
complex nuclear environment.

During the forty-five years of the Cold War, Moscow and Washington gradually
constructed a nuclear relationship that was regarded as reasonably stable (aunque
worries about destabilizing developments persisted), was heavily regulated by
negotiated agreement (though doubts about arms control were ever- present), y
was jointly managed via an ongoing arms control process (though critics ques-
tioned the desirability and effectiveness of this approach). There were risks and
peligros, but the bilateral structure had a certain clarity and simplicity: two nuclear
behemoths competing diplomatically while seeking to deter one another without
sparking a nuclear war. This was a world, in security theorist Thomas Schelling’s
phrase, that we thought we understood.1

The end of the Cold War initially produced new worries and dangers, particular-
larly because the disintegration of the Soviet Union left the vast Soviet nuclear ar-
senal scattered across the newly independent states that emerged from the Soviet

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

collapse, raising the possibility of new nuclear-armed states and causing concern
that nuclear weapons, materiales, or personnel might leak into nuclear black mar-
kets and provide options for rogue states or nonstate actors. In the transition from
the old world to the new, these risks represented an urgent challenge, and it would
take several years and considerable effort to consolidate Soviet nuclear assets into
Russia, which was accepted by key actors such as the United States as the sole nu-
clear successor state to the former Soviet Union.

Mientras tanto, sin embargo, relations between Moscow and Washington (who be-
tween them still possessed–and possess–the overwhelming majority of the
world’s nuclear weapons) quickly assumed a much more benign form as they to-
gether formally proclaimed “an era of friendship and partnership.”2 This allowed,
as one contemporaneous analysis put it, “serious consideration of internation-
al orders predicated on high levels of security cooperation.”3 The replacement of
intense rivalry with congenial relations and cooperation seemed to open up huge
vistas for negotiated restraint and joint management of the nuclear order. Reflect-
ing the optimism of the time, another analysis suggested: “The revolutions of 1989
have opened unprecedented opportunities for more sweeping agreements. Brazos
control can now begin dismantling the East-West military confrontation–not
merely moderating its risks–and thereby help shape the security structure of the
post–Cold War world.”4 Indeed, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, am-
bitious new arms control objectives emerged on the bilateral agenda. At the Bush-
Yeltsin summit in Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA., in June 1992, Por ejemplo, the two presidents
announced that they had agreed to make dramatic cuts in strategic nuclear forc-
es, to eliminate destabilizing multiple-warhead (MIRV, or multiple independently
targetable reentry vehicle) missiles, and to undertake an array of other cooperative
measures: provisions codified in the START II agreement of January 1993. Presi-
dent Bush himself underscored the unprecedented character of this “extraordi-
nary agreement,” noting at his joint press conference with President Yeltsin that
“this fundamental agreement which in earlier years could not have been complet-
ed even in a decade has been completed in only five months. Our ability to reach
this agreement so quickly is a tribute to the new relationship between the United
States and Russia.”5 There seemed to be every reason to be hopeful that the new era
would be marked by cooperation and restraint in nuclear affairs.

At the outset of the post–Cold War era, entonces, a well-elaborated and dominat-
ing bilateral nuclear framework inhabited an unprecedentedly harmonious in-
ternational political context, Russian and American nuclear forces were shrink-
ing dramatically, the balance was regarded as stable, nuclear arms control had real
momentum, and it seemed as if nuclear dangers were being substantially tamed.
Because the nuclear weapons left behind by the Soviet Union in newly indepen-
dent states were being relocated to Russia, it also seemed likely that the bilater-
al structure of the nuclear order would remain intact. Más, there had not been

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

an open addition to the roster of nuclear armed states since the 1960s, when Chi-
na acquired nuclear weapons: Israel’s program remained opaque and unacknowl-
edged while South Africa’s long-hidden nuclear weapons program had been ter-
minated in 1989. While proliferation worries remained (North Korea was already
looming as a problem), there were no immediate nonproliferation crises on the
international agenda, and it seemed that the central nuclear challenge would be
managing the U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship in the context of what President
jorge h.. W.. Bush called the new world order. These circumstances gave rise to
extravagant visions of the nuclear order that might now be possible. A Harvard
project on cooperative denuclearization, Por ejemplo, suggested in 1993 that if this
propitious moment were fully exploited, it might be possible to achieve “the elim-
ination of nuclear weapons from the central role they have played in internation-
al life for fifty years” and to “establish new international norms that push nuclear
weapons to the fringe of international life.”6

But no such world has come to pass. En cambio, over a period of nearly three de-
cades, the benign bilateral nuclear order and the high hopes that accompanied it
have disappeared.7 The optimistic expectations of the early post–Cold War peri-
od have been blighted, obviamente, by the striking deterioration of U.S.-Russian re-
lations that has revived the rivalry and hostility of the previous era. Sin embargo, este
factor alone does not adequately account for the realities of the current moment
in nuclear affairs. En efecto, if the decay of the relationship between Washington
and Moscow involved simply the restoration of something like the dominating
Cold War nuclear balance, we would be on familiar ground, back on Schelling’s
well-understood terrain of maintaining bilateral nuclear stability within the con-
fines of a conflictual and sometimes toxic political relationship. What has emerged
is something different, something unfamiliar: a nuclear environment whose es-
sential dynamics cannot be captured by a single overweening bilateral relation-
ship at the core of the system. This outcome is the result of at least four major
changes in the attributes of the nuclear order, changes that have arrived unevenly
and fitfully over a several decade period. Juntos, sin embargo, they have combined
to transform the nuclear environment in ways that are likely to make it more diffi-
cult to contain the risks and dangers associated with nuclear weapons.

T he erosion of the bilateral nuclear order. In contrast to the bipolar Cold War in-

orden internacional, great-power relations are no longer overwhelmingly bi-
lateral. China’s stunning rise over the past quarter-century has changed
the dynamics among the most powerful states at the heart of the international sys-
tema. En los Estados Unidos, China is now widely seen as the greatest challenge to
American power and interests for the foreseeable future. Strikingly, the Pentagon
believes that Beijing is harnessing its growing power to enormous ambitions: “As
China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modern-
ization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and
displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.”8
Beijing’s postulated goal of displacing the United States obviously represents a
fundamental threat to America’s role in the world and is certain to elicit vigorous
counteraction by Washington.

