U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Strategy in the New Security Environment featuring Dr. Brad Roberts

Fri, April 7, 2023 4:00 PM at 1300 FRIB Laboratory

Over the last 15 or so years, the security environment has eroded in signicant ways, including with the renewal of rivalry with Russia and China, nuclear proliferation in multiple sub-regions, and the rising salience of nuclear weapons globally. U.S. allies and partners are vulnerable to new threats and to new forms of nuclear-backed coercion. The risk of Russian nuclear employment in Ukraine has crystallized concern about rising nuclear risks. At the same time, the arms control framework is at the brink of collapse. At this watershed moment, U.S. nuclear strategy and posture have been slow to adapt. But important changes are likely coming to the U.S. practice of deterrence, extended deterrence, strategic stability, and arms control. The choices ahead for U.S. policymakers require informed public debate.

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 Oce 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 U.S. Nuclear Weapons” in the 21st Century, which won the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title in 2016.