Executive Summary
Why You Need This Report
The ICBM EAR (Emerging Affairs Report) for the Week of March 3, 2025, prepared by Peter Huessy, President of Geo-Strategic Analysis and Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies, offers an authoritative, real-time assessment of critical defense and strategic developments impacting U.S. national security. This report consolidates essential intelligence and policy analysis on ICBM modernization, homeland missile defense, congressional budget battles, strategic threats from China, Russia, and Iran, and broader global deterrence dynamics.
As global threats intensify, policymakers, defense professionals, and industry leaders need a consolidated, insightful briefing to navigate the shifting landscape of great power competition and nuclear deterrence strategy. This report delivers precisely that—essential updates, expert commentary, and strategic foresight that decision-makers cannot afford to overlook.
Key Themes & Strategic Insights
- Critical Developments in Homeland Missile Defense & Nuclear Deterrence
- The “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative, backed by congressional leaders and STRATCOM, underscores a growing commitment to protecting the U.S. homeland from emerging missile threats.
- General Alvin, USAF Chief of Staff, affirms the Air Force’s pivotal role in nuclear deterrence and missile defense, reinforcing its responsibility for two-thirds of the nuclear triad and three-fourths of nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3).
- Upcoming ICBM infrastructure modernization at Vandenberg Space Force Base highlights the urgency of maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent against adversarial advancements.
- Congressional & Budgetary Realities Impacting National Defense
- As the FY25 budget debate intensifies, the threat of a yearlong Continuing Resolution (CR) poses risks to defense funding, potentially leaving the U.S. military underfunded by $8 billion below proposed levels.
- Misinformation regarding an “8% defense cut” is addressed—while no drastic cuts are proposed, funding reallocations emphasize priority programs like Sentinel ICBM modernization and Columbia-class submarines.
- With a $2 trillion annual deficit, balancing national security needs with fiscal realities remains a critical challenge.
- Growing Threats from China, Russia, and Iran
- China’s defense budget expands by 7.2%, accelerating military modernization, expanding nuclear capabilities, and strengthening island chain defenses in the Pacific.
- Russia’s Arctic militarization, border buildups, and nuclear brinkmanship highlight its continued push for strategic dominance.
- Iran’s sevenfold increase in highly enriched uranium (HEU) production, coupled with escalating proxy conflicts, presents a growing nuclear proliferation threat.
- European defense spending surge ($860 billion over four years) signals a shift in NATO’s strategic posture amidst rising concerns over Russia’s long-term objectives.
- Global Security & Deterrence Policy: Special Reports & Expert Analyses
- Heritage Foundation’s assessment of nuclear modernization emphasizes the necessity of rebuilding U.S. strategic deterrent forces to counter the evolving nuclear threats from Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran.
- Michaela Dodge’s critical review of arms control policy challenges the viability of future U.S.-Russia agreements given Russia’s record of treaty violations.
- Victor Davis Hanson debunks misconceptions about U.S. deterrence strategies, highlighting historical lessons in negotiations and military strength.
- The Ukraine Corner: Understanding the Stakes
- Russia’s history of broken agreements, including violations of the Minsk Accords and Budapest Memorandum, justifies Ukraine’s insistence on binding security guarantees.
- European defense commitments remain uncertain, despite recent rhetoric supporting increased military readiness.
- U.S. policy under the Trump administration seeks to reshape geopolitical alignments, reduce Middle East entanglements, and focus on countering China.
About the Author
Peter Huessy
Mr. Peter Huessy is President of his own defense consulting firm, Geostrategic Analysis, founded in 1981, and through 2021, Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute on Aerospace Studies. He was the senior defense consultant at the National Defense University Foundation for 22 years. He was the National Security Fellow at the AFPC, and Senior Defense Consultant at the Air Force Association from 2011-2016.
Mr. Huessy has served as an expert defense and national security analyst for over 50 years, helping his clients cover congressional activities, arms control group efforts, nuclear armed states actions, and US administration nuclear related policy, budgets, and strategies, while monitoring budget and policy developments on nuclear deterrence, ICBM modernization, nuclear arms control, and overall nuclear modernization.
He has also covered nuclear terrorism, counterterrorism, immigration, state-sponsored terrorism, missile defense, weapons of mass destruction, especially US-Israeli joint defense efforts, nuclear deterrence, arms control, proliferation, as well as tactical and strategic air, airlift, space and nuclear matters and such state and non-state actors as North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda. This also includes monitoring activities of think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and other US government departments, as well as projecting future actions of Congress in this area. His specialty is developing and implementing public policy campaigns to secure support for important national security objectives. And analyzing nuclear related technology and its impact on public policy, a study of which he prepared for the Aerospace Corporation in 2019.
