The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy has rejected limits on using nuclear weapons long championed by arms control advocates and, in the past, by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Citing burgeoning threats from China and Russia, the Defense Department said in the document released Thursday that "by the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.” In response, the U.S. will "maintain a very high bar for nuclear employment” without ruling out using the weapons in retaliation to a nonnuclear strategic threat to the homeland, U.S. forces abroad or allies.
Biden pledged in his 2020 presidential campaign to declare that the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be used only to deter or retaliate against a nuclear attack, a position blessed by progressive Democrats and reviled by defense hawks. The threat environment has changed dramatically since then, and the Pentagon strategy was forged in cooperation with the White House.