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Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 at 9:16pm

China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent in 2020

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, China, Future Warfare, U.S. Nuclear Policy

As part of my nuclear fellowship with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), I authored a piece on the future of China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent.  This article was recently published by in a collection of essays on nuclear issues:  A Collection of Papers from the 2010 Nuclear Scholars Initiative (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2010).  The are some outstanding essays in the collection on a range of important nuclear topics.

My article examines the burgeoning nuclear capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).  The intent of the article is to draw attention to Chinese investment in its nuclear forces.  There is no shortage of literature examining Chinese conventional military modernization efforts; but judging by recent…

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Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 10:16pm

John Kerry’s Misinformed Position on the New START Treaty

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Nuclear Proliferation, Russia, U.S. Nuclear Policy

Yesterday, Senator John F. Kerry wrote an op-ed in response to Mitt Romney’s piece published earlier this week in which the former governor argued against ratifying the New START Treaty.  Kerry’s op-ed was not only hyper-partisan but, as The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano notes, quite inaccurate as well.  Kerry’s op-ed was little more than partisan drivel.  It lacked any sort of serious analytical rigor.  I would expect a better quality of analysis and thought from the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 7:36am

Romney on the New START Treaty

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Nuclear Proliferation, Russia, U.S. Nuclear Policy

It’s hard to pick President Obama’s worst foreign policy mistake.  As far as I’m concerned, his general conduct of American foreign policy has been subpar and a bit too Carteresque.  According to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney the New START Treaty is a leading candidate for this administration’s worst foreign policy mistake.  In an op-ed in yesterday’s WaPo, Romney presented a very clear argument in opposition to the New START Treaty.  I agree wholeheartedly with his advice that the treaty, in its current state, should not be ratified by the United States Senate.  Romney argues, “He [Obama] acceded to Russia’s No. 1 foreign policy objective, the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program, and obtained nothing whatsoever in return.”  I…

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Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 4:42pm

Nuclear Policy in the Bush Administration: Setting the Record Straight

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, U.S. Nuclear Policy

Vice President Joe Biden recently wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal outlining the Obama administration’s nuclear policy.  In typical Obama administration fashion, he blamed the preceding administration for “the slow but steady decline in support for our nuclear stockpile and infrastructure, and for our highly trained nuclear work force.”  His claim of neglect is simply inaccurate.  President George W. Bush made several attempts to revitalize the nuclear weapons complex and exercise the highly trained work force.  Unfortunately, these efforts were halted by Congress on multiple occasions.  Here are just a few examples:

  • In 2005, Congress discontinued funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
  • In the FY08 Defense Appropriations Bill, Congress slashed funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program…
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Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 6:45pm

Ilan Berman on U.S. Nuclear Superiority

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, China, Russia, U.S. Nuclear Policy

Ilan Berman, a noted expert on Iran and Vice President for Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, has a great piece in today’s Defense News on the Obama administration’s (mis)handling of U.S. nuclear policy.  Berman reminds us that both Russia and China are modernizing their strategic forces while the U.S. weapons complex is eroding:

Indeed, practically every declared nuclear weapon state is engaged in a serious modernization of its strategic arsenal. The United States, by contrast, has allowed its strategic infrastructure to atrophy since the end of the Cold War.

The results of this neglect are striking, as scholars Bradley Thayer and Thomas Skypek have detailed in a pair of studies. America’s ICBM force is aging rapidly,…

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Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 4:38pm

A Reading List for Nuclear Proliferation

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Nuclear Policy

Anyone who studies nuclear weapons policy or nuclear proliferation should check out Brad Thayer’s “What to Read on Nuclear Proliferation” at Foreign Affairs.  It identifies several must-reads for academics, students, and policymakers in the nuclear weapons business.

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Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 7:47pm

Jon Kyl Takes Lead on Nuclear Policy

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, U.S. Nuclear Policy

United States Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) made a compelling argument in today’s Wall Street Journal against ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).  For nearly two decades the United States has relied on technical extrapolations to verify the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.  But these technical extrapolations are essentially ”best guesses” based on historical trends and data.  As I said in a recent post, “The only way to be certain a weapon is reliable is to test it.”  Kyl is right when he argues that the credibility of our nuclear deterrent is dependent on the reliability of our stockpile.  As I’ve mentioned previously, as the credibility of our deterrent decreases, friends and allies may be forced to develop their own nuclear deterrents. 

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Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 11:03am

Hope is Not A Nuclear Strategy

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, U.S. Nuclear Policy

Just nine months after taking office, the Obama administration has already earned a failing grade on matters of nuclear policy.  In the span of a single week in September, the Obama administration abandoned long-standing plans to deploy a third missile defense site in Europe and moved to cut drastically the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal to dangerously low levels.  The Guardian reported in late September that President Obama has “rejected” the Pentagon’s initial draft of the 2009 Nuclear Posture Review, the congressionally-mandated review of the nation’s nuclear strategy.   Radical cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal will have serious ramifications for U.S. national security.  Such cuts will reduce the credibility of American power, weaken our bargaining position, and give friends…

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Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 2:22pm

The Dying Art of Nuclear Strategy

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Nuclear Policy
[caption id="attachment_723" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The U.S. should consider recalibrating its nuclear force structure by placing a greater emphasis on SLBMs."]The U.S. should consider recalibrating its nuclear force structure by placing a greater emphasis on SSBNs.[/caption]

Nuclear strategists are a dying breed–so too is the very art of nuclear strategy.  This year the Obama administration will conduct a review of existing U.S. nuclear policy.  The review will touch on a host of issues, from missile defense and nonproliferation to stockpile management and force posture.

The intellectual giants of the Cold War who helped us define nuclear strategy have either passed on or are largely retired.  Legends such as Herman Kahn, Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter are…

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Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 12:41pm

The Russian “Reset”

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Russia, U.S. Nuclear Policy

Brad Thayer and I were quoted recently in a piece on U.S.-Russian relations published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).  The EIU piece provides a solid overview of the arms control negotiations that will occur throughout this year between Washington and Moscow regarding the expiration of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) this December.  It certainly looks as though missile defense will be the wedge issue du jour for this upcoming round of negotiations.  As EIU reports, “Russian commentators insist that there will be no new START unless the US puts its plans for a missile shield on ice.”  It will be interesting to see how these negotiations unfold. 

President Obama is clearly receptive to a bargain–at least with respect to the missile defense site in Eastern…

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