President Joe Biden has assumed command of the U.S. nuclear arsenal at a particularly turbulent time. The Trump administration, consistent with former President Donald Trump’s own fixation on the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, accelerated programs to develop a new generation of warheads and delivery vehicles, sought a new low-yield warhead and a new sea-launched cruise missile, and added vague new language to U.S. declaratory policy that expanded the role of nuclear weapons in deterring nonnuclear attacks. As the Department of Defense is struggling with an enormous “bow wave” of modernization costs across the force, these efforts sometimes diverted funds away from critical conventional priorities. The overall effect was to increase the nation’s reliance on its nuclear forces at the expense of more credible conventional deterrence options.
