[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 112-58]
SUSTAINING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AFTER NEW START
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JULY 27, 2011
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES
MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio, Chairman
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
MO BROOKS, Alabama RICK LARSEN, Washington
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JOHN R. GARAMENDI, California
JOHN C. FLEMING, M.D., Louisiana C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia BETTY SUTTON, Ohio
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
Tom Karako, Professional Staff Member
Kari Bingen, Professional Staff Member
Leonor Tomero, Professional Staff Member
Alejandra Villarreal, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2011
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, July 27, 2011, Sustaining Nuclear Deterrence After New
START.......................................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, July 27, 2011......................................... 37
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011
SUSTAINING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AFTER NEW START
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Sanchez, Hon. Loretta, a Representative from California, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces....................... 3
Turner, Hon. Michael, a Representative from Ohio, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces............................... 1
WITNESSES
Halperin, Dr. Morton H., Senior Advisor, Open Society Foundations 7
Miller, Hon. Franklin C., Principal, The Scowcroft Group......... 9
Payne, Dr. Keith, Professor and Head, Graduate Department of
Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University....... 5
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Halperin, Dr. Morton H....................................... 55
Miller, Hon. Franklin C...................................... 62
Payne, Dr. Keith............................................. 46
Sanchez, Hon. Loretta........................................ 44
Turner, Hon. Michael......................................... 41
Documents Submitted for the Record:
``De-alerting Strategic Missile Forces,'' by Franklin C.
Miller, from the book In the Eyes of the Experts: Analysis
and Comments on America's Strategic Posture (Taylor A.
Bolz, editor; United States Institute of Peace Press,
Washington, D.C., 2009).................................... 77
``On Missile Defense,'' Chapter 3 from America's Strategic
Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission
on the Strategic Posture of the United States (William J.
Perry, chairman, and James R. Schlesinger, vice-chairman;
United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C.,
2009)...................................................... 82
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Ms. Sanchez.................................................. 89
SUSTAINING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AFTER NEW START
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 27, 2011.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:12 p.m. in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Michael Turner
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL TURNER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
OHIO, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES
Mr. Turner. Good afternoon. I want to welcome everyone to
the Strategic Forces Subcommittee's hearing on sustaining
nuclear deterrence after New START [Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty].
With the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year
2012 recently passed by the House, this represents our
subcommittee's first non-budget-driven hearing for the 112th
Congress. Our panel consists of non-governmental witnesses,
three distinguished gentlemen who each have served in previous
administrations in some senior capacities relating to our
discussion today.
We have with us Dr. Keith Payne, a former Commissioner of
the Strategic Posture Commission and Professor and Head of the
Washington-based Graduate Department on Defense and Strategic
Studies for Missouri State University; Dr. Morton Halperin,
also a former Commissioner with the Congressional Strategic
Posture Commission and a Senior Advisor to the Open Society
Foundations; and finally, Franklin Miller, a Principal of the
Scowcroft Group who has served in senior capacities in a number
of administrations.
The witnesses have been asked to provide their assessment
of post-New START U.S. nuclear posture and policy, including
potential reduction of the U.S. stockpile below New START
levels; the significance of nuclear modernization;
considerations relating to a recently announced upcoming review
of U.S. deterrence requirements; and nonstrategic nuclear
weapons forward-deployed in Europe for extended deterrence and
assurance.
Today's hearing is just one in an ongoing series of events
by which the House Armed Services Committee will conduct
oversight of these issues. On July 7th, the full Armed Services
Committee received a classified briefing from the Department of
Defense, the Department of State, the National Nuclear Security
Administration, and STRATCOM [United States Strategic Command]
on several topics being considered today.
We have also notified the Administration that we intend to
hold an open hearing on these same issues again this fall with
testimony by a panel of Government witnesses.
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing today and
further thank them for their leadership and service to our
country on these issues.
I will keep my comments brief to allow ample time for
members to ask questions, but I would like to highlight four
important areas I hope our witnesses and our discussion may
touch upon today.
First, I want to emphasize the bipartisan consensus that
has emerged on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue about the
urgent need to modernize the U.S nuclear enterprise in order to
be able to create a sustainable deterrent for ourselves and for
our allies.
After two decades of neglect, our nuclear enterprise has
fallen into hard times. Awareness of these facts has been
spurred in part by the Strategic Posture Commission created by
this subcommittee under the leadership of its former chair,
Ellen Tauscher, and also by the experience of the debate over
the New START treaty.
