4
Conclusion
The United States and its allies are facing serious and evolving threats to nuclear security and peace. Examples include new strategic conditions with two or more adversaries with large nuclear arsenals; domestic and foreign terrorist organizations with possible connections between them; and adversaries obtaining other powerful capabilities (i.e., biological, chemical, cyber weapons) and adopting first-use doctrines.
The ability of the United States to maintain deterrence in peace and restore deterrence in war will be strongly influenced by thoughtful and well-done risk analyses that allow the U.S. government decision makers to have access to a wider array of possible outcomes and choices—even those “contingencies,” as stated by Thomas Schelling, that look unfamiliar and strange and, therefore, improbable. The United States as a nation has much it can do to improve that ability.
