NucleCast

Welcome to a special episode of NucleCast! Not only is Dr. Adam Lowther the host of NucleCast, he is Director of Strategic Deterrence Programs at the National Strategic Research Institute at the University of Nebraska, U.S. Strategic Command's University Affiliated Research Center. Prior to joining NSRI, Dr. Lowther served as the first director of the department of multi-domain operations (MDO) at the Army Management Staff College (AMSC), was a professor at the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, founding director of the School of Advanced Nuclear Deterrence Studies, Kirtland AFB and director of the Center for Academic and Professional Journals at the Air Force Research Institute (AFRI), Maxwell AFB.

Dr. Robert J. Peters is the former Chief within the Strategic Integration Directorate of the Strategic Trends and Effects Department (STED) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. STED’s mission is to generate timely, credible, and actionable insights into threats within the counter-WMD and counter-emerging threat mission space and to assess the effectiveness of Agency efforts to support the Joint Warfighter.

Prior to joining DTRA, Mr. Peters served as a Senior Research Fellow at National Defense University's Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction. From March-November 2009, Mr. Peters was detailed to the Office of the Secretary of Defense-Policy as Special Assistant to the DASD for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. In this role, he supported the White House on several key nuclear deterrence and countering WMD initiatives.

Scott Sudduth is a founding partner of Washington Navigators, a strategic consulting firm focused on federal and international issues affecting higher education, innovation and competitiveness, and nuclear national security. He spent 30 years as a member of the senior management teams at four of the nation’s premier comprehensive research universities: the University of California System, the University of Chicago, The University of Texas System, and The Texas A&M University System.

Sudduth has contributed to the proposal teams of several national laboratory competitions and has been deeply involved in the management and oversight of the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration national laboratories. Scott served on the board of Triad National Security, LLC. which manages Los Alamos National Laboratory.

CEO & Founder of the Small Business Consulting Corporation (SBCC). SBCC helps the military find and connect with innovative companies in order to help transition their best technologies for the nation’s most critical defense missions.

Goodfellow is a 30-year Air Force Veteran who, in his last active-duty military job, served as the Director of Strategic Plans, Programs and Requirements at Air Force Global Strike Command located at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. In this position, he was responsible for strategic planning, and for resourcing the nation's Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile force, B-1,B-2 and B-52 bombers, UH-1N helicopters, the E-4B National Airborne Operations Center Aircraft, and Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3) systems.

Dr. Michaela Dodge is a Research Scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy. Prior to joining the National Institute, Dr. Dodge worked at The Heritage Foundation from 2010-2019. She left Heritage to serve as Senator Jon Kyl’s Senior Defense Policy Advisor between October to December 2018. Her last position at Heritage was a Research Fellow for Missile Defense and Nuclear Deterrence. Dr. Dodge’s work focuses on U.S. nuclear weapons and missile defense policy, nuclear forces modernization, deterrence and assurance, and arms control. Additionally, she was a Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011 and participated in the Center for Strategic and International Studies PONI Nuclear Scholars Initiative Program.

David Beering is the owner of Intelligent Designs LLC, a small business based in West Lafayette, IN at the Purdue University Research Park. The firm focuses on Engineering, Design, Integration & Testing, and Implementation of complex communications systems utilizing satellites and high-speed wireless connections. During his career, Beering has held leading roles in more than 85 projects working with organizations including the US Naval Research Laboratory, US Army, Missile Defense Agency, Airbus Defense & Space, Lockheed Martin, The Boeing Company, Ball Aerospace, Sandia National Laboratories, Northrop Grumman, and BP.

Bruce Klingner specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

Klingner has testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is a frequent commentator in U.S. and foreign media. His articles and commentary have appeared in major American and foreign publications and he is a regular guest on broadcast and cable news outlets. He is a regular contributor to the international and security sections of The Daily Signal.

From 1996 to 2001, Klingner was CIA’s deputy division chief for Korea, responsible for the analysis of political, military, economic and leadership issues for the president of the United States and other senior U.S. policymakers. In 1993-1994, he was the chief of CIA’s Korea branch, which analyzed military developments during a nuclear crisis with North Korea.

Klingner is a distinguished graduate of the National War College, where he received a master’s degree in national security strategy in 2002. He also holds a master’s degree in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Middlebury College in Vermont.

He is active in Korean martial arts, attaining third-degree black belt in taekwondo and first-degree black belt in hapkido and teuk kong moo sool.

Colonel Keith J. Butler is the Commander of Detachment 5, Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. He is the Operational Commander of all B-2 Spirit and T-38 Talon aircraft assigned to the world’s only stealth bomber base and is responsible for the combat readiness of $45B in Air Force assets and 400+ Airmen. Former F-16 and F-117 pilot. Col. Butler served in the Rapid Capabilities Office and Joint Staff, graduated from National Defense University's Center For The Study of WMD Studies, Air Force Institute of Technology, is a former Secretary of Defense Executive Fellow at Autodesk and a former National Technical Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

The sixteenth episode of NucleCast features Dr. Rob Soofer, a Senior Associate (non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies (CSS), teaching courses in nuclear strategy, missile defense, and arms control. He serves as a consultant for the Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.

Rob was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy from April 2017 to January 2021. Previously, Rob served for eight years as Professional Staff Member and Republican staff lead for the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as Strategic Forces Policy Advisor to Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican Whip. Rob also was Military Legislative Assistant to Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) and Professional Staff Member on the Senate Republican Policy Committee. He joined the National War College for three years as Professor of National Security Policy, and served for eight years in various policy and international affairs positions with the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization/Missile Defense Agency. In 2003, he was called to active duty as a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserve and assigned to the newly created Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

Dr. John R. Harvey is a physicist with over 40 years of experience working nuclear weapons and national security issues, first at LLNL, then at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control and in senior positions in the Departments of Defense (twice) and Energy. From 2009-2013, he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs. In this role, he was Undersecretary Ash Carter’s “go to” person for the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, and for interactions with the NNSA on joint oversight of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. Dr. Harvey provided oversight to DoD acquisition programs to sustain and modernize nuclear weapons delivery systems and systems for their command and control. He has written and spoken extensively on these issues. On retiring from government service in 2013, he consults with, among others, the Defense Science Board, Institute for Defense Analysis, Los Alamos National Laboratory, U.S. Strategic Command’s Advisory Panel on Nuclear Command and Control and NNSA’s Defense Programs Advisory Committee.