Specifically, I think we have come to see a pragmatic
bipartisan convergence on two basic points: One, that nuclear
abolition is a long way off; and two, that we will ensure that
our nuclear deterrent remains credible for the foreseeable
future.
To be sure, full funding for nuclear modernization is
costly and difficult in these challenging economic times, but
it is necessary. Pledging $85 billion over 10 years for nuclear
weapons activities, President Obama noted in December that ``I
recognize that nuclear modernization requires investment for
the long-term, in addition to this one year budget increase.
This is my commitment to Congress--that my Administration will
pursue these programs and capabilities for as long as I am
President.''
This statement, built upon the observation of the November
update to the Section 1251 Report, namely that, ``given the
extremely tight budget environment facing the Federal
Government, these [increased budget] requests to the Congress
demonstrate the priority the Administration places on
maintaining the safety, security and effectiveness of the
deterrent.''
To be sure, we have our policy differences, but I believe
that even our differences have helped spur a healthy
constructive debate. In all candor, Congressional focus on
these issues has languished for too many years. But I believe
the events of recent years have the potential to usefully renew
attention by Members of both Houses of Congress.
My second point, however, is one of concern, the ink is
barely dry on New START and already senior administration
officials are describing their ambitions to move to deeper
nuclear reductions below the treaty levels--changes which could
include cuts to our nondeployed hedge stockpile, potentially
eliminating a leg of the triad, altering the long-established
U.S counterforce nuclear target strategy and reducing alert
postures for our forces. Administration officials have even
indicated that reductions could be made unilaterally.
Premature steps to cut our nuclear force below New START
levels and, in particular, cuts which outpace modernization
progress could threaten to upset some of the broad consensus
which has been so carefully acquired.
My third point concerns an upcoming 90-day review of the
deterrence requirements announced on March 29th by National
Security Advisor Tom Donilon for the express and apparently
single-minded purpose of creating options for further
reductions. As we all know, strategy must drive force
structure, not the other way around. But we also know that it
is easy to change assumptions in order to get the answers you
want.
This committee will continue to conduct oversight on this
review and decisions about U.S. nuclear strategy and force
structure more broadly. We also continue to monitor another
study: The Deterrence and Defense Posture Review currently
ongoing for NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]. Which
brings me to my fourth and final point: the forward deployment
of U.S. nonstrategic weapons in Europe has long contributed to
Alliance solidarity and the transatlantic link. NATO's new
Strategic Concept reaffirms that NATO is a nuclear alliance and
the importance of broadest possible participation by allies in
the nuclear mission.
Some of us are concerned that the Administration
potentially, in concert with some Western allies, might try to
use the Defense Posture Review that is being undertaken to
pressure Central and Eastern Europeans to begrudgingly accept
substantial reductions or even complete withdrawal of these
weapons from Europe, an act which could have untold and adverse
consequences for the future of the world's oldest and most
successful alliance.
This year the House acted to address each of these
concerns. The House-passed NDAA [National Defense Authorization
Act] included provisions which would sustain the linkage
between progress in nuclear modernization to both further
nuclear cuts and New START implementation; involve Congress in
the long-term decisionmaking about deeper reductions; and slow
down withdrawals.
The Administration expressed strong objections about some
of these provisions and issued veto threats about others.
Again, I want to thank all of you for being here today, and
I look forward to your testimony on these important issues.
These are issues that our committee has been diligently
reviewing and discussing and debating. I appreciate your
attention to those issues.
And I want to recognize my ranking member, Ms. Sanchez.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turner can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
STATEMENT OF HON. LORETTA SANCHEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do deeply
apologize for having gotten held up in my office. I try not to
let that happen.
Gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. Dr. Payne,
Dr. Halperin and Mr. Miller, thank you so much.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts about the future
of nuclear weapons in this century, and I guess the progress of
what it really takes to maintain a strong and reliable
deterrent. Given everything that is going on--the New START
treaty--the desire may be to eliminate even more of nuclear
weapons if we could, and how we might, and what opportunities
might exist to do that and of course, other players, other than
Russia and ourselves, who have nuclear weapons.
