Modernizing the Nuclear Triad: Decline or Renewal?

An artist’s rendering of the future Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, 2019. (U.S. Navy)

With the modernization of America's aging nuclear defense triad estimated to be a decade away, can the stable nuclear balance that the United States has enjoyed since the dawn of the nuclear age still be preserved? In a new report, defense expert and Hudson Fellow Andrew Krepinevich explores China and Russia's efforts to expand and modernize their nuclear arsenals, and the precision warfare advancements that are disrupting Cold War-era conventions. Andrew's report includes the coming precision warfare revolution, China's embrace of nuclear coercion over nuclear deterrence, and how America's nuclear triad should be modernized for the tripolar threat environment.

The Distracted Defense Department

The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Marisol Walker)

The Defense Department is in trouble under the Biden administration, writes Nadia Schadlow in The Wall Street Journal, due to its failure to differentiate between strategic challenges posed by adversaries and problems such as climate change. As the Biden administration develops its National Security Strategy, it must distinguish between confronting adversaries like China and complex global threats like COVID-19.

Virtual Event | The End of American Intelligence Dominance?

Members of the 174th Fighter Wing place chalks on an MQ-9 returning from a training mission at Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield in Fort Drum, N.Y., Feb. 14, 2012. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Ricky Best, DVIDS)

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is the eyes and ears of informed policymaking in peacetime and of effective leadership on the battlefield in time of war. And for the last 30 years, the United States has benefitted from ISR dominance. The advent of highly capable and reasonably priced commercial systems is leveling the playing field, while demand in the United States government for ISR systems is placing limited resources under increasing strain. The national security community must begin making difficult choices about how to allocate its finite assets, a development that will pose challenges for policymakers regarding privacy, but will also open up opportunities for dissuading adversaries from pursuing aggression. Please join Hudson’s Michael Doran, Ezra Cohen, and Bryan Clark to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the U.S. government in this new era of ISR.

China's COVID Coverup and Its Terrible Costs Demand Accountability

Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus arrive by car at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan on February 3, 2021. (Getty Images)

The Biden administration’s mounting woes related to Afghanistan, immigration, and spending threaten to obscure the importance of holding Beijing accountable for the deceptions that accelerated the global spread SARS-CoV-2. Prudence requires America and its allies to adopt a more comprehensive course, writes Michael R. Pompeo and Lewis Libby in Fox News. For years, the need to hold Beijing accountable for its misdeeds has been building; the CCP’s defiance of its SARS-CoV-2 responsibilities magnifies the stakes and immediacy. What does Beijing’s ongoing malfeasance regarding SARS-CoV-2 say about that regime’s future course? And, if we fail to act, what does that say about us?

Virtual Event | Human Rights Promotion in a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

USS Jackson (LCS 6), Destroyer Squadron 7, departing from the Commercial Seaport of Palau, in Koror, Republic of Palau, Sept. 4, 2021.  (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Atticus Martinez)

The Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) concept is central to American grand strategy in Asia. Intended to challenge China’s hegemonic and territorial ambitions, FOIP requires the U.S. and its allies to balance differing conceptions of inclusivity and freedom, prioritize competing national interests, and mitigate unintended consequences. This can pose challenges to meeting America’s commitment to promoting human rights—for instance, the Biden administration is working closely with Vietnam and the Philippines as part of FOIP, despite serious human rights concerns in both countries. Should human rights be central in promoting FOIP? How should U.S. policymakers meet the challenge of China’s growing political and economic influence in other critical non-democratic nations in the region, such as Thailand and Myanmar? Please join Hudson Institute for this timely discussion.

BEFORE YOU GO...

Australia, India, and Japan have quietly spent years deepening their partnership, and the United States and the United Kingdom are also committed to strengthening relationships in the region. James Przystup argues in The National Interest that it will be the task of political leadership in Washington, Tokyo, Canberra, and New Delhi to narrow differences and, at the same time, coordinate and integrate national policies toward the realization of their collective vision—a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.