Over at Lawyers, Guns & Money, Cheryl Rofer raises concerns about the possibility that STRATCOM is trying, per Defense News, to “furiously” rewrite U.S. deterrence strategy

Writing “a new nuclear deterrence theory” is not a college essay. Nor can it “furiously” be done overnight, as if that essay were due tomorrow.

The nuclear deterrent, which is what people like Richard often call the nuclear arsenal, has never deterred smaller wars. Vietnam and Afghanistan saw nuclear superpowers invade, undeterred by other nuclear superpowers. And now Ukraine.

My best guess is that the good folks of STRATCOM will rely on arguments that the U.S. derives major benefits from nuclear superiority. Such claims are, to say the least, highly tendentious and weakly demonstrated.

Even if they don’t, as Cheryl emphasizes, it’s not at all clear that there’s any kind of “problem” in need of a solution.

If I were working over at the National Security Council or OSD(P) then I would definitely want to be proactive about keeping this from going off the rails.