I think that the Administration has been committed to
unprecedented investments in maintaining our nuclear arsenal,
as my chairman here said. I think the President is leading
much-needed efforts to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear
weapons in a post-Cold War era. He gave us part of his vision
to strengthen our national security when he included those
issues in his 2009 Palm Sunday speech in Prague, including New
START as being the first step for further reduction, the
ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, reducing the
role of nuclear weapons, and talking about strengthening the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
He noted in his Prague speech the existence of thousands of
nuclear weapons and the most dangerous--that it was the most
dangerous legacy of the Cold War. And even considering the
other players out there in the world, the fact of the matter is
that about 95 percent of the nuclear weapons still exist in
Russia's and our hands. So I think that is why we are so
interested in New START and we are interested in other
opportunities that might exist. And yeah, a little
apprehensive, all of us I think, about what it would mean to go
to lower levels and whether that would take away our deterrence
factor or whether that would make us safer or--you know, we
have a lot of questions about that.
And of course, you three, in particular, in front of us, we
hope have the answers to some of that anxiety that we may have.
So in the National Defense Authorization Act-mandated
Commission on the Strategic Posture for the United States, in
which I know that the two doctors in front of us participated,
it included by saying, ``This is a moment of opportunity to
revise and renew U.S. nuclear strategy.'' And I agree with
that.
Some of our weapons are old. They may not be the most
efficient, smartest way to just keep having them. Maybe we
don't need all that firepower there. Maybe we are safer without
them. I think it really is a good time for us to take a hard
look at what we have, what others have, and also part of that
whole NATO alliance and how some NATO members feel about having
tactical weapons and other things on their land. So I think it
is a good time to look at this.
And there are a few questions that I hope you will address
today. How best do we reduce the dangers posed by nuclear
weapons? And is it through implementing further reductions and
how might that be? How do we decrease the risks of
miscalculation if we do decide we will go lower? And adjusting
alert postures and reducing the role of nuclear weapons out
there: how do we do that? How can we--maybe we can even say we
can get away from that, but how do we go about that?
So we have engaged in a serious debate on this committee,
and I am very, very thankful that the chairman and I on this
committee get along so well and that all of our members really
participate in so many ways in trying to ask the right
questions and get to the right answers. Sometimes, you know,
there is not just one right answer. So we are really thrilled
about having you before us.
There is still disagreement between us on many issues, and
hopefully, you can shed some light on these very tough issues,
so thank you very much. And I look forward to learning some
more today and debating and continuing the debate, and I thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sanchez can be found in the
Appendix on page 44.]
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Now we turn to our three witnesses and ask each of them to
summarize their written statements in about 5 minutes. We will
then proceed to members' questions.
The committee has received full written statements from
each of the witnesses, and without objection, those statements
will be made as part of record.
Dr. Payne, I recognize you.
STATEMENT OF DR. KEITH PAYNE, PROFESSOR AND HEAD, GRADUATE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND STRATEGIC STUDIES, MISSOURI STATE
UNIVERSITY
Dr. Payne. Thank you, Chairman Turner and Ranking Member
Sanchez, it is an honor to be here today.
The Administration recently announced that it will
undertake a new review of U.S. nuclear requirements, as you
noted. This review ultimately should be linked to the key goals
served by U.S. nuclear forces and the number and types of
forces necessary to support those key goals. The five
longstanding U.S. national goals pertinent in this regard are,
one, the stable deterrence of attack; two, the assurance of
allies via extended deterrence; three, the dissuasion of
competitive challenges; four, defense in the event of war; and
five, arms control. These five goals have been longstanding
U.S. goals, in fact going back approximately five decades, and
a bipartisan consensus has been behind these goals.
The forces linked to these five goals overlap to some
extent, but these goals also have their own individual, unique
requirements that may be incompatible and therefore require
tradeoffs.
The Administration has expressed a commitment to effective
capabilities for deterrence, assurance and limited defense.
However, it also has explicitly elevated nonproliferation and
nuclear disarmament to the top of the U.S. nuclear agenda and
emphasized that it sees nonproliferation and nuclear
disarmament as two sides of the same coin.
This prioritization and linkage logically has led to
concern that the goal of nuclear reductions will take
precedence in the Administration's calculation of how much is
enough. This concern was stoked by senior administration
officials who stated specifically that this nuclear review is
for the purpose of further U.S nuclear reductions and to
facilitate the ``journey'' to nuclear zero.
As described, this approach to reviewing U.S. nuclear
requirements appears to start with the answer that further
nuclear reductions are warranted and appropriate. The risk of
this approach is that further reductions taken to advance the
goal of nuclear zero may be out of step with the forces
necessary to deter, assure, defend and dissuade now and into
the future.
