Workshops

Key Questions:

• Seen in a global rather than the separate regional contexts, is the US extended deterrent (nuclear and more broadly) fit for purpose?
• How have changes in the global security environment affected the political and military requirements of extended deterrence?
• What more can and should allies do to strengthen regional deterrence architectures?

Key Questions:

• How are Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran cooperating to undermine US security interests?  Is the whole more than the sum of the parts?
• Have they been successful in meeting their objectives?
• What are the prospects for expansion of this bloc?
• What are the prospects for deeper cooperation among them, including militarily consequential cooperation in crisis and war?
• What more can and should the US and its allies and partners do?

Key Questions:

• What can be learned from the experiment in integrated deterrence?
• Why have departures from business as usual proven to be so difficult?
• How can the next NDS review accelerate the adaptation of deterrence, both conventional and nuclear, to new challenges?

Key Questions:

• How should space be dealt with in the 2025 National Defense Strategy review?
• Do the premises that have guided the development of space strategy over the last decade or so remain valid? If not, how should they be adapted?
• Is a refresh of strategy warranted in 2025 or is something more fundamental required?

Key Questions:

• How do adversaries think about and prepare for escalation in limited regional wars under the nuclear shadow?
• What are the particular challenges of deterring such escalation and inducing de-escalation and war termination?
• What is the US theory of victory in such conflicts?  Is it sound?
• What can be learned from unclassified wargaming?

Key Questions:

• How secure and predictable is Europe’s nuclear future?
• What key factors will shape that future?
• What new choices need to be made now to shape that future for the better?

• What role do nuclear weapons play in the regional security dynamic?
• How stable and durable is the existing nuclear "order" in the Middle East?
• How might it further evolve, for better or worse?
• What policy implications follow for the US and its allies and partners?

• How do adversaries think about and prepare for escalation in limited regional wars under the nuclear shadow?
• What are the particular challenges of deterring such escalation and inducing de-escalation and war termination?
• What is the US theory of victory in such conflicts? Is it sound?
• What can be learned from unclassified wargaming?

Key Questions:

• What are the principal dangers and challenges in this new global setting?
• What are the particular challenges of deterring such escalation and inducing de-escalation and war termination?
• What decisions have been made to adjust the U.S. strategic posture?
• What further decisions are required, either to preserve or to pursue options?
• Has the nuclear security enterprise been successful in accelerating its adaptation to new requirements? What more is needed from it?

Keynote Address by NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby >>
Keynote Address by Pranay Vaddi of the National Security Council >>

• What are the key challenges to biosecurity?
• How are changes in the technological and geopolitical context shaping the threat?
• How much progress has been made in adapting USG responses and what more needs to be done?

• To bring together technology developers and security experts to develop improved shared understanding of opportunities and challenges
• To understand how AI might shape the future security environment
• To understand how the future security environment might shape AI

• How have the competitive strategies of Russia and China to remake regional and global orders influenced their nuclear policies and postures?
• Should the US compete in the nuclear domain? Under what conditions? Toward what ends?
• In what ways can and should US allies join this competition, if at all?
• How have US nuclear policy and postured been adapted to long-term competition in a disputed multipolar order? What further adaptations might be warranted now and/or later?
• What can be done to mitigate the risks of the most dangerous forms of competition?

• Is US space strategy well integrated with US defense strategy?
• How can space support US objectives across the conflict continuum?
• What does and should space contribute to US defense, deterrence, and peacetime competition objectives?

• What are the key lessons from the Ukraine War for US and allied cyber planning, strategy, and capabilities?
• How can the US and allies heed the lessons from the Ukraine War to cooperate better and collaborate with the private sector in crisis and peacetime?
• What policy steps should the US and allies undertake to prepare for the cyber domain's rapidly evolving competitive dynamics amid a climate of technology competition?

• After setting "a new baseline for our deterrence and defence posture" at the June 2022 Madrid summit, what progress have NATO allies made in strengthening deterrence? What new commitments were made in Vilnius?
• How do recent developments in US defence strategy and deterrence policy impact NATO's deterrence posture?
• Is NATO's nuclear deterrent fit for purpose?
• Are further steps to strengthen US extended nuclear deterrence necessary?

