NUCLEAR DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN?
By Peter R. Huessy – Senior Warrior Maven Columnist
Four years ago, I wrote “The US defense budget will be unveiled by the new administration and sent to Congress February 9, 2016 and already the ‘doves with knives’ are out to cut critical nuclear modernization elements from the nation’s military forces.”
At that time, Gordon Adams, previously at the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, and Lawrence Korb, at the Center for American Progress, were both calling for the unilateral dismantlement of major elements of the US nuclear deterrent. Fortunately, the incoming Trump administration and subsequent Congresses rejected their advice and proceeded with the necessary path towards eventual nuclear modernization.
This path was agreed to by the Obama administration only after the Senate insisted that as part of the 2010 resolution of ratification of the New Start treaty, a new upgraded and expanded ten-year new funding profile that preserved “the safety, reliability and performance of U.S. nuclear forces”, including plans to produce a new strategic bomber, bomber cruise missile and land based missile force, be agreed to. And the Trump administration did adopt the new plan and over the past four years secured a consensus in Congress to fully fund our nuclear deterrent.
But will the consensus hold? With a new defense budget due from the administration in February 2021, and the current year FY2021 defense budget not completed, once again there are proposals to unilaterally dismantle key elements of our strategic or long-range nuclear deterrent. The former Secretary of Defense William Perry and other disarmament advocates want to eliminate all land based ICBMs, cut the planned acquisition of 12 submarines to as low as 6, cut back the production of the B-21 bomber and eliminate the bomber cruise missile or LRSO.
In addition, the development of a nuclear-armed sea-based cruise missile to balance Russian theater or regional nuclear capabilities might also be on the chopping block. A flurry of recent critical comments from the disarmament community signals a new effort may be underway to significantly defund this program.
Apart from funding cuts, the US may also see efforts to secure major changes in US national nuclear security policy. First, the US government might change national policy and explicitly declare nuclear weapons would only be used to deter a nuclear attack on the US, a policy cousin of the idea the US should also declare a “no first use” policy.
This policy change would primarily affect our extended deterrent/nuclear umbrella over our allies in Europe and Northwest Asia. At issue, assert disarmament advocates, is ambiguity in the deployment of dual capable cruise missile. For example, US deployed cruise missiles can deliver nuclear or conventional weapons, and it is thought their use might be misconstrued as breaking the nuclear barrier even if at the time they are only conventionally armed.
However, the US routinely deploys nuclear capable but conventionally armed B52’s with cruise missiles with very little problem. And importantly a key point is that during the entirety of the Cold War, the US nuclear umbrella in Europe and Asia successfully deterred Soviet or North Korean conventional strikes, apparently a lesson having been lost on today’s disarmament community.
Furthermore, the development of a Navy based nuclear armed cruise missiles stems from Russia’s adoption of a theory of victory where Moscow might first use in the European theater a limited number of regional nuclear weapons. Moscow’s concept has been described as a strategy of “escalate to win”, both blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear conflict while coercing the US to standdown in a crisis/conflict. A Navy-based cruise missile provides a deterrent force to the battlefield quickly if that option were required by the US command authorities, without putting US sea-based strategic nuclear forces at risk.
Second, while most of NATO is also convinced the US needs a regional or medium range nuclear capability to defeat Russian threats, US disarmament advocates are pushing to return from Europe all US regional nuclear forces. Having a credible counter to Russian short-range low-yield weapons in the European theater is critical to deterrence and withdrawing such forces from Europe would be highly destabilizing.
As Brad Roberts of Lawrence Livermore National has explained in great detail, Russia’s “escalate to win” doctrine is part of a “strategy of victory” that Moscow has adopted but which the US has yet to fully address. Should a new administration eliminate non-strategic nuclear forces dedicated to Europe’s defense, NATO’s deterrent capability would be weakened, as control over the emerging integrated conventional-nuclear battlefield would be ceded to the Russians.
Now it is true the US already has low-yield weapons in both its strategic and regional nuclear arsenals deployed in part in Europe. But those regional forces dedicated to defending NATO are on relatively slow-flying aircraft and in significantly smaller numbers than the Russian theater arsenal. A sea-based cruise missile would begin to repair that imbalance, would not break the limits set by the New Start treaty, and could avoid messy disputes that would probably arise if such nuclear forces were being proposed for a land-based deployment in a NATO member nation.
