SHREVEPORT – “Fortune favors the prepared.”
Those were the words of Dr. Plamen Doynov in relation specifically to the U.S. power grid and other civilian infrastructure in case of an electromagnetic pulse attack.
But that sentiment described the entire Nuclear Triad Symposium in which military and industry experts assessed threats from adversaries like China and Russia and how the U.S. is prepared to respond.
BRF Defense, with the National Institute for Nuclear Deterrence Studies, and LSU Shreveport, hosted the fifth annual symposium on June 18, offering a nonclassified setting for Air Force Global Strike Command (headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base) and noted experts in the nuclear enterprise, academia, and the defense community.
The AFGSC commands two-thirds of the United States’ nuclear triad – nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles that can be launched from land-based missile fields and nuclear cruise missiles that can be launched from stealth bombers.
The Navy controls the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad with its submarine-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
Each leg of the Nuclear Triad was represented as military personnel and defense industry experts engaged in detailed presentations and exchanges about how to keep America’s strategic nuclear deterrent credible and reliable.
“Barksdale Air Force Base and the Nuclear Triad are so central to protect the values and way of life that we have enjoyed as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this country,” said Shreveport mayor Tom Arceneaux. “The work you’re doing isn’t just important to your companies and units, it’s important to our community, to the nation, and to the world.
“Thank you for what you do in protecting us and our way of life.”
THE THREAT
While Iran and its near weapons-grade nuclear material may be front and center in the headlines, China and Russia are foremost on the minds of nuclear experts.
If nuclear missiles were to ever be used, symposium experts predict they’d start in the form of a theater war and not necessarily launched directly at the American mainland.
China has signaled more aggressively its desire to bring Taiwan, and its production of 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips, officially back under Chinese control.
What could begin as a conventional war invites the temptation of nuclear missile use.
“China is engaging in the fastest buildup of nuclear weapons this century,” said Gordon Chang, a Gatestone Institute senior fellow who is an East Asia expert. “From all indications, its specialists are detonating fissile material in secret tests.
“Beijing won’t talk to us about arms control. I believe the Chinese are planning to make nuclear threats to prevent us from coming to the aid of its intended victims. It’s possible they could even start a war with a nuclear detonation.”
Russian expert Stephen Blank says that country operates under a “first strike doctrine” and is behaving as if war with the West has already started.
While no Chinese official military personnel has measurable combat experience, Russia has significant experience in its war in Ukraine, particularly in drone warfare.
Heavy casualties and limited territorial gain throughout its four-year conflict with a Ukrainian force armed with some Western weapons and a homegrown drone industry has the world questioning Russia’s conventional military capability and strategy.
But Russia does hold the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and China is gaining on the U.S. for the second largest.
“We, and our allies in Europe and Asia, are under attack … and this war is escalating,” said Blank, a non-resident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program. “It’s not kinetic – there are no bombs falling in Louisiana, or New York City or Washington D.C.
“But anybody who studies Russia knows that they are obsessed with being a great power, which means empire. Empire entails the dissolution of other states’ sovereignty and territorial integrity. Without nuclear weapons, Russia is not a great power in its own mind.”
Nuclear weapons are the great equalizer between militaries that might not stack up in conventional warfare.
The U.S. showcased its conventional long-range strike capability with attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025 and again in 2026 against key Iranian military sites in Operation Epic Fury.
MODERNIZING THE NUCLEAR DETERRENT
Make no mistake – the U.S. military remains unmatched in conventional weapons and tactics.
Although China and other adversaries are making gains in conventional capabilities, the world knows that China is not likely to win a strictly conventional war if it started today.
“We have relied on our military overmatch for quite some time, certainly since the fall of the Soviet Union,” said Lt. Gen Jason Armagost, deputy commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command. “Our conventional overmatch has an end date on it unless we reinvigorate and re-understand and re-engage in our force design structure, starting with our strategic forces.
“It’s not easy to do.”
Much of the manufacturing infrastructure that undergirded the American military and its advancement atrophied, particularly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
But that hasn’t stopped the Air Force from having the largest deployed bomber force currently since World World II, even if some of that force is flying retrofitted B-52 Stratofortress bombers that first came online in 1955 with design beginning in 1946.
This venerable platform has undergone significant renovation with its most recent upgrades including new engines, radar and avionics. The B-52 Stratofortress platform has been extended to fly until 2050.
While manufacturing atrophy causes issues and delays in the production of new models and maintenance of current ones, the B-21 Raider program is expanding its production capacity after Northrop Grumman Corp. delivered aircraft ahead of schedule.
The latest stealth bomber platform has completed 11 of 26 scheduled developmental test flights.
The land-based leg of the Triad is on the grueling path to modernization as the Sentinel program is underway to replace the aging Minuteman III ICBMs, the missile silos, infrastructure and facilities.
The program hit a major milestone this past October when the first Minuteman III launch facility was deactivated.
“There is a massive shift underway to modernize programs, and the Air Force Global Strike Command has the largest modernization portfolio in the Department of War,” said Air Force Gen. Stephen L. Davis, commander of the AFGSC. “Today’s strategic environment is more complex than it was in the Cold War, but we are well-positioned to respond and deter.”
The Navy has procured two of the planned 12 Columbia class submarines with a third expected this year. The goal is for all 12 boats to be in action by 2035.
For the first time since the 1970s, the Navy is developing new nuclear warheads for its ballistic and cruise missiles.
In all three legs of the Triad, a renewed focus and emphasis on speed of modernization was a topic that stretched across many of the seven panels.
“We’ve been asked to deliver as soon as possible … and we are maintaining the reliability and sustainability of the sea leg of the nuclear triad,” said Kelly Lee, executive director of the Navy Nuclear Weapons Programs.
Lt. Gen. Mark Pye, the deputy director of critical major weapon systems, added there’s a “unified focus on speed” across the Triad.
Organizational restructuring across the Triad began earlier this year with the aim of shortening command chains and reducing bureaucratic processes that slow down decision-making.
“We must align with urgency and decision velocity while still maintaining high standards and technical rigor,” Pye said. “With the high velocity of change in threats, we must get on a wartime footing to prevent one.”
THE PURPOSE
The U.S. advances and maintains its stockpile of both nuclear and conventional weapons and delivery systems as a means of deterrence with the aim of preventing direct conflict.
Christopher Yeaw, assistant secretary of state for Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability, said the government seeks to craft and sign agreements designed to reduce the risk of nuclear war while advancing security for itself and its allies.
“The main reason the U.S. engages in arms control is that when arms control is calibrated to a specific strategic environment, it can provide real, measurable security benefits,” said Yeaw, who’s appeared at multiple previous symposiums as a nuclear weapons expert. “Agreements can open lines of communications which can contribute to some level of weapons verification and at times has provided valuable insight.
“We prioritize verification to make sure that the U.S. isn’t unilaterally disadvantaged by an agreement.”
Yeaw added that while the new START treaty with Russia has expired due in part of to Russia’s noncompliance, the most concerning development in the nuclear world is China’s rapid nuclear build up, none of which has ever been monitored or captured by a treaty.
Both Russia and China are developing and testing new weapons.
Yeaw added that there’s “undeniable evidence” of Chinese yield-producing nuclear tests, and that the Chinese have been “obfuscating nuclear explosions.”
China, with the help of potential partners like Russia and North Korea, has the option to leverage this capability against U.S. allies in the region like Japan and South Korea.
The threat lies far beyond the Pacific as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization believes that Russia could fully reconstitute its military capabilities to launch an attack on Europe by 2029.
The credibility of U.S. deterrence, both in the nuclear and conventional arenas, must be able to respond.
