On more is better – The Economist:

‘The build-up could start in 2026, with the expiry of New start, a treaty between America and Russia that restricts the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. “If the president were to decide, upon the expiration of New start in February 2026, that we need to increase the size of the deployed force, we want to be in a position to execute relatively quickly,“ says a senior American defence official. How far and how fast any build-up would go may depend in part on whether the next president is Kamala Harris, who may try to preserve Democrats’ efforts to limit nukes, or Donald Trump, who was a nuclear hawk in his first term.’ (…)

‘How many nukes are enough? The American doctrine of “damage limitation”—using nuclear weapons to destroy the enemy’s weapons—necessarily means that the larger a foe’s arsenal the larger America’s must be. Mr Narang insists that America does not need to match its foes warhead for warhead. Officials add that much depends on esoteric calculations about the probability of destroying a particular target, whether nuclear-armed submarines can be destroyed by conventional means, how many weapons are likely to survive an enemy’s first strike and so on. Franklin Miller, a former Pentagon official, has suggested roughly doubling the current force to 3,000-3,500 deployed warheads.
Critics decry such reckoning as the madness of modern-day Dr Strangeloves. They also argue that, in war over Taiwan, say, China is unlikely to distinguish between tactical and strategic attacks on its forces. Some want a “minimum” deterrent: just enough to destroy the enemy’s main cities after a surprise attack. “What nuclear weapons are good for is destroying countries that use nuclear weapons against you,” says Jeffrey Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, an American graduate school. When it comes to confronting the likes of Russia, he says, America’s total stockpile of 5,000-plus warheads does not offer much more deterrence than France’s 300-odd.’

Read the article here.

The minimalist approach is over. More is better, once again.

Nuclear weapons are good for you, just like milk.

I’m not sure if the public in Western Europe will come out against nuclear weapons as they did in many European countries in the 80s. I guess now, a nuclear warhead nearby makes many people feel safe, it’s like having a pharmacy in walking distance.