Simultáneamente, Russia has reemerged as a rival. With its contentious policies,
aggressive behavior, and thousands of nuclear weapons it will continue to figure
centrally in Washington’s perceptions. But no longer does the United States focus
in a singular way on Moscow. Cada vez más, Russia and China are paired as the larg-
est threats to U.S. security and to American influence in the international order.
This can be seen plainly in the 2017 A NOSOTROS. National Security Strategy, which states
that “China and Russia challenge American power, influencia, and interests, en-
tempting to erode American security and prosperity.”9 This theme is echoed and
underscored in the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR),
which highlights “the return of great power competition” as one of the animat-
ing forces shaping U.S. nuclear policy and identifies Beijing and Moscow as major
sources of American insecurity. According to the NPR, “Global threat conditions
have worsened markedly. . . . International relations are volatile. Russia and China
are contesting the international norms and order we have worked with our allies,
partners, and members of the international community to build and sustain.”10
China’s growing status as a serious challenger to the United States will inevita-
bly make the nuclear relationship at the core of the global nuclear order more tri-
angular. Bilateral dynamics will of course remain important, but they will be in-
fluenced and sometimes shaped by three-sided considerations. This will not be a
symmetrical triangle, because China’s doctrine of minimum deterrence and its
restraint in the acquisition of nuclear assets has produced a nuclear force posture
considerably smaller and more limited in capability than the arsenals of the Unit-
ed States and Russia. Moscow’s thousands of nuclear weapons will for the foresee-
able future constitute the largest nuclear threat. But China’s steady nuclear mod-
ernization program is creating a more capable force that is viewed as worrisome
by Washington, requiring a “tailored” deterrent response. “Our tailored strategy
for China,” the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review states, “is designed to prevent Bei-
jing from mistakenly concluding that it could secure an advantage through the
limited use of its theater nuclear capabilities or that any use of nuclear weapons,
however limited, is acceptable.”11

This three-sided nuclear relationship will produce more complex interactions
among and more complicated calculations for the three protagonists. China’s
growing impingement on the Russian-American orbit brings into the mix of great-
power relations an actor with differing views on the preferred characteristics of
the international order and sometimes divergent perspectives on key issues like

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

nuclear proliferation or on significant players such as North Korea, Iran, and Pa-
kistan.12 Effective management of this three-sided relationship will be difficult,
as can already be seen in the frictions that have arisen in U.S. relations with both
China and Russia and in the potential alignment of Beijing and Moscow against
Washington.13

The nuclear policy reverberations among the three contending powers are
already apparent. In the American discussion about the fate of the bilateral U.S.-
Russia Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Por ejemplo, Lavado-
ton’s protracted concerns about Russian noncompliance put the issue on the agen-
da, but the case for terminating the agreement increasingly included the argument
that the INF handicapped the United States in its effort to cope with the build-up
of Chinese forces in the Western Pacific. China was not a party to the INF agree-
ment and, being unconstrained, made a heavy investment in shore-based missiles
that were seen as a serious threat to U.S. allies and U.S. naval forces in the region.
The INF agreement prohibited the United States and Russia from deploying land-
based missiles with a range between 500 y 5,500 kilometers, which precluded
A NOSOTROS. ground-based deployments in Asia to offset the Chinese missile capability. En
terms of the Sino-American competition in the Pacific, the INF came to be widely
regarded as a strategic liability.14 Indeed, when the U.S. withdrawal from the INF
took formal effect on August 2, 2019, it was immediately apparent that the China
factor had weighed heavily in the American decision. The termination of the trea-
ty coincided with the news that the United States was planning a new missile “in-
tended to counter China,” and the U.S. secretary of defense expressed the goal of
deploying ground-based missiles in Asia as soon as possible.15 Moscow was moved
by a similar calculation, because Chinese medium-range missiles could hit targets
in Russia but Russia was prevented by the INF agreement from deploying a sym-
metrical capability.16 Hence, Moscow followed Washington in announcing that
it would withdraw from the INF. Mutual American and Russian accusations of
noncompliance were the proximate cause of these withdrawals, but undergirding
these decisions were strategic calculations that reflected the three-sided nature of
the environment.

A similar trilateral dynamic can be seen in the context of ballistic missile de-
fense (BMD). Here we find a round-robin of reciprocal concern, driven by Wash-
ington’s sustained investment in missile defense over a period of decades. Ser-
cause the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in
2002, there are no legal constraints on missile defense deployments, and the Unit-
ed States appears to possess an expansive appetite for such capabilities. Though
current deployments and capabilities are quite limited, particularly against offen-
sive forces as large as those possessed by Russia and China, Moscow and Beijing
display palpable apprehension that their deterrent postures may eventually be un-
dermined by advances in U.S. missile defense.

