[Senate Hearing 118-658]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-658
THE FINDINGS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL
COMMISSION ON THE STRATEGIC POSTURE
OF THE UNITED STATES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 19, 2023
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
[GRAPPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-412 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JACK REED, Rhode Island, Chairman
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TOM COTTON, Arkansas
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
TIM KAINE, Virginia JONI ERNST, Iowa
ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan RICK SCOTT, Florida
JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada TED BUDD, North Carolina
MARK KELLY, Arizona ERIC SCHMITT, Missouri
Elizabeth L. King, Staff Director
John P. Keast, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
_________________________________________________________________
October 19, 2023
Page
The Findings of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic 1
Posture of the United States.
Members Statements
Statement of Senator Jack Reed................................... 1
Statement of Senator Roger F. Wicker............................. 3
Witnesses Statements
Creedon, The Honorable Madelyn R., Chair, Congressional 4
Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.
Kyl, The Honorable Jon L., Vice Chair, Congressional Commission 7
on the Strategic Posture of the United States.
(iii)
THE FINDINGS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSION ON THE STRATEGIC POSTURE
OF THE UNITED STATES
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023
United States Senate,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in
room G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Jack Reed
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Committee Members Present: Senators Reed, Gillibrand,
Blumenthal, Hirono, Kaine, King, Warren, Peters, Rosen, Kelly,
Wicker, Fischer, Cotton, Ernst, Cramer, Scott, Tuberville,
Mullin, Budd, and Schmitt.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED
Chairman Reed. Good morning. The Committee meets today to
receive testimony on the findings of the Congressional
Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. I
would like to welcome Ms. Madelyn Creedon, who serves as the
Chair of the Commission, and Senator Jon Kyl, our distinguished
colleague, who serves as Vice Chair.
Thank you both for your decades of service to the Nation. I
would also like to thank your fellow Commissioners for their
remarkable work on this study and for their long careers of
public service.
Your Commission was tasked with an extraordinarily complex
problem, and I commend you for coming to a bipartisan consensus
on how to address it. I expect that your bipartisan findings,
drawn from a diverse set of views, will make the report's
recommendations endure for years to come.
The Strategic Posture Commission was established through
Section 1687 of the National Defense Authorization Act for the
Fiscal Year 2022. The NDAA tasked the Commission with examining
the long term strategic posture of the United States, including
a threat assessment, a detailed review of nuclear weapons
policy, and recommendations as to the most appropriate
strategic posture and most effective nuclear weapons strategy.
Our objective today is to examine the rapid global changes
in nuclear deterrence, strategy, and arms control discussed in
this report. As the Commission rightly points out, successfully
maintaining the United States nuclear deterrent is fundamental
to our long term strategic competition with China and Russia.
This mission has become more urgent through Russia's
assault on Ukraine and because of China's rapid strategic
expansion. When we use the word strategic, it is important that
we consider the full range of capabilities, both nuclear and
non-nuclear, that can produce a deterrent effect.
There are a number of findings in the report that would
like to know more about. To begin, the Commission notes that
the United States' current nuclear force sizing and acquisition
program is based on the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. That 2010
review was developed at a time we faced only Russia as a real
nuclear competitor, and we need to recognize that we are now in
a trilateral nuclear competition era with China included.
To that point, the Commission states that we cannot assume
we would face Russia and China in sequence, but rather we must
have the ability to face both simultaneously. Ms. Creedon,
Senator Kyl, I would like to know how you came to this
conclusion and how it shapes the rest of your report's findings
and recommendation.
The Commission also found that our current program record
for nuclear forces is necessary, but not sufficient. The report
warns that in its current form, this program--will not be able
to ``achieve the objective of U.S. defense strategy in the
future due to the rapid advancement of the threat, particularly
the nuclear threat of two peer adversaries.'' This is a
concerning statement.
I would ask your views on how we can supplement the
existing program of record to correct this shortfall. Your
report also expresses concern about the use of nuclear weapons
in a limited theater role. The Commission highlights the need
to again, ``give the President a range of military effective
options to deter or counter a Russian or Chinese limited
nuclear use.''
You recommend deploying a theater of nuclear capability
with a set of unique attributes to meet this need. And I would
like to know what specific attributes you would propose, and
how the development of a submarine launched cruise missile,
which was authorized in this year's National Defense
Authorization Station Act, would help satisfy those criteria.
There are a number of other key capabilities we must
consider, including long range strike weapons, space assets,
cyber capabilities, and the deterrence role of our allies. The
Committee will want to know how your report address these non-
nuclear factors and how they might affect escalation dynamics
going forward.
Finally, I would note that the Commission's findings on
arms control prospects appears dim. The report concludes that
China's nuclear buildup must be addressed and deterred before
new arms control measures can be put in place. As the
Commissioners write, ``the United States must develop the size
and composition of the nuclear force it needs the deterrence
requirements before it can develop a negotiation position that
can enhance vital U.S. interests.''
The fact is arms control and nuclear modernization are
inherently linked together. Even as we modernize, we should
seek ways to promote strategic stability, like the extension of
the New START Agreement, and follow on talks to cover new
strategic weapons and further reduce nuclear stockpiles.
The best way to reduce nuclear weapons is through
negotiated arms control. Ms. Creedon, Senator Kyl, I would ask
for your assessment of what arms control options are available
and what lessons could be applied from the 2010 Nuclear Posture
Review and the development of the New START Treaty.
Thank you again for appearing today, and I look forward to
your testimoneys. I would note to my colleagues that there will
be a classified briefing immediately following this session in
SVC-217 to continue our discussion. With that, let me recognize
the Ranking Member, Senator Wicker.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROGER WICKER
Senator Wicker. Thank you very much, Senator Reed. And
thanks very much to our witnesses for being here today and for
their long time service. We owe our deepest thanks for your
lifetime of commitment to America's security.
This is as serious a topic as we will hear about this year.
It has been nearly 15 years since the previous Strategic
Posture Commission sat before this Committee. They outlined
their cautious but hopeful recommendations about how the United
States could structure its National Security policies.
They shared an optimistic outlook for how the U.S.
policymakers could work with other nations to reduce global
threats and work to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Today, we
see that world events have unfolded much differently than
envisioned 15 years ago. The threats we face today are far more
complicated and dangerous than they foresaw.
Indeed, senior flag and general officers continued to
testify before this Committee that we are entering the most
dangerous National Security moment since World War II. Major
conflicts have erupted in Europe and the Middle East.
The United States economy is reeling with inflation and
instability. We face the unprecedented prospect of two nuclear
armed peer adversaries in Russia and China. The Strategic
Posture Commission report offers a stark description of the
dangers we face today and over the next 10 years.
It also lays bare just how much work we have to do before
we can meet these threats. We are not even close to where we
need to be. Over the past 2 years, this Committee has watched
China's military grow. Beijing has more than doubled the size
of its nuclear arsenal. It has expanded its shipbuilding
capacity. So, it is now more--so that the capacity to build
ships is now more than 230 times that of the United States--
more than 230 times that of the U.S..
And it has increased its space based military capabilities.
All of this shifts the orbital balance of power. More than 600
days ago, Russia launched the first invasion of a European
country since World War II.
The Kremlin has tested a variety of new nuclear weapons
capabilities and threatened to resume nuclear explosive
testing. Meanwhile, it actively provides enriched uranium to
China to support Beijing's nuclear buildup.
The North Korea nuclear arsenal continues to advance
virtually unchecked. It could soon be capable of overwhelming
our ballistic missile defenses. Iran may now be as little as a
matter of days away from possessing enough material for a
nuclear weapon.
At the same time, the regime supports Hamas terrorists in a
brazen attack against our long term friend Israel. Our
Government should be addressing these threats more urgently. We
need a fundamental reassessment of National Security
assumptions and strategies.
From that, we should realign our national resources to meet
these historic and troubling developments. Instead, we see more
of the same. We see complacency and an unwillingness to
proactively confront the cold reality staring us in the face.
The Departments of Defense and Energy repeatedly delay the
critical programs that could modernize our nuclear deterrent
and restore the basic industrial capabilities needed to produce
nuclear weapons. The Administration ignores persistent calls to
invest adequately in domestic shipbuilding.
They do this despite clear evidence that even while the
White House's signature foreign policy initiative, the AUKUS
agreement, may struggle to get off the ground without
additional resources. We simply cannot accept complacency if we
want to prevail in a long term competition with China and
Russia.
To prevent war and keep the peace, it is incumbent on
legislators to commit today to a program of sustained
innovation and investment. This is the only way we can reclaim
lost ground. Events, even in the last week, suggest that a
national policy of peace through strength is still a blueprint
for success. It is time to begin making the national defense
investments required to deter the conflicts looming ahead.
That is why the work of this Commission is so timely. This
report, first and foremost, is a bipartisan call to action. We
very much appreciate that. It compels us to preserve the global
order and the American way of life. It should be required
reading for everyone working on National Security issues.
I wholeheartedly endorse the recommendations the Commission
makes within its pages. So, we would like to hear from you
witnesses about how you can help create a sense of national
urgency so we can restore America's ability to compete and to
rebuild the strategic forces our country needs to win in the
coming decades. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Wicker. And now let me
recognize Chairwoman Creedon. Madam.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MADELYN R. CREEDON, CHAIR,
CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSION ON THE STRATEGIC POSTURE OF THE UNITED
STATES
Ms. Creedon. Good morning, Chairman Reed, Ranking Member
Wicker, and distinguished Members of the Committee. It is a
pleasure to be here, and thank you for the opportunity----
Chairman Reed. Could you pull that closer to you, as
possible?
Ms. Creedon. Thank you for the opportunity to testify this
morning on the report of the congressional Commission on the
Strategic Posture of the United States, which we released on
October 12th. Senator Kyl, the Vice Chair of the Commission and
I are pleased to appear here today to discuss the Commission's
threat informed bipartisan consensus report.
Our report is consistent with our statutory charge, which
was to conduct a review of the strategic posture of the United
States, including a strategic threat assessment and a detailed
review of nuclear weapons policy, strategy, and force
structure, and factors affecting the strategic stability of
peer competitors and near-peer competitors of the United
States, as well as those with nuclear power and the growing
nuclear power competition.
I should add that although we did not discuss terrorism in
our report as it was beyond our charter, we are all keenly
aware that the threat of terrorism, including the possibility
of nuclear terrorism, has not gone away. Our report is threat
informed, forward looking, nonpartizan consensus.
Our Commission was fully committed to our task and to
achieving this consensus. The report provides high level
guidance to shape future decisionmaking and generally refrains
from choosing specific systems. We provide characteristics of
recommended capabilities, but do not pick winners and losers.
The timeframe for the report is 2027 and beyond, looking at
least to 2035.
We all know that the threats from China and Russia are
different but growing rapidly. The hopeful environment and
vision of widespread nuclear reductions from a decade ago is no
longer realistic, and the prospects for agreements on nuclear
arms control today appear bleak. That said, there is no reason
to stop pursuing broader risk reduction efforts when achievable
and in the U.S. national interest.
If there are opportunities for arms control or other
strategic stability talks, military to military talks,
confidence building measures, or other opportunities, they
should all be explored. Today, the U.S. is on the cusp of a
fundamentally different global setting for which we did not
plan, and we are not well prepared.
We are facing, confronting, if you will, two nuclear peers
and this is unprecedented. The nation must act now and with a
sense of urgency that the Commission did not always see. Steps
need to be taken to enable both near and longer term decisions.
It is essential that what the U.S. does now and in the next
few years will enable the flexibility that will most likely be
needed to reshape the conventional and nuclear force
structures, and not foreclose options that might be needed.
Five assumptions underpin our reports.
The first, Russia and China will continue their current
respective adversarial paths, each growing the quality and
quantity of their nuclear arsenals. China will continue to grow
its conventional forces, including its space and cyber
capabilities. Russia will also grow its space and cyber
capabilities, and each will continue their aggressive foreign
policies and seek to supplant the U.S. global leadership role.
Two, today's one major war strategy construct is no longer
viable, particularly given China's current trajectory. And
three, the six foundational, long standing tenets of U.S.
nuclear strategy remain valid.
These objectives shape nuclear deterrence and planning, and
our assured second strike, flexible response, tailored
deterrence, extended deterrence and assurance, calculated
ambiguity, and the ability to hedge against risk.
Our fourth assumption is strong allies and partners are
essential and make us all stronger together, but we need
greater cooperation, coordination, and integration with our
allies. And five, the U.S. deterrent must be credible and must
be seen that way by our adversaries, as well as our allies and
partners. In addition, the U.S. needs a true whole of
Government approach to deter and prepare for the possibility of
a two theater conflict.
The U.S. defense and nuclear strategy must be implemented
to effectively deter and defeat simultaneous aggression in two
theaters. China can no longer be considered a lesser included
case for force structure planning, and nuclear and conventional
force sizing and composition must reflect this strategy.
From a force structure perspective, the U.S. nuclear
modernization program of record must be fully implemented as
rapidly as possible to deter Russia and China. The program of
record is necessary, but not sufficient, to address the
projected threat.
Moreover, the transition period between the legacy systems
and the new modernized systems will be very difficult. It will
extend over the better part of a decade, even longer in the
submarine force, and as a result, the U.S. must ensure that the
legacy systems are sustained and funded so that the nuclear
deterrent remains safe, secure, reliable, and effective during
this transition.
