Nuclear Deterrence in a Shifting Landscape

What is Trump doing to extended deterrence?

I got Polymarket to create a market on whether a US ally will acquire nuclear weapons in 2025. It’s currently trading at 8%. Are we buyers or sellers?

To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Vipin Narang, professor at MIT, who served as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for nuclear deterrence policy during the Biden administration; Pranay Vaddi, a senior fellow at the Center for Nuclear Security Policy at MIT who worked on arms control and non-proliferation on Biden’s National Security Council; and Junichi Fukuda, senior research fellow at Tokyo’s Sasakawa Peace Foundation.

We get into…

• The historical development of the American nuclear umbrella, including the “software” and “hardware” components of deterrence,

• The probability that an American ally will proliferate by 2030, and which countries are the most likely candidates,

• Why France proliferated despite US objections,

• How the world might respond to nuclear ambitions from Poland, Japan, or Saudi Arabia,

• China’s nuclear modernization and deterrence strategies for a multi-polar world.

Here's the RAND paper cited: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GUMnuxWoapmEYCw3g3NMUHxzZ6hVwWPi/view?usp=sharing

Outro music: Tom Lehrer - Who's Next? (YouTube Link)

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