Luncheon Address, July 14, 2016, Johns Hopkins University, 7th Annual Integrated Air and Missile Defense Symposium – Johns Hopkins University APL – Laurel, Maryland
China, Russia, Iran and North Korea
“Regional Nuclear Strategies of Victory and the Role of Iran and North Korea as Russian and Chinese Partners”
The Setting: Implications of Brad Roberts at CEIP June 28, 2016
• NK, Russia and China have “nuclear strategies of victory” that involve the use of nuclear weapons in regional conflicts for the purpose of intimidation, coercion and terror. B. Roberts, June 28, CEIP
•“Regional conflicts could very well see the use of nuclear weapons against the United States as superior US conventional capability forestalled Chinese and Russian objectives in Ukraine and the South China Sea.” PRH, Daily Caller, July
• Such a strategy is designed to win regional conflicts by forcing the United States to stand down early without resort to force.
• This does NOT mean in a conflict that the use of nuclear weapons would be limited to the region—the South China Sea, the Straits of Hormuz region, the Korean peninsula or Ukraine…
• Regional conflicts (1) are in danger of going nuclear and (2) may involve threats to the USA homeland.
