This week, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) filed its bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025. The bill includes several items from senior member Sen. Deb Fischer’s (R-NE) Restoring American Deterrence Act, reinforcing the emerging consensus that a nuclear overhaul is needed to compete with China and Russia. As ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) remarked, advancing the bill and Sen. Fischer’s legislation “shows there is bipartisan support for doing more to maintain deterrence and protect American interests.”
Indeed, the SASC’s commitment to strengthening deterrence embodies the broad agreement in the nuclear community that more is needed to reinforce strategic stability. In spring 2023, for example, a bipartisan study group convened by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory concluded that “Today’s nuclear force is only marginally sufficient to meet today’s requirements. For tomorrow’s requirements, the deficiencies are even more striking.”
Months later, the congressionally mandated Strategic Posture Commission’s final report echoed the Livermore study group. Six Democratic commissioners joined six Republican commissioners in recommending steps to reinforce the strategic nuclear posture and broaden the range of theater strike options. “Decisions need to be taken now,” the final report warned, “in order for the nation to be prepared to address the threats from [China and Russia] during the 2027-2035 timeframe.”
What’s more, the Biden administration apparently agrees. As Pranay Vaddi, a senior director at the National Security Council, recently affirmed: “If [China and Russia] take steps to increase the salience of nuclear weapons—we will have no choice but to adjust our posture and capabilities to preserve deterrence and stability.”
Given the partisan divide that roils American politics today, one could easily be surprised by this emerging consensus. A close look at America’s nuclear past, however, reveals a strong tradition of bipartisanship.
During the Cold War, dramatic changes in the threat environment consistently spurred cooperation among political rivals. In the late 1950s, bitter debates at the dawn of the missile age concealed a rough consensus between Democrats and Republicans. Senator John F. Kennedy, during his 1960 presidential run, certainly made hay out of the falsehood that President Eisenhower had ceded to the Soviets an advantage in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The young senator promised to redress this seemingly perilous situation by accelerating the ICBM program.
Though Eisenhower recognized that the “missile gap” was a myth, a product of limited intelligence collection and overheated political rhetoric, he grudgingly accepted that the inevitable rise of a Soviet missile arsenal demanded action. His administration thus programmed some 810 ICBMs to prepare for the decade ahead.
Indeed, the difference between the Eisenhower administration and the Kennedy campaign lay in the specific size and shape of the buildup—not the question of its necessity. The experienced and measured World War II general preferred to delay accelerating the missile program and wait for the more reliable next-generation Minuteman system. The inexperienced and brash senator, in contrast, wanted to ramp up production of the unwieldy first-generation Atlas missile.
Thus, upon taking office in January 1961, the Kennedy team ironically struggled to differentiate its strategic missile program from Eisenhower’s. It eventually settled on a posture featuring 1,000 Minuteman and 54 Titan II ICBMs, a slight expansion of Eisenhower’s program that Kennedy planners came to regret.
In the mid-1970s, a further sea change in the threat environment—the Soviet achievement of nuclear parity—provoked another bipartisan push to adjust the US posture. Once again, the parameters of the debate centered on what needed adjusting rather than the need for change itself. As such, the Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan administrations advanced a “counterforce” revolution that prepared a suite of highly accurate missile systems for the 1980s.
Moreover, both the Carter and Reagan administrations committed to a “dual-track” strategy that confronted the Kremlin with a stark choice: Either negotiate limits on your theater-range nuclear missiles or the United States would deploy its formidable new strike capabilities. The Soviets eventually conceded and signed the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987, which removed an entire class of nuclear weaponry from the field.
In light of today’s deteriorating security landscape, the United States is fortunate that its bipartisan nuclear tradition endures. The SASC’s NDAA signals general agreement that the emerging two-peer threat environment demands a strategic overhaul. Unsurprisingly, the ongoing debate about adjusting the nuclear posture follows a familiar Cold War pattern, focusing as it does on the specific capabilities required rather than relitigating the need to shift gears.
The Biden administration and Congress should follow the example of their Cold War forerunners and hash out the details of the new nuclear consensus. As Sen. Fischer recently warned, “We need to take action today to meet the threats of tomorrow.”
China and Russia will not grant the United States a grace period to resolve its broader partisan divisions.
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