The panel discussed: "What role, if any, might nuclear weapons play in bolstering existing and future U.S. security alliances? Is the current set of U.S. nuclear policies more likely to compound rather then further restrain the spread of nuclear weapons technologies? Is it useful--or even still possible--for the United States to develop a comprehensive national security strategy to meet the dangers that it faces in the 21st century? How should the U.S. prepare against future nuclear crises?"

Albert Wohlstetter (1913-1997) and Roberta Morgan Wohlstetter (1912-2007) were two of America's most innovative and influential thinkers of strategy in the nuclear age. Their works, perhaps more than any other Cold War strategic analyst, helped to shape the strategic policy decisions of both Democratic and Republican both during and after the Cold War.

Andrew Marshall (Director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment), Henry S. Rowen (2005 WMD Commissioner & former JFK/LBJ Defense official), Richard Perle (AEI resident fellow & former Reagan Pentagon official), and Stephen J. Lukasik (former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency director) assessed the continuing relevance of the Wohlstetters' strategic insights. Each panelist contributed commentaries to Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter (2009), a new book edited by NPEC research fellow Robert Zarate and NPEC executive director Henry Sokolski that contains timely and enduring Wohlstetter works.

Download a free PDF version of Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter.