Planning for the 7th Annual U.S. Strategic Command Academic Alliance Conference and Workshop is underway. This year’s theme is “Redlines, Grey Zones and the Reframing of Great Power Competition”. The virtual conference will feature ten-panel discussions from students across the globe, and experiential learning event designed to challenge the player understanding of deterrence, and a national security job fair. They are also searching for student researchers to submit their work to be shared at the conference,
The deadline to submit an abstract is December 15, 2021.
Possible Research Topics
- How does deterrence theory change now that the U.S. faces two nuclear-armed, near-peer competitors?
- What are strategies for facing two nuclear-armed, near-peer competitors?
- How does the U.S. set deterrence thresholds and how should it communicate those thresholds to adversaries? What is the effect on adversary decision making if thresholds are communicated?
- Is stability possible within tripolar long term competition and low-level non-kinetic conflict?
- How can the US improve the balance of perceived resolve to defend national interests? How might we take a new assessment approach to illuminate this problem of adversary perception of US resolve?
- What is the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in deterring strategic or existential attacks? How can declaratory policy impact this?
- How can deterrence be restored once it has failed?
- What could break deterrence in the 21st century? What could strengthen deterrence?
- What is the efficacy of multi-domain deterrence in an economically competitive environment?
- How can we shape deterrence of non-nuclear strategic attacks that employ cumulative strategies across systems and domains?
- How might cyber attacks on NC3 capabilities introduce doubt in the reliability and effectiveness of an actor’s NC3 capability? What impacts might this have on strategic deterrence?
- How does the widespread use and effects of sharp power affect the credibility of deterrence?
- How does great power competitive conflict affect extended deterrence?
- How should we treat information operations in global power competition and with regard to U.S. ability to deter? How do we integrate strategic communications into operations, activities, and investments as well as advocacy?
- Considering the environment today and future trends, what decisions would we make about forces and doctrine if we were starting from zero? What does this mean in the context of taking PRC as “the pacing threat”?
Selected abstracts will be placed under one of the following pannel themes:
- Deterring Non-nuclear Strategic Attacks and Cumulative Strategies
- Competition and Cooperation in Deterrence Strategies
- Informatized Warfare and Strategic Communications
- Redlines, Thresholds, and Deterrence Credibility
- Economic and Cyber Aspects of Great Power Competition
- Strategic Stability in long term competition and low-level multi-domain conflict
Criteria
The following must be true of/included in the abstract submission.
- The proposed topic is drawn from the list of the above topics
- Name (First/Last)
- Email Address
- University/Institution Affiliation
- Status (Student/Professional)
- The proposed paper working title
- 300 words in length (max)
To view the full call for abstracts, click here.
To view the analytic context, click here.