The Administration's willingness to place top priority on
arms reductions and subordinate these other goals may be seen
in various policies and declarations. For example, Russia has a
large numeric advantage in operational nuclear weapons. And the
U.S. has important unmet goals with regard to reducing Russian
nuclear forces. Nevertheless, the Administration's New START
Treaty requires unilateral U.S. reductions in deployed forces.
The Administration has decided to reduce U.S. tactical weapons
unilaterally, and senior White House officials have stated
explicitly that the United States may pursue additional
unilateral reductions.
There appear to be two competing dynamics within the Obama
administration: One is committed to balancing the goals of arms
control, extended deterrence, assurance and limited defense;
the other, instead, appears to place top priority on nuclear
reductions and steps toward nuclear zero.
The fundamental question with regard to the
Administration's nuclear review is, Which of these two
different views of U.S. priorities and requirements will govern
its calculation of how much is enough? Is there room for
further reductions in U.S. deployed forces below New START
levels simply because some now claim that a basic retaliatory
deterrence threat could be maintained at 300, 500 or 1,000
nuclear weapons? The answer must be no. The answer must be no
to that question.
Recall that U.S. forces serve multiple purposes. No
estimate of how much is enough for deterrence alone is an
adequate measure of U.S. strategic force requirements. In
addition, deterrence and assurance requirements can shift
rapidly across time and place, and therefore, our forces and
our force posture need to be flexible and resilient to be able
to adapt to shifting and unforeseen threats and circumstances.
In short, we must sustain the number and diversity of our force
posture necessary for this flexibility and resilience.
Is there room in this regard for further reductions?
Following comprehensive analysis, the former Commander of
STRATCOM, General Chilton, recently concluded that the New
START force levels would provide adequate force flexibility for
deterrence under specific assumed conditions. But even with
optimistic assumptions about the future, General Chilton
apparently determined that New START numbers are compatible
with the necessary flexibility, but no lower.
Nothing has changed over the past few months to suggest
that General Chilton's caution is no longer valid. To the
contrary, some recent threat developments are troubling. I will
just list one, and that is that Russia now identifies the
United States and NATO as its greatest threat. It frequently
resorts to crude nuclear threats to U.S. allies. And it places
highest defense investment priority on the modernization of its
nuclear forces, including a new heavy ICBM [intercontinental
ballistic missile] capable of carrying 10 to 15 nuclear
warheads each. This context hardly seems ripe for further
reductions, particularly U.S. unilateral reductions that could
degrade the flexibility and resilience of U.S. nuclear forces.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Payne can be found in the
Appendix on page 46.]
Mr. Turner. Dr. Halperin.
STATEMENT OF DR. MORTON H. HALPERIN, SENIOR ADVISOR, OPEN
SOCIETY FOUNDATIONS
Dr. Halperin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great
pleasure to be here.
I want to try to focus on what I think is the area of
consensus, or potential consensus. But I do have to say that
the fears that I think, Mr. Chairman, you have expressed and
that the first witness expressed about where the Administration
is going, are not--is not the same Administration that I talked
to and listened to.
I think, if anything, I have the opposite fears: that most
of the people in the Administration have decided that the START
Treaty and the Nuclear Posture Review was about all they could
get done in the nuclear field, and that they had passed the
task of even considering further reductions to the next
Administration. I think that is as likely to be the outcome of
these discussions as the kinds of concerns that you have
expressed.
My hope is that we will not begin by concluding either that
further reductions are possible now and desirable, but also
that we will not conclude that because there are a number of
tasks for nuclear weapons and the Russians may occasionally say
something that alarms people, that there is no possibility that
we could go to lower numbers. I think we ought to treat it as
an open question. I want to suggest some items that I think
should be part of a consensus about how we should consider
that.
First of all, I want to emphasize the importance of the
agreement on modernization. And Mr. Chairman, I had the
opportunity to hear you speak the other day, and I agree with
you that we need to change the budgeting process. As long as
you trade off nuclear modernization with water projects, we are
going to lose, especially in the current climate.
I was the lone voice on the Nuclear Posture Commission
urging to move the entire nuclear weapons process into the
Defense department. I was for that when I was in the Government
when the Atomic Energy Commission was abolished. I didn't
understand then why it wasn't done, and I don't understand now
why it isn't done. But I think anybody who studies the Congress
knows that you can't move it to the subcommittee where it
belongs unless you first move it in the Administration to where
it belongs. And I think Congress ought to think about doing
that.
