Angry Planet8 Aug 2025

How Many Nukes Does It Take to Win a War? (Trick Question)

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The world is living with a Cold War hangover. The logic of deterrence, which dominates the minds of the people who plan nuclear wars, means that America must have enough nuclear weapons to credibly threaten to destroy the world should someone launch nukes at it. That thinking led to a world with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and that was just when the U.S. had the Soviet Union to think about. Now it’s facing the twin threats of Russia and China. Does that mean America needs twice the nukes to handle twice the threats?

Some in the Pentagon seem to think so, and the world is embarking on a radical and expensive nuclear build up the likes of which it hasn’t seen in a generation.

What if there’s another way? James Acton is here to pitch us on a world where Optimal Deterrence does not mean spending trillions of dollars on new world-ending weapons just to make sure everyone else doesn’t use theirs.

Acton is a co-director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program and the author of a new article that outlines the 21st century nuclear arms race and a new plan to stop it.

Podcasting from an iPhone in a closet
The apocryphal camera lens story
The nuclear tease
What are nuclear weapons pointed at?
How to win a three-way nuclear war
The dread logic of counterforce targeting
Trump’s nuclear reticence
How many nukes are there anyway?
How to spend a trillion dollars on nuclear weapons upgrades
Acton’s big idea
“I don’t think we lose much by ceasing to target an adversary’s nuclear forces.”
“It doesn’t matter if they believe it or not.”

Optimal Deterrence

Russia’s nuclear torpedo

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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