July 2025

Welcome to the July edition of The American Enterprise. This month, we are featuring pieces from Kyle Balzer on US nuclear deterrence in the 21st century, Mark J. Warshawsky on how America's disability benefits system should be simplified, and Laura Dove on the role of the Senate's parliamentarian and the chamber's essential function in our society.

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American Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century <[link removed]>
By Kyle Balzer

The United States confronts a bewildering national security dilemma: For the first time in the nuclear age, Washington faces not one but two nuclear-peer competitors—adversaries with arsenals comparable to America’s—emanating from the
heart of the Eurasian landmass. Where once American defense planners could structure nuclear deterrence requirements around a solitary competitor, Russia, they must now account for China’s ongoing, massive nuclear buildup <[link removed]>. Today’s strategic landscape no longer resembles the simpler threat environment that American planners anticipated when designing the existing US nuclear force posture over a decade ago.

Resolving this two-nuclear-peer dilemma raises vexing questions that cut to the core of America’s existing nuclear policy. Does the United States, for instance, require more deployed nuclear weapons to deter two peer adversaries? What is the role of such weaponry should Russia or China launch simultaneous offensives? And, more fundamentally, should the United States ditch the policy of targeting adversary nuclear forces, targeting only the adversaries’ conventional assets to reduce the pressure on American
planners to offset China’s buildup?

To answer these weighty questions, Washington must address not only the size of Russia’s and China’s nuclear arsenals but their penchant for nuclear-backed coercion. At opposite ends of Eurasia, both are wielding their nuclear forces to break the US-led alliance systems in their respective neighborhoods, recognizing that these alliances are America’s greatest competitive advantage and, therefore, the most formidable obstacle to their revisionist agendas.

Although questions regarding US nuclear force numbers and targeting policy are critical
planning considerations, they are ultimately downstream from more fundamental strategic choices. When Washington cannot dominate the combined arsenals of its peer adversaries, the American nuclear debate more than ever should move beyond numbers and discrete target sets to emphasize defeating adversaries’ strategies of coercion. Preserving a liberal international system that favors American interests will depend on nothing less.

Strategies of Coercion

For much of the nuclear age, Russia constituted America’s lone nuclear peer dating back to the Cold War when the Soviet Union pointed thousands of nuclear weapons at the United States to cast doubt on America’s pledge to
defend NATO allies. Tensions between the superpowers eventually thawed. NATO ultimately weathered Soviet coercion, and the end of the Cold War ushered in a vast reduction in nuclear arms. With time, however, the Kremlin would shatter the positive post-Cold War spirit and the dream <[link removed]> held by many Americans of a world without nuclear weapons.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverted to Soviet form by invading its neighbors, violating <[link removed]>
arms-control agreements, and devoting vast resources to nuclear upgrades. Unlike his American counterparts, who neglected nuclear weapons after the Cold War, Putin launched an ambitious modernization program in the early 2000s. This program, now nearly complete, includes the menacing Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), dubbed “Satan II” in the West as a nod to the destructive power of the 10 warheads it will carry. Contrary to America’s smaller missiles loaded with single warheads, Russia’s hydra-headed ICBMs can threaten the geographically dispersed missile silos that dot America’s heartland. All told, Russia has augmented its approximately 330 ICBMs, 192 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and 60 heavy bombers with more exotic delivery systems like nuclear-powered intercontinental torpedoes and cruise missiles. These exotic systems are exempt from the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty provisions limiting Russia and the United States to 700 delivery systems carrying 1,550 accountable strategic warheads—a category of weapons that can strike targets at global distances.

It is with these strategic forces that Putin first rattled the nuclear saber in the early days of his full-scale
invasion of Ukraine, placing <[link removed]> them on “high combat alert” to deter NATO intervention. After his bid to topple Kyiv stalled, Putin raised the possibility of theater nuclear escalation to weaken America’s material support for Ukraine. Though his incessant saber-rattling proved hollow, Putin’s force modernization coerced Washington into slow-rolling its support for fear of provoking a limited nuclear attack.

In this sense, the Kremlin boss has successfully exploited his earlier decision to break a Cold War-era arms control treaty <[link removed]>, which banned the deployment of Russian and American ground-launched medium-range missiles in Europe and Asia. Putin’s brazen violation has helped him lock in a sizable regional nuclear advantage, even as Washington has upheld its obligations and stood pat with a small number of gravity bombs assigned to less capable fighter aircraft. In total, Putin now has at his disposal some 2,000 substrategic nuclear weapons, many assigned to theater-range missiles, in contrast to America’s 100 gravity bombs forward-stationed in Europe. And it is this asymmetry that Putin would have leveraged to suppress America’s support for Ukraine by launching a nuclear-armed theater missile as a warning shot across Kyiv’s bow....

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The Senate’s Essential Referees <[link removed]>______
Laura Dove
Simplifying Americans’ Return to Work from Disability <[link removed]>
Mark J. Warshawsky
THANKS FOR READING!
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