The second area in which I think we should have a consensus
is that our targeting should continue to be against military
targets and not counter-value targets. It is illegal, it is
immoral, it is counterproductive to base your deterrent on what
is sometimes called ``minimum deterrence'' and the notion that
you just target cities. It is, of course, the case that what we
target will end up killing vast numbers of people, but we need
to continue to ask ourselves the question, What military
targets do we need to be able to hold at risk to provide
assurance, to provide deterrence, and to continue to make clear
to the military that the target set must be military targets
and not cities?
Third, I hope we can get a consensus to maintain the triad,
even as we go to lower levels. Now if you can imagine a world
in which we are in several hundreds, we may have to reconsider
that. But I share your view, and the Commission very much
expressed the review, that zero is not going to come any time
soon. And moreover, in my view, it is not a good guide to where
we should go now. To say, as every President--as you noted
Ronald Reagan said, every President I think, but the last one
said we would like a world without nuclear weapons, doesn't
mean that that's guidance for what we should do today, tomorrow
or the next 10 years. I believe it is not at all such guidance.
We ought to ask ourselves the question of where we want to go
now. And in my view, that includes saying we need to keep the
triad for the foreseeable future.
I think, frankly, a lot of the objections to going lower
are really from people who fear that the leg of triad that they
most value, either because of a strategic analysis or, in some
rare case, because the item is made in their district or in
their state, leads people to object to going lower because of
that fear. And I think, both from a strategic point of view, it
makes sense to keep a triad, and from a political point of
view, I think it helps us have a discussion that is not
distorted by those kinds of concerns.
Finally, as I said, I think we need an agreement that we
should not go--we should not have a predetermined answer to the
question, Can we go lower? We should not start out knowing we
can go lower or that we should not go lower.
Mr. Chairman, my clock is not working, so I don't know
whether I have used up my time or not.
Mr. Turner. You are doing well.
Dr. Halperin. So I do think that--and I would hope we get
an agreement with the Administration that we are not going to
read an announcement one day that they have gone beyond the
START levels. I think that would be a fundamental mistake. It
would break the possibility of a consensus.
On the other side, I would hope people would hold off
announcing that they know before we do the study that we cannot
go to lower levels.
I do think we ought to consider one change in the existing
guidance as part of the study. There is, as you know, a current
requirement for a prompt launch capability, even though there
is also a requirement that we not rely on prompt launch for
deterrence. I do not think we need a prompt launch capability,
but again, I would not make that an assumption of the study,
but neither do I think we should make it an assumption that we
do need such a prompt launch capability. I think the military
should be free to look at the question of what we need for all
the purposes that Keith has laid out, but without an assumption
that we need a prompt launch capability.
Now that does not mean that the military should be told to
de-alert the forces. I think, for lots of reasons I would be
happy to go into, that is a fundamental misunderstanding, that
would be a fundamental mistake. But that is different than a
requirement that we have a substantial prompt launch
capability.
Finally, I want to say about forward-deployed nuclear
weapons, because I think this is an area in which I do disagree
with you, Mr. Chairman. I think the NATO alliance will
survive----
Mr. Turner. I am sorry, your time has expired. I am just
kidding, go ahead.
Dr. Halperin. I think the NATO alliance will survive, even
if we with take our nuclear weapons out of Europe. It will
continue to be a nuclear alliance. It will continue to rely, as
it always has, on the credibility of our strategic deterrent to
prevent our potential adversaries in Europe from using nuclear
weapons.
I do think it has been as divisive as it is cohesive. For
every European that desperately wants to us keep the weapons
there, there is a European that wants us to take them out. My
view has always been, whatever view you have on that subject,
you can travel through Europe and find people who agree with
you in every country and at every level, but somebody who has a
different view goes and comes back and talks to a different set
of people. So I think there is no easy answer to this question.
Just because we are for NATO cohesion doesn't mean the answer
is ``don't take them out.''
My own view is that it is time to further consolidate them,
that they should be moved to two military bases from whatever
number they are now, that those should be American military
bases, and that we should not be pressuring our allies to spend
the very small amounts that they spend on defense to buy new
nuclear-capable aircraft or to adjust the aircraft that they do
buy so that they are nuclear-capable. I think it is extremely
unlikely they will ever mount those weapons. And as we learned
again in Libya, we do actually fight sometimes. And I think it
is more important for our allies to be able to fight. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Halperin can be found in the
Appendix on page 55.]
Mr. Turner. Mr. Miller, as a courtesy, we will not start
the clock on you, also.