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

The United States has sought to allay such fears by insisting that its missile de-
fense program is aimed at other states with small capabilities, such as North Ko-
rea and Iran, and lacks the capability to pose a serious threat to Russian or Chinese
nuclear forces. Sin embargo, explicit displays of interest in the United States in de-
veloping national missile defense for the homeland, continued substantial invest-
ment in missile defense technology, and occasional unadorned comments by U.S.
officials and analysts about more ambitious missile defense goals undermine U.S.
attempts to reassure Russia and China about its missile defense plans. De hecho, el
Trump administration’s Missile Defense Review, released in January 2019, makes
it clear that one of the goals of the U.S. BMD effort is to deal with challenges from
Russia and China.17 In unveiling the Missile Defense Review, President Trump
himself emphasized the expansive and open-ended nature of the U.S. BMD pro-
gram: “Our goal is simple. To ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile
launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”18 China is also
likely to have taken note when the national security advisor of the United States
dicho, “China is building its nuclear capacity now. It’s one of the reasons why we’re
looking at strengthening our national missile defense system here in the United
States.”19 For Russia, missile defense has been described as “a burning issue.”20
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been repeatedly outspoken about the dan-
ger posed by U.S. BMD. In his annual major speech to the Russian Federal Assem-
bly in 2018, he remarked, “The U.S. is permitting constant, uncontrolled growth
of the number of anti-ballistic missiles, improving their quality, and creating new
missile launching areas. If we do not do something, eventually this will result in
the complete devaluation of Russia’s nuclear potential.” Putin pledged that “we
will make the necessary efforts to neutralize the threats posed by the deployment
of the U.S. global missile defence system” and outlined an extensive set of nuclear
modernization efforts that were justified as reactions to the U.S. BMD program.21
Triangular considerations are also making themselves felt in the realm of arms
control. Cada vez más, the view in Washington is that China will need to be drawn
into negotiations and agreements that were once bilateral. China’s growing power,
the steady modernization of its nuclear forces, concerns about the possible future
expansion of its nuclear arsenal, and its status with Russia as a primary challeng-
er to the United States combine to suggest that in the future it will be increasing-
ly difficult both to leave China out and to impose additional constraints on U.S.
and Russian nuclear capabilities if China remains unconstrained. It is not a new
thought to suggest that future strategic arms agreements should include China,
but this calculation is becoming increasingly evident in policy discussions. Pres-
ident Trump, Por ejemplo, has instructed his team to prepare for possible nucle-
ar negotiations that would include both China and Russia. Including China in fu-
ture arms control seems understandable, reasonable, and desirable, but at least
in the short-to-medium term, it will represent a significant complication that is

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

more likely to impede progress than to lead to three-sided constraints.22 Nucle-
ar arms control with China is unprecedented, its force posture is not comparable
to those of Russia and the United States, and Beijing shows no interest in partici-
pating in negotiations under these circumstances. As Richard Burt, chief negoti-
ator of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and Jon Wolfsthal, nuclear weapons
expert and Dædalus author, have written, “Trying to expand nuclear deals to in-
clude China now may seem like a good idea, but in practice, it will have little or no
chance of being achieved.”23 And in the longer term, también, it may prove difficult
to find mutually acceptable solutions in three-way negotiations, keeping in mind
that even the bilateral strategic arms negotiations were often arduous and pains-
taking affairs that required years to reach agreement.

En breve, the familiar bilateral nuclear order that dominated nuclear affairs for
the first six or seven decades of the nuclear age is fading away. In its place stands
a triangular relationship whose complexities will only gradually be discovered,
whose dynamics are only beginning to be learned.

T he emergence of regional nuclear subsystems. In the hopeful days at the begin-

ning of the post–Cold War era, concerns about nuclear relationships in re-
gional settings simply did not exist because outside of the East-West con-
texto, nuclear weapons were not a part of the equation. En 1991, Israel was the only
state thought to possess nuclear weapons outside of the five nuclear-armed states
acknowledged by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT),
and Israel’s nuclear capability was opaque, unacknowledged, and had not pro-
voked successful nuclear acquisition by other states in the Middle East.24

That began to change in May 1998 when India and, soon thereafter, Pakistán
tested nuclear weapons, becoming the first states in several decades to openly
transgress the nonproliferation norm and seek a deployed nuclear capability. En el
intervening years, both New Delhi and Islamabad have invested steadily in their
nuclear programs, have produced nuclear weapons numbering in the hundreds,
and have acquired increasingly diverse and capable delivery systems. A regional
nuclear order now exists in South Asia–a dramatic change from the world of 1991.
Nuclear-armed South Asia is a source of major concern for several reasons.
Primero, relations between India and Pakistan remain fraught and serious incidents
between them occur with some regularity. A string of crises–the 1999 Kargil War,
el 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, el 2008 bomba-
ings in Mumbai, among other incidents and clashes–has highlighted the dangers
of acute friction between two nuclear-armed states. In March 2019, an Indian air-
craft violated Pakistani airspace, was shot down, and the pilot was captured, creat-
ing a potentially incendiary crisis and providing yet another illustration of the fact
that South Asia is a dangerous setting for nuclear weapons. Segundo, it is not clear
how stable the nuclear balance in South Asia can be. Far from being separated by

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

hemispheres, as were the Soviet Union and the United States, India and Pakistan
are immediate neighbors with a shared border and a history of war. Distances and
flying times are short, warning time will be minimal, nuclear assets and command
and control may be vulnerable (possibly producing preemptive or use-them-or-
lose-them pressures), and in Pakistan’s case, it has adopted a NATO-like doctrine
of first use intended to neutralize India’s conventional advantages. The Indian
and Pakistani governments have shown their ability to manage incidents while
avoiding escalation, but it is far from reassuring that this possibly precarious nu-
clear balance is tested by crisis after crisis. It is this dynamic that leads many to be-
lieve that nuclear weapons are more likely to be used in South Asia than anywhere
else. Tercero, India’s security policy and nuclear posture are influenced not only by
Pakistan but also by China, with whom it has a history of uneven relations, unre-
solved border issues, concern about Beijing’s close relations with Pakistan, y
past wars within living memory. Here then we find another triangle, one that in-
tersects with the great-power triangle and raises the prospect of cascading ripple
efectos. Chinese responses to developments in U.S. nuclear policy can affect In-
dia’s calculations, which in turn will have implications for Pakistan.

