A Strategy to Replace “Nuclear Zero” Is Needed

Owen Graham /

Two modified Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Block IV interceptors are launched from the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) during a Missile Defense Agency test to intercept a short-range ballistic missile target June 5, 2008 in the Pacific Ocean west of Kauai, Hawaii. The missile, one of two launched, intercepted the target approximately 12 miles high on the Pacific Missile Range Facility. This was the second of two successful intercepts of the sea-based terminal capability and the fourteenth overall successful test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Program.

According to the latest news, India has successfully tested two nuclear-capable short-range ballistic missiles.

New Delhi is developing a range of missiles to improve its strategic capabilities against neighboring Pakistan (with whom it has fought three wars) and China (with whom it fought a brief border war in 1962). Pakistan was quick to follow suit and tested its own short-range missiles shortly thereafter.

South Asia is a nuclear tinder box, and U.S. policymakers should do everything possible to keep regional tensions in check. But the heightened missile activity in South Asia also highlights that President Obama’s road to “nuclear zero”, which is currently driving the U.S. arms control policy is built on precarious and unrealistic assumptions about the realities of the current international world order. (more…)

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