Escalation Is Not Security: Why Payne’s Deterrence Doctrine Misses the Point

In his recent article, “Nuclear Deterrence in Question: How We Got Here, and What to Do,” Dr. Keith B. Payne argues that the United States must urgently expand its nuclear arsenal to “restore deterrence” in a more dangerous world. He calls arms control “naïve,” urges a rapid “upload” of additional warheads, and portrays disarmament advocates as victims of misplaced idealism.

But Payne’s prescription—rearmament as salvation—repeats the very mistakes that brought us here. His argument rests on a Cold War logic that treats fear as wisdom and militarization as stability. It is a view that cannot see beyond power, even as communities around the world bear the cost of that power’s maintenance.

The Real Cost of “Low-Cost” Deterrence

Payne describes nuclear uploading as “a timely, low-cost option.” In reality, every dollar spent on nuclear buildup is a dollar diverted from housing, healthcare, climate adaptation, and education. The so-called “affordable” path to deterrence is an expensive detour away from human security.

Decades of military spending have not made us safer. They have hollowed out the very systems that sustain life: infrastructure, food security, and social cohesion. When policymakers speak of “readiness,” communities hear “austerity.”

Misreading History

Payne blames arms control for emboldening adversaries, calling the past 30 years of diplomacy a “holiday from history.” Yet history shows the opposite. Arms control treaties like START I and the INF Treaty reduced nuclear risk, built verification systems, and opened dialogue across ideological divides. The absence of such agreements today—not their existence—is what fuels instability.

The Myth of Deterrence as Peace

To claim that expanding nuclear arsenals prevents war is to confuse paralysis with peace. Deterrence depends on the perpetual threat of annihilation—a fragile equilibrium that demands endless spending and silence from those who question it.

True peace is not maintained through the shadow of extinction but through the steady work of justice, diplomacy, and trust. Security built on fear is security that can never last.

A Different Logic of Safety

A peace economy begins with a different premise: that safety is collective. It recognizes that the weapons meant to protect us instead drain our capacity to care for one another. Instead of uploading warheads, we should be downloading resources into human needs—schools, hospitals, clean energy, and conflict prevention.

International cooperation has achieved more for human survival than any missile silo ever could. Rejoining and strengthening treaties, investing in diplomacy, and demilitarizing budgets are not acts of naïveté; they are acts of courage.

The Way Forward

Dr. Payne warns that we are “in an unprecedentedly precarious place.” He is right about the danger—but wrong about the cause. Our precarity stems not from too little militarization, but from too much faith in it.

The United States must stop digging the hole deeper. Instead of arming against the future, we must build it: one where peace is sustained by equity, not by threat; and where security is measured not in megatons, but in mutual survival.