Nukes race

The US and Russia seem to be entering a new nuclear arms race. Next month, Trump's nuclear posture review will be published, and leaks of early drafts suggest the Pentagon is going to get two new systems, a submarine-launched nuclear-armed cruise missile to replace a nuclear Tomahawk missile which was retired a few years ago and a low-yield submarine-launched strategic ballistic missile. Low yield means limited destruction, not annihilation. I'm not sure it makes much difference. A nuclear missile is a nuclear missile. But the idea is that a smaller-yield nuclear missile acts as a deterrent on a different level, just in case there is anyone around, such as Russia, which might in the future consider the possibility of actualling launching a lower-yield atomic weapon on the gamble that the US, without an equivalent weapon, might balk at retaliating with the full force of its heavyweight ICBMs. The theology of nuclear deterrence is complex and no one truly knows what might happen were Moscow to be so rash as to launch, for example, its much-vaunted nuclear torpedo in anger. So, the argument goes, whatever Russia has, the US better have too, to make sure the mutual assured destruction (MAD) Cold War concept is fully understood. This is what arms races are all about. In the Cold War both sides were constantly frightening each other with often dud intelligence about how one or the other had surged ahead in nuclear potency, both in terms of missile numbers and payload. But, the deterrence theologians have always argued that MAD worked because neither the Soviet Union, as it was, nor the United States thought annihilation from the Earth was a good idea. But MAD is now getting a little worn round the edges. Russia has for some time had a military doctrine which actually contemplates the need for nuclear weapons. The only possible explanation for that is that some clever general in the Russian army or some Russian academic steeped in deterrence theory has persuaded Putin and co that in the new era a nuclear weapon can be used without it leading to retaliatory annihilation. Because that seems to be Moscow's thinking, the Pentagon now feels it has to think the same way. Trump obviously thinks it's the right way to go. So the Pentagon will probably get its two new lower-yield nuclear weapons, costing billions of dollars. So we will go from nuclear restraint under Obama to what-the-hell-let's-have-it-all under Trump. Is anyone really surprised?