Details
For decades, U.S. extended nuclear deterrence has underpinned global stability, reassuring allies and deterring adversaries. Yet today, that framework faces unprecedented stress. The rise of two nuclear-armed peer competitors—Russia and China—combined with rapid technological change and shifting alliance dynamics, challenges assumptions forged in the Cold War era.
Paige Gasser explores the urgent question: Can traditional deterrence strategies adapt to a multipolar nuclear world? Our discussion examines the credibility of U.S. commitments, the risks of conventional inferiority in two theaters, and the strategic tradeoffs among four options: reducing commitments, expanding guarantees, maintaining the status quo, or creating a new division of labor among allies.
Key themes include:
- The “two-nuclear-peer problem” and its implications for U.S. force posture
- Leveraging alliances as multipliers in an era of finite resources
- Practical steps for rebalancing roles, enhancing interoperability, and strengthening joint planning
- Procurement priorities and capability development for the next decade
- Strategic communication to sustain deterrence and alliance cohesion
In a world where the margin for error is shrinking, adaptation is not optional. Join us for a critical conversation on how the United States and its allies can modernize extended deterrence to meet the challenges of a multipolar security environment.
Speakers
Host of Huessy Seminars, Mr. Peter Huessy is President of his own defense consulting firm, Geostrategic Analysis, founded in 1981, and through 2021, Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute on Aerospace Studies. He was the senior defense consultant at the National Defense University Foundation for 22 years. He was the National Security Fellow at the AFPC, and Senior Defense Consultant at the Air Force Association from 2011-2016. Mr. Huessy has served as an expert defense and national security analyst for over 50 years, helping his clients cover congressional activities, arms control group efforts, nuclear armed states actions, and US administration nuclear related policy, budgets, and strategies, while monitoring budget and policy developments on nuclear deterrence, ICBM modernization, nuclear arms control, and overall nuclear modernization. He has also covered nuclear terrorism, counterterrorism, immigration, state-sponsored terrorism, missile defense, weapons of mass destruction, especially US-Israeli joint defense efforts, nuclear deterrence, arms control, proliferation, as well as tactical and strategic air, airlift, space and nuclear matters and such state and non-state actors as North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda. This also includes monitoring activities of think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and other US government departments, as well as projecting future actions of Congress in this area. His specialty is developing and implementing public policy campaigns to secure support for important national security objectives. And analyzing nuclear related technology and its impact on public policy, a study of which he prepared for the Aerospace Corporation in 2019.
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