Ford's 2024 Round-Up
Dr. Christopher Ford • December 31, 2024
With 2024 hours from being over, here’s a handy compilation of my public work product from the last year. As you can see from the list of seven papers or articles and 20 presentations below, it’s been a big year for nuclear weapons policy and arms control topics – but as always there’s a good helping of strategic competition with China.
Keep checking New Paradigms Forum for new material as we move into 2025. And Happy New Year, everyone!
Papers and Articles
- Christopher A. Ford, “Call it by its Name: Communist Chinese Imperialism,” National Institute for Public Policy Occasional Papers, vol. 4, no. 11 (November 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/call-it-by-its-name-communist-chinese-imperialism
- Christopher A. Ford, “The Weaponization of Integrity: How the West’s Enemies Try to Leverage its Ethics Against It,” Defense & Strategic Studies Online [Missouri State University], vol. 1, no. 1 (Autumn 2024), pages 47-65
https://irp.cdn-website.com/ce29b4c3/files/uploaded/DASSO_Volume_1_Issue_1_Ford.pdf
- Christopher A. Ford & Alex Memory, “The Ties that Bind: A Data-Driven Analysis of Oceania’s Dependency on China,” Defense & Strategic Studies Online [Missouri State University], vol. 1, no. 1 (Autumn 2024), pages 5-30
https://irp.cdn-website.com/ce29b4c3/files/uploaded/DASSO_Volume_1_Issue_1_Ford_and_Memory.pdf
- Christopher A. Ford, “Challenges of Deterrence and Security Upon Nuclear Use,” in Project Atom 2024: Intra-War Deterrence in a Two-Peer Environment (CSIS, November 2024), pp. 19-32
- Christopher A. Ford, “Dead or Deferred? Nuclear Arms Control in the Age of Revisionism,” in Aligning Arms Control with the New Security Environment (Livermore, CA: Center for Global Security Research, 2024)
https://irp.cdn-website.com/ce29b4c3/files/uploaded/Ford_in_CGSR_Arms_Control_Book.pdf
- Christopher A. Ford, “The Substructures of Chinese Grand Strategy, and Why Resolute U.S. Engagement Matters,” Commentary, Hoover Institution Press (May 9, 2024)
- Christopher A. Ford, “Nuclear Posture and Nuclear Posturing: A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing China’s Nuclear Weapons Policy,” National Institute for Public Policy Occasional Papers, vol. 4, no. 2 (February 2024)
https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vol-4-No-2-final.pdf
Remarks and Presentations
- Christopher A. Ford, “Critiquing the ‘Irreversibility’ of Nuclear Disarmament,” remarks to a CSIS/PONI workshop at Wilton Park, United Kingdom (December 18, 2024),
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/critiquing-the-irreversibility-of-nuclear-disarmament
- Christopher A. Ford, “Nonproliferation, Disarmament, and the New Washington, D.C.,” remarks at Wilton Park, United Kingdom (December 16, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/nonproliferation-disarmament-and-the-new-washington-d-c
- Christopher A. Ford, “Nuclear Latency and its Discontents,” remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (December 13, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/nuclear-latency-and-its-discontents
- Christopher A. Ford, “Deterrence in National Strategy: Critique and Recommendations,” remarks at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (December 11, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/deterrence-in-national-strategy-critique-and-recommendations
- Christopher A. Ford, “Looking Ahead in Nuclear Weapons Policy, Arms Control, and Nonproliferation,” remarks to the European Leadership Network (December 10, 2024)
- Christopher A. Ford, “Recommendations for the Next Nuclear Posture Review,” remarks for a roundtable at the National Defense University (December 6, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/recommendations-for-the-next-nuclear-posture-review
- Christopher A. Ford, “Restoring Strategic Stability in the Euro-Atlantic Area,” remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (December 4, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/restoring-strategic-stability-in-the-euro-atlantic-area
- Christopher A. Ford, “Leveraging Strength into Peace: Arms Control Isn’t (Quite) Dead, and Here’s How to Revive It,” remarks to the Bicameral Bipartisan Member Briefing on Arms Control, Russell Senate Office Building (November 21, 2024)
- Christopher A. Ford, “Threats to NATO Resilience,” remarks to the NATO Resilience Summit, Bratislava, Slovakia (November 12, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/threats-to-nato-resilience
- Christopher A. Ford, “Some Musings on Making Deterrence Policy,” remarks to students at Purdue University (October 16, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/some-musings-on-making-deterrence-policy
- Christopher A. Ford, “Security, Proliferation, and Preserving Sovereign Independence in the Indo-Pacific,” presentation to the Dialogue on the U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Hanoi, Vietnam (September 12, 2024)
