Arlington, VA | September 15, 2021 — The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is pleased to announce a new entry in its Policy Paper series, Understanding American Voters’ Sentiment on National Security & Maintaining a Modern Strategic Nuclear Deterrence Posture.
Since the late Cold War-era, the debate surrounding strategic nuclear deterrence has been incredibly predictable. The arms control community, on the one hand, and advocates for the nuclear triad, on the other, continue to wield their tried-and-true talking points. You could read a newspaper article from the early 1980s and see many of today’s most popular arguments in play almost word-for-word. However, the security environment, public priorities, and technology have evolved markedly.
Mitchell Institute launched this research effort in partnership with Seven Letter Insight to understand where public perceptions really stand regarding strategic nuclear deterrence far past what the headlines, op-eds, and political comments convey. Understanding public opinion is exceedingly important given the scale and scope of the triad modernization. As a democracy, America’s national security investment will fundamentally reflect what the public desires. The results we discovered were quite surprising. Read more to explore this new data, see how the research was conducted, and use it to inform the discussion on its potential broader implications.
The Mitchell Institute Policy Papers is a series presenting new thinking and policy proposals to respond to the emerging security and aerospace power challenges of the 21st century. These papers are written for lawmakers and their staffs, policy professionals, business and industry, academics, journalists, and the informed public.
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Copies of Policy Papers can be downloaded at https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org/publications