Modern deterrence: charting a path to a new nuclear order in the context of global competition and rapid technological change

Modern deterrence: charting a path to a new nuclear order in the context of global competition and rapid technological change

Nuclear weapons have shaped international security for more than eighty years, underpinning national defence and alliances, influencing the conduct of conventional wars and defining the limits of what even the most powerful states are prepared to risk. Despite periods of acute tension, a degree of stability emerged during the Cold War, supported by secure second-strike capabilities and a framework of arms control agreements, principally between Washington and Moscow. But that order is fraying as negotiated limits give way to renewed competition, technology challenges traditional assumptions about deterrence, and confidence in security guarantees ebbs away.

Russia's nuclear threats in the context of its war against Ukraine have demonstrated both the constraining effect of deterrence and the scope it provides for aggression below the threshold of direct confrontation. While Russia and the United States still possess the great majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, China’s expanding arsenal is changing the relationships among the largest nuclear powers, and North Korea's growing capabilities and the risk of further proliferation in the Middle East add to an increasingly complex regional picture. These developments raise fundamental questions about how deterrence works in a world of multiple nuclear powers, overlapping regional conflicts, and increasingly interconnected security relationships. They also place growing pressure on extended deterrence: whether the United States can continue to provide credible security guarantees to its allies, and what this means for the security calculations of countries in Europe and East Asia in particular.

At the same time, technological change threatens fundamentally to alter the political and military conditions underpinning strategic stability. Advances in sensing, space-based surveillance, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and precision strike could expose forces previously considered secure, while missile defence could affect confidence in retaliation. Dependence on space infrastructure and shared conventional and nuclear systems creates further vulnerabilities to physical attack, electronic warfare and cyber operations. AI could improve warning and assessment but also accelerate events or leave leaders reliant on machine-derived advice they cannot adequately interrogate. There is great uncertainty whether new capabilities will be shared amongst even close allies. The Trump Administration was hesitant to share the cyber security capabilities of Anthropic’s Mythos model: will future Administrations be willing to share its yet more powerful successors? The pace of change is tremendous and defies prediction - but governments are already making long-term investments in nuclear capabilities that will have to remain credible in this changing technological environment.

Even as deterrence for existing nuclear powers becomes more unstable, non-nuclear powers exposed to threats without nuclear deterrence feel even more exposed. The risks of proliferation are growing which could further undermine strategic stability.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply to adapt nuclear forces to a more contested environment, but to preserve credible deterrence and strategic stability while avoiding dynamics that make conflict, escalation and proliferation more likely. How can governments maintain credible deterrence and reassure allies without encouraging an unconstrained arms race? What changes to nuclear forces, doctrines and alliances are necessary to maintain security in a world of multiple nuclear powers and rapid technological change?

How can the risks arising from the interaction of conventional and nuclear capabilities be managed, inlcuding escalation from conventional and cyber capabilities to nuclear capabilities? What steps can governments take today to preserve the possibility of future arms control and sustain the wider international commitment to non-proliferation? And what commitments and practical arrangements would give non-nuclear states sufficient confidence in extended deterrence and their wider security environment to forgo weapons of their own?

This Ditchley conference will bring together senior policymakers, military and strategic thinkers, and experts to examine these interconnected challenges. It will consider how nuclear deterrence must evolve in response to changing geopolitical and technological realities, what this means for alliances and regional security, and how governments can navigate a period of renewed competition while laying the foundations for a more stable and sustainable nuclear order.
In the middle part of the conference we will break into smaller working groups so as to be able to address selected issues in more depth. We will define the groups when participation in the conference is clearer.