The U.S. needs to revise its anti-proliferation strategy by creating new compacts with allies, pursuing diplomacy with peer adversaries and revitalizing nuclear exports, the Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation and U.S. National Security said in a report.
The bipartisan task force, consisting of former senior government officials and experts on national security, published the report entitled “Preventing an Era of Nuclear Anarchy” Monday.
The report emphasized five pillars on which to focus a new strategy: crafting new extended deterrence compacts with allies, pursuing diplomacy to reduce tensions with China and Russia, sustain international participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, revive U.S. nuclear exports to help other countries meet electricity demand and lead the global energy market to compete with Russia and China’s dominance and finally focus U.S. investment into emerging nuclear technologies globally.
“Emerging threats and changing technologies are increasing the risks that more countries will seek nuclear weapons or the means to produce them in the near future. And in a moment of renewed proliferation potential, many of the tools and mechanisms the United States has traditionally relied upon to combat the spread of nuclear weapons are becoming less effective,” the report said. “These developments, and the attendant security risks they produce, warrant revisions to U.S. anti-proliferation strategy.”
The report added that nuclear acquisition by any party, whether an ally or adversary to the U.S., would “diminish U.S. power and influence and inject additional uncertainty” because more states with nuclear weapons increase the risk of adversarial nuclear use.
The task force was formed by the Washington nuclear-focused think tanks the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative in October 2024.