After India and Pakistan came North Korea. As the Cold War receded and as
former Soviet weapons were secured in Russia, looming proliferation concerns
centered on North Korea’s nuclear behavior. Sin embargo, this crisis was staved
off for nearly a decade by the 1994 Agreed Framework, which significantly con-
strained Pyongyang’s nuclear program and put its nuclear assets under IAEA su-
pervision. But this arrangement collapsed in 2002, North Korea withdrew from
the NPT in 2003, and by 2006, it had conducted its first test of a nuclear weapon. En
the subsequent decade and a half, North Korea has conducted a series of nuclear
weapon and missile tests and acquired an estimated few dozen nuclear weapons,
has deployed missiles capable of hitting regional targets such as Japan and South
Korea, and has tested missiles of intercontinental range that, if deployed, would
give Pyongyang the ability to threaten targets in the United States with nuclear
attack. De este modo, one of the world’s most isolated and erratic regimes, led by an ex-
tremely authoritarian government that places extraordinary power in the hands
of a single eccentric individual, is a nuclear-armed state. This has been one of the
most disturbing developments of the past twenty years and has greatly complicat-
ed the security dynamics in Northeast Asia.

North Korea is a state, además, with a long history of deeply hostile relations
with the United States and its regional allies. En efecto, because a formal peace trea-
ty was never reached between North Korea and the coalition of states that fought
against it, these states remain technically in a state of war. Pyongyang has given
much evidence over a protracted period of time that it feels acutely threatened
by the United States and its South Korean ally–who together dwarf North Ko-
rea in economic might and military power–so it is likely that it regards its nuclear

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

weapons as a necessary guarantor of its security, if not survival. Pyongyang’s fear
of attack appears to be genuine–not surprisingly, since the United States has
in fact threatened North Korea in a variety of ways–and is a volatile factor that
could prove destabilizing and even escalatory in a crisis.

The North Korean situation impinges on the interests of China and Russia as
well as the United States, meaning that in Northeast Asia we find a quadrilateral
set of nuclear-armed states involved in attempting to manage the region’s secu-
rity affairs, but with different relationships among the quadrilateral actors, dif-
ferent capabilities to influence the regional situation, and different interests and
preferred outcomes. To complicate matters further, two key actors in the region,
Japan and South Korea, are American allies and benefit from U.S. nuclear guaran-
tees. Northeast Asia is a heavily nuclearized region: every actor in the region is a
part of the regional nuclear order, whether directly or indirectly.

This disturbing picture illustrates several unfortunate consequences of the
rise of regional nuclear orders. Primero, as was the case in South Asia, the situation
in Northeast Asia raises nuclear risks in an environment in which bellicose rheto-
ric has been commonplace and serious incidents–including minor uses of force–
have recurred. The unexpected détente in 2018 between President Trump and
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has calmed the situation for the time being, pero
it is not clear how long that will last or where it is heading. Their failed Hanoi sum-
mit suggests that continued progress may not be forthcoming. But the more com-
mon mode in North Korean relations with the United States and South Korea has
been friction and confrontation. En efecto, the antecedent to the Trump–Kim Jong-
un honeymoon was the war scare of 2017. On the American side, this was marked
by the movement of naval forces, provocative flights along North Korea’s coast,
evacuation of some U.S. citizens from South Korea, and harsh threats from Pres-
ident Trump. With a crescendo of inflammatory rhetoric in the late summer of
2017, Trump delivered his most flamboyant and memorable line: “North Korea
best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and
fury like the world has never seen.” This was, as the New York Times account com-
mented, “chilling language that evoked the horror of a nuclear exchange.”25 On
the North Korean side, 2017 was a year of multiple missile tests, a nuclear weapon
prueba, and brash rhetoric from Kim Jong-un, including personal insults of President
Trump. This was a contest in reciprocal threat and provocative actions that pro-
duced genuine fears of war. “Nuclear war seems terrifyingly imaginable,” wrote
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in the midst of this crisis.26

Segundo, North Korea displays few of the qualities and capabilities that make
for effective crisis management.27 Its military command system is unlikely to pro-
mote accurate and truthful reporting while its early-warning systems lack sophisti-
cation and redundancy. Mistakes, misperceptions, and errors are unlikely to be re-
ported or corrected because of the fear of punishment in a harsh domestic political

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

ambiente. Senior decision-makers are quite likely to be operating on the basis
of inadequate or inaccurate information, whether responding to an actual crisis or
a false alarm. Además, Pyongyang combines substantial vulnerability to attack
with deep (and possibly warranted) fears of attack, a mix that could prove sharply
escalatory in a crisis, especially in view of North Korea’s preemptive nuclear doc-
trine. If Pyongyang believes, rightly or wrongly, that it is under attack or about to
be attacked, it could well feel pressured to use nuclear weapons preemptively ear-
ly in a crisis. The existence of such incentives in a region prone to tension and con-
frontational incidents is extremely dangerous. There is little reason to be confident
that the North Korean system would be inclined or able to behave in a careful, cau-
tious, restrained, or disciplined way under the pressure of a nuclear crisis. The tra-
ditional remedy to such nuclear risks is to promote strategic stability, which would
imply accepting, if not facilitating, the emergence of a mutual deterrence relation-
ship between Pyongyang and the United States. Because of North Korea’s limited
nuclear capabilities and Washington’s massive advantage in military power, es
not clear whether it is possible for Pyongyang to develop a credible deterrent pos-
tura. But the problem is exacerbated by American policies aimed at preserving co-
ercive and preemptive options against North Korea: A NOSOTROS. policy prolongs and rein-
forces the instabilities that raise frightening nuclear risks on the Korean peninsula.
For the foreseeable future, a crisis, an incident, or even a false alarm in this region
represents a distressingly plausible path to the use of nuclear weapons.

Tercero, the North Korean case displays as well the interconnectedness of region-
al nuclear orders with the wider global environment. To provide protection from
the North Korean missile threat in Northeast Asia, Por ejemplo, the United States
is deploying its Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Ko-
rea. To American eyes, this is a limited and purely regional deployment, aimed at
North Korea, which should have no significant implications for China. Tal vez
not surprisingly, Beijing does not see it that way and has reacted very negative-
ly, criticizing the move and pressuring South Korea to change its policy. China ap-
pears to believe that the radar associated with the THAAD deployment in South
Korea will augment existing American capabilities in ways that increase the U.S.
ability to precisely track and target Chinese missiles, thereby degrading its deter-
rent force.28 As Li Bin, one of China’s leading strategic experts and a contributor
to this volume, has explained, “China has to worry that the THAAD radar in the
ROK would undermine China’s nuclear deterrence by collecting important data
on Chinese nuclear warheads that the United States could not acquire from oth-
er sources.”29 Thus, Washington’s effort to address the challenge posed by North
Korea’s nuclear arsenal is having a direct impact on its relationship with China. Si
China responds vigorously to this perceived threat to its deterrent force, this will
almost surely have implications for other nuclear actors (particularly India) en el
triangles that involve China.

