Strategic Simplicity Podcast

Austin, Vipin and I welcome friends from the MIT Security Studies Program, Taylor Fravel and Caitlin Talmadge, to discuss China once again. This time, we focus on two oft-cited rationales for China’s nuclear build-up—the desire to improve the survivability of its nuclear forces, and the potential to use a larger nuclear forces as a fullback for regional coercion/aggression. Our guests help explain China’s motivations, the looming Taiwan scenarios, what is happening in China’s non-nuclear forces, and Taiwan’s own capabilities and attitudes regarding a conflict. Our conversation moves beyond just nuclear weapons and into the political relationship, China’s historical approach to Taiwan, competition outside of the nuclear arena, and the relevance of the broader U.S. strategy toward China to these nuclear questions.

We also talk about the ability for the United States to compete in military domains that help set back the most concerning military scenarios with China, and keep the threshold for nuclear use high if a conflict was to begin. The group also discusses the limitations China may face in improving and modernizing its nuclear weapons capabilities to support a possible sea change in its approach to nuclear strategy, and whether China could become more transparent about its nuclear forces as the buildup continues, or if we’re going to hear about more new and modern windmills instead.

Please feel free to send us your thoughts, comments, and questions on this topic in the replies or via email, as we’re definitely going to record a Part III in the near future and are open to suggested topics. Until then, enjoy the pod.

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Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

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Is Putin’s offer to continue adherence to New START central limits for one more year a “cost free virtue signal,” a sincere desire to manage nuclear competition, an opening to a broader conversation on strategic issues, or maybe a combination of all of these things. Additionally, what U.S. interests are at play in considering this offer? Austin and I had a great conversation with two of the top experts in the arms control policy discourse, Mike Albertson and John Warden, to try and answer these questions among others.

We debate the various responses the United States could craft, the relevance of future U.S. nuclear posture adjustments to the question of maintaining New START limits for one more year, the state of New START today without verification activities, data exchanges or regular notifications, and China and trilateral arms control.

Mike and John help us dig into how the U.S. government usually organizes itself to analyze an arms control, the questions senior officials and experts are probably asking, and hopefully trying to answer, and how the United States may respond. We discuss the importance of ending New START on a “good note” to preserve arms control between the two countries and pave the way to future agreements, including ones that manage competition between the two countries and help shape future force posture decisions on each side. The Ukraine war looms large still today, and we talk about how that may play into considerations of Russia’s offer as well as other sources of leverage in arms control negotiations.

Throughout the conversation, the one area of agreement that surfaces is that all four of us think the United States needs to make a counter proposal to Putin’s offer, using the next four months to engage in a serious arms control policy process to establish U.S. priorities and consider how to engage Russian counterparts. We’ll have to see whether U.S. officials feel the same way and Russia is willing to use this offer as a starting point for that conversation, as opposed to accepting a fait accompli.

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Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

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Toby Dalton, Francesca Giovannini, and Eric Brewer, experts and leaders with the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, Harvard University Belfer Center Initiative on Managing the Atom, and Nuclear Threat Initiative, staffed the Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation and U.S. National Security for the past 10 months. They recently drafted and published a final task force report entitled “Preventing an Era of Nuclear Anarchy: Nuclear Proliferation and American Security.”

The Task Force, chaired by Ernie Moniz, Tino Cuellar, and Meghan O’Sullivan, is comprised of an impressive array of former officials across the national security bureaucracy and branches of government, and examined the foundations of U.S. national security policy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. In many ways, the Task Force is spiritual sequel to the 1964 Committee on Nuclear Proliferation, often called the “Gilpatric Committee” or “Gilpatric Task Force” after Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, the chair of the committee. (you can find the original Gilpatric report in its declassified glory at the Department of State’s Office of the Historian, here).

