ARLINGTON, VA. – In his debut public address as Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Adm. Richard Correll told Exchange Monitor’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit the national labs were one of “five significant threat vectors” of concern for STRATCOM.
“The way I think about it, and I hope I came across in my remarks, is understanding where technology is headed, what the implications are for capabilities as they exist today, and how we take advantage of that advancing technology and maintain our overall advantage,” Correll said last week. “So understanding the threat environment.”
The first four threat vectors were cyber, counter-U.S. space capabilities, the electromagnetic spectrum and novel missile systems. “The fifth one is really large,” Correll said. “It involves the defense industrial base, the national labs, and STRATCOM: it is the supply chain.
“Do you understand where the risks are in that supply chain?” Correll added. “How are you accounting for that? How do you know that transistor you have is gonna perform always the way you want it to, when you want it to?”
Correll also said in his remarks that, regarding supply chains and restoring defense engines and producing modern systems in industrial supply chains, “deterrence is much broader than the nuclear portfolio. While nuclear weapons provide unique deterrent effects, strategic deterrence relies on all elements of national power, the whole government for the joint force.”