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

With the emergence of regional nuclear balances, there are new nuclear play-
ers, new risks, new sources of potential nuclear use, multiplying worries about
nuclear stability, and new sets of intersecting policy concerns and calculations.
Además, these regional dynamics are playing out in the context of an interna-
tional system that is more complex and a core nuclear order among the major
powers that is more triangular than bilateral. As political scientist and coeditor of
this volume Robert Legvold has written of this challenge,

Over the forty years of the Cold War, líderes, defense planners, and pundits slowly
came to understand the dynamics of a two-sided nuclear competition in a two-sided
global setting–even if that setting began to lose its cohesion in its later years. But how
were the dynamics of a many-sided nuclear world, with pairings and triangles multi-
plying, in a fractured international political setting to be understood?30

This question poses a new challenge and represents an enormous change from

the world of 1991.

N uclear terrorism climbs the agenda of worries. It is simply impossible to un-

derstand American security policy in the post–Cold War era without
recognizing the centrality of nuclear terrorism in Washington’s threat
perceptions. To be sure, nuclear terrorism was a concern even during the Cold
Guerra, but it was not prominent in the policy discourse and it was not a major influ-
ence on nuclear policy.31 Since the end of the Cold War, sin embargo, it has leapt up
the agenda of nuclear worries: en efecto, for a number of years, nuclear terrorism
was widely regarded as the gravest danger to American security.32 This elevation
occurred in two phases. In the first, starting in the early 1990s, the driving consid-
eration was fear that the massive but shattered and impoverished Soviet nuclear
complex might leak weapons-relevant materials and expertise and thereby pro-
vide a potentially large supply of nuclear assets for an international black market.
This could fuel the proliferation of weapons to states but could also provide an op-
portunity for extremist terrorist groups to gain access to nuclear weapons or the
materials and expertise to make them. In the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of
the former Soviet Union, with political and social instability widespread, budgets
plummeting, and zero demand for the services of the nuclear weapons complex,
there was no confidence that the Soviet Union’s nuclear assets would be proper-
ly secured. This was understood as a crisis and became an abiding priority during
the 1990s. The United States launched the Cooperative Threat Reduction program
(also known as the Nunn-Lugar program, after the two senators who sponsored
the original legislation) en 1991, aimed at working with Russia to ensure that all
nuclear weapons and materials were safely and securely stored. Years of effort and
billions of dollars were invested in this effort, with considerable success in im-
proving the security at Russian nuclear facilities. This experience also produced

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

an urgent long-term concern about the security of all nuclear materials on a global
base, a problem that remained a high priority at least until the advent of the Trump
administración. President Obama, En realidad, made the security of weapons-usable
nuclear materials one of his signature issues and presided over four Nuclear Se-
curity Summits intended to promote higher standards of nuclear security for all
holdings of nuclear materials.

The second phase in the elevation of the nuclear terrorism threat commenced
with the shock of September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks on the United States
made it inescapably clear that terrorists were capable of mounting sophisticat-
ed operations on the U.S. mainland, were willing and able to kill large numbers
de personas, and harbored beliefs deeply hostile to the United States. Immediate-
ly and for some years to come, the so-called war on terrorism became a central
element–arguably the central element–of America’s external policy. The spec-
ter of a nuclear 9/11 haunted this effort. As President George W. Bush warned on
a number of occasions, it would be a nightmare if the world’s most dangerous
weapons fell into the most dangerous hands. A bipartisan group of prominent po-
litical figures proclaimed nuclear terrorism to be the number one threat to Amer-
ican security.

De este modo, for nearly two decades, Washington has viewed terrorists as another po-
tential source of serious and worrisome nuclear risk, to be combatted where nec-
essary, to be deterred if possible, and to be regarded always as a central concern of
A NOSOTROS. política. Efforts to address this threat have, in various forms, had a huge impact
on U.S. política, including such major preoccupations as the Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program with Russia, el 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the Nuclear Secu-
rity Summits, all of which were justified at least in part by the imperative to reduce
the threat of nuclear terrorism. This is a striking change in the nuclear agenda and
a destabilizing influence on the international order compared to the familiar bi-
lateral world that existed in 1991.

E volving technology raises new concerns. A fourth development changing the

nuclear environment–and another that has progressed unevenly, y
sometimes with unsettling rapidity–has been the evolution of technolo-
gy. The accumulation of improvements and innovations is having a large effect
on the character and stability of nuclear relationships. Three overlapping broad
trends are notable.

Primero, advanced conventional weapons are increasingly capable of performing
strategic missions, either through direct attack on an adversary’s nuclear assets or
by attacking dual-use facilities (such as warning systems or command and con-
controlar) whose destruction would degrade the other side’s ability to conduct nuclear
operations.33 Such attacks blur the line between conventional and nuclear conflict
and create scenarios in which conventional operations can produce pressures to

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

escalate to nuclear use. This problem is compounded by the fact that some deliv-
ery platforms, including aircraft and missiles of various types, are being deployed
in a dual-capability mode, meaning that an opponent will not be sure whether an
incoming attack is conventional or nuclear.

