When and how could technological advances undermine nuclear deterrence? This research uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore the technical, strategic, and social factors that propagate interest in emerging technologies like quantum sensing, and to assess the likely effects on strategic stability. Recent scholarship asserts that new remote sensing technologies may soon provide the capabilities needed to detect, track, and precisely target the delivery systems that constitute a nuclear-armed state’s second-strike capabilities. If true, this would have profound consequences for international security, nuclear force structure planning and arms control. Even if such predictions are not technically feasible, exaggerated expectations generated by strategic or social influences could still negatively impact acquisition and force structure decisions critical to strategic stability and arms control policy.

This dissertation proposes an integrated, socio-technical analytical framework to examine the technical, strategic, and social factors that inform U.S. decision-making on new technologies with important military implications. The framework improves upon existing research in security studies literature by integrating technical projection methods and science and technology studies theories. Before applying the framework to the contemporary case of quantum sensing, the framework’s operability is demonstrated through five historical case studies: ballistic missile defense, hypersonics, satellite imagery, remote vision, and isomer weapons. These case studies illustrate the intricate interplay among technical, strategic, and social factors that has shaped prior U.S. decisions about pursuing technological innovations related to nuclear deterrence, often leading to over-investment as a strategy to hedge against technological surprise.

The quantum sensing case study begins with a technical assessment to determine the realistic advances that can be expected, and the likelihood of disruption to a core feature of stable nuclear deterrence: confidence in the survivability of retaliatory forces. It surveys experimental results to identify sensitivities of current quantum sensor prototypes and theoretical literature to evaluate the likelihood of performance gains as R&D progresses. It then estimates how much these projected capabilities could improve submarine detection and missile accuracy applications in the next 10 years. It finds that quantum sensing will afford more evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, improvements in comparison to existing capabilities.

The dissertation then surveys the types of strategic narratives and social dynamics that had important effects on prior decisions about efforts to innovate other strategically relevant technologies, highlighting how they also appear to be shaping debates and decisions about quantum sensing. By assessing competing claims about quantum sensing’s impact on second-strike vulnerability, this dissertation explores how diverging deterrence theories amplify disagreements over the impact of new technologies. It also evaluates the social factors that propagate expectations for quantum sensing across the respective social worlds of technologists and capability seekers, finding that realistic assessments are further frustrated by divides between technical and non-technical literatures and classified information barriers.

Based on these findings, policymakers should anticipate continued pressure to pursue emerging technologies like quantum sensing, regardless of patent technical limitations, due to a combination of social dynamics and strategic narratives that support damage limitation deterrence postures. While a technology hedging strategy may seem like an innocuous way for policymakers to appease stakeholders with diverging viewpoints on the risks and benefits of emerging technologies, this dissertation suggests that hedging is likely to galvanize social, strategic, and technical momentum that ultimately signals innovation, fosters competition, and manifests strategic effects, regardless of the initial policy intent.