Project Atom

A Competitive Strategies Approach to Defining U.S. Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2025–2050

Clark Murdock, Samuel J. Brannen, Thomas Karako, Angela Weaver

• Publisher: Center for Strategic & International Studies
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781442240896
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Project Atom is a forward-looking, "blue-sky" review of U.S. nuclear strategy and posture in a 2025-2050 world in which nuclear weapons are still necessary. The report highlights and addresses the current deficit in national security attention paid to the continued relevance and importance of U.S. nuclear strategy and force posture, provides a new open-source baseline for understanding the nuclear strategies of other countries, and offers a credible, intellectually tested, and nonpartisan range of options for the United States to consider in revising its own nuclear strategy.

Table of contents

• Executive Summary
• Project Atom: A Competitive Strategies Approach to Defining U.S. Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2025–2050
• Appendix A. Project Atom Participants and Subject Matter Experts
• Appendix B. Project Atom Timelines
• Appendix C. Protecting U.S. Security by Minimizing the Role of Nuclear Weapons: A New U.S. Nuclear Policy
• Appendix D. A Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2030
• Appendix E. An Adaptable Nuclear Force for the 2030+ Security Environment
• Appendix F. Project Atom Key Points of Comparison
• Appendix G. Characteristics of a Future Nuclear Force: Smaller, Lower, Newer, More Diverse, and More Integrated
• Appendix H. Template and Framing Assumptions for Think Tank Team Papers
• Appendix I. Technological Possibilities for Nuclear Weapons in 2025–2050
• Appendix J. Adversary Nuclear Strategies: 2030+
• Appendix K. 2030+ Security Environment: The “Likely Future” and Several Alternative Worlds
• About the Authors