And unpleasant as it may be, Congress and the
Administration should assume that the new systems will be late
and probably overbudget. If Russia and China stay on their
current trajectories, and nothing we have seen would indicate a
change, although of course the situation could improve, the
composition of the force must change.
Unfortunately, there is a growing risk of confrontation
with China, Russia, or both. This includes the risk of military
conflict, including the possibility of nuclear use. To deter
and prevent nuclear conflict, the U.S. must increase its
conventional forces quantitatively and qualitatively, adopt a
more resilient space architecture, modernize nuclear command
and control, and advance integrated air and missile defense
capabilities.
The Commission notes that each theater is different
geographically and will require different forces. Without more
conventional forces to deter regional wars, the use of nuclear
weapons regionally becomes more likely, and without significant
conventional increases, the U.S. will need to rely more on
nuclear weapons, not less.
While a large scale nuclear conflict remains unlikely, the
probability of regional deterrence failure is increasing. The
U.S. needs a force posture capable of simultaneously deterring
Russia and China. Much of the infrastructure and industrial
base that supports the Department of Defense (DOD) and the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is out of date.
Both departments are struggling with supply chain issues
and neither have enough capacity to meet future requirements.
Investment in infrastructure and rebuilding the supply chain
and the workforce is needed urgently and will be needed in
perpetuity.
This is true for both the NNSA production, as well as the
scientific infrastructure, which we cannot ignore, and the DOE
and DOD industrial base. Finally, I would like to highlight the
report's findings and recommendations on risk reduction.
The Commission believes it is of paramount importance for
the United States to reduce strategic risks. U.S. vital
interests and international Security are served by robust
diplomatic engagement that reduce uncertainty and reduce the
risk of deterrence failure and unnecessary arms competition.
It is in the U.S. national interest to lead and be
recognized as leading diplomatic efforts to reduce risk. U.S.
nonproliferation efforts and the nonproliferation regime have
slowed the spread of nuclear weapons historically, and U.S. and
allied threat reduction measures have successfully constrained
the availability of nuclear materials and expertise to
provincial proliferators.
I would also like to thank Senator Kyl, all of my fellow
Commissioners, and the entire Institute for Defense Analysis
team. We had many robust discussions, as you might imagine, but
in the end, our collective commitment to National Security
brought us to this point, a bipartisan consensus. Thank you,
and I welcome your suggestions and ask that my full statement
be included for the record.
Chairman Reed. Without objection. Let me recognize the Vice
Chairman, Senator Kyl. Senator.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JON L. KYL, VICE CHAIR,
CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSION ON THE STRATEGIC POSTURE OF THE UNITED
STATES
Mr. Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Wicker, and other
Members of the Committee. When you receive a report such as
ours, to the extent that you agree with recommendations, one of
the first questions that pops into your mind is, how are we
going to translate this into action? And especially with a
complex and not well understood subject like our strategic
posture and the underpinning of that by our nuclear deterrent.
It does raise a challenge as to how you are going to
discuss this and get changes in policy effectuated. Let me
address that in a couple of ways first. Our report is, as
Madelyn said, a consensus report.
And this didn't come about simply because of the goodwill
of the Members of our Committee, which if you look at the
resume, you can easily understand represented a very diverse
group of--or different points of view.
I think it was because the evidence over the course of the
year or so that we studied this was so overwhelming, both as to
the threats and as to the kinds of things that we needed to do
to meet those threats that it in some respects wasn't difficult
to reach the findings and the recommendations that we did.
They are obvious to a serious observer. Well, that being
the case, how do you translate that? As a former member of this
body, I well understand the importance of constituent support
for policies, especially new policies that will cost money.
What that means is, and the Commission specifically made
recommendations to this point, Members of the Congress, leaders
in the Congress, and in the executive branch, from the
President on down, must take a leadership responsibility in
discussing these things with the American people.
Yes, they are complicated subjects, and to some extent they
are not fun to talk about. But the American people are
intelligent, and they care about their National Security, and I
am firmly convinced that with the leadership that is
represented by this Committee and others in the U.S. Senate and
House, and leaders in the executive branch, if the effort is
made to discuss these recommendations and policy changes with
the American people, forthrightly and consistently these
changes can be made.
Now, that starts hopefully with a consensus from you all,
just as our Commission arrived at a consensus, because it is
difficult if two parties are fighting each other for their
constituents out there to figure out exactly what they ought to
be supporting.
But to the extent you can come to consensus and then
represent that in leading and in educating the American people,
we can achieve many of the recommendations that we have made
here.
Want to just address one subject and then try to answer two
of the questions that Chairman Reed, you asked, very briefly.
In our report, we say that we are not prepared to deal with
this new threat environment. Very briefly, why do we say that?
First, because the existing program of record for our nuclear
enterprise is going to be very difficult to achieve on time.
We are undertaking a lengthy process of extending the life
of our nuclear warheads, of developing three entirely new--
delivery type vehicles for the triad, and to get all of that
done in time and change out what we have for these new weapons
and delivery systems on the schedule that have been set forth
is going to be exceedingly difficult.
This is recognized by the program managers. Their answer to
it is that we will figure out a way to do it on time. We really
respect their optimistic can do attitude, but that is not
enough of an answer, so we have to address gaps in deterrence
that could occur.
Second, we say that that is what was recommended to meet
the threat identified in 2010. The world has totally changed
since then. What about these new threats? The fact that we now
will face two peer nuclear adversaries?
Well, obviously, changes need to be made. And they
primarily involve greater capacity to deal with these new
threats. That capacity cannot exist when it is needed if it is
not started now. So, our point is that changes have to be made
now.
You all will have very important responsibilities to
identify where we need to have additional capacity, and how you
think we can best get there, and what kind of appropriations
are needed to fund it. Just to give you a couple of examples.
On the conventional side--well, this applies to both
conventional armed and nuclear. We need better submarine
building capacity. And the ranking member certainly has made
that point clear. And that is true with respect to both our
attack and our missile submarines. We lack the industrial base
to do that right now to get it done on time.
That problem has to be addressed urgently. And if we start
now, we might be ready by the time we have to develop those new
weapons. Another example concerns the nuclear weapons
themselves. We are just now beginning to modernize the nuclear
enterprise, the laboratories and other production facilities
that are important for the nuclear weapon development.
And it is clear that the capacity will need to be
increased. You all will need to study how much of an increase
is appropriate at this time and how much of that to build into
the program that will enhance both our labs and our other
production facilities. And that work needs to start now rather
than later.
So those are just two examples of what we mean when we say
that we are not prepared, we are not meeting our current
program, and we have barely begun to address a new program of
record.
Now, if I could just very briefly address two questions
that the chairman asked that really require hours to address,
but they are the right questions. How did we conclude that we
may have a simultaneous need to deal with adversaries, China
and Russia.
After a year of being briefed by a lot of experts, just
about everybody that has a responsibility within our
Government, to be prepared, it was clear that we have a new
threat for the first time in our history.
We possibly face two nuclear peers. That threat will
materialize--for the Russians, they have already pretty much
completed their modernization. They are almost done. Chinese
are well on the way toward achieving their military buildup,
and their goal is to have parity with Russia and with the
United States.
The United States has barely begun our part of this race.
The threat is clear. You look at capacity and then you look at
intentions, and you can't look at either Russia or China today
without concluding that we have two adversaries here who have
goals antithetical to the interests of the free world, and the
United States in particular, and who have expressed a
willingness to violate international norms to achieve those
goals.
In the case of Russia, having already taken action against
Ukraine, which demonstrates its willingness to violate
international norms with military to achieve their purposes.
China, I believe, and I think we conclude, is no less willing
to use force to achieve its aims. It has done so in various
ways throughout the South China Sea, for example, and it makes
no bones about its ultimate goals.
I think we have heard a lot recently about believing what
adversaries say when they tell you what they want to achieve as
their sovereign goals. And because both China and Russia appear
willing to do this with military means, it then devolves upon
us to find ways to prevent this from happening, because we are
dealing with two nuclear powers here and we have got to prevent
nuclear war.
Deterrence is what this is all about. So that is how we
reach the conclusion that the only clear eyed way to look at
this is that you can't ignore the possibility. That either in
concert or perhaps simply because one of those two countries
has started something with us, the other sees an opportunity to
pursue its goals also militarily.
And we have made clear in our report that the conventional
and nuclear deterrent fit together here. You have got to try to
prevent the war with conventional means because once it starts,
it is very, very difficult with nuclear powers not to concede--
or conceive of an escalation that involves nuclear weapons.
The second question was the--really the meat of our report,
Mr. Chairman. How to supplement the existing program of record
with changes necessary to meet these two new threats. And I
will just shortcut it by saying that our report is full of
recommendations.
They range from things that we can begin doing today to
enhance our capability, which I spoke to, things that we can be
doing today to begin exercising capabilities that we may need.
Like uploading, for example, we talk about that.
And then longer range changes that may require changes in
the size and composition of our forces. All of that is
described in quite a bit of detail in our report. And the point
is that it goes far beyond the existing program of record to
establish capabilities that are going to be required to meet
these two new threats, which were not the subject of the 2010
program of record or the last Commission report.
There is one word that we all agreed, a consensus among our
Commissioners, that we wanted to convey to you. I would be
remiss if I didn't tell you what that one word is, it is
urgency. And so, with that one word, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
[The joint prepared statement of The Honorable Madelyn R.
Creedon and The Honorable Jon L. Kyl follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement by The Honorable Madelyn R. Creedon and The
Honorable Jon L. Kyl
preface to the final report
The militarily troubling and increasingly aggressive behaviors of
Russia and China over the past decade led Congress to direct a review
of the strategic posture of the United States, including nuclear
weapons policy, strategy, and force structure. \1\ We have the
privilege to serve as the chair and vice chair of this second Strategic
Posture Commission (SPC).
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\1\ Congress established the parameters of the review and a
Strategic Posture Commission to carry it out in the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, Pub. L. 117-81, 135 Stat. 2126,
117th Cong.
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Much has happened since the first SPC released its report in 2009.
\2\ China's rapid military buildup, including the unprecedented growth
of its nuclear forces, Russia's diversification and expansion of its
theater-based nuclear systems, the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and
subsequent full-scale invasion in February 2022, have all fundamentally
altered the geopolitical landscape. As a result of China's and Russia's
growing competition with the United States and its Allies and partners,
and the increasing risk of military conflict with one or both, as well
as concerns about whether the United States would be prepared to deter
two nuclear peers, Congress determined it was time for a new look at
U.S. strategic policy, strategy, and force structure.
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\2\ William J. Perry and James R. Schlesinger, America's Strategic
Posture: The Final Report of congressional Commission on the Strategic
Posture of the United States, (United States Institute of Peace, 2009).
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The first SPC had a charge like ours: ``to conduct a review of the
strategic posture of the United States and to make a recommendation on
how to move forward.'' \3\ The vision of a world without nuclear
weapons, aspirational even in 2009, is more improbable now than ever.
The new global environment is fundamentally different than anything
experienced in the past, even in the darkest days of the cold war.
Today the United States is on the cusp of having not one, but two
nuclear peer adversaries, each with ambitions to change the
international status quo, by force, if necessary: a situation which the
United States did not anticipate and for which it is not prepared.
While the risk of a major nuclear conflict remains low, the risk of
military conflict with either or both Russia and China, while not
inevitable, has grown, and with it the risk of nuclear use, possibly
against the U.S. Homeland.
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\3\ Ibid, Chairman's Preface.
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We started our work with extensive intelligence briefings to
understand this new, rapidly changing security environment. These
briefings underpin our conclusion that as a nation we need to urgently
prepare for the new reality, and that measures need to be taken now to
deal with these new threats. We believe that prompt actions are needed
to provide future decisionmakers viable options to credibly deter
conflict. Being unprepared for the reality of two nuclear peers, who
are dedicated to and focused on undermining the post-cold war
international order that has served the United States and its Allies
and partners so well, is, in our view, not an option.
We had extensive discussions and briefings on the problems we face
as a Nation, including workforce shortages, supply chain limitations,
and inadequate physical, scientific, technical, and experimental
infrastructure at the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of
Energy/ National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA). These
shortcomings resulted from years of inattention and if not addressed
promptly, will continue to limit the U.S. ability to prepare and
respond to the new challenges.
As we discussed this new normal, we also concluded that the United
States does not truly have, but must commit to, a ``whole-of-
government'' approach to be more efficient and effective.
Keeping up with technology is also a challenge. Whereas in the
past, when U.S. Government research was uniformly on the cutting edge,
that role has shifted to the private sector in many areas. As a result,
the DOD and DOE/NNSA will have to change traditional procurement
practices to work effectively with the private sector to rapidly
develop and deploy new cutting-edge technology.
Allies and partners are important as together we are stronger.
Greater cooperation, coordination and integration with our Allies and
partners is essential to deter conflict and prosper economically.
National leaders must communicate to U.S citizens the benefits and
importance of U.S. global leadership, Allies and partners and extended
deterrence, if they are to gain the support of the American people for
the associated policy and costs.
Our review sought to address and respond to this new, more
dangerous, and more competitive environment, while looking for ways to
improve strategic stability and reduce the risk of conflict. We know
that this will be difficult on many levels, but we believe that our
recommendations can help shape needed future strategy and posture
decisions.
