The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict

by Elbridge A. Colby

If China is willing to use nuclear weapons and the United States is not, Beijing will dominate over whatever interests are at stake—whether about Taiwan’s fate, that of another US ally, or free American access to Asia more broadly. Moreover, given the repercussions of such a conflict for the anti-hegemonic coalition as a whole, the stakes at issue would likely be much broader and deeper than just about Taiwan. Conversely, a state willing and able to use its nuclear weapons effectively can show its opponent the inutility of or high costs associated with employing nuclear weapons against it, thereby almost certainly making such nuclear employment against it less likely in the future. This does not mean, of course, that a state must immediately resort to Armageddon in the face of any nuclear use by an adversary. But that state must have some way of responding effectively with its own nuclear forces—or it will be dominated.