Table of Contents
■ I Report Summary
■ II Use of Nuclear Weapons by the United States
■ I Report Summary
In June 2024, as military relations between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are strengthening and progressing under the Biden administration, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the United States released a military strategy report that realistically assumes a two-front war.
Understanding Opportunistic Aggression in the Twenty-First Century (PDF)
(June 6, 2024 Center for Strategic and International Studies)
In this report, opportunistic aggression (war) refers to an aggression (war) that occurs when a US ally or other country is being aggressed by an adversary and another adversary country takes advantage of the situation and launches a war against another US ally or other country, and the report examines and emphasizes the weaknesses of the US military in military strategy in the second theater.
The CSIS Nuclear Issues Project considers the war of aggression by the enemy in this case to be a “21st century piggyback invasion,” and concludes that the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons by the US military in a two-front war is high. The report also points out that “21st century piggyback invasion” is a “problem that is directly related to reality.”
Currently, the US only uses nuclear weapons as a deterrent. However, in a two-front war, the US has begun to develop nuclear tactics that incorporate nuclear attacks as part of the military operation process. In a two-front war, the US’s conventional forces are dispersed and insufficient, making it necessary to use nuclear weapons.
This military strategy report was prepared by 11 experts on nuclear weapons issues in the US. The team includes seven government experts, including policy and research and technology officials from the Department of Defense, Navy policy officials, a nuclear weapons policy expert from the Naval Research Institute, a nuclear proliferation expert from the Air Force Research Institute, and a foreign affairs expert from the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy, as well as experts on nuclear weapons issues from non-governmental organizations (see PDF pages 32-34).
The report states on the article’s introduction page:
“The Nuclear Issues Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has launched a working group focused on ‘Understanding Opportunistic Aggression in the Twenty-First Century’ to generate new thinking on the core issues that will affect future nuclear strategy and nuclear posture.”
Understanding Opportunistic Aggression in the Twenty-First Century
This “new thinking” refers to military doctrines on the use of nuclear weapons. In other words, it is the fundamental thinking that underpins the use of nuclear weapons.
■ II Use of Nuclear Weapons by the United States
In November 2024, Putin revised the nuclear doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons for the first time since June 2020. Under the Biden administration, military ties between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are rapidly strengthening (see reference article below).
Back in Stock? The State of Russia’s Defense Industry after Two Years of the War
(April 22, 2024, Center for Strategic and International Studies)
The CSIS report mentioned at the beginning is in two parts, and I read the first part, which is the main argument. After realistically assuming a two-front war and a piggyback war of aggression, the report concludes that the United States will likely eventually need to use nuclear weapons in a two-front war to protect its allies.
In particular, it states that if both adversaries in a two-front war are nuclear powers, the United States will be most likely to launch a preemptive attack with tactical nuclear weapons (※ Author’s note – at this stage, this applies to Russia, China, and North Korea).
Finally, if both the initial adversary and the opportunistic aggressor are nuclear peers, the United States would confront an insufficient resources challenge. … This strategy would likely require the greatest reliance on nuclear weapons and result in the greatest likelihood of U.S. first use, as the United States might need to employ tactical nuclear weapons to offset conventional weaknesses. (PDF, p. 21)
The strategy also considers the possibility that a crisis would begin with a hostile country using nuclear weapons. For example, the strategy states that the possibility of the United States using nuclear weapons would increase in response to a nuclear attack by North Korea on a U.S. ally, or to a threat by China or Russia to use nuclear weapons against a U.S. ally (threat to prevent U.S. military intervention) (PDF, p. 21).
At the end of the first part of the report, the report points out that “the challenges of simultaneously managing these intra- and inter-conflict war deterrence policies are understudied and under-theorized, but are increasingly relevant in a bipolar world of rivals” (PDF, p. 23).
Judging from the description in this section and the contents of the report, this military report is a summary of the basic position of nuclear military policy recommendations as a theory of principle, and the scenarios of actual military operations may be different depending on the political judgment of the time.
However, if the United States were to formulate a scenario of actual military operations such as a preemptive attack with tactical nuclear weapons in a two-front war, the biggest flaw of this military report is that it does not mention how to deal with a retaliatory nuclear attack by an enemy country against a preemptive nuclear attack by the United States. This is what is meant by “understudied and under-theorized” in terms of military policy. This important assumption is also true of the nuclear military doctrine that Putin is revising, and there is no indication of Russian military action in the event that the United States and Europe launch a retaliatory nuclear attack on Russia.
■ Related Posts
Serious Deficiencies and Vulnerabilities in the U.S. Military Industry: Background to the National Defense Industrial Strategy
(My article, February 1, 2024)