For the most part the Commission deliberately avoided making
specific force structure recommendations; instead, we identified
capabilities beyond the existing program of record (POR) that will be
needed. We believe it is appropriate to leave specific material
solution decisions to the executive branch and Congress. We were clear,
however, that the nuclear force modernization POR is absolutely
essential, although not sufficient to meet the new threats posed by
Russia and China, and that the elements of the POR should be completed
on time, expedited wherever possible, and expanded as needed.
We also found that adopting new technologies faster, and working
with smaller innovative companies will be necessary to support a
modern, flexible, force structure and infrastructure in the future.
While we did not conduct a cost analysis of our recommendations, it
is obvious they will cost money. We do recognize budget realities, but
we also believe the Nation must make these new investments and U.S.
leaders must communicate to U.S. citizens both the need and urgency to
rebuild the nuclear infrastructure and modernize the nuclear forces.
These investments in the nuclear enterprise are a relatively small
portion of the overall defense budget but provide the backbone and
foundation of deterrence and are the Nation's highest defense priority.
The investments the Commission recommends in both nuclear and
conventional capabilities will provide a safe, secure, reliable,
effective, and credible deterrent, which is essential to reduce the
risk of conflict, most importantly nuclear conflict.
From the outset the Commissioners understood that our most valuable
contribution to U.S. national security would be a consensus report.
There were certainly differences of opinion and a multitude of views
expressed amongst our members during our many robust debates and
discussions. No doubt some commissioners might have stated some things
differently. For example, a number of commissioners believe it is
inevitable that the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the number
of delivery systems should increase. We all agreed, however, on the
findings and recommendations in this report and the need for actions
now to better position the United States for the future and ensure a
safe, secure, reliable, and credible deterrent.
We believe that sustained bipartisan consensus is possible and
necessary to secure a strong future and credible deterrent for the
United States. Moreover, we hope this report illustrates to policy-and
decisionmakers that even with different opinions, people of good faith
can work together for the common good on fundamentally important
matters.
This report would not have been possible without the excellent work
of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) leadership and staff. We
extend a sincere thank you to our Executive Director, Maj. Gen. William
Chambers (USAF retired) and the IDA staff.
executive summary of the final report
The United States faces a strategic challenge requiring urgent
action. Given current threat trajectories, our Nation will soon
encounter a fundamentally different global setting than it has ever
experienced: we will face a world where two nations possess nuclear
arsenals on par with our own. In addition, the risk of conflict with
these two nuclear peers is increasing. It is an existential challenge
for which the United States is ill-prepared, unless its leaders make
decisions now to adjust the U.S. strategic posture.
The congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United
States was established by the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA), and concludes that America's defense strategy
and strategic posture must change in order to properly defend its vital
interests and improve strategic stability with China and Russia.
Decisions need to be made now in order for the Nation to be prepared to
address the threats from these two nuclear-armed adversaries arising
during the 2027-2035 timeframe. Moreover, these threats are such that
the United States and its Allies and partners must be ready to deter
and defeat both adversaries simultaneously.
We arrive at these conclusions following a comprehensive year-long
review of the threats America faces and its strategy and planned
capabilities to address those threats. The evidence demonstrates that
the U.S.-led international order and the values it upholds are at risk
from the Chinese and Russian authoritarian regimes. The risk of
military conflict with those major powers has grown and carries the
potential for nuclear war. Therefore, the Commission reached the
unanimous, non-partisan conclusion that today's strategic outlook
requires an urgent national focus and a series of concerted actions not
currently planned. In sum, we find that the United States lacks a
comprehensive strategy to address the looming two nuclear-peer threat
environment and lacks the force structure such a strategy will require.
In reaching that overall conclusion, we make clear that the
fundamentals of America's deterrence strategy remain sound, but the
application of that strategy must change to address the 2027-2035
threat environment. Those changes drive necessary adjustments to the
posture of U.S. nuclear capabilities--in size and/or composition. A
full spectrum of non-nuclear capabilities is also essential to the
Nation's strategic posture. Such adjustments, in turn, drive the need
to strengthen and expand the capacity of the infrastructure required to
sustain and enhance U.S. strategic capabilities. In addition, Allies
and partners are central to our findings regarding strategy and
posture. We also emphasize the need for robust risk reduction efforts
as fundamental to the U.S. approach in the new threat environment.
Adhering to the stipulations of our mandate, the report that
follows delineates 131 findings and makes 81 recommendations. Those
findings and recommendations are found at the beginning and end,
respectively, of each chapter that follows; a complete list is also
included following the report's conclusion. Our most important
recommendations are summarized here:
STRATEGY
To achieve the most effective strategy for stability in light of
the 2027-2035 threat environment, the Commission identifies three
necessary changes:
The United States must develop and effectively implement
a truly integrated, whole-of-government strategy to address the 2027-
2035 threat environment.
The objectives of U.S. strategy must include effective
deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in
Europe and Asia using conventional forces. If the United States and its
Allies and partners do not field sufficient conventional forces to
achieve this objective, U.S. strategy would need to be altered to
increase reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic
or collaborative aggression in the other theater.
The size and composition of the nuclear force must
account for the possibility of combined aggression from Russia and
China. U.S. strategy should no longer treat China's nuclear forces as a
``lesser included'' threat. The United States needs a nuclear posture
capable of simultaneously deterring both countries.
The Commission recommends the United States maintain a nuclear
strategy consistent with the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), based on six
fundamental tenets--assured second strike, flexible response, tailored
deterrence, extended deterrence and assurance, calculated ambiguity in
declaratory policy, hedge against risk--and apply these tenets to
address the 2027-2035 threat.
STRATEGIC POSTURE
In the context of a strategic posture deploying both conventional
and nuclear capability, the Commission believes the traditional role of
nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy remains valid and of
continuing importance: deterrence of adversaries; assurance of Allies;
achieving U.S. objectives should deterrence fail; and hedging against
adverse events.
The current modernization program should be supplemented to ensure
U.S. nuclear strategy remains effective in a two-nuclear-peer
environment.
Comprehensive risk-mitigating actions across U.S. nuclear forces
must be executed to ensure that delays in modernization programs or
early age-out of currently deployed systems do not result in militarily
significant shortfalls in deployed nuclear capability.
The U.S. strategic nuclear force posture should be modified to:
Address the larger number of targets due to the growing
Chinese nuclear threat.
Address the possibility that China will field large-
scale, counterforce-capable missile forces that pose a threat to U.S.
strategic nuclear forces on par with the threat Russia poses to those
forces today.
Assure the United States continues to avoid reliance on
executing Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch under attack
to retain an effective deterrent.
Account for advances in Russian and Chinese integrated
air and missile defenses (IAMD).
The U.S. theater nuclear force posture should be urgently modified
to:
Provide the President a range of militarily effective
nuclear response options to deter or counter Russian or Chinese limited
nuclear use in theater.
Address the need for U.S. theater nuclear forces deployed
or based in the Asia-Pacific theater.
Compensate for any shortfall in U.S. and allied non-
nuclear capabilities in a sequential or simultaneous two-theater
conflict against Russia and China.
Address advances in Russian and Chinese IAMD.
NUCLEAR SECURITY ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION
The Commission recommends the DOD and DOE/NNSA strategic
infrastructure be expanded to have sufficient capacity to:
Meet the capability and schedule requirements of the
current nuclear modernization POR and the requirements of the force
posture modifications recommended by the Commission in time to address
the two-peer threat.
Provide an effective hedge against four forms of risk:
technical failure of a warhead or delivery system, programmatic delays,
operational loss of delivery systems, and further deterioration of the
geopolitical environment.
Flex to respond to emerging requirements in a timely
fashion.
To support the proposed strategy, the Commission recommends
Congress fund an overhaul and expansion of the capacity of the U.S.
nuclear weapons defense industrial base and the DOE/NNSA nuclear
security enterprise, including weapons science, design, and production
infrastructure. Specifically:
Congress should fund the full range of NNSA's
recapitalization efforts, such as pit production and all operations
related to critical materials.
Congress should forge and sustain bipartisan consensus
and year-to-year funding stability to enable the defense industry to
respond to innovative DOD contracting approaches and invest with more
certainty.
Congress should enact annual DOD and DOE authorization
and appropriation bills before the beginning of each fiscal year.
Congress should place the purview of all ``050'' programs
(President's Budget line item for ``national security'') that are in
NNSA under Defense appropriations subcommittees (House Appropriations
Cabinet Secretaries, working with states and union
leaders, should establish and increase the technical education and
vocational training programs required to create the Nation's necessary
skilled-trades workforce for the nuclear enterprise. Committee-Defense
(HAC-D), Senate Appropriations Committee Defense (SAC-D).
The Commission recommends a number of specific actions to expand
the capacity and effectiveness of the Nation's infrastructure and
supply chain for its strategic capabilities.
NON-NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES
The Commission recommends:
The United States urgently deploy a more resilient space
architecture and adopt a strategy that includes both offensive and
defensive elements to ensure U.S. access to and operations in space.
The United States and its Allies take steps to ensure
they are at the cutting edge of emerging technologies--such as big data
analytics, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI)--to
avoid strategic surprise and potentially enhance the U.S. strategic
posture.
The United States prioritize funding and accelerate long-
range non-nuclear precision strike programs to meet the operational
need and in greater quantities than currently planned.
The United States develop and field homeland IAMD that
can deter and defeat coercive attacks by Russia and China, and
determine the capabilities needed to stay ahead of the North Korean
threat. \4\
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\4\ A ``coercive'' attack consists of limited conventional or
nuclear strikes intended to convince U.S. leadership that the costs of
intervening or persevering in a conflict involving the attacker are too
high.
The Secretary of Defense direct research, development,
test and evaluation into advanced IAMD capabilities leveraging all
domains, including land, sea, air, and space. These activities should
focus on sensor architectures, integrated command and control,
interceptors, cruise and hypersonic missile defenses, and area or point
defenses. The DOD should urgently pursue deployment of any capabilities
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
that prove feasible.
The Secretary of Defense and the Military Departments
transfer operations and sustainment responsibility for missile defense
to the appropriate Military Departments by 1 October 2024. This will
allow the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to focus on research,
development, prototyping and testing.
ALLIES AND PARTNERS
The Commission believes it is in the U.S. national interest to
maintain, strengthen, and when appropriate, expand its network of
alliances and partnerships. These relationships strengthen American
security by deterring aggression regionally, before it can reach the
U.S. homeland, while also enabling U.S. economic prosperity through
access to international markets. Withdrawing from U.S. alliances and
partnerships would directly benefit adversaries, invite aggression that
the United States might later have to reverse, and ultimately decrease
American, allied, and partner security and economic prosperity.
Further, the Commission believes that our defense and the defense of
the current international order is strengthened when Allies can
directly contribute to the broader strategic posture, and the United
States should seek to incorporate those contributions as much as
possible.
The Executive branch should recognize that any major
change to U.S. strategic posture, policies, or capabilities will have
great effect on Allies' perceptions and their deterrence and assurance
requirements. As a result, any changes should be predicated on
meaningful consultations.
RISK REDUCTION
The Commission believes it is of paramount importance for the
United States to work to reduce strategic risks. This involves
activities and programs across the U.S. Government, including in
nonproliferation and arms control, as well as maintaining strong,
viable, and resilient military forces.
The Commission recommends that a strategy to address the
two-nuclear-peer threat environment be a prerequisite for developing
U.S. nuclear arms control limits for the 2027-2035 timeframe. The
Commission recommends that once a strategy and its related force
requirements are established, the U.S. Government determine whether and
how nuclear arms control limits continue to enhance U.S. security.
The Commission recommends that the United States continue
to explore nuclear arms control opportunities and conduct research into
potential verification technologies in order to support or enable
future negotiations in the U.S. national interest that seek to limit
all nuclear weapon types, should the geopolitical environment change.
Where formal nuclear arms control agreements are not
possible, the Commission recommends pursuing nuclear risk reduction
measures to increase predictability and reduce uncertainty and the
chances for misperception and miscalculation.
The 2009 congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the
United States reported that the United States was at ``a moment of
opportunity . . . but also a moment of urgency''--because the security
environment had improved and the threat of nuclear proliferation was
the principal concern. Since 2009, the security environment has
dramatically worsened and new existential threats have emerged. This
Commission concludes that the United States now faces a high stakes
challenge that requires urgent action. Nevertheless, the Commission has
not seen the U.S. Government demonstrate the urgency and creativity
required to meet the challenge. Nothing other than synchronized steps
taken by the Executive and legislative branches will craft the strategy
and build the posture the Nation requires.
The challenges are unmistakable; the problems are urgent; the steps
are needed now.
Chairman Reed. Well, thank you both for not only the
extraordinary work on your report, but also your very
compelling testimony today. And you have recognized, and as
Senator Kyl suggested, now it is our responsibility to
socialize, if you will, the reality that history has changed.
That we are now facing a three way competition.
But one question I have, and it probably went into the
deliberations, is that most of our deterrence theory, most of
the systems we set up were based on models that were bipolar.
You know, the triad, you know, all of that, that was based on a
bipolar model.
Are you comfortable after your review that you have enough
people thinking about what are the dynamics of the three party
competition? For example, it seems that President Xi sent a
signal to President Putin that using nuclear weapons in Ukraine
would not be useful.
And that is something that you wouldn't expect, but one
interpretation is he doesn't want to see the Japanese or the
South Koreans develop their nuclear force. So, I just wonder in
your considerations, you know, have you looked at what is the
underlying logic and model for a three party competition, Madam
Chairman?
