Relying on the threat of a second strike makes even less sense today than it did during the Cold War.
Donald Trump told Elon Musk this week that he’d like to build an Iron Dome for the U.S. “We need it,” Mr. Trump said, “because it just takes one maniac to start something.” That system, used by the Israel Defense Forces, is designed to intercept short-range rockets. America doesn’t face the same threats as the Jewish state, but the proposal could help address a related issue: The U.S. needs to build its nuclear missile defense.
Our present strategy was born decades ago. In the early years of the Cold War the U.S. faced a choice between pursuing missile defense and nuclear deterrence. Policymakers chose the latter, and the strategy held that a large enough arsenal would defer any adversary from striking first.
The approach is known as the second-strike strategy or, as historian Keith Payne has called it, “the great American gamble.” The theory assumes that our foes won’t misjudge or misunderstand us. It has worked—but sometimes precariously. In 1983, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov’s judgment alone helped prevent nuclear escalation. When Oko, the Soviets’ early-warning detection system, identified what appeared to be five incoming American missiles, Petrov judged that such a small strike was illogical and likely a false alarm. He was correct. A man of poorer judgment might have immediately reported the alert to his superiors, who would have had only minutes to decide whether to retaliate.
Read the rest in the Wall Street Journal.
