Counterforce in Contemporary US Nuclear Strategy

An old debate has been given new life by the changing security environment.  This is the debate about whether US nuclear deterrence strategy should continue to have a significant counterforce component.  That strategy emphasizes putting at risk what enemy leaders value, including their military forces, and being able to limit the damage that they can do with nuclear weapons to the US and its allies and partners.  In the Cold War, the benefits of counterforce were much debated but were widely seen by policymakers as worth the risks.  In today’s changed security environment, the debate is re-opening in a different context.  This is a debate with potentially far-reaching implications, as a move away from counterforce would likely mean the standdown of the ICBM leg of the Triad. Roberts will set out the main features of this debate.  In so doing, he will draw on a recently released report of the Center for Global Security Research, available at https://cgsr.llnl.gov

Dr. Brad Roberts has served as director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 2015. From 2009 to 2013, he was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy. In this role, he served as policy director of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and Ballistic Missile Defense Review and led their implementation. Prior to entering government service, Dr. Roberts was a research fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, editor of The Washington Quarterly, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University. Between leaving the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2013 and assuming his current responsibilities, Dr. Roberts was a consulting professor at Stanford University and William Perry Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

Technical Contact: Brad Roberts            
Event Manager: Katie Thomas, thomas94 [at] llnl.gov (thomas94[at]llnl[dot]gov)