Ms. Creedon. Thank you. We did. And when we came to the
conclusion that the program of record was necessary but not
sufficient, this was part of this discussion. So, we all
endorsed the idea of the triad, and that the triad needs to be
modernized and replaced.
And that it is certainly suitable, but the not sufficient
part is how you think about addressing the other peers, and
that is where flexibility comes in, hedging comes in. Having an
infrastructure where you can tailor your deterrence, so
tailored deterrence becomes quite important.
You know, how you can respond, how you can do the things
that you need to do to really have a deterrent effect and
dissuade others from thinking that they can start something. We
also talked a lot about the importance of allies in this and
how allies--we have to do a much better job in terms of
planning with our allies, coordinating with our allies,
integrating with our allies, because that is also one of our
big advantage, big strategic advantage in how we offset these
two peers.
They are different allies, obviously different theaters,
but we have to do better, you know, with our allies. And the
third part of all of this is really is utilizing all of our
tools of Government. And I know we talk about that all the
time, but we really have to do this. We really have to do the
diplomatic.
We have to look at sanctions. We have to look at all of our
tools in a coordinated fashion because that is a very important
role, or a very important part of our strategic deterrent, and
we don't do that very well either.
Chairman Reed. Senator Kyl.
Mr. Kyl. Might I just add two points directly related to
your question about the trilateral nature of this. First is the
recognition that whereas 10 years ago we treated China as a
lesser included case within Russia.
So, whatever we needed to deal with China, whatever we used
for Russia, that would suffice. That is no longer the case.
China is now a separate case, and it has every intention to be
on parity with Russia and the United States, so we have to
treat China in that fashion.
Second, it is really important--and you asked about our
discussions with the experts here. I am not sure that there is
an adequate appreciation of the fact that the likely war
scenarios that we are talking about here involve two very
different theaters where it is not really practical to assume
that you could transfer the assets from one theater to the
other to deal with the second contingency.
The European war is a land war. The Chinese situation would
undoubtedly involve a lot of sea and air power. And
transportation itself is a very difficult proposition for which
we are ill prepared. That is one of our findings.
So, in thinking about the three different parties here and
the two possible adversaries, we were very cognizant of the
fact that you have to treat them as separate challenges, each
with separate responses.
Chairman Reed. Thank you. My time is rapidly expiring, so I
will make a comment more than a question, which is in 2010, we
had very sophisticated people look at what was going on and
they delivered a very good report, but they did not anticipate
China suddenly deciding to become a front rank nuclear power.
We are looking here today, and I wonder, and you know this
again, this will be a comment because my time expired, we are
looking at things like AI, looking at things that maybe, you
know, 10 years from now, people--your successors will look back
and say, well, we didn't take advantage of that.
So, I just--I will send a letter for the record of how the
Commission dealt with the disruptive technologies that are
emerging. And with that, let me recognize----
Senator Wicker. Well, let them answer that.
Chairman Reed. Okay. Senator Wicker would like you to
answer--please brief.
Ms. Creedon. Well, we spent a fair amount of time talking
about this and one of--well, there are a lot of things but just
to be really brief, the view of the Commission is we are in
this for the long game, and we need to plan, we need to prepare
now, we need to figure out, we need to analyze what are all
these new technologies, how do we utilize them.
And part of it is also bringing them in to the defense
establishment in ways that we can't now. So, part of it is the
procurement system. We are not the procurement Commission.
There is a whole other Commission looking at that. But it is
very important that we take advantage of these emerging
technologies and develop them to our advantage. It is space. It
is cyber. It is AL. It is machine learning. It is additive
manufacture. It is a very long list.
Chairman Reed. Thank you. Senator Wicker, please.
Senator Wicker. And we are not particularly adept at doing
things nimbly and quickly in that regard. Look, thank you for
your work. Really appreciate it. Madam Chair, the Commission
makes 81 recommendations. And did you have help from the Office
of Management and Budget during the course of the Commission's
work?
Ms. Creedon. No.
Senator Wicker. Okay, well, we have a national debt now of
$33.6 trillion. How much are these 81 recommendations going to
cost, and to what extent did you talk about budgetary and long
range paying for this? Senator Kyl.
Ms. Creedon. So, we did. We are very cognizant of the fact
that we make a lot of recommendations that will cost money. It
is--it just is, and they will cost money. But again, we are in
this for the long term.
And so, all of the expenditures are not this year. They are
not next year. Some of them are 10 years, some of them are 30
years down the road. But our point was that we need to plan
now. We need to take action now. We need to address the
infrastructure. We need to do things now that will enable
decisions to be made into the future.
Senator Wicker. Well, I tend to agree with you, and that is
a frustration I have had, as you know, with our conventional
weapons. Does the report or some annex put a price on what you
are asking for us to do over the next 10 years? Senator Kyl.
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Wicker, the answer to that
is no, and it was deliberate. First of all, it was not within
our writ. Second, because so much of this is in our ears, it
would be folly for us to try to put an exact number on it.
But having said that, we thought about it a lot and we
decided that the best thing for us to do was to convey policy
changes that we believed were necessary, and that the
prioritization for funding those would naturally then devolve
to you and to the executive branch.
But here is the guiding principle. Every recent Secretary
of Defense--recent, I am thinking of the last three or four,
and Joint Chiefs Chairman have testified that the No. 1
priority for our National Security is our strategic deterrent,
and the nuclear deterrent underpins that. If it is the No. 1
priority, whatever funds are available, that should have first
call on those funds.
That is what No. 1 priority means. If everything else
depends upon this, this foundation, this rock has to be firm to
begin with. So that is my guiding principle in backing our--my
fellow Commissioners in saying that we wanted to recommend to
you what we thought was essential and that you would find a way
to be able to support that financially.
I would just make two other quick points. Our current
program of record is already built into our budget, and we know
that the nuclear component here is a very small percentage of
our overall defense budget.
And yet it is, we say the No. 1 priority. Second, we are
spending, what, about 3 percent of our GDP today on defense?
Senator Wicker. Less than that, actually.
Mr. Kyl. Less--if you factor in inflation and you also
factor in what most of that money, a majority of the money goes
to, to service the people that we are asking to defend our
country, not the programs, this is less--this is half as much
as we were spending during the buildup during the 1980's, for
example. This is an affordable thing for the United States of
America to prevent nuclear war.
Senator Wicker. Thank you. Senator Kyl, and appreciate you
making the point about the percentage of GDP, and we are going
to have to wrestle with that. There are a lot of people on this
Committee who are as involved in this issue as you are and
intricately understand this. Senator Fischer, as subcommittee
chairman, has done excellent work. Talked though to the public
out there.
We see today, just out of the Defense Department, that
China has 500 nukes. We thought last year they had 400. Now it
is 500. Russia has way more than that, and we see what is--and
we see what is happening with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
We have got hundreds of nukes pointed into each other, the
public says. How much--when is enough, enough? And again,
Senator Fischer would never ask that question because she
understands the answer.
But talk to the public right now, if you will, about that
question so that they--so that the people who are out there--
running their daily lives, who don't deal with this every day,
can appreciate what you have looked at for the last three or 4
years.
Mr. Kyl. Thank you, Senator Wicker. Just to make one point
about this. We thought that the number that we have deployed is
enough to deal with the threat that then existed, which was
Russia, and our two countries have approximately the same
number of strategic deployed weapons.
Obviously, Russia has a lot more tactical or non-strategic
weapons than we do. But now China has entered the game, as you
say. The number that they may have is in the area that you
mentioned, and their goal is to have parity with Russia and the
United States within the next 10 to a dozen years.
So, when you say, well, what is enough? That is a question
we have to answer under these new circumstances. And I think we
can explain to the American people that we thought we had a
peace dividend and opportunity and time to take a rest from
having to spend money on our nuclear deterrent.
And unfortunately, we allowed our facilities to atrophy. We
are now relying on weapons which are decades old, which were
designed back in the 70's and 80's. We are using delivery
systems that are past their lifetime.
And I think the American people can understand that when
you don't maintain what you have--and these are very
sophisticated items. This isn't like a dishwasher. But things
wear out. And so, when you have to replace them, it is going to
cost money.
If the most important thing for us is to stay out of a
nuclear war, and we have a deterrent policy that we think can
enable that, and this is what it requires to deter our
adversaries, then we need to get on with the business of
modernizing the force to achieve that.
And overall, given how wealthy our Nation is, its GDP, 3 or
4, maybe less than 1 percent just for this, but let's just say
the entire thing, maybe 4, 5 percent of GDP. Is that too much
to assure that we are not going to be in a nuclear war? I don't
think so.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Wicker. Senator Hirono,
please.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
your work on the Commission and for your testimony. For both of
you, the Strategic Posture Commission detailed several
recommendations to improve missile defense, including the need
to prepare for cruise and hypersonic missile threats, in
addition to ballistic missile threats.
And I have consistently asked the DOD leadership about this
exact issue, culminating this year in requiring a study of
missile defense within the INDOPACOM AOR in this year's Senate
passed NDAA.
What would implementation of the Commission's
recommendations regarding missile defense look like from your
perspective, particularly for cruise and hypersonic missile
defense? Ms. Creedon.
Ms. Creedon. Thank you, Senator. So, to start, we obviously
spent a fair amount of time discussing missile defense, and
there are three aspects of it. One is, of course, the national
missile defense and how we keep a pace, stay ahead of the North
Korean threat.
And so, for that one, we did discuss more ground based
interceptors. But the thing that was new was really the need to
defend against the cruise, the hypersonics, other things but
ballistic missiles.
And we also looked at this in the context of making sure
that we can protect and defend against what we referred to as
these smaller strikes, these sort of coercive strikes that
would be the maybe the precursor to something, where it would--
these strikes would keep the U.S. out.
We also looked very carefully at how we protect our key
strategic infrastructure. We need to think about those. And
again, these are things like--these are point defenses. These
are area defenses.
These are not more--you know, the GBIs. And we also felt
very strongly that we need to do a lot of research and
development. We need to understand where the future is headed.
We recognize that this is a difficult area because you can't
always just build more GBIs.
But really looking at infrastructure, really looking at
research and development, understanding where new capabilities
may exist, and then employing those when feasible. But it is
that middle ground, the cruise and theater that we looked at
very extensively, and why we made those recommendations.
Senator Hirono. I think that is really important because
our missile defense has focused very much on ballistic missile
defense. And when you have North Korea, and at this point Iran
possibly, developing their weaponry, I think we need to pay
attention to those other two hypersonics and others.
So, I am glad, Ms. Creedon, that you mentioned in your
testimony how important our allies are. And the report does
highlight the role our allies and partners play in our
strategic posture, and multilateral exercises ensure
interoperability and improve our posture.
For example, this year, the Navy completed ballistic
missile defense exercises with South Korea and Japan. For both
of you, how can the DOD better support these types of training
with our network of allies and partners in the Pacific? Senator
Kyl.
Mr. Kyl. Thank you, Senator. You have hit on a couple of
very important points here. Nonproliferation has been one of
our goals for a long time. It was one of the key goals a dozen
years ago when the previous Commission reported.
And we believe that working with our allies to provide
greater assurance to them that our nuclear backup will help to
protect them is one of the best ways to ensure that we don't
have nuclear proliferation around the globe.
So, this is a very important component. It is part of the
recommendations that we make here. Nonproliferation is
important. Enhancing our ability to deter nuclear war, and the
assurance we provide for allies to that extent, is a part of
that.
Senator Hirono. As far as I can see that--the strategic
advantage we have over both Russia and China are our network of
allies.
And I think the more we engage in various kinds of
exercises with them, the better, and especially as China is
very intentional in its efforts to be a power in the Indo-
Pacific AOR. And they are doing all kinds of economic and other
kinds of outreach.
So, the more we are able to show that we have a strong
partner network, the better it is. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Hirono. Senator
Fischer, please.
Senator Fischer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to
begin by thanking the Commissioners for your work on this
report. The report is thoughtful, clear eyed about the threats,
and honest about how underprepared we are to address these
threats, and we are woefully underprepared.
Since the Second World War, the United States National
Security Strategy has been predicated on having one major
nuclear adversary, and we now face two major nuclear
adversaries for the first time in history.
Russia and China have rapidly modernized their strategic
nuclear forces. They have dramatically expanded their theater
nuclear forces, and they are developing novel nuclear weapons
and delivery systems.
Meanwhile, we have barely begun to modernize our strategic
nuclear forces and only plan to replace them on a one for one
basis, a plan that was developed on outdated assumptions.
As you say in your report, our nuclear force modernization
program of record is, ``absolutely essential, although not
sufficient to meet the new threats posed by Russia and China.''
And as your report also conveys, the United States has no
strategy to address this threat.
We cannot effectively deter two nations with a national
defense strategy that has one major war sizing construct.
Unless we change our strategy, we will not be able to deter
both China and Russia. If our adversaries believe that we lack
capacity or lack the will to respond to an attack and to defend
our allies and partners, they will act accordingly.
Your report had 131 findings and 81 recommendations, which,
if acted upon, will provide the United States with the capacity
and capability necessary to maintain our place in the world.
These recommendations include changes to the plan, size,
and composition of our nuclear forces, including the
development of new theater nuclear delivery systems. They
include overhauling the NNSA, dramatically expanding our
domestic industrial base, including the establishment of a
third nuclear shipyard.
