Wednesday marks the 80th anniversary of when the U.S. employed the first ever nuclear bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed by the bombing of Nagasaki three days later on Aug. 9. But despite nearly a century of lessons learned, nuclear warfare still remains a significant threat.
“This is the first time that the United States is facing down two nuclear peer adversaries – Russia and China,” Rebeccah Heinrichs, nuclear expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital.
Heinrichs explained that not only are Moscow and Beijing continuing to develop new nuclear capabilities and delivery systems, but they are increasingly collaborating with one another in direct opposition to the West, and more pointedly, the U.S.
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is launched from an air field during military drills in Russia on Feb. 19, 2022. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)
Heinrichs argued the chief threat is not the number of nuclear warheads a nation possesses, but in how they threaten to employ their capabilities.
“I think that whenever there is a threat of nuclear use, it’s because adversaries, authoritarian countries, in particular Russia, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to invade another country. And that’s where the greatest risk of deterrence failure is,” she said. “It’s not because of the sheer number of nuclear weapons.”
Heinrichs said Russia is lowering the nuclear threshold by routinely threatening to employ nuclear weapons in a move to coerce Western nations to capitulate to their demands, as in the case of capturing territory in Ukraine and attempting to deny it NATO access.
Instead, she argued that the U.S. and its allies need to improve their deterrence by not only staying on top of their capabilities but expanding their nuclear reach in regions like the Indo-Pacific.
A rocket launches from missile system from the Plesetsk facility in northwestern Russia on Dec. 9, 2020. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)
“The answer is not to be so afraid of it or alarmed that you capitulate, because you’re only going to beget more nuclear coercion if you do that,” she said. “The answer is to prudently, carefully communicate to the Russians they are not going to succeed through nuclear coercion, that the United States also has credible response options.
“We also have nuclear weapons, and we have credible and proportional responses, and so they shouldn’t go down that path,” Heinrichs said. “That’s how we maintain the nuclear peace. That’s how we deter conflict. And that’s how we ensure that a nuclear weapon is not used.”