And Dr. Payne, as we give you responses to questions, we
will let you catch up.
This has been fascinating, though, and I did want to give
the flexibility.
Mr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. FRANKLIN C. MILLER, PRINCIPAL, THE
SCOWCROFT GROUP
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Sanchez, it is an honor to be
here.
Let me begin, because this discussion is about beyond New
START, by saying I did support the New START Treaty. But I did
not support it because it reduced weapons. In fact, it allows
more weapons than the 2002 Bush-Putin treaty, but we won't go
into that now.
I supported it because it reopened the inspections regime
but, more importantly, because the Administration committed as
part of the ratification process to modernize our strategic
forces. And I am concerned now that I do not see that promised
modernization.
The Administration owes the Congress and it owes the
American people and it owes those of us who fought for New
START on the promise of modernization some transparency into
what it intends to do in modernizing the bomber and ICBM legs
of the triad. I would note that we just lost an ICBM today.
There was a failed test launch out of Vandenberg, which tells
you something about the dangers of an aging force.
With respect to the only leg of the triad to which money
has been committed, the Ohio Program, we now read stories that
this program is in question, that perhaps a modified Virginia-
class attack submarine could be used, which is a complete
nonstarter. It is very worrisome; the Virginia-class submarine
modification could not carry the Trident II D-5 [Fleet
Ballistic Missile], which is at the very heart of our deterrent
program.
Additionally, the other idea of extending the Ohio
replacement program for another several years so that we could
have fewer boats and more tubes is similarly a huge mistake. It
will be important for to us have more SSBNs [Ballistic Missile
Submarine], not fewer SSBNs. I would note, in an alliance
context, that delaying the Ohio replacement program could
imperil--literally imperil--the U.K.'s SSBN replacement
program. The U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy have a joint program
to build a common missile compartment. The U.K. must absolutely
begin deploying new SSBNs in the mid- to late 2020s, and a
delay in our own program could pose an unacceptable risk to the
U.K. deterrent, which, as members are aware, is entirely SSBN-
based.
I am also concerned, as you have pointed out, Mr. Chairman,
that the Administration is, before the ink is dry on New START,
talking about further reductions. Why do we need further
reductions? The Administration owes us--that is, the Congress
and the American people--an explanation as to how additional
reductions are going to create enhanced stability. What we want
is a safer world. Reduced nuclear weapons levels may or may not
contribute to that. We need to know what the Administration
intends to do.
And the notion that this is a step toward the nuclear-free
world is not an acceptable answer, because the Prague speech
and the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons has, to put
it mildly, not had great resonance in the capitals of the other
nuclear weapon states. Not in Paris. Certainly not in Moscow
and Beijing, where nuclear weapons are central to their
security policies. Not in Islamabad or Tel Aviv or New Delhi or
Pyongyang, or in Tehran, for that matter.
And I find it especially troubling, as you pointed out, Mr.
Chairman, the National Security Advisor's statement that we are
going to examine the target base in order to have additional
reductions. I am very familiar with the target base; I was in
charge of U.S. nuclear targeting for 16 years. I have written
two Presidential Directives and at least five Secretary of
Defense Nuclear Weapons Employment Plan Policies.
Deterrence since the late 1970s has focused on determining
what a potential aggressor leadership values, and then holding
those assets at risk. It is not about what we value; it is
about what they value. Traditionally this has included military
forces, military and political command and control, and the
industrial potential to sustain war. We shouldn't hold at risk
assets a potential aggressor leadership doesn't value.
But similarly, we shouldn't give up the opportunity and the
capability to hold at risk assets which are valued. And you
can't deter by holding just a portion of a potential
aggressor's value structure at risk. You must say to a
potential aggressor, if you attack us, we will destroy that
which you counted on to rule the post-war world.
This value structure will vary from aggressor to aggressor
and even from one set of leaders to a successor set within a
particular nation, but I think our current policy accounts for
that.
I am sure there are efficiencies to be found in the target
base, but scrubbing that base for the purpose of reducing our
weapons is simply not good policy.
The call for adjusting alert rates perplexes me. The fear
of accidental nuclear war was dealt with in the mid-1990s by
putting broad ocean area target sets in our missiles. I am
happy to engage in that debate later on.