Developing a comprehensive homeland missile defense
architecture and a resilient space architecture that includes
both offensive and defensive elements. And we must do this with
a sense of urgency, Senator Kyl, urgency, which has frankly
been utterly lacking from the Department of Defense and the
Department of Energy.
And to be clear, this is a bipartisan, bicameral
Commission. The Commissioners have a wide range of experiences
and political viewpoints, and yet the findings and
recommendations of this report were unanimously supported. This
is no fringe report. This is the consensus of respected
National Security experts.
I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress to
turn these recommendations into legislation. The road ahead is
difficult and there will be a cost, but we are at a crossroads.
Senator Kyl, the report recommends that the United States,
``develop and deploy theater nuclear delivery systems that have
some or all of the following attributes, forward deployed or
deployable in the European and Asia-Pacific theaters,
survivable against preemptive attack without force generation
day to day, a range of explosive yield options, including low
yield, capable of penetrating advanced integrated air and
missile defense with high confidence, and operationally
relevant weapon delivery timeline and promptness.'' Does the
SLCM meet those attributes?
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Fischer, the answer is yes.
Senator Fischer. Of the possible weapons systems that could
fit all those criteria, is SLCM the system that could deliver
this capability to the commanders most quickly?
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Fisher, I don't know the
answer to that because I don't know what other systems people
might propose, which--would satisfy those requirements. What
the Commission did was to decide what requirements were needed
to give the President the maximum number of options.
These were the elements of a weapon that was needed. SLCM
satisfies those elements. Whether there are others that could
also be developed, we leave to the experts.
Senator Fischer. When you speak of giving the President
options, would you say that was a priority, one of the main
reasons that your Commission believed that having a delivery
system with those attributes is necessary to deter our
adversaries?
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Fischer, I believe that that
is correct. We talked a lot about the President having
different options because we focused a lot on the possibility
of escalation.
The Ukraine situation provides a good example where an
autocrat has boldly talked about escalating the conventional
conflict there by using nuclear weapons. It is not at all
outside the realm of possibility that such weapons could be
used in a future conflict. Once nuclear weapons are used, you
are on a ladder which could quite quickly escalate to a
situation beyond control and which we obviously don't want.
The more options that our President has to respond to that
kind of action in a way that would tell the adversary that
there is no point in trying to escalate this further, the
better off we are and the better we are going to be able to
deter nuclear war.
Senator Fischer. Thank you. It is an honor to know you both
and work with you. I thank you for the wonderful work that you
have done here in bringing us a consensus report that is vital
to the National Security of this country. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Fischer. Senator King,
please.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You used the word
urgency. I woke up this morning after having gone through your
materials, and I had a two word summary of your report which
was, hurry up. I think we both are looking at the same data and
coming to the same conclusion.
One of the things you noted on page 51 of the report is one
of the all-time great understatements. ``Infrastructure
recapitalization is also hindered by unpredictable,
incrementally funded budget levels each Fiscal Year,
exacerbated by the continuing practice of continuing
resolutions to fund the Government.''
We are part of the problem, right? You can answer, yes. I
won't be offended.
Ms. Creedon. Yes, sir.
Senator King. Yes. I think this is something that we need
to consider that the herky jerky funding, continuing
resolutions is not supportive of the kind of consistent, long
term process that you are talking about.
So, thank you for that recommendations. Is NSA--is NNSA up
to this task? I am concerned that they just don't seem to be
able to get--I mean I keep having--we keep having meetings on
pit production and it is falling behind. And I just wonder if
we need to rethink that whole construct. Ms. Creedon.
Ms. Creedon. So obviously, that is a complicated question.
But I think the bottom line is, yes. But, so, there are a
number of things going on. One, because there was almost an
abandonment of the infrastructure at NNSA, and prior to that
the Department of Energy, other than some of the scientific
infrastructure that was put in place after the nuclear test ban
treaty to help be able to maintain the stockpile in the absence
of nuclear testing.
There was a lot of really good work done on the science
side, but pretty much the whole production side was just
ignored. A lot of it dates back to the Manhattan Project, and
the new things are into the 60's and 70's----
Senator King. I guess, my question is, do you think they
are capable of turning this battleship and getting it done?
Ms. Creedon. They do, but it is complicated. They need the
right people. They need the right funding. They need the
consistent funding. They need a supply chain that doesn't exist
right now, that they have lots of external workforce problems.
It is very hard to get people at all levels. It is hard to get
electricians. You know, we need unions to train these people.
We need welders. I mean, it goes across the board. They need
money.
Senator King. We can followup on this question. I think I
would like to hear more, but in limited time here, I want to
get to a couple of other questions.
It seems to me that the threat of the Russians using
tactical weapons in Ukraine has sort of woken us up that you
talk about the President having options. Our deterrent fails if
our only option is massive retaliation, and the adversary
doesn't believe we will go to that option based upon the use of
a tactical nuclear weapon.
That brings us back to SLCM-N. That we need further options
on the tactical level, which we have sort of abandoned for 50
years. Senator Kyl isn't that something that we--and I realize
you discussed this with Senator Fischer, but I hope you will
emphasize that point. We need more options for the President in
a case of a limited use of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator King, that is absolutely
right. Our report considers a lot of different elements. And
without trying to go into a lot of detail, the tactical options
are really important because the way you get into this is
probably not a bolt out of the blue, but rather an escalatory
system that starts with the conventional and then ends up with
a small nuclear yield and then something bigger, and perhaps a
coercive attack----
Senator King. But if our only deterrent capacity is a
massive retaliation, that is not credible, and therefore
deterrence fails at that lower level. Is that correct?
Mr. Kyl. In my personal opinion, that is correct. I am not
sure I speak for everyone. And I, the--all I can tell you with
respect to the consensus of the Commission is that we all agree
that the President needs more options, and not just with regard
to the kind of weapons and the yield on those weapons and so
on.
We talked a lot about our space capabilities. We talked
about missile defense, including missile defense of the
homeland against these coercive attacks. As Madelyn said, one
of the things that we are concerned about is a Chinese or
Russian coercive attack, somewhat limited, maybe against
industrial infrastructure, maybe military infrastructure, but
the kind of attack that would tell us, if you don't buckle
under to what we demand, there is a lot more where this came
from.
We will stop it for now. Well, that is a hard thing to
respond to other than with massive nuclear retaliation, unless
you have a missile defense, which can stop it. One of our
recommendations is for an urgent RDT [research, development and
test], any effort by the Department of Defense to look into all
of the potential feasible options there, including space based
missile defenses that might be able to provide additional
options other than just the massive retaliation.
Senator King. My time has expired, but I do think attention
also needs to--casting our minds 10 years or 12 years ahead, if
you we are looking back 10 to 12 years. We need to be thinking
about non-State actors obtaining nuclear weapons.
I just googled how to build a nuclear weapon. Low and
behold, there is a YouTube, so you want to build a nuke. And I
think that is going to be one of the great threats in the
future because these are people that are not subject to
deterrence if they don't care about dying. So, I think, I hope
that is something we can discuss----
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator King.
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, might I just respond briefly to
Senator King's other point about NNSA?
Chairman Reed. Of course.
Mr. Kyl. I certainly agree with what Madelyn said. Our
report contains several recommendations which would strengthen
NNSA, and the labs, and production facilities. Part of the
problem in the past, there has been a disconnect between lab
directors, and NNSA, the Department of Energy, and the
Secretary of Energy.
The committees in Congress, which have jurisdiction over
both energy matters and defense matters, we make
recommendations, for example, to divide the responsibility for
water projects for members and our nuclear weapons labs.
Today, the appropriators combine those two together, and it
is pretty clear to see which one can come out on the lower end
of that stick. So, there are several recommendations that we
believe would strengthen NNSA. Today, it may or may not be
capable of doing the job. With our recommendations, we believe
it would be.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Kyl. Senator Cotton,
please.
Senator Cotton. Senator Kyl, Ms. Creedon, thank you. And
thanks to all the Commissioners for your hard work on this
Commission and the excellent report you have produced.
Senator Kyl, the report concludes that the United States
needs to be able to deter combined Russian, Chinese aggression.
I don't believe we have anywhere near the nuclear force
necessary to accomplish that combined deterrence of Russia and
China.
Frankly, I worry that we don't have enough to deter either
one individually, especially given China's breakneck nuclear
buildup. So, can you tell us how an inadequate nuclear force
might invite aggression from these countries, even if it
doesn't result in a nuclear war?
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Cotton, of course, that gets
right to the philosophy of deterrence. The potential enemy has
to understand that the costs of aggression exceed the potential
benefits.
And if he is not sure that the costs of aggression are
really going to hurt him that much, then he may be tempted to
try. And that is why it is so important for the adversary to
believe correctly that we do have the capacity to destroy
everything that is dear to them. That is the essence of the
deterrent philosophy.
The Russians and the Chinese can see what we have. We are
pretty transparent about it. And they are pretty--I am sure
they have a very good idea of the status of our deterrent. And
so, they know when we are coming up against deadlines that we
are not likely to meet.
They also know this, that our current program of record
simply replaces one for one capabilities, as Senator Fischer
said in her opening statement. It does not account for the new
threat from China. That is why when we say we have got to--it
is necessary for the POR, but it is not sufficient.
We mean it is not sufficient because it hasn't calculated
China in the equation. So, we have got to have the additional
capacity, whether it is additional warheads, the composition of
those warheads, the deployment of them, different delivery
systems, all of those things would go into our calculations as
to what we need to deter this additional threat. And it is not
just a concerted conduct between Russia and China.
It is the possibility that one of them is engaged with us
and the other sees the opportunity to then begin to make the
mischief that they would like to make. So, it is an
opportunistic kind of aggression, and that, I think, is
something that we have to calculate in deciding what we need to
deter war.
Senator Cotton. So, it doesn't require them to openly
cooperate, to say, develop joint target lists, that Russia will
strike certain bases or missile fields and China will strike
others. They simply observe the behavior of each other.
They can signal to each other, and they can take
opportunistic, non-nuclear aggressive actions, confident that
America, faced with a nuclear overmatch by the two countries
combined, or maybe this one country alone, will in the end back
down, back down in say, Eastern Europe, or back down in the
Taiwan Strait. Is that the point, Senator Kyl?
Mr. Kyl. Yes, Mr. Chairman, Senator Cotton. That is exactly
right. And these are two countries that have made no bones
about the fact that they intend to be cooperating in the
future. I have forgotten the exact phrase they used, but they
are bosom buddies when it comes to their goal of making trouble
for us, and we have to take that into account.
Senator Cotton. And I know many in the United States, some
in this Senate, certainly lots in Europe, think that nuclear
war is somehow unthinkable. That it is not possible to even
imagine that, you know, it would result in the end of humanity.
Just to be clear, who we are dealing with here.
We know now, frankly, we knew at the time, but we certainly
know now because of the opening of Soviet Russian archives,
that that is not the way the Russians saw nuclear war. They
viewed nuclear weapons as simply another kind of weapon, and
they had plans to fight and to win nuclear war.
Isn't it the case that today's Russia and communist China
also view nuclear weapons in just the same way? Not as
something to never be used, but something that they have active
plans to use, if necessary, to achieve their national goals?
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Cotton, the Commission spent
quite a bit of time on this exact subject, and I think it is in
the best judgment of the experts in our Government that Russia
certainly has such a doctrine, and it has been in open sources.
The Russian action in Ukraine tend to confirm that that
doctrine of Russia could certainly be used. It is a little
unclear because China is so opaque exactly how they might want
to use their nuclear weapons in the future. But what we have to
be very, very fearful of is this escalatory ladder, which once
you are on, it is very difficult to control.
Senator Cotton. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Cotton. Senator Kelly,
please.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Ms. Creedon,
Senator Kyl, thank you for being here. Ms. Creedon, I want to,
well, first of all, thank the Commission and thank both of you
for all the hard work it took to put this report together.
And I would like to note that the report specifically
recommends, and I quote, ``that the United States prioritize
funding and accelerate long range, non-nuclear precision strike
programs to meet the operational need and in greater quantities
than currently planned.''
So, I want to highlight that the SM-6, Standard Missile 6,
is a U.S. produced, ship launched to anti-air, anti-surface,
and it is a weapon that is manufactured in my home State, and
Senator Kyl's, of Arizona. And it is the only weapon in the
inventory that can take out a hypersonic missile.
The SM-6, it is sort of like three missiles in one. It is
the only weapon that can perform anti-air, so surface to air
warfare, ballistic missile defense, and also have a surface to
surface mission. The Commission's report also notes that the
Secretary of Defense needs to direct research, development,
test, and evaluation into advanced integrated air and missile
defense capabilities, leveraging all domains, including land,
air, sea, and space.
So, based on the capabilities of the SM-6 in your findings
in the report, what specific recommendations do you think
Congress should prioritize to ensure that the U.S. is prepared
to defeat threats from Russia, China, Iran, and any other
adversarial regimes that emerge?
Ms. Creedon. Thank you, Senator Kelly. The regional fights,
the theater fights, the working--the need to work with our
allies, making sure we have missile defense not just at the
national levels against ballistic missiles, but having these
capabilities to defeat the cruise missiles, to defeat the long
range hypersonics.
And then we also have to think about how we think about
these things. We need these systems. We need these capabilities
for the theaters. Both theaters are--I mean, they are very
different, but particularly in the Asia Pacific theater, given
the size of the theater, given that we don't have a NATO
alliance.
