ICBM EAR Report - Week of July 7th
ICBM EAR Week of July 7th, Prepared by Peter Huessy, President of GeoStrategic Analysis, and Senior Defense Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.
Summary of this week’s Report:
Hebron Arabs make peace with Israel;
Sentinel moving forward in Wyoming; Philippine DM gets China right; China’s hegemonic objectives emerging; the scoop on Iran; a proposed (dangerous) new deterrent strategy; Golden Dome lots of stuff especially new essay by Payne; Miller/Edleman explain arms control do’s and don’ts’; arms control folk jettisoning old think? More Dangers from China; missile defense strategy changed by DoD and detailed budget brought forward; the B21 bomber accelerates; the old (& Dumb) Nuclear Freeze is back; former DOS and NATO official Gottemoeller details arms control options; and the EAR’s newest essay: We Should Not Have Spent the Peace Dividend.
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Selected Feature Section:
International Strategic Developments
China Weak? Professor Honrada claims China is indeed modernizing its nuclear deterrent but is not threat to the US and only has ICBMs as a reliable force as its submarines cannot patrol throughout the oceans and its strategic bomber force is small and not fully deployed. However, as expert RD Fisher explains: “Like the Soviets, the PLAN is making up for the weaknesses of its SSBNs by building protected Bastions, with the JL-3s missiles still having enough range to hit Western CONUS from defended areas off of Hainan.” Fisher also warns: “Most worrisome is that China is also helping the NKs to build their own SSBN bastions, that the PLAN will use as well. The Chinese 096 subs will soon be with us, will be more able to hide in the deep waters, and which abound in the South China Sea. Then there is also the SSN production of the new 095s subs, that will be hunting our SSBNs.”
More Peace? Hebron Arab clans, led by Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, announced that they are severing ties with the Palestinian Authority and want to join the Abraham Accords, begun in 2020. According to The Wall Street Journal, two groups of sheikhs are involved, leading a majority of the 700,000 residents in the Hebron area. Their letter states, in Hebrew: “The Emirate of Hebron shall recognize the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and the State of Israel shall recognize the Emirate of Hebron as the representative of the Arab residents in the Hebron District.”
“You Think Things Can’t Get More Dangerous? Xi Adopts the 'Putin Doctrine,' at Russia's Peril” - Wall Street Journal, July 8, Pg. A15 | Dan Quayle and Thomas J. Duesterberg
With Vladimir Putin's aggression in Georgia and Ukraine and his threats against the Baltic states, he has established that the Russian Republic believes it can reclaim any territories of the former Soviet Union. This doctrine is on a collision course with Xi Jinping's "China dream," which aspires to undo the "Century of Humiliation" in the 1800s, when China had to cede vast territory and local sovereignty to both European and Russian imperialist regimes. Territorial disputes between the two autocratic powers are likely to become one of the biggest threats to global stability as Mr. Xi in effect adopts the Putin doctrine.
“A New Nuclear Arms Race in the Western Pacific?” The Atlantic, August 2025 | Ross Andersen
For all the recent focus on Iran, in a cruel irony, East Asia is where the world’s fastest buildups are unfolding, in China and North Korea. A dangerous proliferation cascade may be about to break out, right in the shadow of Hiroshima. It would likely start in South Korea and spread first to Japan. It might not stop there. The decades-long effort to keep nuclear weapons from spreading across the planet may be about to collapse.
North Korea has not seen fit to restrain its nuclear ambitions in the same way. During the heady years after the Cold War, George H. W. Bush removed the American warheads that had long been stationed at bases in South Korea, then pressured its president to sign a joint pledge with North Korea to keep the peninsula forever free of nuclear weapons. That pledge proved to be a sham; North Korea tested its first crude nuclear device just 14 years later, during George W. Bush’s presidency.