With respect to NATO, let me simply say the following: The
Strategic Concept just agreed by the Alliance last November
calls for widespread basing in nuclear weapons in Europe. Some
of our allies nevertheless are pursuing a cynical, beggar-thy-
neighbor approach to the common good. I view this as a craven
moral failure by those who once sought collective security and
even asked the United States to put our very existence as a
nation on the line to deter an attack on them in the 1950s,
1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. But now, feeling safer and more
secure, they would deny to the new members of the Alliance the
very security they once sought.
At the same time, it is extraordinarily patronizing, Mr.
Chairman, for Americans, who brought these people into the
Alliance, to say to the new members of NATO that, contrary to
their fears, contrary to the saber-rattling threats that they
have heard and Dr. Payne described, that they really don't have
to worry about Russia--not their problem--and that our forces
based on the United States can handle the military mission of
deterring Russia.
It is not about a military mission. It is as you have
indicated, Mr. Chairman, a political mission, a mission of
reassurance. And as long as U.S. allies believe that those
weapons need to be there, we need to make sure that we provide
that security.
I think the Russian tactical nuclear arsenal is grossly
obscene. I think it is inconsistent with the 21st century. I
think we ought to negotiate to reduce it, but not at the cost
of withdrawing all of our weapons from Europe as long as our
allies want them.
The reason the Russians want to us withdraw all of our
weapons from Europe is that they know precisely that that will
really undercut allied confidence in the United States, and
that will deeply hurt the NATO alliance.
Mr. Chairman, let me end at this point and go to your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller can be found in the
Appendix on page 62.]
Mr. Turner. I am going to go to Mr. Lamborn first, but
before I do, Mr. Miller, I do have to correct you on one
statement that you made that maybe will be helpful for the
other two panelists: There is no Ohio replacement program.
Being a native of Ohio, I think it is correctly referred to as
the Ohio-class submarine replacement program. I just want to
make it clear there is no Ohio----
Mr. Miller. I stand corrected.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Lamborn.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I say anything else, I want to congratulate the
ranking member on that beautiful wedding ring on her hand.
This first question is for all of you. Earlier this year,
NNSA [National Nuclear Security Administration] Administrator
Tom D'Agostino testified before this subcommittee that the new
plutonium and uranium facilities need to be up and running
before we make substantial cuts to the nondeployed hedge force.
But when the House tried to slow down cuts to the nondeployed
hedge force until these new facilities were ready, the
Administration issued a veto threat. And now we hear that the
Administration is looking to negotiate a future agreement to
cut both our nondeployed and deployed weapons. Please talk to
us about why we should keep a substantial nondeployed reserve
force as a hedge and how modernizing our infrastructure, as I
referred to earlier, is essential before we could make any
possible cuts to the nondeployed stockpile in the future?
Under current guidance, are there any risks in making
further cuts to our hedge if these new uranium and plutonium
facilities are not complete?
I would love to hear from all three of you.
Dr. Payne. I will be happy to start. The first question, as
I understand it, is why have a hedge, or a large hedge, as part
of your stockpile? And the policy notion--the policy rationale
for that is, in response to the fact that deterrence
requirements, assurance requirements, all of those goals that
these forces are intended to support, the context can change
dramatically for technical reasons or policy reasons, or both.
And therefore, having a hedge of forces that could be
reintegrated into the force as necessary is very important to
have the flexibility and resilience of a force structure to be
able to accommodate dramatic changes. It was very difficult to
build these systems, and they take a long time to build.
Therefore, you don't want to have to change your force
structure very, very rapidly, because change can come rapidly,
and you need to have the forces in being, so to speak, so that
you can respond to rapid changes, because you know you are not
going to be able to build those forces very rapidly in response
to rapid changes.
That, essentially, is the rationale for maintaining a
hedge; it is to protect our ability to deter and assure in the
future in a world that can change dramatically, in some cases,
even overnight.
How does modernization help reduce the need for that
standing hedge? I think that was the second part of the
question. Well, modernization of our infrastructure allows us
to respond more rapidly and in a more agile way to these types
of changes. And the greater your ability to respond in an agile
way with your force infrastructure--the greater your ability to
do that, the less you need standing forces.
So we have suggested that there is this inverse correlation
between your ability to move agilely and quickly with your
infrastructure, and your need for a large standing hedge. And
that is why, I believe, Director D'Agostino said we should not
move to reduce the hedge forces until we have this modernized
infrastructure that would allow us to provide new forces, in
the instance that there are very dramatic and negative changes,
either political or technical, coming in the future that happen
quickly.
