Nuclear Strategy in the 21st Century: Continuity or Change?

In 2022, nuclear weapons have returned to centre stage in international politics. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s faltering war against Ukraine has left him isolated, and with few options available he has brandished his country’s nuclear sword in an attempt to compel Ukraine into submission and to deter the West from assisting Kyiv. His chilling nuclear rhetoric and signalling has plunged the Euro-Atlantic region back into the fraught politics of nuclear weapons and concentrated collective minds on the perennial problems of nuclear strategy. The study of nuclear politics, then, has reemerged as a critical research agenda in security studies. Yet, compared to the Cold War, where the faceoff between East and West prompted significant interest in nuclear strategy, accumulated knowledge on nuclear strategy has arguably faded. At the NATO Defense College, we endeavour to help bridge this intellectual gap. Every July, the NDC’s Early Career Nuclear Strategists Workshop (ECNSW) brings together young nuclear scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to engage directly with senior nuclear scholars and NATO officials. This NDC Research Paper offers the fruits of presentations made at the 2021 and 2022 editions of the workshop.

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