The Indo-Pacific’s next deterrence problem may be a shortage not of military capability but of coordination. As Australia, Japan and South Korea acquire long-range strike, missile defence and other strategic conventional capabilities, they are increasingly becoming mixed up in U.S. nuclear signalling. Yet the U.S. alliance network lacks mechanisms for coordinating how use of allies’ capabilities is interpreted and communicated during a crisis.

This gap should be addressed before it becomes a wartime liability. U.S. allies should strengthen peacetime and pre-crisis signalling, including through wargames that focus on escalation management and consider how that signalling might be interpreted. Partners should also develop a common deterrence vocabulary and understanding. This would help ensure consistency in messaging to adversaries and avoid miscommunications that could undermine joint efforts.

Nuclear weapons and the deterrent strategy accompanying their deployment are sometimes poorly understood. For the general public that is understandable given the complexities of preventing nuclear war. What is most worrisome are those “experts” who widely seek the abolition of nuclear weapons but are often confused about the real American nuclear deterrent necessary to prevent war.  

For example, the most misunderstood idea is often referred to as MAD or mutual assured destruction. This is the assumption that U.S. strategy relies on the idea that should the U.S. be attacked with nuclear weapons, our only option would inevitably lead to the exchange of such overwhelming nuclear force as to destroy both our own country and the adversary nation. A second bad assumption is that since MAD if carried out would get us all killed, reductions toward zero nuclear weapons—abolition--should be our highest priority. And since it’s still an all or nothing MAD strategy, prudence would jettison the idea of nuclear deterrence altogether. Including any call for any flexible or limited regional response capability.