• What is the existing division of deterrence labor, regionally and globally?
• What impact will "integrated deterrence" have on this division?
• How should the division of deterrence labor further evolve? What practical steps are required?

• From the perspective nuclear deterrence, what are the new challenges and opportunities?
• How should deterrence be strengthened? What enduring advantages can be built?
• How can the US and its allies best balance multiple priorities in an eroding security environment?
• What can or should be done to deter further strategic breakouts by Russia and China?

• Should climate intervention strategies be a part of global efforts to combat climate change?
• How do types of interventions differ in their potential to reduce impacts, create new climatic and geopolitical risks, and redistribute risks among nations?
• What level of global governance is needed to oversee research and set ethical and legal standards and limits?

• What lessons can be learned from the 1st 25 years of the treaty regime?
• What technical and political challenges lie ahead?
• How will new geopolitical problems impact the regime?
• What are the prospects for continued progress in chemical disarmament?

• From the perspective of the practitioner of deterrence, what are the chief questions of ethics and morality posed by nuclear deterrence?
• How have moral philosophers and religious authorities answered these questions?
• How should practical experience inform such deliberations?
• Is there a moral case for nuclear deterrence?

• How consequential for US nuclear policy and posture are recent changes in the security environment?
• What progress have the US and its allies and partners made in adapting deterrence policy and posture to new factors?
• What further adaptations are needed? Are they evolutionary or revolutionary in character?
• What can and should be done to accelerate adaptation?

• How have US adversaries conceived and conducted "information confrontation" across the continuum of conflict?
• How have the US and its allies responded?
• What more can and should be done to more effectively counter Russian and Chinese strategies?

• How has US policy evolved since 2009 to account for space's role in US deterrence and defense strategies? What particular policy innovations have been introduced by the Biden administration?
• Have the approaches of Russia and China also evolved? If so, how and why? If not, why not?
• In anticipation of long-term tripolar competition for strategic advantage in space, how should the US and its allies fit space into integrated deterrence campaigns?

• What new forms of competition are possible? Likely?
• What should be done to better prepare?
• How long might the interregnum last? How and why might it end?

• Did deterrence fail?
• Understanding the Ukraine crisis and its deterrence implications. NATO's nuclear deterrent: Fit for purpose?

• How has U.S. nuclear strategy evolved as a result of the Biden administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)?
• What should be considered when integrating nuclear strategy with defense strategy?
• How will new initiatives to strengthen deterrence be implemented, including with allies?

• How are Russia and China updating cyber-related doctrine and institutions to evolve with changes in the domain?
• What threats in the domain require urgent attention, and what solutions are required?
• How can the U.S., Allies, and the private sector manage complexity in cyberspace to prepare for an era of strategic competition with two near peer adversaries?

• What are the risks of opportunistic aggression in a world in which the United States faces two near-peer adversaries who are also strategic partners?
• What are the associated challenges to US deterrence strategy, including extended nuclear deterrence?
• What can and should the US and its allies do to ensure that extended deterrence is fit for purpose in 2030?

• What are the key substantive issues?
• How should the interests and views of US allies inform the US approach?
• What are the prospects for success?
• How can insights from Track 1.5 dialogues increase those prospects?

• What are the main features of the emerging multipolar security environment?
• What new problems does multipolarity present for deterrence, assurance, and strategic stability?
• Do these factors compel a fundamental re-making of US nuclear strategy and posture, or something less?

• What is China's approach to multi-domain strategic stability?
• What can and should the US and its allies do to promote their interests in strategic stability with China?

• What are the key challenges facing U.S. and allied nuclear policymakers in 2021?
• What more can be done to increase the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence?
• Will the overall U.S. strategic posture be fit for purpose in 2030?
• Will the U.S. nuclear posture be fit for purpose?

• What can be learned from prior USG experience in trying to integrate in support of deterrence objectives?
• What priorities should be set now?

• How is the strategic latency problem changing and how has it evolved in recent years?
• How might emerging technologies affect the nature and dynamics of future conflicts?
• What implications follow for U.S. military planners, especially in the special forces community?

