Emerging technologies and their integration into military systems have redefined traditional approaches to warfare. Modern military theory largely divides the conduct of warfare into three levels: tactical, operational, and strategic, and each is believed to carry distinct weapon systems, troop deployments, and military objectives. It was widely believed that weapon systems of one level could not produce significant effects in another and could only materialize within their own sphere. For example, for decades, nuclear weapons have been deemed as the sole instruments holding the potential of producing strategic effects, and conventional weapons were reduced to mere tactical and operational levels. However, this assumption is technologically challenged. Today, advanced conventional weapons can produce strategic effects below the nuclear threshold while engaging targets like command systems, missile forces, political-military leadership, and the very survivability of nuclear assets. Their precision, lethality, and psychological effects put them beyond the conventional level. By virtue of their cross-domain effects, these weapons can undermine deterrence stability, disrupt crisis stability, and reshape escalation dynamics. Yet they fall outside any meaningful arms-control initiatives.

By and large, conventional weapons producing strategic effects can be classified into two broad categories: kinetic and non-kinetic. The kinetic strand involves weapons such as conventional-precision strike capabilities, including cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, anti-satellite weapons, and unmanned aerial vehicles. These weapons can alter the target's physical environment with pinpoint accuracy, causing destructive effects. They can be vulnerable to nuclear command, control, communication, and intelligence (C3I). They can engage nuclear assets, especially the silo-based facilities, thereby undermining second-strike capabilities. These weapons travel at extremely high velocity and pursue non-ballistic trajectories, with low observability that complicates detection and interception. As a result, they significantly compress decision-making timelines and intensify the risks of misperception and inadvertence. 

On the other hand, the non-kinetic class involves advanced cyber capabilities, electronic warfare potentials, and counterspace weapons that provide a range of strategic functions. These capabilities threaten C3I, degrade satellite communications, manipulate satellite data and operations through jamming, and damage sensors using directed-energy effects via microwaves. Consequently, they impair early warning and ISR satellites, confuse decision-making, and create misperceptions. Conventional weapons could not replicate a wide area electromagnetic pulse. However, the advent of new types of payloads, such as graphite munitions and microwave warheads on cruise missiles, can take down the enemy power grid even in populated areas. These non-kinetic weapons are also used for sabotage operations. Israel’s use of the Stuxnet cyber weapon against Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities exemplifies how sabotaging key nuclear infrastructure is feasible through these weapons.

Given their immense potential, these weapons are interacting with and intertwined with nuclear capabilities as countries reorient their military postures. David Baldgin points out that the inclusion of such weapons in nuclear strategy has improved the deterrence posture of major powers. However, Baldgin ignores the very fact that these weapons simultaneously increase the temptations of offense that can undermine deterrence stability. For example, Russia and China perceive American non-nuclear strategic capabilities as a formidable threat to their second-strike capability, as they can make their silo-based missiles, mobile missile launchers, and early warning radars vulnerable. Therefore, recent policy documents considerably emphasis on their utility. The US National Security Strategy (2022) states that there is a need to assess the effectiveness of non-nuclear capabilities in deterrence and to integrate them into operational plans.

Beyond the interoperability of nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities in modern military strategies, these systems are strategically employed as a substitute for nuclear weapons. In such circumstances, geographical proximity plays a key role alongside advanced conventional weapons. For example, North Korean artillery deployed on the border with South Korea in range of Seoul can make a significant strategic impact. In the same vein, the comparatively compact geography of Europe also keeps conventional weapons at the strategic level without crossing the nuclear threshold. However, in mega theaters such as those between the US and China, the non-nuclear advanced conventional weapons can only improve deterrence posture. Notwithstanding, they lack significant deterrence value as compared to nuclear weapons. Russia’s vibrant arsenal of advanced conventional capabilities could not force Ukraine to provide further concessions before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine War.

Furthermore, the debate of conventional weapons engaging targets at a strategic level below the nuclear threshold is highly subjective and thus controversial. The advanced conventional weapons can engage counter-population, counter-force, and counter-leader operations. They also conduct strategic interdictions, targeting the adversary’s key domestic industries, war-industrial infrastructure, and crucial supply chains. Yet labelling them below ‘nuclear threshold’ is misleading—their cross-domain effect, i.e., conventional and strategic, blurs the deterrence threshold. Even worse, they cause massive destruction, with psychological effects that can influence decision-making and lead to severe consequences. As Colin Gray aptly notes, ‘A vehicle does not become strategic because it is intercontinental in range rather than merely intraregional or even intracontinental. A weapon, a capability, a project, is strategic only in its consequences.’

Yet these weapons fall outside any meaningful arms control initiatives between the leading nuclear-weapon states. The existing arms control architecture is centered around weapon type, not on their strategic effects. The Conference on Disarmament (CD), the leading multilateral negotiating forum, does not specifically deal with these categories of weapons. It classifies weapons into two categories, i.e., weapons of mass destruction and conventional arms. It takes into account nuclear disarmament, fissile material regulations, outer space security, and negative security assurance. However, the cross-domain effects of advanced conventional weapons are widely overlooked at the moment that emerging powers are utilizing them to reorient their military postures. Therefore, the governance of non-nuclear strategic weapons becomes paramount. It is thus needed to recognize a new arms category, namely: non-nuclear strategic weapons, that may deal with such weapons under future deliberations of the CD.

Shah Meer is an Assistant Research Fellow at Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN), Quetta. He has been researching nuclear and strategic affairs, foreign policies of major powers, strategic cultures of major powers, and Pakistan-India relations. He holds a master's in advanced International Relations and specializes in strategic affairs. He can be reached at shah.meer@bttn.org.pk and sangatshahmeer44@gmail.com.