The nuclear war plan is hardly just about nuclear weapons anymore, but other warfighting elements that are included.
As Russian threats to Ukraine continue and persist, and as the Biden administration contemplates American responses, nuclear weapons lurk in the background. The nuclear option is postured to deter aggression, even in Europe, a fact made clear by a large-scale"Global Lightning" military exercise last year, which was based upon a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic states, a scenario that ultimately escalated to the use of nuclear weapons.
Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, sends along a copy of the cover page for the latest iteration of the war plan, updated to take into consideration the major shift underway in theto refocus from the war on terror to"great power competition.
Of course, this paints a somewhat antiseptic picture of what is actually going on, and it glosses over the main innovation in the nuclear war plan over the past two decades: The incorporation of non-nuclear capabilities into the nuclear war plan that allows contingency planners to assume enough capabilities to survive a Russia first strike, to retaliate, to absorb more attacks, retaliate again, and keep on doing the same again and again .