Third, the next Congress will also face a growing narrative from the disarmament community that the US is starting a new arms race with its modernization plans and should seek as a remedy unilateral US restraint. Although the current modernization was largely agreed to in the Obama administration, the platforms including the nuclear capable B-21 bomber, the GBSD and the Columbia class submarine acquisition have come under contract only recently and are still not projected to initially become operational until 2029-32
Killing such systems now would hardly impact Russian modernization which is now 90% complete, nor Chinese plans which are well underway and are projected to double China’s overall nuclear forces within the decade. In fact, the “US is starting an arms race” narrative needs to be discarded. As one disarmament advocate recently admitted, (surprisingly!) much of the proposed US modernization “is still in the early stages” and will not be first deployed for nearly a decade.
As for the claim the administration is “dangerously expanding” the nuclear arsenal beyond treaty limits, that claim too is meritless. The one new program the current administration completed was to add a modest number of lower-yield nuclear warheads to the D-5 missile. But the upgrade is still strictly within the missile warhead limits of the 2010 New Start treaty and is consistent with “the United States [having] nuclear options [deployed in previous administrations] capable of such limited strikes.” The key difference is the speed with which the capability can be deployed in the European theater if necessary, to counter Russian aggression. As noted, overall warhead loadings on the D-5 remain the same.
So, what explains the disarmament community’s passion for unilaterally cutting US nuclear forces, despite all evidence those actions will undermine the US deterrent capability? It appears many disarmers embrace a fictional belief that the key to changing the dangerous nuclear behavior of Russia, China, Iran or North Korea is to first blame the United States for nuclear instabilities/arms control failures, and then second assume our enemies will choose to agree to restraint once
the US goes down that road first.
Just this past week, for example, a number of prominent nuclear modernization opponents echoed Adams and Korb of four years ago. They blamed the US for pursuing a costly and unnecessary nuclear arms race, even though the US has not since 1997 deployed a single new nuclear bomber, submarine, or ICBM, and won’t until 2029. They complained the pending nuclear modernization was excessive, although the current modernization effort mirrored that inherited from the previous administration and Congress.
And when the President recently took credit for prioritizing the refurnishing of America’s nuclear deterrent, that too was out of bounds, as critics claimed the Trump administration– while guilty of starting an arms race [with weapons acquisition started during the Obama administration]—could not take credit for any modernization progress, because the US weapons modernization was—you guessed it—started during the Obama administration. [ Actually, the ten-year plan adopted by the government in 2010 was primarily the initiative of then Arizona Senator Jon Kyl.]
These disingenuous rhetorical tricks by many disarmers may appear clever, as the media often repeats such claims verbatim and without skepticism, giving them a patina of accuracy. But the tricks still are tricks. How can it be that while the past two administrations have supported a similar and basic nuclear modernization effort, the fantasy world of the unilateral disarmers sees one effort consistent with seeking a move toward global zero nuclear weapons, while the other effort is blamed for starting an “nuclear arms race?”
Though Korb and Adams in 2016 were not successful in getting the administration or Congress to adopt their unilateral cuts, the same proposals are being put forward again, but now by an even broader range of disarmers. The CATO Institute on the right wants to get rid of ICBMs just as Global Zero and Ploughshares does on the left. The line of argument from four years ago hasn’t changed, but would a new Congress or administration adopt such a radical path?
Let’s look at their arguments in some detail to help the new Congress and whatever administration is elected to have the tools with which to better understand the dangers of jettisoning the current consensus on nuclear modernization painstakingly put together over the past decade.
Much like their colleagues today, in 2016, Adams and Korb sought to kill major elements of our nuclear deterrent, including all land-based ICBMs and half of our strategic submarines. bombers.
Korb was particularly insistent that the US not North Korea was responsible for North Korea’s nuclear threat. He blamed what was then a nearly moribund US modernization effort of 25 years as the cause for North Koreans to develop their own nuclear weapons. To remedy things, Korb proposed the US unilaterally dismantle 80% of its nuclear deterrent to make things right, an echo of the late UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s 1984 explanation that more often than not “San Francisco” Democrats “always blame America first” when things go wrong in the world.
Korb also falsely complained the US Senate failure in 1999 to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty or CTBT, was further evidence of how bad US behavior had caused the North Korea to start a nuclear weapons program—although the North started seeking nuclear weapons in the early 1990’s. Korb says the 2002 US withdrawal from the ABM treaty made any deal to end North Korea’s nuclear program impossible, a neat way of again blaming the US for the failure of the North Korean government to fulfill its repeated promise to denuclearize. However, despite the end of the ABM treaty and continued US nuclear modernization, since 2017 the North Koreans have not tested a nuclear device or a long-range ballistic missile, largely proving wrong Korb’s assumption about tit for tat North Korean behavior is animated only by bad US action with which Korb (and apparently the leaders of North Korea) disapprove.
Gordon Adams, on the other hand, had a simpler but equally problematical plan in 2016, focusing primarily on cutting defense spending. He called for the US to unilaterally dismantle most of its nuclear deterrent. He proposed first to eliminate all 400 land-based Minuteman missiles. Second, he recommended taking the bombers out of the nuclear business. And third, he proposed the US build only 8 of the projected 12 Columbia-class nuclear submarines—replacing only roughly half of the 14 Ohio-class Trident D-5 missiles, and overall, unilaterally cutting US nuclear armed ballistic missiles by 80%.
None of these ideas enhance US security.
Let us start with what’s wrong with Korb’s ideas.
North Korea started to develop and build its nuclear arsenal as far back as the early 1990’s, when the US was still a party to the ABM Treaty and had announced a ban on any further nuclear testing. In 1991 and 1993, as well, the United States and USSR/Russia announced the START I and START II treaties, which together would have cut their respective strategic deployed nuclear arsenals by nearly 70%, to no more than 3500 while the US simultaneously essentially delayed much needed modernization programs for its nuclear enterprise by two decades.
In short, the US did all the things Korb implicitly said would have caused North Korea not to pursue nuclear weapons. But North Korea cheated on the 1994 Agreed Framework agreement with the United States. Even as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under which all non-nuclear states pledged not to build nuclear weapons, North Korea cheated.
What Korb ignored was that North Korea used both the Agreed Framework and the NPT to hide its nuclear weapons work and proceed with its covert nuclear weapons program while pretending otherwise.
What was the North Korean motive? Nuclear weapons are an integral part of North Korea’s strategy to eventually reunify the Korean peninsula under North Korean communist rule.
How do we know this?
Hwang Jang-Yop was the highest-ranking North Korean defector in history and was the personal tutor and assistant to North Korea’s former ruler Kim Jong-Il. He was also Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly. His defection was a huge blow to the North and the Republic of Korea (ROK) made his birthday a national holiday upon his death in 2010 at the age of 87.
As he told my boss and colleague retired USAF General Michael Dunn, the past President of the National Defense University and the Air Force Association, and former military adviser to the UN delegation on the DMZ between North Korea and the ROK, the North Korean goal was to remove American military forces from the ROK.
Once that was achieved, the North would hold at risk with its nuclear forces the US and allies conventional forces deployed in Japan and the United States Pacific bases. Such a threat would deter the US from coming to the defense of the ROK if the North moved to reunify the peninsula by force. In short, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal was to trump America’s conventional military capability, irrespective of the size of the US nuclear arsenal or missile defense deployments.
As for Adams, although he didn’t blame America for North Korea’s nuclear recklessness, if carried out his proposed cuts to America’s nuclear arsenal would have also caused serious instabilities in the nuclear balance between the United States and its nuclear armed adversaries, especially Russia and China.
The heart of Adams thesis is his claim like Korb that the United States is projected to spend $350 billion over the next decade and over a trillion dollars over the next three decades on nuclear modernization. Given such huge planned expenditures Adams asserts roughly $200 billion can be saved with the cuts he proposes whil
e not harming US security.
He and Korb are both wrong. Their numbers are fuzzy.
The US does not spend and does not plan to spend $350 billion over the next decade on nuclear modernization. In 2017-2020, for example, the US spent $138 billion on RDT&E and procurement on its entire nuclear enterprise, of which roughly one-third is for modernization and the remaining is for the sustainment and operations of our legacy nuclear forces. In short, doing nothing but keeping the rusting US nuclear force in place would cost nearly two-thirds of the US DOD and NNSA nuclear budget, facts that plainly call for the US to modernize and save money operating and sustaining a more modern up-to-date and capable deterrent.
By the end of the coming decade, that annual nuclear bill will indeed rise to $47-50 billion as the acquisition of all three legs of the Triad kicks into gear, but then the costs will gradually decline as the modernization peaks. Acquisition costs will grow as research and development is curtailed, a common characteristic of all modernization. But today, for example, acquisition and research and development costs for new systems are remarkedly low.
While the numbers will grow, at this time the entire modernization effort proposed for FY2021 for the nuclear platforms– B-21 strategic bomber, the Columbia-class submarine, the D-5 missile upgrade and the GBSD budgets– accounts for under $8 billion of the $740 billion defense budget, and less than twenty percent of the total nuclear budget. NC3 or nuclear command and control account for roughly an additional $5 billion more while the NNSA warhead complex sustainment and upgrades programs being sought comes in at roughly another $21 billion. The remaining nuclear budget costs are for the sustainment of the existing nuclear force of aging—but still capable—MMIII missiles, Ohio-class submarines, D-5 missiles and B52 and B2 strategic bombers.
Over the next decade a fair accounting of the costs of the nuclear enterprise modernization would come to a total of $270 billion. But included in the total is also the work of the Department of Energy. We have to refurbish our nuclear warheads and are going to reduce the types of warheads we have from 12 to 5. At the same time, we have to update our command and control system that communicates with our nuclear forces, especially in light of cyber challenges the Defense Department faces.
Even these estimates are to some degree an overestimate. While the total cost of the new strategic bomber (B-21) is included, as former OSD official Jim Miller explains the bomber force will be modernized irrespective of whether the new strategic aircraft is nuclear capable. While the law requires the new bomber to be nuclear capable no later than three years after initial deployment, (circa 2029), the “nuclear related” costs of the bomber are in the 3% range according to Miller. Thus, eliminating the role of the bomber in the nuclear business as Mr. Adams proposed would only save some $3 billion over the life of the bomber’s acquisition.
As for the land-based systems, eliminating MMIII and its GBS successor would save at best a net average of $2 billion a year over the next five year defense plan, as closing the three related MM III missile bases and eliminating the associated work force will require considerable new expenditures, as estimated from previous base closings where up to 40% of the projected “savings” will be lost.
What about the planned acquisition of the twelve Columbia-class submarines? Here not building four of the twelve submarines as Gordon Adams proposed saves zero funding over the next five-year defense plan. Why? Acquisition savings from acquiring a smaller number of submarines comes at the end of the purchase, but only in the 2040-42 timeframe. That means whatever acquisition savings might be achieved would have to wait for two decades and therefore not be noticeable in real budget time.
What if in order to immediately save money, the Navy simply stopped building a new Columbia-class submarine each year? Well, that delay would leave huge gaps in our nuclear deterrent as the Ohio-class submarines have to go out of service but before a replacement submarine could be available. The reason? Engineers have concluded the hull life of our current Ohio submarines is 42 years—which the fleet of Ohio-class submarines is now reaching, an estimated life which is the longest of any submarine in our nation’s history. On top of which a stretched-out production schedule would markedly increase the unit cost of each future purchased submarine, further slowing production and harming our security.
What about savings from the Navy’s research and development budget? There will not be any as the research and development costs of the program do not change with a smaller purchase of submarines (or missiles or bombers). The fact is the impact of spreading out research, development, test, and evaluation expenditures over a smaller number of submarines increases the per unit cost of the submarine quite significantly.
What about the impact on the strategic balance and deterrence of going to a submarine only nuclear deterrent?
Here the impacts are more serious.
For example, we would be putting all our eggs in one nuclear technology basket. This would leave a single technological failure between the US having a nuclear deterrent of any kind and being out of the nuclear deterrent business.
Let me explain. Adams is also assuming that while the air and land have become increasingly transparent, for some reason the oceans will remain opaque and thus our submarines will remain undetectable for their entire planned eight-decade deployment. That is reckless bet to make, especially when the very survival of the United States is at stake.
Furthermore, the reduced submarine force, even if it remained highly survivable, might for logistical and cost reasons be based at only one of our two submarine bases. Instead of having a base on both the Atlantic and Pacific, we may have only one.
When added altogether, the US would have a much smaller fleet, fewer warheads deployed, reduced target coverage. In short, which enemy would we have to choose not to deter since deterring or holding at risk some significant number of military assets in China and Russia would have to be taken off the table?
Now supporters of eliminating ICBMs and cutting back submarines appear to understand unilateral reductions might not sit well with Congress. Thus, to make the idea more palatable, while eliminating the 400 Minuteman warheads, some have suggested we simply move those 400 warheads to the submarines, keeping the overall level of missile warheads the same.
With 192 D-5 missiles available on the currently planned 12 Columbia-class submarines, and with each missile projected under New Start treaty limits to hold an average of 5.7 warheads, the D-5 would have to carry 8+ warheads per 16 missiles per submarine to accommodate the 400 Minuteman warheads. [Technically the MMIII Mark-21A nuclear warheads would not be transferable to the D-5 missiles; and new submarine based warheads would have to be taken both from the stockpile or newly developed and manufactured, as an additional 400 sea based missile warheads may simply not be readily available.]
However, even if that number of warheads were available, there is a new strategic math problem. Since the D-5 can only carry a maximum of 8 warheads per missile or 1536 total, the D-5 missiles would be fully loaded. Thus, the newly loaded D-5 missiles could carry a maximum of 16 x 8 x 12 warheads, a small 46 increase from the 1490 fast flying long-range missiles now officially “allowed” under the 2010 New Start treaty with Russia.
But beyond that number, no warheads could be added technically as the missiles would have no more room. Thus, any US upload or surge capacity as a hedge against Russia breaking out of the New Start or subs
equent treaty would be eliminated. No upload, no hedge.
Even worse, according to a former senior Pentagon nuclear expert, the extra warheads would so increase the weight of each D-5 sub-based missile that it would “significantly cut down on the range of the missile and the patrol area in which to operate”. The submarines would have to operate closer to the countries needing to be deterred in order for the heavier missile to get to the right target. That also makes the submarine more vulnerable as the patrol area would be curtailed. Even worse, the missiles have a flexible but fixed “footprint” or area held at risk and thus some of the extra warheads would possibly be redundant, only able to hit the same targets as other missile warheads from the same submarine, as opposed to other targets critically needed to be held at risk.
Thus, Mr. Adam’s proposals save almost no money over the near term, undermine our deterrent, make us less safe, and increase future risk to the nation by eliminating whatever hedge we now have in case arms control breaks-down.
Are Mr. Adams arguments about ICBMs any better?
His rationale for eliminating ICBMS adopts the common mistake of assuming that because our land-based missiles are in fixed silos—although spread out over five western states—they are vulnerable and thus likely to being attacked in a crisis. He follows this assumption by then incorrectly assuming US ICBMs would have to be launched early in a crisis to avoid being eliminated by an enemy’s first strike.
This is a false assumption. It may have had validity during the height of the Cold War, when we had 1054 silo-based missiles and the Soviets had over 10,000 nuclear warheads aimed at the United States including multiple thousands of highly accurate ICBMs. The fear –described as the “window of vulnerability”–was that the Soviets could take out our only accurate missiles—those that were silo based– with a relatively small percent of their force, leaving a remaining nearly 8000-9000 warheads with which to compel the United States to stand down.
Under the new START treaty signed in 2010, between the USA and Russia, the Russians—if they are abiding by the agreement–have 1490 deployed strategic long-range missile warheads capable of reaching United States. To take out 450 Minuteman silos and their associated 45 launch control centers, the Russians would have to launch some 1000 missile warheads at the United States assuming they target two warheads on each ICBM related asset.
To what end would Russia launch such a strike, knowing full well the US bomber weapons available and surviving ICBM weapons plus our multiple hundreds of submarine based warheads at sea, would be launched by the US back at Russia in a retaliatory strike?
Such a Russian first strike makes no sense tactically as Russia would probably have to put at least some of its forces on higher alert to have that many warheads available to strike the United States.
By doing so they would warn us of a possible pending strike. Why? Our satellites could see their platforms weapons being put in a position to launch. In short, Russian submarines might have to go to sea, bombers put on alert and mobile missiles moved out of garrison.
If so, the Russians make the strategic balance better for the US and worse for Russia. What would be the point?
In short, as the just retired USAF Chief of Staff told a recent seminar audience the Mitchell Institute hosted, our land-based missiles are not vulnerable to being suddenly attacked by Russia or any other adversary, nor as a whole are our current and planned nuclear Triad of submarines, land-based missiles, and bombers.
Cutting the Triad as Mr. Adams and Mr. Korb suggest would therefore be reckless, particularly as reducing our nuclear assets to under a handful would make it easier for our adversaries to attack us and get us out of the nuclear business. Six submarines in the force would allow 2-3 to be at sea on patrol at any one time. That leaves all of four-five targets for the Russians to take out to disarm the United States—2-3 submarines at sea and two Navy subbases in Kings Bay, Georgia and Bangor, Washington. An ASW or anti-submarine warfare breakthrough would put the US nuclear deterrent at easy risk of pre-emptively being destroyed.
Even more absurd was Mr. Adam’s assertion—echoed by Mr. Korb—that the incoming Trump administration was launching some kind of a new nuclear arms race. Let us examine the record.
If arms control deals are accurate, the United States has cut nuclear warheads from 2200 deployed strategic warheads under the 2002 Moscow Treaty to as low as 1550 under the 2010 New Start agreement. This is a further reduction from the George W. Bush era when US strategic deployed nuclear weapons were cut from 6000 after Start I to 2200 under the Moscow treaty, a 67% reduction. This in turn was on top of the reduction from over 12,000 warheads to the 6000-warhead level under the START 1 treaty between the US and Russia.
Given the Trump administration had no plans to reverse these very large—90%– reductions, Adams and Korb still called on the US to stop the “arms race”, even though through this entire period of reductions the US also did not deploy a single new nuclear platform.
When the US does complete its planned modernization, the US will still have not added a single warhead to the arsenal allowed by the 2010 New Start treaty. It does, however, avoid what Dr. Clark Murdock, formerly a top staff member of the House Armed Services Committee and the founder of the Program on Nuclear Initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, described as a US nuclear force “rusting to obsolescence” which would be the result if we failed to replace our aging nuclear systems. So, the Trump administration has fully funded a robust modernization program that will eventually replace our currently aging nuclear force, but all within the parameters of the New Start agreement.
What arms race were Adams and Korb worrying about?
The US has modernized only twice: the first time under Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy and lastly under President Ronald W. Reagan and George W. Bush. Our land-based ICBMs were initially built in 1971 and given a life extension starting in 1994. Our last Ohio-class submarine was built in 1991; and our newest B52 was initially built in 1963. And the last B2 bomber was built in 1997. The idea that deciding some half century after these systems were initially deployed to replace them is somehow perpetuating an “arms race” is hard to understand.
Not only is the US not starting an arms race, but our adversary Russia has already finished racing on its own! Russia has built or will soon build some 27 new nuclear platform types since 1991 while the 5 successive American administrations during that period have implemented a 90% reduction in deployed nuclear forces while building zero new ones.
Even more important to understand is as USAF Major General Garret Harencak warned a Capitol Hill audience on May 13, 2015, the United States at the end of the Cold War not only did not start a nuclear arms race but went on “an intellectual and procurement nuclear holiday.”
But with the leadership of subsequent Secretaries of the Air Force and USAF Chiefs of Staff, and administrations and Congress dedicated to doing the right thing, the United States has moved quickly to remedy the holiday about which Harencak spoke. A planned modernized bomber and ICBM force—and the Navy’s submarine replacement program—is supported by both this administration and an overwhelming majority in the US Congress and over the past 4 years has received full funding.
This consensus was difficult to achieve and if destroyed may not be put back together. But a consensus indeed we have. And we must use that political gift to continue to build support for the necessary future planned US nuclear modernization, especially in the face of an aggressive hegemonic seekin
g Russia and China both fully expanding and modernizing their respective nuclear forces. It is to hoped, therefore, that the prospective deal with Russia to freeze all nuclear warheads—with a one-year extension of New Start during which to negotiate how to verify the deal—is successfully concluded as our national leaders “provide for the common defense.”
*The Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees, Yogi Peter Berra, winner of eight World Series, made the statement “Its déjà vu all over again” to describe the Yankees winning another World baseball title.
Peter R. Huessy – Mr. Huessy is the President of Geostrategic Analysis, a Potomac, Maryland-based defense and national security consulting business, and Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute, a Senior Fellow at ICAS, a senior consultant with Ravenna Associates, and previously for 22 years Senior Defense Consultant with the National Defense University Foundation at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.
He is and has been a Guest Lecturer at the School of Advanced International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, at the Institute of World Politics, at the University of Maryland, at the Joint Military Intelligence School, at the Naval Academy and at the National War College.
