The Department of Defense wants to hire a new director for strategic deterrence and capability to oversee “efforts to modernize and sustain the nuclear deterrent,” according to a recent want-ad on the official federal jobs board.
The director would be responsible for a swath of nuclear-weapons tasks that were once organized under the now-defunct post of deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense — a position reorganized out of existence 2021 and most recently held by Leonor Tomero, the longtime Capitol Hill staffer for Armed Services Committee Democrats.
According to the want-ad, the director for strategic deterrence and capability would report to the deputy assistant secretary of defense, strategic, space, and intelligence portfolio management, currently Thomas Troyano, who holds the job on an acting basis.
Among other things, the new director would coordinate such agency-wide reviews as the nuclear posture review: a holistic assessment of U.S. nuclear forces that every new president must now by law complete soon after taking office. Amid reported criticism about her performance on the job from Republican Senate staffers, Tomero was pushed out of DOD while in the middle of coordinating the Joe Biden administration’s yet-to-be-released posture review.
The Pentagon is taking applications for the new director job through May 2.