Segundo, advances in surveillance, precisión, and lethality are making it more
difficult to retain confidence in the survivability of nuclear forces that are the
foundation of stable nuclear relationships.34 Land-based forces can be targeted,
mobile forces can be surveilled and struck, sea-based forces may be increasingly
vulnerable, and command and control of nuclear forces may be susceptible to dis-
ruption by conventional-, nuclear-, or cyberattack. The assured destruction that
es, in the canons of nuclear strategy, the source of mutual stability may be increas-
ingly difficult to assure. This is especially worrisome in the context of regional nu-
clear balances, with more limited forces and difficult security environments. Pero
in the future, even the bigger nuclear powers may feel a need to take refuge in larg-
er numbers and more diversified force postures.

Tercero, we have witnessed in the several decades since the end of the Cold War
the emergence of new domains of technological competition, whether through
the arrival of new systems such as cyber, advanced drones, and hypersonic deliv-
ery systems or through the extension of advanced military technologies into new
environments such as space. En 1991, Por ejemplo, no one worried about cyber
threats to nuclear forces, pero hoy, it is a growing concern.35 Cyber interference in
the command and control systems for nuclear weapons have the potential to very
effectively disrupt an opponent’s capabilities. Además, new technologies can
widen the array of actors who are able to pose serious disruptive threats and have
the potential to level the playing field between larger and smaller players. Estados
like North Korea or Iran cannot possibly hope to match the nuclear force postures
of the larger nuclear-weapon states, but they are capable of developing effective
cyber capabilities, using drones, or putting military assets in space. Por ejemplo,
North Korea’s nuclear weapons are of course worrisome, but there is a parallel
concern about its cyber capabilities, cual, unlike nuclear weapons, North Korea
has appeared to employ regularly.36 Technological advances are producing a wid-
er array of threats from a wider array of actors.

Tomados juntos, these trends are producing a military environment that is more
complex and less stable. Technological advancement has been normal in the nu-
clear context, but the pace and extent of technological innovation in recent years
is raising unprecedented issues and introducing new sources of threat, worry, y
instability. The extensive nuclear modernization programs being undertaken by
almost all of the nuclear armed states mean that the situation is very dynamic,
with new technologies continually being absorbed into the postures, doctrines,
and operations of states, creating a nuclear order that is markedly different from
that which existed at the end of the Cold War.

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

I mplications. What is different about the current nuclear order? Primero, El gran-

power rivalry at the heart of the order has become less bilateral, more tri-
angular. Segundo, fraught regional nuclear orders did not exist before about
2000, but now have become a major factor and a major concern. Tercero, the threat
of nuclear terrorism looms much larger for the United States than was true during
the Cold War. And finally, this extensive geopolitical change is unfolding in a flu-
id and fast-moving technological environment that may make it more difficult
to create and preserve stable nuclear relationships. What are the implications of
these changes?

• Multiple audiences. From Washington’s perspective, it has become increas-
ingly evident that its nuclear deterrent policies must be aimed at multiple
audiences. Where the overwhelming preoccupation was once with Moscow
(and China included as a lesser player), now the focus is on devising specific
strategies for different targets, ranging from nonstate actors to great pow-
ers. This concept of “tailored deterrence” has become a prominent theme in
A NOSOTROS. nuclear policy, from George W. Bush to Donald Trump. As one analysis
of the concept explains, tailored deterrence seeks

to address the distinctive challenges posed by advanced military competitors,
regional powers armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and non-
state terrorist networks. . . . Given the wider variety of actors that could inflict
mass casualties upon the United States, its allies, or its interests, it makes sense
to explore whether and how deterrence could be adapted, adjusted, and made
to fit 21st-century challenges.37

• More complex patterns of interaction. The new nuclear order can be viewed as
comprising a core nuclear triangle (Porcelana, Russia, y los estados unidos)
plus two multilateral regional nuclear subsystems. Two other regional are-
nas–Europe and the Middle East–can also be regarded as regional nucle-
ar subsystems: Europe because of the American nuclear guarantees to its
NATO allies and because the United Kingdom and France possess nuclear
armas; the Middle East because Israel has long been presumed to have a
nuclear weapons capability and because concerns about Iran’s appetite for
nuclear weapons have been an overwhelmingly important factor in region-
al and international politics. The multiplicity of players in the nuclear order
that now exists make possible reverberating chains of interaction, as nuclear
relationships among some ripple through the perceptions and behavior of
otros. De este modo, Por ejemplo, China aided Pakistan, discomfiting India, mientras
Pakistan in turn provided assistance to Iran’s nuclear program, producing
strong reactions in Washington, Jerusalem, and Riyadh. Nuclear relation-
ships are not only bilateral or multilateral, but can cascade through multiple

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

actors in the system. En breve, these multiple nuclear subsystems, each with
its own characteristics and dynamics, intersect and interact. There are mul-
tiple points within these structures that can initiate moves that produce cas-
cading reactions. China appears to occupy a particularly pivotal role because
it is a major player in nearly all the multilateral components of the glob-
al nuclear order. Whether it persists with its relatively restrained nuclear
policy–relying on a small deterrent force accompanied by a no-first-use
doctrine–will be one of the crucial influences shaping the order in the years
ahead. If China comes to adopt a more ambitious nuclear policy that ex-
pands its nuclear forces and makes it more competitive with Russia and the
United States, Washington and New Delhi will surely react in some signif-
icant way, Russia will respond to whatever changes Washington makes to
its policy, Pakistan will adjust to whatever New Delhi has done, and Chi-
na’s changed policy will have rippled through much of the system. Pero esto
is only one possible chain of interactions in a world of multiple multilateral
nuclear subsystems. The arms race implications are obvious, especially as
constraints on nuclear capabilities are waning. In the event that the only re-
maining limits–those in the New START agreement–are allowed to lapse,
entonces, as journalist Fred Kaplan has written, “The Russians could build more
armas, the United States (and perhaps other nuclear powers) would prob-
ably respond, and off we go, once more, into the wild blue yonder.”38

