Making Nuclear War 'Limited' Risks Making It More Likely — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Elbridge Colby, US undersecretary of defense for policy, told the US Strategic Command Deterrence Symposium that deterrence requires giving the president credible, "rational" military options so he is never forced to choose between accepting defeat and launching catastrophic nuclear war.
- Colby's three-part strategy calls for strong conventional forces to deny limited objectives, credible limited nuclear options to close the gap between conventional defeat and all-out nuclear war, and European and Indo-Pacific allies shouldering more of the conventional burden.
- Drawing a Taiwan analogy, Colby compared the US approach to the Allies winning the Battle of Britain rather than "marching on Berlin" — aiming to prevent crossing a body of water and sustaining operations, not threatening China's destruction.
- Colby cited Ukraine's strikes deep inside Russia against strategic targets as evidence that conflict can climb high on the escalation ladder while remaining controlled, a logic he extends to a potential US-China crisis.
- Dr Michael Clarke of Deakin University, writing in the piece, warns that US counterforce strikes on Chinese missile forces, command systems, satellites or mainland bases — designed as denial defense — would likely be read in Beijing as preparation for a disarming first strike on its nuclear deterrent.
- Clarke argues that more nuclear options solve capability credibility but not commitment credibility, noting that Tokyo, Seoul, Manila and Canberra may still doubt Washington will risk American cities for their defense under the administration's "America First" principles.
- The piece concludes that making nuclear weapons more "usable" may make American threats look more believable — but adversaries will take their use more seriously, raising pressures for pre-emption and blurring the boundary between conventional and nuclear war.
Why it matters: Colby's emerging strategy is not academic: if adopted, it would reshape how Washington signals resolve to Beijing in a Taiwan crisis — and Clarke's critique is that the very moves designed to steady allies and deter China could instead convince Beijing that a disarming first strike is coming. For Indo-Pacific allies already weighing whether US guarantees hold, the credibility gap Colby admits exists ("is it worth it?") may widen, not narrow, under his framework.
Ask SkimNews