- Christopher A. Ford, “Russia, China, and the Challenge of Asymmetry in Nuclear Ethics,” presentation to the Forum on Nuclear Strategy, Albuquerque, New Mexico (September 6, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/russia-china-and-the-challenges-of-asymmetry-in-nuclear-ethics
- Christopher A. Ford, “Thinking About China’s Nuclear Weapons Policy,” remarks to an event organized by the National Institute for Deterrence Studies (August 9, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/thinking-about-chinas-nuclear-weapons-policy
- Christopher A. Ford, “Four Warnings About the ‘Dark Quad,’” remarks at a symposium organized by the National Institute for Public Policy (July 23, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/four-warnings-about-the-dark-quad
- Christopher A. Ford, “Equipping Leaders for Strategic Competition Against China’s ‘Leverage Web,’” remarks at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (July 18, 2024)
- Christopher A. Ford, “New Old Wisdom on Nuclear Deal with Iran,” remarks at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (May 22, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/new-old-wisdom-on-a-nuclear-deal-with-iran
- Christopher A. Ford, “Emerging Technologies and the Nuclear Weapons Arena,” remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (March 28, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/emerging-technologies-and-the-nuclear-weapons-arena
- Christopher A. Ford, “Outbound Investment and China’s ‘Leverage Web,’” remarks at the American Enterprise Institute (February 13, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/outbound-investment-and-chinas-leverage-web
- Christopher A. Ford, “Weaponized Interdependence, U.S. Economic Statecraft, and Chinese Grand Strategy,” remarks at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (February 8, 2024)
- Christopher A. Ford, “Some Thoughts on Targeting, the Law of Armed Conflict, and Morality,” remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (January 12, 2024)
https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/some-thoughts-on-targeting-the-law-of-armed-conflict-and-morality
-- Christopher Ford
Dr. Ford's article on "Thinking About Strategy in an Artificial Superintelligence Arms Race" -- co-authored with Dr. Craig Wiener -- was published in Defense & Strategic Studies Online (DASSO), vol. 1, no. 4 (Summer 2025). You can find the whole issue on the DASSO website here , or use the button below to download a PDF of the Ford/Wiener article. (Also, the home page for DASSO can be found here .)
Below are the remarks Dr. Ford delivered to a webinar sponsored by the National Institute for Deterrence Studies on August 29, 2025.
Over much of last year, Dr. Ford participated in the Senior Study Group (SSG) on Strategic Stability at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). Ably chaired by Brad Roberts of the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Rebeccah Heinrichs of Hudson Institute, the SSG completed its report in February 2025, only to immediately run into publication problems as a result of the government's effort to shut down the USIP. The litigation associated with that effort remains ongoing, but the SSG is pleased to be able now to publish its report. The report is not available on the USIP website, but you can use the button below to download a PDF.
Below is the prepared text upon which Dr. Ford drew in his remarks to and discussions with a nuclear deterrence study group in London on July 28, 2025.
Below is the text upon which Dr. Ford based his remarks on July 22, 2025, to a conference sponsored by the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Below is the prepared text upon which Dr. Ford based his oral remarks at a conference sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at Cambridge University on June 17, 2025.
Below is the text upon which Dr. Ford drew in delivering his remarks at a conference on "Transatlantic Turbulence: What Next for European Defence?" held at the University of Birmingham on June 13, 2025.
Below are the remarks Dr. Ford delivered (virtually) to a conference in Beijing on June 12, 2025, sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) and the Grandview Institution .
The National Institute for Public Policy published Dr. Ford's article "Thinking About Russian Nuclear Weapons Thinking" in volume 5, number 2, of the Journal of Policy & Strategy (2025). You can find the whole issue on the NIPP website here , or use the button below to download a PDF of the article.
In this article in Volume 1, Issue 3 of the Missouri State Univeristy's online journal Defense & Strategic Studies Online (pp. 1-89), Dr. Christopher Ford, John Schurtz, and Erik Quam offer a detailed analytical account of how cybernetic theories of social control developed by the scientist Qian Xuesen and his disciples were adopted by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and are today critical to understanding the Party’s domestic governance and foreign relations. You can see the whole issue on DASSO's website here , read the Ford/Schurtz/Quam article here , or use the button below to access a PDF of the article.