America Should Rethink Its Commitments to Allies

Washington’s demands toward North Korea and Iran have one important feature in common. In both cases, U.S. officials in multiple administrations have insisted that America’s adversary renounce any ambition to possess nuclear weapons or a significant ballistic missile capability. The underlying assumption is that if Tehran or Pyongyang possesses even a small nuclear arsenal, it would pose not only an unacceptable threat to regional peace but also a dire threat to America’s own security.The worry about a menace to the U.S. homeland is improbable—unless Washington continues to put America’s safety and well-being at risk to defend vulnerable allies and security clients. That caveat underscores a crucial distinction between direct deterrence (deterring an attack on one’s own country) and extended deterrence (deterring an attack on a third party). The former has high credibility; the latter has significantly lower credibility.The United States successfully deterred the Soviet Union during the Cold War, even though that country possessed thousands of nuclear weapons and sophisticated missiles to deliver them. U.S. leaders had confidence in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction—that Moscow would never attack the American homeland, knowing that a U.S. retaliatory strike would be so devastating as to eliminate the USSR as a functioning society. Washington warned the Kremlin that such retaliation would occur not only if Moscow launched an attack on America, but also if Soviet forces attacked Washington’s European allies or key U.S. security partners in East Asia.

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