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Workshop Proceedings

Responding to North Korean Nuclear First Use: Minimizing Damage to the Nuclear Taboo

Erin Hahn, James Scouras, Robert Leonhard, and Camille Spencer

The objective of this workshop, funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) through the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, was to address issues associated with responding to the first use of nuclear weapons by North Korea, with an emphasis on restoring the taboo against nuclear use. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory conducted the workshop on April 23–24, 2019, to bring together thought leaders from a variety of fields, including norm theory and practice, nuclear strategy, and Northeast Asia. Workshop participants considered scenarios involving North Korean nuclear first use and developed and analyzed options for responding to that first use. The workshop concluded with discussions of key questions. Through workshop contributions and post-workshop deliberations, we developed recommendations for DTRA, US Strategic Command, the intelligence community, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Primary among these recommendations is that all these organizations take restoration of the nuclear taboo seriously as a US objective after an adversary’s nuclear first use and that they conduct appropriate analyses and planning in advance to provide the president with effective nonnuclear retaliatory options that could reduce the severity and duration of damage to the taboo.

Symposium Summary

Event Summary from Inaugural National Health Symposium

APL has published the event summary for the inaugural National Health Symposium, which brought together more than 160 experts from government, academia and industry to discuss ways that advances in research and development can translate into better delivery of health care.

Annual Report

2018 Annual Report

Technical Digest

Integrated Air and Missile Defense, Vol. 35, No. 2 (2020)

It has been nearly 18 years since the publication of the three Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest issues dedicated to air defense. Since that time, many global events have shaped our national defense strategy and military capabilities. To meet the many new challenges, APL’s Air and Missile Defense Sector has focused its efforts on the integration of air defense and missile defense as well as of defense resources across the battle force. This issue highlights the challenges our nation faces in air and missile defense and APL’s contributions to shape future solutions.