US Updates Stance on Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at an Oct. 27 press conference on the National Defense Strategy.
(Image credit – Petty Officer 2nd Class Alexander Kubitza / DOD)
The Department of Defense released an 80-page National Defense Strategy last week that includes the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the Missile Defense Review (MDR), which formally outline the Biden administration’s stance toward the development and use of nuclear weapons and missile defenses.
The reviews are traditionally conducted by each new presidential administration and published as separate, longer documents, but the Biden administration chose to transmit the classified versions to Congress in March and combine the public versions in a single report released shortly after the White House published its new National Security Strategy.
Together, the documents continue the Trump administration’s focus on nation-state competition with China and Russia while placing a greater emphasis on nuclear arms control and transnational threats such as climate change. The NPR mostly endorses the current comprehensive modernization of the nuclear weapons stockpile, drawing criticism from arms control advocates.
It also states the National Nuclear Security Administration will establish a “Science and Technology Innovation Initiative” that aims to “reduce the time and cost required to design and produce weapons with the most modern technologies that are most responsive to potential threats.”
The MDR does not discuss the potential of developing directed-energy defenses or space-based interceptors, in contrast to the Trump administration’s version of the document, but generally identifies a need to develop missile defense technologies that are “more mobile, flexible, survivable, and affordable.”
Biden administration officials are elaborating on the NPR and MDR at events on Tuesday and Friday , respectively.