We have great allies, but not together. We need to join
with these allies. We need to train with these allies. We need
to have co-development programs. We need to have them very
integrated to do all the things that you highlight, to be able
to effectively put together regional deterrence, put together a
regional offense.
So, research and development is also very important as we
think about how we move forward, how we modernize our systems,
how we bring in innovation to make sure that we have the
necessary capabilities in both theaters.
So, I, you know, we fully support all of the work at this--
but, you know, again, as we said, we didn't pick winners and
losers. We have capabilities. And certainly, the system you--
you know, the SM-6 is absolutely in this ballpark, in this
niche.
Senator Kelly. And it is not only about the capability and
being able to defeat our enemy system, it is also being able to
do it at a range that they can't defeat ours. And I have seen
this. I was over in Ukraine about a month ago and convened a
roundtable of Ukrainian pilots, MiG-29, SG-27 guys, and we
talked in detail about this, about how important it is for us
to have a capability, a longer stick, let's say, than the
Russians have. And in some cases, they do not have that now.
And I think in some cases we find ourselves in the same
situation. So, it is a matter of just continuing to improve
this.
Ms. Creedon. And it goes without saying that the
conventional deterrent has to be there, because without the
conventional deterrent, we rapidly get to the possibility of
introducing the theater nuclear in--which we want to avoid,
right. So, we need that conventional deterrence, so we never
get to that nuclear war.
Senator Kelly. Thank you. And Senator Kyl, it is great to
have another Arizona Senator here in Committee today. I have a
question about electronic warfare, but I am kind of running out
of time.
But briefly, it is a, you know, question about electronic
warfare and how integral it is to the Western Pacific. And
China is really doubling down on their EW capability, and we
have an asset in Arizona that you are--I am sure you have
visited a number of times at Fort Huachuca, the electronic
proving ground.
And it is a valuable asset, and we have got to--so I am
going to submit this one for the record. And, Jon, thank you
for being here.
Mr. Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Kelly. May I just
note that there are several things in our report that discussed
this. General Hayden, one of our Commissioners, was very
helpful in alerting us to several things that we had to be
aware of. And we make some specific recommendations regarding,
for example, sale of spectrum, which could adversely affect our
ability to deal in this particular realm.
Senator Kelly. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Kelly. Senator Ernst,
please.
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Ms.
Creedon and Senator Kyl, for being here today. And thank you as
well for your leadership on this Commission and for providing a
comprehensive look at the long term strategic needs of our
great United States.
We have heard a lot of different discussions about China
and Russia and their implications, but of course, as we have
seen over the last few days, Iran is more dangerous than ever.
And so, we must ensure that the U.S. has unquestionable nuclear
deterrent.
And we have focused on this in the past, the Defend Act,
which was put into last year's National Defense Authorization
Act, providing for the integrated air and missile defense
systems, tying together those countries that are in the Abraham
Accords and protecting them against the threat of Iran.
So, Ms. Creedon and Senator Kyl, the Commission focused on
not only nuclear forces, but also non-nuclear capabilities that
you said could have strategic and even existential threats in
unforeseen ways.
So, to that, what steps can we take to ensure that the U.S.
is at the cutting edge of emerging technologies, and Ms.
Creedon, you spoke to this just briefly, big data analytics,
quantum computing, artificial intelligence, all of those areas
to avoid strategic surprise and potentially enhance our U.S.
strategic posture? So, how can we focus on those areas to
contribute to our strategic defense?
Ms. Creedon. Thank you for that, Senator. So, to be brief
here, I would say there are probably two things. One is to make
sure that we invest, that the U.S. resumes or maintains,
depending on which area we are talking about, the research and
development, the leadership in the technology, making sure that
all of the--the funding is needed so that we maintain our edge.
And the second thing is really look at what is going on in
the defense establishment procurement system so that these
things can be brought into our capabilities in a fashion that
meets the timely requirements. I mean, it isn't going to do any
good if it takes 10 years to get new technology in because it
will be old by then.
Senator Ernst. Absolutely. I agree 100 percent. Noted.
Thank you so much for that. And Senator Kyl, the Commission
recognized that over the next decade, the homeland will face
escalating challenges and an evolution of adversarial
capabilities within critical technologies.
So, in what ways should the Secretary of Defense approach a
strategy and associated strategic posture changes to address
the threats posed by emerging and disruptive technologies,
including AI and quantum?
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Ernst, this particularly is
with reference to protecting the homeland?
Senator Ernst. Yes.
Mr. Kyl. We were concerned about that, not only because of
the ballistic missile threat, but because of all of the other
kinds of delivery threats now that have emerged. These include
the cruise missile threat, the hypersonics with--the Chinese
have some capabilities that are particularly troublesome here
with their fractional orbital bombardment system, for example.
The United States is lagging behind in developing both
offensive and defensive capabilities against these new weapons.
This is one of the reasons why we made an urgent recommendation
here that the Department of Defense immediately begin an RDT&E
[research, development, test and evaluation] program. And we
specifically said RDT&E because this can't be just research and
development.
This has to be with the goal of producing weapons that can
defeat the enemy and getting them deployed. And that is why we
say that we need to deploy the next generation interceptors as
soon as possible.
That we needed to develop and field IAMD capabilities,
integrated air and missile defense capabilities, that can deter
and defeat coercive attacks by Russia and China. That Congress
should appropriate the funds necessary for the centers and
interceptors necessary to defend these assets.
And we specifically say that the Secretary of Defense
should direct research, development, test, and evaluation into
advanced IAMD capabilities, leveraging all domains, including
land, sea, air, and space.
These activities should focus on sensor architectures,
integrated command and control, interceptors, cruise and
hypersonic missile defenses, and area or point defenses. If any
of these capabilities prove feasible, the department should
pursue deployment with urgency.
So, yes, you are--you have got your finger right on one of
the big problems here. Our two potential adversaries here are
ahead of us in developing these capabilities and we don't yet
have the defenses to deter them. So, we need to do that with
alacrity and with urgency.
Senator Ernst. I appreciate that, Senator Kyl. Too often we
think about simply the missile or a nuclear warhead just to our
citizens out there, but there is a lot more that goes into
these systems.
And the ability to be able to detect and intercept threats
coming from other adversaries, and then deployability of our
own systems, and a lot of that is dependent upon where we are
with AI and quantum computing. So, thank you all so much for
this incredible work. Really appreciate it.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Ernst. Senator Kaine,
please.
Senator Kaine. Thank you to the members of the Commission
for this work product. My colleagues have asked really good
questions about important areas of nuclear deterrence.
I am going to ask a question about what I think is the most
understandable and straightforward recommendation in your
report. U.S. Government Cabinet Secretary should work with
states and union leaders to reform and revitalize U.S.
technical education and national workforce development to
ensure the availability of critical skilled labor.
What led the Commission to make that recommendation?
Senator Ernst. So, thank you, Senator Kaine. So, as we
looked at all of the various programs, all of the various
infrastructure, the modernization programs, the thing that kept
coming out over and over and over is that this is so hard, this
is so new, this is so complex. We don't have the workforce.
You know, one particular example that we spent some time
with is at one of the NNSA construction projects, they don't
have electricians. You know, the shipyards don't have welders.
I mean, all of these fundamental things that this--that we used
to have, we don't have them in the quantities we need them.
And so, it is much bigger than the DOD. It is much bigger
than a DOE. This is a national problem. So, we just put this
out there. It is beyond our--really beyond our purview to solve
this, but we really--it has to be addressed. It has to be
addressed.
Senator Kaine. I am the son of an ironworker, and I ran a
school that taught kids to be welders and carpenters in
Honduras in 1980 and 1981. This recommendation is coming up
again and again and again.
We did an infrastructure bill. Who is going to build it? We
did a manufacturing bill. Who is going to make it? We have made
a commitment to try to produce subs not only for the United
States but for an AUKUS deal that I strongly support, but the
shipyards we have now don't have sufficient workforce to
produce on a pace for our own needs, yet much less others.
My colleagues, I imagine many of my colleagues know, but
maybe the public doesn't, the primary financial aid program
that the Federal Government authorizes, the Pell Grant program,
Pell Grants can be used for college, but not for career and
technical education.
To get a Pell Grant, if you income qualify, the course has
to be the length of a college semester, 15 weeks long. A lot of
college courses are 15 weeks, 3 days a week for an hour and a
half. So, 4.5 hours a week times 50, maybe 75 hours.
A lot of high quality career and technical education, it is
an 8-week course, but it is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 300
plus hours, but you can't get a Pell Grant for it. We value
college education. We send the signal that we don't value
career and technical education.
My son, when he was an infantry commander in the Marines,
he could decide that somebody in his platoon got a military
tuition assistance grant, but it had to be on a college campus.
So, if somebody said, I want $300 to pass the American Welding
Society's certification exam.
I am an ordinance specialist. I can pass it. He could not
allow them to do that. We consider career and technical
education second class in this country, and it is not. It is
what is needed. We ought to celebrate college, of course, but
we ought to celebrate career and technical education.
And I have had a bill, bipartisan bill, very bipartisan
bill, many of the members of the Committee are co-sponsors to
finally say that Pell Grants should be able to be used for high
quality career and technical education.
And I think that would be directly responsive to the
recommendation you have made and that so many others have made.
But as long as we devalue career and technical education in the
country, then we are going to have problems here and everywhere
else.
Now, I am going to switch over and ask a question about
AUKUS. One of the proposals in AUKUS that excites me is the
Australian government is willing to invest in the U.S.
submarine industrial base.
That is pretty unusual for another nation and say we will
invest billions of dollars in the U.S. submarine industrial
base because it will help us with integrated defense in the
INDOPACOM. In looking--in your Commission's report, did you
factor in the AUKUS proposal? These would be nuclear subs, but
not armed with nuclear weapons.
But I am just curious. I know you talk a lot about the
importance of alliances. Did you factor in the AUKUS proposal
in this Commission's report?
Senator Ernst. So, we were certainly aware of that. Our
recommendation really went to the inadequacy of the capacity in
our current shipyards.
And, you know, I should add from a personal note, in 2014
was part of--I chaired a review on the internal nuclear
enterprise at DOD, and one of the things that we identified in
that report in 2014 was the inadequacy of the capacity at the
shipyards. It is still there. It is worse.
So, I mean, I certainly welcome the AUKUS contribution, but
we need more capacity in our shipyards.
Senator Kaine. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Kaine. Senator Cramer,
please.
Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chair
Creedon and Senator Kyl for your incredible work, and to all
the members of the Commission. And I, like Senator Kaine--first
of all, I agree with him 100 percent on what he just said with
regard to education. We have got to work on that for sure.
And while your Commission found, obviously, a lot of unity,
even unanimity, almost at least consensus, I think you sense
the same here. This rostrum is--has been pretty committed. You
communicate both technically and passionately the obvious, what
seems obvious to a lot of us, demand, and you have challenged
us, Senator Kyl, and I appreciate this, with the task of
convincing our constituents where they may not agree, largely
because they may not know.
I am sometimes stunned by how little some people know about
recent history, much less--you know, ancient history, much less
what to expect going forward. However, the threat of the enemy
is getting clearer every day to just about everybody, one would
think. So, the demand, it should not be hard for us.
The prioritization, I think, yes. I especially appreciate
the way you have not ignored or not siloed nuke and non-nuke.
You have not ignored that non-nuclear is an essential part. One
of the things I worry about, and this is where I want to get to
a thought or a question and get your thoughts, do we make a
mistake when we take the No. 1 priority of nuclear
modernization, the No. 1 priority--of the No. 1 priority in
terms of our responsibilities of securing the Nation, defending
the Nation, and silo its budget in the services rather than set
it apart as the No. 1 priority of defending this country.
Because I worry a little bit that the priority of nuclear
modernization, particularly in this high inflation, fast
inflation moment we live in, means that we are going to
modernize our nukes, our deterrent, at the expense of non-
nuclear.
And silos are a common problem for me, frankly, in the
Pentagon. Should we be looking at finding a better way, a more
transparent way to demonstrate the cost of all of this and not
cannibalize non-nuclear defenses by modernizing nuclear?
Senator Kyl, first, and then Ms. Creedon.
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Cramer, well, you are right
back to where I started, and I think you are absolutely right.
We have got to find ways to discuss this. Our Commission
actually makes several recommendations that go to your point.
First thing I would say is that remember that in talking
about strategic deterrence, we are not just talking about
nuclear. As a matter of fact, we believe that the first thing
we have got to do is have a conventional capability, which is
so dominant that no party would ever consider a nuclear attack
against the United States.
So, we hope to avoid war with our conventional capability.
That shouldn't be sacrificed in any way. But, if you don't have
the ultimate weapon, the nuclear dominance, then you don't have
that element that underpins all of the rest.
And that is why our Secretaries of Defense have said that
it is the No. 1 priority. In many ways, our Government hasn't
backed that up. The people that used to be responsible for that
were general flag officers. It is now far down the ranks. It is
your colonels and majors. It is not exactly a big career
opportunity path for you to be involved in this part of our
national defense.
So, it is not emphasized, and as a matter of fact, it
becomes kind of the stepchild. And so, no wonder it lags when
it should be the top priority. Among the recommendations we
make, we think that the Armed Services Committee should have a
closer look at the budgets here rather than a subcommittee of
the Appropriations Committee, which also deals with water
projects.
