America's nuclear forces will adapt but not grow, we hope under the limits of existing treaties with Russia:
The Trump administration concluded that the U.S. should largely follow its predecessor’s blueprint for modernizing the nuclear arsenal, including new bomber aircraft, submarines and land-based missiles. It also endorsed adhering to existing arms control agreements, including the New START treaty that limits the United States and Russia each to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads on a maximum of 700 deployed launchers.
How this is reckless as the Union of
[One spokeswoman from the group] said the administration is blurring the line between nuclear and conventional war-fighting.
The blurring is being caused by Russia which lacks the conventional military power to adequately protect its borders and not our proposed response to it:
Like Obama, Trump would consider using nuclear weapons only in “extreme circumstances,” while maintaining a degree of ambiguity about what that means. But Trump sees a fuller deterrent role for these weapons, as reflected in the plan to develop new capabilities to counter Russia in Europe.
The administration’s view is that Russian policies and actions are fraught with potential for miscalculation leading to an uncontrolled escalation of conflict in Europe. It specifically points to a Russian doctrine known as “escalate to de-escalate,” in which Moscow would use or threaten to use smaller-yield nuclear weapons in a limited, conventional conflict in Europe in the belief that doing so would compel the U.S. and NATO to back down.
“Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear to lower the threshold for Moscow’s first-use of nuclear weapons,” the review said. [emphasis added]
"Escalate to de-escalate?" Good Lord, it's a nuclear "bloody nose" concept that some want us to apply with conventional weapons to North Korea to scare them into de-nuclearizing and which China may think could cheaply shove America out of the western Pacific.
The whole point of nuclear deterrence is to deter nuclear attacks by threatening a similar or worse response. The Russian idea that they could use even small nukes without provoking American retaliation in kind undermines the entire concept of deterrence! It's madness.
Of course we would respond with nukes. The first time we fail to respond to nukes used against us or our allies with nukes is the day our nuclear deterrence collapses no matter how many nukes we have in our arsenal. And having smaller nukes to respond in kind is more credible than threatening to use large nukes in response to Russian use of smaller nuclear warheads.
Having said that, I find this (from the first article) dangerous:
[The proposed American nuclear posture] would modify “a small number” of existing long-range ballistic missiles carried by Trident strategic submarines to fit them with smaller-yield nuclear warheads.
I thoroughly oppose obscuring the distinction between American strategic missiles and tactical missiles. It is way too dangerous for a foe to see missiles launched from a Trident sub and hope that they don't mistakenly think it is just the part they can see of an American strategic attack on their homeland.
Tactical nukes meant to deter Russian use of smaller tactical nukes must be obviously distinct from strategic weapons.
That proposal is in addition to new nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which I don't object to.
Although I can't rule out that these plans are meant to get Russia to agree to limits to their own shorter-range nukes lest we carry out our plans. [In a pre-publication update, I heard Mattis say that our plans could change if Russia scales back their shorter-range nukes.]
We need the means to deter Russian use of nuclear weapons at any level Russia contemplates to avoid escalation we don't intend. But for God's sake don't make it easy for Russia (or China or anyone else) to mistake a "tactical" nuke for a "strategic" nuke.