• Multiple sources of instability. The specter that haunted the Cold War was the
large-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, y
smaller or inadvertent variations of that catastrophic scenario. Hoy, allá
are multiple flash points. Relations between the big three powers are unset-
tled and Russian-American relations have become distressingly toxic. Given
the evolving technological context, it is unclear how stable the great-power
nuclear relationships will be, but there is no question that the combination
of intense rivalry and worryingly vulnerable forces is a dangerous mix. Cómo-
alguna vez, the regional nuclear balances are even more likely to cause the use of
nuclear weapons, given the troubled security environments in those regions
and the factors that make conflict an imaginable outcome. There is even
more doubt in regional contexts that the nuclear-armed states will be able
to develop confidence-inspiring deterrent postures: the conditions that fa-
cilitated stability in the superpower setting are not easily replicable in re-
gional settings and the regional nuclear powers must contend with the same
technological challenges to stability as the bigger powers. Finalmente, hay
the diffuse threat of nuclear terrorism, which provides yet another potential
nuclear flash point, a risk of unknown proportions that, at least in Washing-
tonelada, is taken very seriously. En breve, politics and technology have combined
to produce an unfortunate number of sources of instability. As arms control

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

and nonproliferation scholar Steven Pifer has written, “Strategic stability
appears increasingly a multilateral and multi-domain construct. This is a
much more complex model than during the Cold War.”39

• More difficult environment for arms control. Technology is evolving in ways that
can make past agreements obsolete and new agreements difficult or impos-
sible to achieve. Cyber threats, Por ejemplo, may represent an urgent prob-
lem, but it is hard to see how they can be constrained by arms control. If tech-
nology is making arms control more difficult, politics seems to be making it
less likely. The frayed relations between Moscow and Washington have led
to a substantial erosion of the Cold War arms control architecture and there
appears to be little will to move forward with new initiatives. China is now
a major player but appears to be still unready to join trilateral or multilateral
strategic arms control negotiations. The regional nuclear balances are almost
completely untouched by any negotiated constraints. Prominent multi lateral
arms control efforts, such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
and the Fissile Material Cutoff negotiations, have been stymied for years,
with no indications of progress anywhere in sight. Idealmente, it would be possi-
ble to constrain and manage the new nuclear order using the kinds of arms
control processes and mechanisms that helped to regulate the nuclear rivalry
in the Cold War. In time and with concerted effort, perhaps it will prove pos-
sible to recreate a negotiated regulatory infrastructure that will moderate
the risks and dangers of this new age. For the moment, sin embargo, condiciones
are not propitious and the current picture is bleak: bilateral arms control is
collapsing but seems in any case insufficient; trilateral arms control seems
necessary but so far remains impossible; multilateral arms control is coma-
tose; and regional arms control is desirable but is as yet nonexistent.

De este modo, the great challenge for nuclear policy today: finding a safe path through
a nuclear environment that will for the foreseeable future be considerably more
complejo, filled with sources of risk, and considerably less regulated than what we
have known. The perils are likely to be at least as great as those confronted in ear-
lier eras of the nuclear age. That we have survived three quarters of a century with-
out nuclear catastrophe is no guarantee that we will successfully manage the nu-
clear danger in the coming phase. Bastante, what we urgently need is a deep under-
standing of the risks that now exist and that may yet emerge, and hard thinking
about the steps than can be taken to minimize those risks. This volume hopes to
serve that cause.

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

Sobre el Autor

Steven E.. Molinero, miembro de la Academia Americana desde 2006 and member of
the Academy’s Council and Committee on International Security Studies, is Direc-
tor of the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and In-
ternational Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Él es
also Editor-in-Chief of the scholarly journal International Security and coeditor of the
book series BCSIA Studies in International Security (published by The MIT Press).
He is coauthor of two monographs published by the American Academy: Nuclear
Collisions: Discord, Reform, and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime (with Wael Al-Assad,
Jayantha Dhanapala, C. Raja Mohan, and Ta Minh Tuan, 2012) and Meeting the Chal-
lenges of the New Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in a Changing Global Order (con roberto
Legvold and Lawrence Freedman, 2019), and is coeditor of the American Academy
volume The Russian Military: Power and Policy (with Dmitri Trenin, 2004).

notas finales

1 See his comments in Thomas C. Schelling, "Prefacio,” in Strategic Stability: Contending
Interpretations, ed. Elbridge A. Colby and Michael S. Gerson (Carlisle, Pa.: A NOSOTROS. Ejército
War College Press, 2013), vii–viii.

2 Ver, Por ejemplo, Michael Wines, “Bush and Yeltsin Declare Formal End to Cold War;

Agree to Exchange Visits,"El New York Times, Febrero 2, 1992.

3 Ashton B. Carter and Steven E. Molinero, “Cooperative Security and the Former Soviet
Union: Near-Term Challenges,” in Global Engagement: Cooperation and Security in the Former
Soviet Union, ed. Janne E. Nolan (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: La Institución Brookings, 1994),
543.

4 Matthew Bunn, “Arms Control’s Enduring Worth,” Foreign Policy 79 (1990): 151.

5 “Summit in Washington; Excerpts from Bush-Yeltsin Conference: Working Toward a
Safer World,"El New York Times, Junio 17, 1992. On the contents of the agreement, ver
Michael Wines, “Summit in Washington: Bush and Yeltsin Agree to Cut Long-Range
Atomic Warheads; Scrap Key Land-Based Missiles,"El New York Times, Junio 17, 1992.
6 Graham Allison, Ashton B. Carretero, Steven E.. Molinero, and Philip Zelikow, “Cooperative De-
nuclearization: An International Agenda,” in Cooperative Denuclearization: From Pledges to
Deeds (Cambridge, Masa.: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard
Universidad, 1993), 1.

7 For a more extensive development of these points, see Steven E. Molinero, “The Rise and De-
cline of Global Nuclear Order?” in Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age: Nuclear
Weapons in a Changing Nuclear Order (Cambridge, Masa.: American Academy of Arts and
Ciencias, 2019), 1–27.

8 A NOSOTROS. Department of Defense, Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge: Summary of
el 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Office
of the Secretary of Defense, 2018), 2.

9 The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.:

Office of the President of the United States, 2017), 2.

10 A NOSOTROS. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Office of the Sec-

retary of Defense, 2018), 2.

