The US Department of Defense is drafting a revised nuclear strategy that emphasizes the potential use of shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons in regional conflicts against Russia or China.
Led by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, the planned document marks a transition from long-standing reliance on long-range strategic missiles built to neutralize an adversary’s entire nuclear force.
Officials maintain that the doctrine is designed to expand the president’s range of credible response options during an allied crisis, mitigating the need to resort to a full-scale nuclear intervention.
Colby is expected to brief military leadership at the US Strategic Command in Nebraska regarding the proposed doctrine, according to NBC News.
“If you actually want extended deterrence to be credible, you have to provide the nation’s political leadership with nuclear capabilities that common sense indicates you could actually use,” a defense insider told the outlet.
“Otherwise you’re reducing our leadership’s options to extreme choices that the adversary won’t find credible.”
New START
The review comes after the lapse of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in February 2026, which ended binding limits on deployed strategic warheads between Washington and Moscow.
Critics in the US Congress and foreign policy experts warn that placing greater emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons lowers the threshold for nuclear conflict and risks sparking a regional arms race in Europe and East Asia.
