The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is excited to continue its analysis of the Second Nuclear Age with an assessment of the impact of hypersonic technology on strategic stability. This new study is made possible with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The existing literature does not offer an analytical framework or historical context through which to understand technological or conceptual threats to strategic stability, nor does most literature connect advances in conventional capabilities designed to avoid nuclear use with the reverse effect of actually incentivizing weaker powers to increasingly rely on nuclear weapons for defense. CSBA aims to begin to fill that gap by assessing the potential influence of hypersonic technologies (as deployed in any number of forms) and related operational concepts on the strategic balance. Subsequently, CSBA intends to apply this frameworks to a broader range of emergent technologies that have the potential to affect strategic stability.
In response to Carnegie’s generosity, President Tom Mahnken said, “we are in an era in which the development of new technology threatens to outpace our understanding of them. Funding from the Carnegie Corporation will allow the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments to perform pathbreaking research and analysis of how ongoing and future developments in hypersonic technology will influence deterrence and stability.”