Nuclear Security Matters

Joseph Nye considers lessons from his own work on preventing the spread of nuclear technology in the 1970s.

Americans have long seen their country as morally exceptional, but their exceptionalism actually comprises three distinct views. Whichever prevails in next year's presidential election will have significant implications for ongoing conflicts in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Stephen Walt analyzes the costs and benefits of forming alliances. When powerful and stable states face the same threats that the United States does, forming an alliance with them makes good sense. Adding weak and vulnerable members to an alliance may not strengthen it, and long-standing partnerships become less effective if some members let their own military capabilities languish. Another problem with the overzealous pursuit of new partners is the possibility that their agendas will be incompatible with those of the United States. 

Joseph Nye writes that if the United States maintains its alliances, invests in itself, and avoids unnecessary provocations, it can reduce the probability of falling into either a cold war or a hot war with China. But to formulate an effective strategy, it will have to eschew familiar but misleading historical analogies.

Cyber attacks are both exciting and terrifying, but the ongoing obsession with ‘cyber warfare’ clouds analysis and hampers strategy development. Much commentary and analysis of cyber conflict continues to use the language of war, where actors use ‘offensive cyber operations’ to meet adversaries in ‘engagements’ striving for victory on the ‘battlefield’ in the ‘cyber domain’. This discourse persists despite a growing consensus that cyber operations are primarily relevant in conflict short of war.

Although cyber conflict has existed for thirty years, the strategic utility of cyber operations remains unclear. The subversive trilemma explains why cyber operations tend to fall short of their promise in both warfare and low-intensity competition.

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

America’s botched response to the coronavirus pandemic is a warning that, unless our broken political and administrative systems are fixed, the country could experience a similar breakdown in future national crises, such as a massive cyberattack.