Extended Deterrence and Extended Nuclear Deterrence in a Pandemic World

Abstract

The COVID19 pandemic has reinforced two of the main contributing factors to the current age of disruption: the tendency of national leaders to act unilaterally; and the global decline in trust. Rather than acting collaboratively, national leaders everywhere, particularly in Europe and North America, have pursued a “go it alone” policy towards both containing and managing the virus. Some might even describe it as a “dog eat dog” approach. “Extended deterrence” and “extended nuclear deterrence”, as security guarantees extended to allies of the United States, are artefacts of over six decades of US-only strategic policy and planning. No other Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) offers such guarantees. Their fragility was already evident before the appearance of the coronavirus. And given that the credibility of the deterrence doctrine, essentially a US-backed doctrine, has continued to erode in recent years, President Trump’s mercurial approach to the coronavirus pandemic and international agreements has encouraged the allies of the United States to look at their national security through the lens of his approach to the coronavirus. Ultimately, national defence cannot be built on a fiction. The allies and clients of the United States will need to look to their own resources to guarantee their security. This is more likely to be a product of an energetic and invested diplomacy, constructive internationalism, the re-generation of trust, renewed regional and international efforts towards nuclear disarmament, renewed global progress on climate change mitigation and, of course, effective global mechanisms to manage and ultimately eliminate the COVID19 pandemic.