Our discussion examined several fundamental questions relevant to nuclear policy, counterproliferation, nonproliferation, extended deterrence, arms control, and other issues, including:

* Why and how U.S. national security approaches to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons need to change in an era of changing politics, technology, and military capabilities;

* How to spotlight the prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons as a core, and once-again emerging challenge to U.S. national interests;

* The necessity of U.S. leadership and international engagement to maintaining the track record of success in preventing nuclear proliferation, both to assure U.S. allies who benefit from extended deterrence guarantees, reduce risks with major power competitors, and to discourage proliferation;

* What a strong U.S. nuclear industry can offer to the nonproliferation toolkit;

* Why the United States needs to manage tensions between nonproliferation objectives and nuclear deterrence, such that the two worlds do not become mutually exclusive;

* How the security environment today is different from that of the 1960s in terms of the competition among major powers, availability nuclear technology, and state of political relationships; and,

* The importance of domestic and international institutions and expertise in meeting increased risks of nuclear proliferation… among many other issues.

We also discuss some inside baseball: how the task force meetings were organized on various topics, how task force members stayed focus on the proliferation problem while taking into account the near-daily shifts in the contemporary domestic and international politics, and trying to drive the task force toward establishing enduring, high-level findings and recommendations rather than something with a short term focus.

I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation, and use it as a primer for reading the report itself. The Task Force roster is incredibly impressive, and not surprisingly, the report is well worth your time.

We’ll be back again next week with a new episode.

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit strategicsimplicity.substack.com

Ankit, Vipin, and I discussed U.S.-ROK-DPRK affairs after recent comments by President Lee at the U.N. General Assembly, the ROK’s “E.N.D.” policy rollout, U.S. immigration and trade actions, and DPRK activities. Ankit and Vipin recently traveled to Seoul and shared insights gained during their trip on the state of extended deterrence discussions between the United States and South Korea, as well as pending issues surrounding ROK STRATCOM, wartime OPCON transfer, the state of the ROK and DPRK militaries. In the context of E.N.D., we discuss what reasoning with North Korea may look like for the Trump administration—including the kinds of risk reduction asks the U.S. may make of KJU— as it finalizes the National Defense Strategy and considers North Korea policy.

We also talk about the state of North Korea’s nuclear program, including the reliability of its ICBMs and reentry vehicles, after recent comments by ROK President Lee. Ankit describes how far the DPRK nuclear prograb has come in the past several years, particularly since the Trump administration’s last attempts at diplomacy in 2017 in partnership with Moon Jae-In. He describes how North Korea’s arsenal and strategy create different potential military scenarios today compared to the past, and how that influences U.S. extended deterrence diplomatic aims (extra credit to Ankit for recalling the “B61s as wedding rings” comparison made by a former defense official.).

The three of us discuss the relationship between political succession in North Korea and the likelihood of conflict/military aggression. We end with a discussion about how stable the Korean peninsula is today compared to a few years ago, following strengthened extended deterrence, policy shifts in Seoul and Pyongyang away from unification, and military technology advancements in North Korea.

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit strategicsimplicity.substack.com

One of the most rewarding aspects of government service is the opportunity to meet amazing, highly qualified and well-respected experts and leaders, and work alongside them in some of the most stressful circumstances. Celeste Wallander is one of those expert-leaders to these three nuclear musketeers (Team Title WIP, and no, this isn’t a new nuclear weapon idea that Austin came up with.). She is currently the Executive Director of Penn Washington, the University of Pennsylvania’s office in Washington D.C. Prior to that, she served in multiple roles in government at the Department of Defense and White House, including most recently as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and a stint as Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Security Council under President Obama.

We tried to cover recent news on the Russia and Europe front in this episode, starting with drone/aircraft incursions into NATO member airspace, President Trump’s comments at the United Nations General Assembly this week regarding Ukraine’s ability to win…

Trump, in major shift, suggests Ukraine can win back territory long held by Russia

…and European leaders reaction to those remarks:

Top EU diplomat warns Trump that Europe can’t shoulder Ukraine war burden alone

Tusk issues stark reality check about Trump’s pro-Ukraine pivot

We close our planned discussion with a conversation about President Zelensky’s statement that “the world was living through the most destructive arms race in human history” and stakes of various parties in the Ukraine conflict.

