Dr. Brad Roberts

roberts86 [at] llnl.gov (roberts86[at]llnl[dot]gov)   (925) 422-3717

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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).

While at CISAC, he authored a book entitled The Case for US Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century, which won the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title in 2016.

Doctorate in international relations, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Masters, London School Economics and Political Science

Bachelors in international relations, Stanford University


Recent Publications

The Next Chapter in US Nuclear Policy , The Washington Quarterly, July 2024
NATO's Nuclear Deterrent: Fit for Purpose? , Journal for Strategic Analysis, September 2023
Morality and Nuclear Weapons , CGSR Occasional Paper, July 2023
Deterring a Nuclear-armed North Korea , CGSR Occasional Paper, May 2023
Getting the Multi-Domain Challenge Right , CGSR Occasional Paper, December 2021
Redesigning Nuclear Arms Control for New Realities , ETH Zürich, Center for Security Studies, November 2021
Germany and NATO's Nuclear Deterrent , Federal Academy for Security Policy, July 2021
Orienting the 2021 Nuclear Posture Review , The Washington Quarterly, July 2021
Taking Stock: U.S.–China Track 1.5 Nuclear Dialogue , CGSR Occasional Paper, December 2020
Living With a Nuclear-Arming North Korea , 38 North Special Report, November 2020
On the Need for a Blue Theory of Victory , Texas National Security Review, September 2020
On Theories of Victory, Red and Blue , Livermore Papers on Global Security, June 2020
It's Time to Jettison Nuclear Posture Reviews , Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2020
The Bishops and the Bomb, Take Two , Texas National Security Review, September 2019
Deterrence and Détente on the Korean Peninsula , Asia Project, Council on Foreign Relations, April 2019
Understanding the New U.S. Policy Context , Strategic Weapons in the 21st Century, March 2018
Ban the Bomb? Or Bomb the Ban? Next Steps on the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons , European Leadership Network Global Security Policy Brief, March 2018
Continuity and Change in U.S. Nuclear Policy , RealClear Defense, February 2018
Strategic Stability Under Obama and Trump , Survival, 59:4, 47-74, DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2017.1349780, August 2017
The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century , Stanford University Press, January 2015
On the Strategic Value of Ballistic Missile Defense , Proliferation Paper 50, Institut Français des Relations Internationales, Security Studies Center, January 2014
Extended Deterrence and Strategic Stability in Northeast Asia , NIDS Visiting Scholar Paper Series, No.1, August 2013