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder

11 Ibídem., 32.
12 For an excellent analysis of Chinese perspectives on questions of international order,
see Alastair Iain Johnston, “China and a World of Orders,” Seguridad Internacional 44 (2)
(2019).

13 “It is the love triangle of global politics,” The Economist writes of U.S.-Chinese-Russian

interactions. “Russia and China: Brothers in Arms,” The Economist, Julio 27, 2019.

14 For the argument that the INF represents an “unacceptable” strategic liability for the
United States, see Scott A. Cuomo, “It’s Time to Make a New Deal: Solving the INF
Treaty’s Strategic Liabilities to Achieve U.S. Security Goals in Asia,” Texas National Se-
curity Review 2 (1) (2018). For a critique of this argument, see Pranay Vaddi, “Leaving
the INF Treaty Won’t Help Trump Counter China,” Carnegie Endowment for Inter-
national Peace, Enero 31, 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/01/31/leaving
-inf-treaty-won-t-help-trump-counter-china-pub-78262.

15 David Sanger and Edward Wong, “U.S. Ends Cold War Missile Treaty to Counter Arms
Buildup by China,"El New York Times, Agosto 2, 2019; and Idrees Ali, “Defense Secre-
tary Reveals Plan for Ground-Launched Missiles in Asia,” Reuters, Agosto 3, 2019.
16 This point is noted in Alexey Arbatov, “Mad Momentum Redux: The Rise and Fall of Nu-
clear Arms Control,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, June–July 2019, https://www
.iiss.org/publications/survival/2019/survival-global-politics-and-strategy-junejuly
-2019/613-02-arbatov.

17 Ver, Por ejemplo, “U.S. Announces New Missile Defence System to Counter Threats

from Russia, Porcelana,” The Economic Times, Enero 19, 2019.

18 Donald Trump quoted in “Trump Unveils Ambitious Missile Defense Plans,” National

Public Radio, Enero 17, 2019.

19 John Bolton as quoted in Ankit Panda, “Bolton: China is One Reason U.S. Looking at

Strengthening National Missile Defense,” The Diplomat, Marzo 19, 2019.

20 The phrase is from Vladimir Kozin, “Escalation of EU-Russian Relations: Perspectives
for Europe in the Case of a Military Conflict,” paper for the XII European Russian Fo-
rum, Bruselas, Bélgica, Noviembre 26, 2018.

21 Vladimir Putin, “Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly,” March 1, 2018, http://

en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957.

22 On the difficulties of bringing China into arms control, see Michael Krepon, “Better
Wait than Never: Transitioning from Bilateral to Multilateral Strategic Arms Reduc-
ciones,” in Reykjavik Summit: Lessons for the Future of US-Russian Relations (Moscow: interna-
tional Luxembourg Forum for Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, 2016), 50–64.

23 Richard Burt and Jon Wolfsthal, “How Trump Can Transform Nuclear Arms Control,"

The National Interest, Puede 10, 2019.

24 Though several states–Iraq, Iran, and Syria–pursued nuclear weapons unsuccessfully.
25 Peter Baker and Choe Sang-Hun, “Trump Threatens Fire and Fury against North Korea if

It Endangers U.S.,” The New York Times, Agosto 8, 2017.

26 Nicholas Kristof, “Trump’s Scary Strategy on North Korea,"El New York Times, Octubre

12, 2017.

27 I am indebted to Scott Sagan for highlighting the importance of this point.

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149 (2) Spring 2020Steven E. Molinero

28 For a discussion of the issues in play and a critique of China’s position, see Ankit Panda,
“THAAD and China’s Nuclear Second-Strike Capability, The Diplomat, Marzo 8, 2017.
29 Li Bin, “The Security Dilemma and THAAD Deployment in ROK,” Kyunghyang Daily,
Agosto 3, 2016, available at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, https://carnegie
endowment.org/2016/08/03/security-dilemma-and-thaad-deployment-in-rok-pub
-64279.

30 Robert Legvold, “The Challenges of a Multipolar Nuclear World in a Shifting Interna-
tional Context,” in Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in a Chang-
ing Global Order, 31.

31 Characteristically, Thomas Schelling was ahead of the curve in addressing the risk of nu-
clear terrorism. See Thomas Schelling, “Thinking About Nuclear Terrorism,” Interna-
tional Security 6 (4) (1982): 61–77.

32 Ver, Por ejemplo, Charles D. Ferguson, “Can Bush or Kerry Prevent Nuclear Terrorism?"
Arms Control Today, Septiembre 2004: “If there is any issue on which leaders from all sides
of the political spectrum agree, it is the importance of preventing nuclear terrorism.”
33 Ver, as one example, the excellent analysis by James Acton, “Escalation through Entan-
glement: How the Vulnerability of Command and Control Systems Raises the Risks of
an Inadvertent Nuclear War,” Seguridad Internacional 43 (1) (2018): 56–99.

34 For an alarmed discussion that covers this ground in great detail, see Keir Lieber and
Daryl Press, “The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of
Nuclear Deterrence,” Seguridad Internacional 41 (4) (2017): 9–49.

35 For an overview of this issue, see Patricia Lewis and Beyza Unal, “Cybersecurity of Nucle-
ar Weapons: Threats, Vulnerabilities and Consequences,” Chatham House Research
Paper (Londres: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2018).

36 Ver, as one example among many, Kate Patrick, “Cyber Attacks, Not Nukes, May Be

North Korea’s Most Dangerous Weapons,” Inside Sources, Febrero 28, 2019.
37 METRO. Elaine Bunn, “Can Deterrence Be Tailored?” Strategic Forum 225 (2007): 1.
38 Fred Kaplan, “How Trump Could Restart the Nuclear Arms Race,” Slate, Junio 6, 2019.
39 Steven Pifer, “The United States and the U.S.-Russia-China Nuclear Relationship” (estafa-

ference paper shared with author).

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesA Nuclear World Transformed: The Rise of Multilateral Disorder
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