A new nuclear age: the differences from the Cold War
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Tom Noonan and Laura Cook.

Nuclear weapons are regularly in the news. Vladimir Putin's threats over Ukraine. Ukraine's daring drone attack on Russia's nuclear bombers. The growing threat of North Korea and Iran. European countries like the UK adding to their nuclear deterrent. So if we're in a new nuclear age...

How is it different to the Cold War? Our guest today is Matthew Krainick, Vice President and Senior Director of the Scowcross Centre for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington DC, and he's a specialist in nuclear deterrence. So Matthew, are we in a new nuclear age?

Yes, I think we are in a new nuclear age and nuclear weapons remain the ultimate instrument of military force. There's cyber and a lot of other technologies, but none of those technologies can destroy societies on the other side of the world at 30 minutes or less. Nuclear weapons are still the only capability that can do that. And for that reason, they were central to the great power competition of the first Cold War era.

And they only receded into the background, I think, because great power competition receded into the background after the end of the Cold War. But now that great power competition has returned, nuclear weapons are once again returning to the center of international politics. What makes this era of nuclear weapons proliferation different to before then?

Yes. Well, you know, the Chinese had nuclear weapons starting in the 1960s. But the real difference now, I would argue the most significant one is because of China's massive nuclear buildup.

And China is probably engaged in the most far reaching nuclear buildup since the 1960s, going from 200 or so nuclear weapons to 1500 nuclear weapons. So we'll be a peer with the United States and Russia in the coming years.

And so this means for the first time in history, the United States and its allies will have to deal with not just one, but two peer nuclear superpowers at the same time. And so that really raises some fundamental questions about nuclear strategy, U.S. nuclear force posture and numbers.

And then, of course, you have North Korea as a nuclear power and Iran that is only a couple of weeks away from having a nuclear weapons capability. So it is more dangerous in many ways than the first Cold War.

It's interesting, Matthew, that you focus on China's nuclear weapons, because it feels like when we talk about Russia and the threat that the Kremlin poses, nuclear weapons are never far from that conversation. Maybe that's a reflection of the Cold War or of the history of US-Russia relations.

But when it comes to China and its competition with the US, it strikes me that we're much more likely to hear about economic competition, for example, or naval power in the South China Sea, as opposed to nuclear weapons. So are we overlooking the nuclear threat China poses?

Yes. To the question of do we overlook it, I think it depends on who the we is. I think you're right that it's not front page news in the way that Russia's nuclear threats are. But the expert community is paying close attention. Again, China is engaged in the biggest nuclear buildup in more than half a century. So China clearly thinks their nuclear weapons are important. And why are they doing

doing this. There are several theories, but none of them are really good. And I think the one that's most plausible to me is that they do want to invade Taiwan if necessary. As she has said many times, they believe that there is a great likelihood that the United States would intervene on Taiwan's behalf. And so this would be a war among nuclear powers. And I think China wants the ability to nuke the United States a lot

not just a little, to try to deter U.S. intervention or limit U.S. intervention. And they're watching what's happening in Ukraine, and they see that Putin's nuclear threats are working. President Biden was very clear that we did calibrate our assistance to Ukraine because we were afraid of Russian nuclear escalation. And so China wants to be able to do the same thing, to be able to use military force in its region and to limit the West's response due to fears of nuclear escalation.

Just talk us through that example you mentioned of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. How do you think that confrontation with the US would play out when it comes to a head? And how does that lead to a nuclear crisis specifically?

Yes, well, China would have two major options. The first would be a blockade to try to cut the island off from the outside world and force Taiwan's leaders to capitulate. But I don't think that's a strong option because Taiwan's leaders are unlikely to just agree to be absorbed into mainland China. They're pretty opposed to that.

So then the second option would be a full scale invasion. And to do that, China would have to move over large numbers of soldiers to occupy Taiwan. And so the way they would likely do that would be on ships. And China is building large numbers of amphibious landing craft to do that. And so essentially, the U.S., the Taiwan, the allied strategy to stop that

would be, as a former U.S. defense official put it, to sink the Chinese Navy in 72 hours. So you would be talking about a direct military conflict among nuclear armed powers. And so I think the shadow of nuclear weapons would hang over that conflict. And I think that China would have good incentives to manipulate and brandish nuclear weapons just the way that Putin is in Ukraine to try to influence the American response.

And then there are scenarios where I could imagine nuclear weapons being used either by China or the United States or both. Just to go back to the differences between this nuclear age and the Cold War, what are the technological differences?

Yes, well, there are a number of differences, one with more advanced intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance systems. We probably have a better sense of what the adversary was doing if it was moving mobile nuclear missiles, for example.

But then also, you know, amazing what we just saw on the battlefield in Ukraine a few days ago with Ukraine using drones to attack Russian strategic bombers. So we used to think that if you wanted to attack an adversary's nuclear forces, you would have to launch your own intercontinental range nuclear attack. And so the attack just a few days ago does raise interesting questions for nuclear strategists.

strategy? Could the United States or China or Russia attempt to disarm their opponents of strategic forces using these new technologies, drones, for example? To touch on that Ukrainian attack, Ukraine focused on Russian strategic bombers, which can carry nuclear payloads. But of course, Russia has submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles on land. So are the bombers still that important? Is this a significant blow to Russia's nuclear capabilities?

Well, the United States has had a nuclear triad for decades. So this is tried as strategic bombers, land based intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine based missiles.

And many officials have looked at this over the years and thought, can we cut a leg or two? And time and time again, every secretary of defense, Democratic and Republican administrations comes to the conclusion that no, all three are necessary and each has its own special attributes. And so I think the short answer is that strategic bombers are important. Other legs are important as well. But

Russia wouldn't have gone to the trouble of building and maintaining these bombers if they thought they didn't need them. Okay, Matthew, so we're in a new nuclear age, as we've described it, a new age of nuclear risk. What do you think needs to be done to lessen those risks and prevent wider proliferation and ultimately prevent a nuclear crisis?

Well, I think the biggest risks right now come from a weak West. I think that Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought he could get away with it. He's making nuclear threats because he thinks that they work. Xi is building up his nuclear arsenal because he thinks he can use that to coerce the West. So I think the most important thing we can do right now is to strengthen our own deterrence. And so that starts at the conventional level. And so it's good to see European allies building up their conventional defenses and

but then also at the strategic level. And I was appointed by Congress to serve on a commission. Essentially, our commission called for the first nuclear weapons buildup in the United States since the end of the Cold War. We called for the Pentagon to buy more nuclear capable bombers, more nuclear capable submarines, to upload more warheads on our existing missiles and to develop and deploy more

more theater, non-strategic nuclear weapons to both Europe and Asia. So I think that's the most important thing we can do both to deter the adversaries, but also to assure allies.

If the U.S. nuclear posture is weak, more likely that, say, a South Korea or a Poland say, maybe we should build our own nuclear weapons. But if they see that American nuclear umbrella is still strong, more likely that we convince them not to build their own nuclear weapons and to rely on U.S. extended deterrence. Interesting. More, not less in that case. Matthew, thank you. That is Matthew Kranich from the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, D.C.

Plenty of warnings there about China's nuclear capability and the threat it poses to the United States in particular. In amongst his tariff policy and economic competition with Beijing, Donald Trump has also been particularly agitated about China's naval power. On May 14th, we looked at China's shipbuilding and whether the United States is acting too late to stay dominant. The episode is called China is beating the US in the warship race.

That's it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.

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