Nuclear energy in the 2025 NSS: A policy correction or the strategic reawakening? |
Nuclear energy has moved to the core of American strategic thinking, from being merely a peripheral climate policy tool to a central strategic concern. This manifests a strategic reawakening that aims to redefine the US role in a world surrounded by AI-driven, increased energy demands, supply chain pressures, and heightened geopolitical competition. The recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025 encompasses the core national interests, the guiding principles, and the means at disposal to achieve them. It encompasses American national priorities, including military strength, technological leadership, and regional strategies across the Western Hemisphere, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. NSS 2025 not only highlights the importance of a reliable energy source but also its geopolitical potential to influence foreign partnerships. The strategy has significantly broadened the scope of nuclear energy, moving beyond nuclear deterrence and nonproliferation to frame nuclear energy as a tool of geopolitical competitiveness and national resilience.
NSS 2025 integrates nuclear energy into a pillar of national stability from a reduced segment of the climate portfolio. Amidst the fragile supply chain of electricity, the consumption of data-centers is expected to rise by 165 per cent by 2030. Characterised by its low interruption rates, nuclear energy is capable of delivering high-output baseload electricity. This equation is complicated by America’s 72 per cent export of enriched uranium and its competitors, Russia and China, amounting to 43 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, of the global uranium enrichment capacity. The long-held US leadership in innovation and export capacity has eroded due to its slow-paced regulatory framework and domestic political ambivalence. In contrast, with the construction of 37 reactors in the last decade, China is expected to surpass the US nuclear power reactor fleet by 2030.
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The geopolitical structure of nuclear energy stands on three pillars. First, it creates a long-term