“U.S. policy is to reduce dependence on nuclear weapons, which entails increasing dependence on conventional capabilities. This policy incentivizes prospective adversaries to develop or modernize nuclear weapons to offset U.S. conventional superiority.”— From a briefing, here, by Barry Watts of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The irony: this is precisely what the U.S. did during the Cold War to offset the Soviet Union’s conventional-firepower edge.
