“Design a force suited to the reality of the pacing threat.” “Shift in our primary focus to great power competition.” Phrases like these so permeate the U.S. Marine Corps’ discourse about its purpose and force design that they obscure a critical feature: nuclear weapons and the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation by conventional forces. Today nuclear weapons are frequently discussed in the context of nuclear force modernization, arms control, and nonproliferation. However, most commentary on conventional force design, planning, and education in the Marine Corps rarely acknowledges the prospect of nuclear conflict. And even as other services grapple directly with nuclear forces when they mention conventional capability, it is inevitably from the perspective of deterrence and accounting for the challenge of tactical nuclear weapons.
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