We save a few minutes at the end to talk about Putin’s recent offer regarding New START, which I wrote about here earlier this week. I also want to offer perspectives other than my own, provided by friends in the nuclear community, which you should also read:

Jon Wolfsthal: “Why President Trump should put off the new nuclear arms race for one more year“ The Bulletin.

Matt Bunn: “Putin just gave Trump the opportunity to maintain nuclear restraint. Will he seize it?“ The Bulletin.

Austin Long: “No Zombie Nuclear Treaties.” Strategic Simplicity.

Hope you enjoy the podcast and have a joyous weekend. We’ll be back next week with 2 episodes.

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Tom Karako, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, shares his new paper on the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), entitled “A Marie Kondo Moment for MTCR: Tidying Up the U.S. Approach to Missile Proliferation.“ Tom recommends that the U.S. government find a way to overcome the “strong presumption of denial” at the core of MTCR in order to better develop allied and partner capabilities in an age of proliferated missile and drone systems, particularly among adversarial nations. He authoritatively covers the strategic environment of 1987, when the G7 first developed MTCR, compared to the world of today. Ola, Austin and I share our perspectives on MTCR, nonproliferation trends, and where strategic dynamics may require changed thinking in U.S. defense trade.

If you’re interested in why the Marie Kondo reference makes so much sense, maybe you need to binge Netflix reality shows more frequently.

We also cover recent actions by the Trump administration to treat unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as aircraft, not missiles, for the purposes of U.S. export controls, and what that could mean for U.S industry and allies seeking new UAS capabilities. As part of the discussion, we also recap actions taken by the Biden administration in January 2025 to preserve MTCR but unilateral adapt U.S. implementation to create more opportunities for U.S. missile technology exports to close allies and where AUKUS lessons may provide a model for a future MTCR that works for the U.S. and its alliance system, not against it.

Please take a moment to read Tom’s paper, which can be found at the hyperlink below:

* “A Marie Kondo Moment for MTCR: Tidying Up the U.S. Approach to Missile Proliferation.“

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit strategicsimplicity.substack.com

Austin, Vipin and I welcomed Taylor Fravel and Caitlin Talmadge to the Strategic Simplicity Podcast to talk about China. While I was hoping we would could make this THE definitive China episode, we realized as the conversation began just how much more we have to unpack and explore on this topic. Stay tuned for a Part II (and maybe a Part III!) in the coming weeks.

Our podcast covered some of the higher order motivations in China for a large nuclear arsenal, how those motivations may have changed over time as the recent buildup began in earnest, whether Chinese explanations of seeking a secure second strike capability credibly explain certain capability developments, and we also talk about China’s nuclear posture changes in the context of broader trends in the U.S.-China relationship, political changes in Beijing, economic growth, its foreign policy objectives, and increases in its relative military power in the U.S.-China competition. Throughout the conversation we reference China’s recent military parade, including the development of theater nuclear weapons, intermediate-range dual-capable missiles, and silo-based ICBMs. We also touch on the ebbs and flows in U.S.-China relations over the past several years, and how China viewed and perhaps reacted to changing (and more transparency in) policies in the United States and Taiwan in developing its nuclear and other military capabilities.

If you’re interested in doing your own deep dive….some suggested reading below. Taylor and Caitlin are prolific writers in addition to being amazing scholars and professors, and I can’t recommend their publications strongly enough for listeners who are interested in learning more (and there are of course many more than i’ve chosen to post below). I’ve also thrown a few recent works by Austin, Vipin and I which many of you may have already read.

* “China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure.” Journal of International Security. Evan Medeiros and Taylor Fravel (open access link).

* “The Meaning of China’s Nuclear Modernization.” Journal of Strategic Studies. Caitlin Talmadge and Josh Rovner.