Here is one example. We think that the Armed Services
Committee should bring the Secretary of Energy candidates
before them, not for a vote, but at least to ask them a few
things. Do they appreciate as Secretary of Energy that their
No. 1 responsibility is our nuclear deterrent? It is not oil
wells or whatever.
There are several things that we can do internally here in
the Congress to reemphasize the importance of the nuclear
deterrent. And finally, I think it has always been a problem
when NNSA was created that Secretaries of Defense from both
parties have seen that as a stepping on their toes.
They would rather retain the jurisdiction within the
department. And we are trying to elevate the NNSA head to a
higher position within the department to indicate that we
believe this is that important. And the Secretary of Energy has
to acknowledge that NNSA is a silo within the department. It is
not under the thumb of the Secretary of Energy.
So, there are a lot of different things that we say in
here, which if implemented, will help to elevate the work of
NNSA and the nuclear enterprise generally to the position that
everybody says it has, but doesn't really back up.
Senator Cramer. You know, I just, I know I am out of time
so I am going to wrap up by just saying, one of the things I
worry about in this entire discussion is that we are somewhat
deteriorating not just our nuclear deterrence but reputational
deterrent a little bit by having this transparent conversation
that we must have.
But I will tell you all that last week, General Allvin and
I were in North Dakota for a couple of days, spent a lot of
time at Minot, saw those 60 year old missiles and the control
center, and those 60 year old bombers that--and LRSO, and all
of that, and I just want anybody who is listening to know, they
are still very capable. Be very, very cautious. We are still
very capable while we transition. Thank you both very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Cramer. Senator Rosen,
please.
Senator Rosen. Well, thank you, Chairman Reed. And thank
you, Senator Cramer, because I want to tell you, I want to talk
about the Nevada National Security Site and the NNSA. Thank you
for leading into my question. Thank you both for being here,
for your service, of course, your service here in the Senate
and continuing service to our Nation. And so, we know, the
NNSS, it tears--it deters our near-peer adversaries. That is
what they do.
And so, as your report makes clear, ensuring the safety and
reliability of our existing nuclear stockpile is absolutely
necessary to maintaining a credible deterrent posture toward
Russia and China.
And I am proud that my home State hosts the Nevada National
Security Site, which oversees the Stockpile's Stewardship
Program, principally at the U1a facility. This is an
underground lab--underground laboratory where scientists
conduct those subcritical experiments to verify the safety and
reliability of our nuclear stockpile without explosive testing,
and yes, it is in good shape.
But U1a is going under--is undergoing major construction.
It is going to soon host the most capable weapons radiographic
system in the world. But however, as I have raised earlier in
this Committee, the NNSA currently faces significant
infrastructure delays, especially at the Nevada test site--we
still call it the Nevada test site.
So, Senator Kyl and Ms. Creedon, how will upgrade to the
Stockpile Stewardship Program, like the U1a facility, defend
the Nation, enhance our deterrence? And can you both speak to
the importance of continuing to make these investments that
support Stockpile Stewardship, to be sure that our stockpile is
safe, secure, and reliable?
So, whoever likes to go first.
Ms. Creedon. So, thank you very much, Senator Rosen. The
old test site----
Senator Rosen. They call--in Nevada, we call it the test
site.
Ms. Creedon. It is one of the most important locations in
the NNSA complex, and the new ECSC, the accelerator, everything
that you mentioned that is now going on under construction in
U1a, it is part of this broader scientific, experimental,
computational, and testing capabilities that allow not only the
NNSA to do the modernization programs that are underway now,
but also it lays the foundation for all the future work, for
all the future flexibility and capacity that NNSA is going to
have to be prepared to deliver to the Defense Department.
It also is extremely important on the nonproliferation
side. There is a huge amount of work going on in Nevada on
nonproliferation that is--we can talk about more later, but it
is----
Senator Rosen. Thank you.
Ms. Creedon.--it is really essential, and it addresses some
of the problems that have been raised here today.
Senator Rosen. I have been to the site many times, and it
is quite impressive. Senator.
Mr. Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Rosen. I would
just second what Madelyn said. I don't think--well, I know that
most of my constituents wouldn't have any idea of the
complexity and the incredible importance of work done at sites
such as your Nevada site.
The importance of the Stockpile Stewardship Program
specifically is that it is the only thing that we have going
that enables us to continue to have confidence in the nuclear
weapons that we already have built. We don't do any underground
testing anymore. It is our own choice.
We have a moratorium on that. And as a result, we need a
program that will enable the laboratories to certify eventually
to the President that our nuclear weapons will work, and that
they are safe, and that they are secure. And the Stockpile
Stewardship is program--is what does that.
And these experiments that are done at your facility are
some of the most incredible experiments that our U.S.
Government does. It also has the important element of teaching
young engineers and physicists how these things work so that we
will have a new generation of capable scientists to do the work
that, as Madelyn says, is going to be necessary in the future.
Senator Rosen. Yes, it is very important. And I am worried
about supply chain issues affecting our modernization programs
and numerous subcontractors. We know they are going out of
business and the nuclear industrial base really faces
significant cascading supply chain challenges.
And so, I know I just have a few seconds left or I can take
it off the record. The nuclear industrial base has become more
consolidated. NNSA, we have identified some key choke points
along the supply chains of critical stockpile modernization
programs, and so I would like to hear from you if--how you are
addressing these vulnerabilities. And if you want to later
answer----
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Rosen.
Senator Rosen.--we will take it off--if you send it to us,
that would be great. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Rosen. Senator
Tuberville, please.
Senator Tuberville. Thank, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this
report. Probably the most interesting thing I have read since I
have been here in 3 years and thank you for your hard work.
That had to be a mountain of work for both of you and a lot of
other people putting this together.
In your report, you mentioned that the current plan to
modernize and expand our air fueling tankers is inadequate.
Could you expand on that, both of you, say a few words about
that.
Ms. Creedon. Yes, sir. I mean, if one--if we accomplished
one thing, it was to bring together a lot of things that are
known, but we brought them all together and put them forward in
one package.
So, I think the report does a lot to be very clear eyed
about what our threats are and what our requirements are. And
tankers are one of the shortfalls that have existed for quite a
while.
And the tankers are essential for both theaters. They are
essential for the conventional capability. They are essential
for the nuclear capability, and we just need more of them.
Senator Tuberville. Especially for Indo-Pacific. You know,
we need tankers that are going to be able to haul longer and
carry more fuel.
And unfortunately, we have got a contract after it. We
can't get a decent refueler finished. And it seems like it
takes forever, but that is what happens up here. We give out
contracts and we can't fulfill them.
Ms. Creedon. And part of it also is understanding how the
tankers fit in our integrated defense planning. And that is
also very important because we have to look at how we do this
integrated planning, not only within the U.S., but also with
our allies, and how they bring these capabilities to the fight
as well.
Senator Tuberville. Yes. And it is interesting you talk
about workforce. We, in Alabama, we build submarines, ships,
airplanes, missiles, you name it, we build it, and we are
having to go out and hire people from McDonald's to train them
themselves.
I mean, and that is how bad our education system has
gotten. I did it 40 years, so I have seen the decline in our
education system, and a lot of these universities teach degrees
that they should never even think about teaching. We should
teach people out of work and how to make a living, all those
things.
And it really concerns me because when you are having to go
to McDonald's and Wal-Mart to hire people to teach them the
weld and teach them, you know, electric work and plumbing--and
this is our National Security.
And then you talk about the crisis with supply chain. I was
in Huntsville last week at some of our missile motor factories
and huge problem, huge problem of getting parts. And we think
we are going to fight a war.
I mean, it is ridiculous. And I hope the White House gets
this--I am sure they read this, right? I am just asking being
new up here. They do read this report that you give them? But I
keep hearing that our No. 1 threat is not nuclear, which we all
could be wiped out, it is climate change. Listen, I am all for
climate.
Don't get me wrong. I am all for climate. But we are
printing hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute up here. Our
dollar is devaluating, and we are thinking about building a
nuclear--a new nuclear arsenal, right. And again, I am an
educator, but you got to find somewhere to find this money, and
we are going to find it somewhere.
We spent over a $1 trillion, maybe $2 trillion since I have
been here on climate change. You know, you can build pretty
good nuclear arsenal with $2 trillion, I would think. So, we
got to get our priorities right.
And it just absolutely amazes me how we don't look at
priorities. And again, I am all for climate, and I want my kids
and grandkids to have an opportunity to grow up in what we all
grew up in, but--again, I thank you. I don't have--most of them
asked my questions. I want to thank you for doing this and
putting this all together. It is amazing. And as you know, it
will change in 10 years.
You know, all this will change. It changes every day, but
again, thank you for your hard work and dedication, and
hopefully we can wake up and smell the roses here and get to
competing, which we are not competing very well right now.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Tuberville. Senator
Warren, please.
Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, we are
confronting an incredibly challenging security environment
which requires us to make tough choices and set priorities.
One of the elements of our National Security that I think
we often take for granted is the power we gain from military
alliances around the world. I appreciate and agree with the
part of your report that said that our partnerships, ``further
the ability of free nations of the world to speak and act
together in a united front against threats.''
But let's be honest, the main thrust of this report is
advocating for a nuclear arms race. You recommend we ``fund an
overhaul and expansion'' of our nuclear weapons industrial base
to buy more weapons than we are currently planning, as well as
starting risky new programs.
So, let me start, Ms. Creedon, did the Commission develop
any cost estimates for implementing its recommendations?
Ms. Creedon. We did not, Senator.
Senator Warren. So, we just don't have a cost estimate for
this, because I didn't see one in the report. So, would it be
safe to guess that we are talking about tens of billions of
dollars, if not more?
Ms. Creedon. So, we are certainly talking about more money,
but I--one of the----
Senator Warren. Yes, I get more money. I am saying, is it
like tens of billions more or more than that?
Ms. Creedon. But the thing that is important is that we
are--in long term----
Senator Warren. Yes. I am trying to get--I understand that.
And what I am trying to get at is how much it costs, because if
we are going to prioritize, we need to know how much money we
are spending. So, is your answer yes, that we could expect it
to cost more than tens of billions of dollars?
Ms. Creedon. Of course, it could.
Senator Warren. It could.
Ms. Creedon. But it also depends on what those decisions
are over the long term.
Senator Warren. And that is why we are trying to evaluate
it. And if we had cost estimates, it might be helpful. You
know, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that our
current nuclear weapons spending plans will already cost an
average, the current plans, of $75 billion a year.
And look, I am willing to spend what it takes to keep
America safe, but I am certainly not comfortable with a blank
check for programs that already have a history of gross
mismanagement. One of the programs the Commission endorses
fully funding is nuclear pit production, which are these
radioactive cores for nuclear weapons.
The National Nuclear Security Administration doesn't know
how much it is going to cost and won't have a reliable plan for
the program for at least another year. So here we are, spending
billions of dollars without even a plan in place.
Did the Commission recommend any areas for spending cuts to
help pay for the recommendations that you advanced?
Ms. Creedon. So, Senator, we took the--so we took the
approach that we have a long term problem and we laid out
recommendations for how to address this long term problem. We
did not pick specific winners or losers, but we recommended
that the Department do the analysis to determine what those
are.
Senator Warren. Winners and losers--I am sorry, the winners
are, let's just spend all the money you want to spend. And the
question I had was, did you recommend any areas for spending
cuts to help pay for the recommendations you are advancing?
Ms. Creedon. So, we recommended looking at how we do
procurement. So, it may not be necessarily a cut----
Senator Warren. So, did you recommend cuts?
Ms. Creedon. It may not be--but it is how to do this
smarter, so we don't spend as much money--we don't
unnecessarily spend money. That is where we also need to focus
is, is how we do this better and how we do smarter.
Senator Warren. Well, but we start this with priorities.
Forgive me, but we can't prioritize if we don't know how much
or even an estimate of how much things are going to cost. You
know, back in 2018, the National Defense Strategy Commission
was at least honest about how they were going to pay for it.
They said they would cut the social safety net of America--
that American workers paid into and deserve to receive. And it
is no secret that I support the Biden Administration's goal of
reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our defense strategy.
It is a serious failure of this report that it does not
reckon with the serious costs and dangers of accelerating a
nuclear arms race. As we continue to debate our nuclear
posture, I think it is important to understand also how North
Korea and other rogue regimes are paying for their nuclear
programs.
Experts estimate that half of North Korea's missile program
is paid for through crypto crime. Your report rightly flags
this problem, noting that North Korea stole about $1.7 billion
in 2022 alone and used that to fund more than half of its
missile program.
I just note that I have a bill with Senator Marshall,
Senator Manchin, Senator Graham, and a dozen more Senators to
crack down on the use of crypto in sanctions evasions. If we
want to stop our enemies, then we need to give regulators the
tools they need to crack down on how they are financed. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Warren. Senator Mullin,
please.
Senator Mullin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
being here. I, why--I had to take a little bit of a
disagreement with Senator Warren on drawing down our nuclear
systems, our nuclear weapons right now.
I don't think this is the time that we should be doing
this. I think it is extremely volatile time we live in right
now. We have--I would say, it is probably one of the most
volatile times we have been living in since the 1940's, and I
think we need to recognize. Appeasement does not speak to our
enemies.
Power speaks to our enemies. And I think your report is
trying to get to that. However, she did mention the fact about
the Administration. Has the Administration gave you any
feedback on your report?
Ms. Creedon. Not yet, Senator. We just released it last
week, so--and it is a long report with 81 recommendations, so.
