The study notes that NC3 is one of the least understood of the many parts that make up the US nuclear weapons architecture, in part because of the high levels of secrecy that surround it. Thus, it is difficult for policymakers and service leaders to focus needed attention on it.
By Theresa HitchensReassessing America’s defense strategy for a safer future
In an unpredictable world, a strong and innovative military is essential to protect the United States and its economic interests.
“The prospects for complete success in deterrence of hostile attacks on space assets, particularly reversible, nondestructive attacks, are limited,” the RAND study cautions.
By Theresa Hitchens
“We have to have the capability to illuminate” adversarial actions, Berger said. “Some portion of that is so that we can understand how they’re setting their pieces for battle. And part of it, frankly, is to bring it to international attention and expose it for what it is.”
By Justin Katz
The push to declassify an existing space weapon is being spearheaded by Gen. John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
By Theresa Hitchens
“Rather than primarily focusing on kinetic defeat, for the defense of the homeland, I think we must get further left,” the head of NORTHCOM said Tuesday.
By Aaron Mehta
“The growing diversity of the Chinese nuclear threat and its mixing in with conventional forces creates complexity for US commanders. It is also unclear what conditions would lead to PRC nuclear use, since their arsenal is growing and creating more options,” Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute says.
By Colin Clark
How advanced sensors are shaping the battlefield
Ground platform situational awareness is critical as vehicle crew survivability depends upon it.
“Right now space is a supporting element to a geographic [component command] … but that paradigm is going to flip over time, where the supported command — the primacy, where the actions will happen first — is going to be space,” says Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, head of Air Force Central Command.
By Theresa Hitchens
Vice Adm. David Kriete, deputy STRATCOM commander: “Strategic deterrence is active deterrence; it’s very dynamic.”
By Theresa HitchensMissing in the national security space conversation, says Aerospace Corporation’s Russ Rumbaugh, is how space operations can and should fit with diplomacy and foreign policy. Instead, he said, the debate is solely about “how do I win the war I see.”
By Theresa Hitchens
The National Defense Strategy does a service by getting the diagnosis right. But that is only the first step. To get the right prescription—the defense program—we will have to develop the operational concepts that link the ends sought with the means we can procure to achieve them.
By Andrew Krepinevich
PENTAGON: The United States government sees a fundamentally more threatening world today, one that requires a more nuanced balance of delivery systems than we’ve deployed since the end of the Cold War. That’s really the change that has driven the results of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, officially released today. Careful transparency continues to…
By Colin Clark
If we’re lucky, the fourth Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) will encourage a reawakening of strategic analysis and renewed efforts to assess the role of nuclear weapons in US national security. If we’re not, and this is more likely, we’ll find ourselves awash in time-worn arguments about assured destruction, limited war, arms limitation, modernization, and morality.…
By Bob Butterworth
As Christmas draws closer, we hope you’re enjoying the troubling thoughts these Bad Idea pieces by experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies are bringing to the policy sphere. This one deals with an issue much on the mind of those keeping close tabs on the current madness in the world — the…
By John Schaus
Real deterrence has to be underpinned by military capability, particularly in the skies, author and Atlantic Council expert Scott Cooper writes.
By Scott Cooper