* “Counterforce in Contemporary U.S. Nuclear Strategy.” Center for GLobal Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Edited by Brad Roberts. Austin’s article “Damage Limitation in the 21st Century” is located on page 66.

* “How to Survive the New Nuclear Age.“ Foreign Affairs. Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi.

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit strategicsimplicity.substack.com

Austin, Vipin, and I suspended our unilateralist approach to choosing podcast topics for one recording session, instead taking on questions and comments that you listeners/readers sent to us. Thank you for being willing to engage, on pretty short notice, on a wide array of topics. We will definitely do this again, so please keep sending in your thoughts!

I’m not going to list every question we received, but they ran the gamut of nuclear policy topics. We discussed China’s military parade, Pakistan’s long-range missile program, counterforce and negotiating war termination, advice for new/early-career participants in the nuclear field, and reflected on “surprises” we experienced during our careers in government.

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit strategicsimplicity.substack.com

I really enjoyed this conversation with Lowell Schwartz, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Policy, who joined the podcast to talk about the role Congress plays in overseeing arms control and nuclear policy. I’m glad we were able to get Lowell’s perspective on the opaque world of executive-legislative branch relations, particularly on national security issues, and who better to offer insights on this topic than a former senior professional staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who managed the WMD portfolio.

We talked about the New START and nuclear modernization compromise, how a staffer approaches oversight of the executive branch on these issues, and Lowell’s experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In addition to New START, we talked about the politics surrounding JCPOA negotiations on Capitol Hill, how to ask nicely for briefings from the Department of State, and the comparative advantages the executive branch has over Capitol Hill on the foreign policy, military and technical topics involved in arms control policy.

We also talk about the relevance of public support for arms control and defense spending decisions, Golden Dome, SDI, and missile defense politics historically, and the prospects for arms control with Russia and China today. Lowell and I also spent some time talking about the rationale for arms control, what aspects of arms control policy members of Congress and Senators may find important, and how historical arms control oversight on Capitol Hill—and deal-making involving defense spending and arms control limits—may relate to any contemporary effort to approve a new treaty. Finally, we end with a discussion about how far Congress can go with spending to modernize and possibly grow the arsenal in future without an arms control path to control costs down the road (and how hard that looks right now given relations with potential arms control partners).

Read Lowell’s writing on domestic and international politics at his Substack, “A New Sense of Freedom.“

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit strategicsimplicity.substack.com

We had a long, detailed conversation across a host of policy issues that impact arms control policy, diving into his long career as a DoD and NSC official from the late 80s into the early 2000s, overseeing the policy process that supported negotiated reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear forces for two decades. Here’s a quick list of the topics we covered:

* The relationship between parity as a policy objective vs. deterrence requirements;

* The potential for an “interim restraint” in continuing New START limits constraining modernization, force posture adjustments, breaking comity among the various USG entities involved in nuclear modernization, and/or diminish negotiating leverage;

* How deterrence requirements can and should inform an arms control position;

* His experience leading a SIOP review starting in the late 1980s, how U.S. officials began prioritizing targets in furtherance of U.S. nuclear strategy, and how these efforts helped lay groundwork for the START process;

* what an “all-warheads” agreement could look like between the US and Russia that takes into account deterrence requirements AND politics;

* the concerns expressed regarding a lapse of New START without replacement (or perhaps replacement with an agreement that permits a larger deployed arsenal) and good arguments and goals for future arms control;

* the impact of national interests and personalistic leadership in arms control diplomacy;

* strategies to try and bring China into arms control discussions;

* the direction of travel on U.S.-Russia relations, the Russia/Ukraine conflict, security guarantees and NATO, and the impact of these issues on U.S. nuclear policy-making in the USG right now; and,

* Where Golden Dome may fit into all of these arms control policy considerations.

We end with a little bonhomie in calling for experts across national security disciplines to come together and integrate their perspectives to tackle these important deterrence and arms control questions moving forward.

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit strategicsimplicity.substack.com