Senator Mullin. I understand it is a long report, I mean
but we have had the opportunity through it here.
Ms. Creedon. But we do not yet, no. No, we do not yet.
Senator Mullin. Are you planning on briefing the
Administration, the White House, on this?
Ms. Creedon. We had done, just like we had done prior to
the release, a heads up briefing for this Committee. We did a
similar briefing for the executive branch. So, we did that
shortly before the release of the report. But we don't--we have
not gotten any feedback from them.
Senator Mullin. Have they given you any instructions on
what they were looking for in the report while you guys were
going through it?
Ms. Creedon. No, sir.
Senator Mullin. What about the--what about the Pentagon?
Ms. Creedon. No. No. In fact, after we got started and got
rolling, it took a while, we actually had extraordinary
cooperation from all of our briefers across the executive
branch in terms of what their issues were, what their concerns
were, what their worries were, as well as from the intelligence
community was very straightforward on the threats.
Senator Mullin. Has the Pentagon looked at your report yet?
Ms. Creedon. They have it for sure.
Senator Mullin. Have they gave--have you guys met with them
yet on this?
Ms. Creedon. We do not, as far as I know.
Senator Mullin. Is there a plan to?
Ms. Creedon. A plan to?
Senator Mullin. Meet with them.
Ms. Creedon. Oh, certainly, if they requested, of course.
Senator Mullin. Well, again, the reason why I get to this
is because you all did a tremendous amount of work here, but a
report is just a piece of paper.
Without action, it means nothing. And while we can sit here
and talk about it all day long underneath Chairman Reed, which
I appreciate him having these hearings, we are only one leg,
really, of a three legged stool when it comes to this.
We--while we could approve it and say, yes, this is what we
need to do, if we don't have the backing of the Administration,
which will probably go along with the Pentagon, or the Pentagon
go along with them, it doesn't really go anywhere. Would you
agree that?
Ms. Creedon. So, our expectation, of course, is that as
this report is more widely disseminated, that we discuss it.
This hearing is a great example of how we need to get this
message out, how we need to talk to people.
As I said, we had done a pre-brief with the Nuclear Weapons
Council prior to its release. So, as they--there is a lot in
here that they are going to have to make decisions about.
Senator Mullin. There is a lot here. But if they don't--you
know, if they don't want you to come brief them, meaning from
the executive branch, President Biden, to the Pentagon, you
can't really force yourself on them. They have got to either
take it and receive it.
And I would sure like to know and get feedback from you if
they do reach out. I would like to know if when that is set up,
so maybe we can have a followup discussion and try pairing what
they are thinking with what we can get accomplished here.
Switching gears really quick, it was--a tanker was already
brought up, refueling tanker. Obviously, Tinker Air Force Base
in Oklahoma City, that is one of our missions there. Plus, the
bombers.
Transition to the B-21s now. There is some concerns on the
delivery time on that and the possibility of losing the
capability of the mission while we are phasing out one and
bringing in another. Senator, your thought on that?
Mr. Kyl. Yes, Mr. Chairman, Senator, that is exactly one of
the things that I alluded to in my opening statement is this
determent gap, which is caused by the fact that we have worked
ourselves into a situation where we have got a just in time
delivery of the modernized system to replace the legacy system,
and it may not be just in time.
Senator Mullin. That is right.
Mr. Kyl. And so, we make some recommendations--and this, by
the way, is pretty much across the board. It is not only for
our nuclear weapons, but it is also for the delivery system.
One recommendation, for example, just to illustrate your
point. We have all talked about the submarine--the importance
of the submarine industrial base, and the fact that it is going
to be a real challenge to build these new Columbia class
submarines and get them deployed in time.
One possible workaround there is being studied by the Navy
to take some of the more recent Ohio class submarines, the
newer ones, and see if we can extend their life just a little
bit. You all will need to make that decision maybe this next
year and it will require some money to extend their life, but
that may be a workaround--by the way, in digression, we were
told more than once that `` we are out of workarounds.''
So, there aren't many work arounds left, but at least one
way to deal with the delays in the Columbia class deliveries is
to extend a few of the Ohio class submarines life a little bit,
and that will require you to specifically authorize that so the
appropriators can appropriate the money for it.
Senator Mullin. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you,
Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Mullin. Senator Budd,
please.
Senator Budd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning,
Ms. Creedon, Senator Kyl. It is good to see you both. And
again, thank you for your work on America's strategic posture,
the report. I want to read briefly from the Commission's
finding in the section that was titled, Threat Picture Through
2027 to 2035.
``The Commission concludes that the U.S. and allied
conventional military advantages in Asia are decreasing. At the
same time, the potential for two simultaneous theater conflicts
is increasing.''
That is a stark statement, but it is one that bears
repeating. So put slightly differently, as China's military
capability is getting stronger, without significant change in
investment, America's strategic advantages and ability to deter
adversaries worldwide is weakening.
Just last week I visited U.S. military installations and
commands out in the--the Indo-Pacific command, including Guam,
and it is clear that our infrastructure and industry lag this
new strategic environment.
But decline is a choice, and we have reached an inflection
point. Decisions that we take now, and we make now will
determine whether the next century is one of American security
and prosperity or if it is one of decline.
So, Ms. Creedon and Senator Kyl, I am going to ask the same
question later on the classified hearing, but what can you tell
us in this setting, what were your most surprising findings on
the threat environment, particularly with regard to China?
Ms. Creedon. So, in a nutshell, it is the rapidity with
which China is growing all of its capabilities, and how we as a
nation have missed some of those signals about how fast that
they really are growing and how extensive their growth is, and
how capable some of their systems really are.
Mr. Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator. I agree, they
are moving so fast. I think it surprised us all. There is one
other thing we should bear in mind, and that is that the things
that they are producing are very technical, very high quality.
They are ahead of us, for example, in some of the space
issues and with regard to some of these very, very fast
hypersonic type weapons. So, it is not just the speed with
which they have done this, but they are producing very
challenging weapons.
Senator Budd. Thank you both. You know, recently someone
told me that we are in a pre-war environment, but still
proceeding on a peacetime footing. Very similar, my colleagues
have alluded to this, very similar to pre-World War II.
What I think that means in part through, you know, with
what the Commission concluded is a need to commit to a whole of
Government approach to be more efficient and effective. Would
you both agree?
Ms. Creedon. Absolutely. I think this is one of the things
that really needs to be well thought out, is how we as a nation
use all of our tools for deterrence, because at the end of the
day, this is what this is all about. It is deterrence. It is to
prevent that war.
And we have a lot of tools. We have a lot of capability. We
just have to figure out a way to do it in an integrated
fashion. And that was one of our recommendations. We spent a
lot of time even thinking about how you incorporate sanctions
into a strategy.
It is--the diplomatic effects into a strategy. So, it is
across the board, how do we think about being more effective as
a whole of Government.
Mr. Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator. That is exactly
the example I was going to give. Whole of Government means, for
example, that the Department of Treasury and the Department of
Commerce have to help the Department of Defense in identifying
places where we can stop sending American technology to China
for its use in developing new technologies to support their
military.
Senator Budd. So, Senator Kyl, assuming we remain in a
resource constrained environment in the short term, we have had
massive deficits leading to massive debt, so with that
environment that is resource constrained, what do you think
will be the highest payoff investments we can make now to
preserve options for ourselves into the future?
Mr. Kyl. Well, of course, this is something that I have
personally been involved in for a long time, but I believe our
Commission believes so strongly in the recommendations that we
have made here that they would probably support this answer.
Given the fact that deterring nuclear war has to be the top
priority for the U.S. Government and given the fact that
deterring nuclear conflict starts with having a conventional
and nuclear capability or posture sufficient to do that, it has
to be the No. 1 priority for the Government, including in terms
of allocating resources.
So therefore, in a time of constrained budgets, if you
consider this to be the most important thing that we can do,
you have got to act accordingly and allocate the resources
necessary to accomplish the job.
Senator Budd. Thank you both. Yes, if you allow.
Ms. Creedon. Sorry, if you allow just a very specific. I
think where we have to put the priority investment, at least in
the early phases, is we have to work on the infrastructure
across the board.
And by that I also mean people, because if we don't have
our people, if we don't have a skilled workforce, if we don't
have the infrastructure, the supply chain to produce what we
need in the future, it is obvious we won't have what we need in
the future.
Senator Budd. Thank you both. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Budd. Senator Schmitt,
please.
Senator Schmitt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chair Creedon,
Vice Chair Kyl, thank you for the work that you put into this.
Our nuclear arsenal is perhaps the most important tool that we
have to ensure peace through strength. Your report reflects, I
think, the urgent need for the United States and modernize our
nuclear arsenal now.
As China and Russia continue to produce more and more
nuclear weapons, we are kind of spectators in this race in many
ways, and for decades we have underinvested in our arsenal as
China grows in strength with the rapidity that you mentioned.
And I am from Missouri, and the law school, same law school.
And Missouri plays--this is, we are part of that
infrastructure, right, with Whiteman Air Force Base and the B-2
stealth bomber. We also have the NNSA's Kansas City National
Campus, which plays a very important role in all of this. And I
got to go there last, or this past August, and their mission is
critical.
And so, I think your report talks about a lot of these
things that are related to our State, but, of course, in our
national interest. I did want to ask, maybe for Senator Kyl, I
think there is a view among many in across the country that, as
it relates to nuclear weapons, I am sure you have encountered
this, that we have enough to blow up the world multiple times
over, so do our adversaries, so why--how would you describe
this if you were going back to Arizona and talking to
constituents about this, of what makes this modernization,
beyond just we have got to do--the competition aspect of it.
What makes this modernization so important for deterrence? Why
is it relevant when I think a lot of people believe we have got
enough bombs, right, what is the point?
Mr. Kyl. Mr. Chairman, Senator Schmitt, that is--I mean,
this is a teaching moment, and it starts with bursting a lot of
bubbles, explaining to folks that what they may think is fact
is not true. Start with we have got all the nukes we need.
We can blow up the world many times over. Well, actually,
under the START treaty, we limited the number of strategic
nuclear weapons that we have deployed. And so, while we may
have some other assets in storage that we could potentially
bring to use here, we have deployed only what we think is
necessary at that time to deter Russia.
Second, I would begin by explaining, and we have charts in
the report that show this, the age of these weapons and just
ask them, if you had a car that was designed in the 60's or
70's and you have got more miles on it now than it was supposed
to have, you know, in 1980, and you are still driving it, you
think you might have a problem with maintaining it?
You think maybe you would have to get a new one, or it
would cost a lot to maintain? These nuclear weapons are the
most sophisticated things that man has ever invented, and yet
we have gone on a vacation, in effect, in the modernization of
our nuclear weapons, because we didn't think we really had to
worry about our future.
We thought that for about 20 years and then woke up 1 day
and realized that others had started an arms race. Russia is
almost done with its modernization. China is somewhere in the
neighborhood of halfway through it, military buildup, and we
have just barely get--gotten out of the starting blocks.
Senator Schmitt. What does that--I just want--what does
that modernization mean? When you say modernization, what does
that mean as far as effectiveness and----
Mr. Kyl. Right. Two things. First of all, the nuclear
warheads were designed a long time ago. They were only designed
to last about 10 years and they are like 30 or 40 years old
now. They need work. Right now, we are not replacing them. We
are just, this is a shorthand term, refurbishing them.
Second, the delivery vehicles. How we deliver these nuclear
weapons, either through a bomber, or a submarine with missiles,
or our missile forces in silos. All of those likewise were
designed and developed decades ago. And if you look at the life
of the submarines, for example, they only have a certain
lifetime. Sea is a very--is not a benign environment for metal.
And, you know, those things deteriorate rapidly. And the
missiles themselves are now beyond their life. So, any
homeowner knows that you can't keep running the same dishwasher
or washing machine forever.
Senator Schmitt. Right.
Chairman Reed. Eventually, it needs replacing. And these
very sophisticated weapons are in that same situation. So, you
explain to folks, these are all really old. The other side is
building up theirs.
They have hot production lines producing new ones. We are
trying to keep our old ones afloat for a while longer, and that
is going to cost some money.
Senator Schmitt. Mr. Chairman, would you indulge me? Just a
quick question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Creedon, one thing
related to the--the Kansas City campus does get mentioned, you
know, mentioned in the report.
Can you just briefly add a little bit more color to the
assessment, the need for additional square footage there and
why that is relevant for the non-nuclear components?
Ms. Creedon. So obviously, Kansas City is where the bulk of
the non-nuclear components are made. And when the new Kansas
City plant was built, which it is one of the newest facilities
in the complex and it is an excellent facility, it was built--
it wasn't--it was sized on the size of the stockpile we thought
when the thing was designed. As we know now, we need larger
facilities.
The NNSA has done a good job in terms of going out and
leasing additional facilities to provide some of this
additional capacity. And I know that they are developing a long
range plan.
You know, I obviously don't know all the specifics, and but
this is again, this is part of this infrastructure problem that
we have to think about, that we have to invest in now is the
infrastructure and Kansas City is a clear and important part of
it.
Senator Schmitt. Thank you both. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Schmitt. Thank you both
for your compelling testimony. At this point, I will adjourn
the open session. We will reconvene at approximately 11:50
a.m.--on or about 11:50 a.m. in SVC-217. Thank you all very
much.
[Whereupon, at 11:39 a.m., the Committee adjourned.]
[all]