• What can net assessment contribute to understanding the challenges of the 21st century security environment and long-term strategic competition?
• What innovations are necessary to secure those benefits?
• What insights can be learned about shifting power balances and the future of strategic stability?

• What are the particular challenges of successfully de-escalating and terminating modern multi-domain regional wars against nuclear-armed adversaries?
• What are the meaningful distinctions between de-escalation and war termination?
• What concepts have been developed to meet these challenges?
• Are there gaps in our thinking? What concepts can help to fill those gaps?
• What more can and should be done to address the negative findings of the US National Defense Strategy Commission in its 2018 report?

• To create a baseline of common understanding among lab stakeholders
• To review insights gained from 6 years of CGSR work on these topics
• To identify strategic-level challenges and their operational-level implications

1. How urgent is the regional cyber threat to the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific? What are its main characteristics? How might it evolve over the coming decade?
2. What lessons can be drawn from past and present efforts to strengthen cooperation to address this threat?
3. What opportunities exist to improve cooperation and what are the barriers to success?

1. How will climate change impact the world in the next decade and beyond?
2. How will it affect resource and human security as well as national and international security?
3. How will it affect resource and human security as well as national and international security?

1. How should the upcoming defense strategy review account for the particular demands of regional wars with significant potential for multi-domain and trans-regional escalation?
2. What are the essential ingredients of an effective counter-escalation strategy for the United States and its allies?
3. How should answers to these questions be integrated into broader defense strategy?

1. What lessons should be drawn from the COVID-19 crisis for the future of U.S. biosecurity strategy?
2. What bio-related threats, risks, and dangers must be accounted for in the decade ahead?
3. How can the coherence of national and international responses be improved?

1. To review and take stock of two decades of nuclear-focused dialogue
2. To better understand the existing bilateral strategic military relationship
3. To identify emerging problems and opportunities to improve that relationship

• What will be the main attributes of the US strategic posture in 2030?
• Relative to the predicted Russian and Chinese strategic postures of 2030, will the US position have improved, stayed the same, or eroded? Why?
• What factors should guide the development of capabilities beyond 2030?

• Will the US nuclear posture be "fit for purpose" a decade from now?
• How might it evolve, or need to evolve, thereafter?
• What factors are likely to affect the modernization pathway?

• What are the most serious nuclear dangers and risks today?
• Where do we stand with the international project to reduce those dangers and risks?
• What new approaches can usefully be pursued? Bilateral? Multilateral? Unilateral?
• How does the global geopolitical landscape affect the prospects for success?

• In the further development of U.S. space policy and posture, what is required to "foster a more competitive mindset" (to cite the 2016 National Defense Strategy)?
• Setting aside organizational questions, what is required to "out-think, out-maneuver, out-partner, and out-innovate" adversaries capable of military operations in and through outer space?
• Can we meaningfully "expand the competitive space" in outer space? How?

1. What are the particular challenges of winning a conventional regional war against a nuclear-armed adversary?
2. How are those challenges best met?
3. Do we have the right concepts? How can the necessary concepts best be integrated into a "Blue theory of victory?"

• What impact will the demise of the INF Treaty have on the Indo-Pacific security environment?
• What new forms of competition and cooperation are likely to result?
• What should the United States and its allies do?
• What objectives should guide their actions?

• The 2017 National Defense Strategy argues that, in a more competitive security environment, the United States must out-think, out-partner, and out-innovate its adversaries. How does this apply to competition in cyberspace?
• Administration leaders have set a goal of "over-matching" capabilities and strategic dominance in the technology competition. What does this mean and require in the cyber domain and what risks does it entail?
• The National Defense Strategy Commission faults the Department of Defense for its so far limited progress in developing operational concepts that link strategy and doctrine to capability development. Are such concepts missing in cyberspace and, if so, what can be done to create them?

• Are Western deterrence strategies keeping pace with political, technical, and military change?
• What more can and should the North Atlantic Treaty Organization do to ensure that its deterrence and defense posture is "fit for purpose" in the new security environment?
• What are the implications of changing domestic politics in the United States and Europe for the assurances in the North Atlantic Treaty?
• Looking to the future, what alternative security orders might emerge?