Dr. Halperin. I want to take the opportunity to agree with
everything that Keith just said, I don't have many
opportunities do that and I didn't want to pass one. I agree
with all of that. The only other point I would make is, it
takes a long time to build nuclear weapons, but it also takes a
long time to destroy them. As I understand it, we have a large
stockpile of weapons awaiting destruction.
And therefore, there isn't an opportunity to destroy more
weapons now. We can change the label on some of the existing
stockpile if we wanted to from hedge force to a force awaiting
destruction, but almost nothing different would happen but the
label on the force.
So I don't think it is a real argument; we can't really
destroy many more, more quickly. And there is no particular
reason to. And I think, given the concerns and given the
agreement about modernization, we should take to the bank the
agreement that when we have these new facilities, we will be
able to reduce the force and, at that time, have a serious
discussion about how much we can reduce it and how quickly we
can reduce it.
Mr. Miller. Let me associate myself with what my colleagues
have said. I think this is very simple. This is a case of
promises made, and then assumptions and ground rules being
changed.
During the Cold War, we had active warhead production
lines, and we were able to test our nuclear weapons. Neither is
the case anymore. We don't have active warhead production
lines, and we are abiding by our signature on the CTBT
[Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty]; we are not testing.
The only way we can replace a failed weapon in the arsenal
is to take one out of storage, and that is the so-called hedge.
The Administration said it was prepared to reduce the size of
that hedge force, that warhead replacement force, when we were
able to start building new warheads.
I would point out by the way that the Russians have been
producing new warheads on a 10-year cycle since the beginning
of the Cold War.
So the deal was, we have the ability to produce new
warheads to replace old ones or failed ones in the stockpile,
and then you start getting rid of the hedge.
And now the idea is, oh, we are going to start getting rid
of the hedge, but we are not going to be able to produce the
new warheads. That is a complete change in assumptions, and it
is a complete change in the logic behind the original
proposition, even of the CTBT.
So I agree with my colleagues.
Mr. Lamborn. And you feel that that would be a dangerous
thing to do.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you. And on de-alerting, you made
reference to it earlier, how might de-alerting some of our
forces--what would that do to our strategic stability and
crisis response? And can we expect Russia to do any de-
alerting? And has anything changed since the 2010 Nuclear
Posture Review, which says that we should keep current alert
statuses; has anything changed since then so that we can de-
alert now? Once again, I would love to hear from all three of
you.
Mr. Miller. I will start. First of all, nothing has
changed.
Second of all, to set the context, we are not at Cold War
levels of alert. We have fewer submarines at sea. There are
different alert levels. The ICBM force is still in a position
where it could launch if necessary on a short notice, but the
whole question of de-alerting was to avoid accidental war. And
it was for that reason in the mid-1990s that these broad ocean
area targets were put into the guidance systems on a day-to-day
basis.
I have been listening to calls for de-alerting for 20
years. We have studied those to death. There is no way to
verifiably de-alert forces on both sides, and it raises the
specter that you have suggested, which is if you do some de-
alerting, either one side won't have de-alerted, or there will
be a race to re-alert in a crisis.
I contributed a chapter to the Strategic Posture Commission
Annex. I am happy to give that to the committee.
But the real question is, why further de-alerting? What are
we trying it achieve? We are not going to get the Russian ICBM
force off of alert, even if he we took all of our ICBMs off of
alert. And if you think that the Russians have a hair-trigger
and you take some of their forces down, then the rest are on a
tighter hair-trigger. So I don't understand the logic that says
this is a good thing to do. And I understand the risks that are
attendant with it, the whole rearming re-alerting question, so
I think it is a terrible idea that we hear about a lot, but I
can't find any logic to it.
Mr. Lamborn. Dr. Halperin.
Dr. Halperin. I actually agree that. My view is that de-
alerting is very dangerous, because it implies that in a
crisis, you re-alert, and that is the last thing you want to do
is have both sides looking like they are moving toward they are
about to launch a strike and then you get what Tom Schelling
many years ago called the reciprocal fear of surprise attack,
and you make war more likely.
You want a nuclear posture, in my view, that you don't
change, even if you think war is more likely.
The one area where I think we need a debate is the one I
have suggested, which is the question of a requirement for a
prompt launch capability. I would like us to be in a situation
where the military understands that they don't have an option
to come to the President and say, ``Mr. President, we think the
Russian missiles are on the way, and we looked at our force
again, and we are not confident they can survive a Russian
attack; therefore, we want you to authorize a strike before the
Russian missiles land.''
I want to President to say to the military now, ``I am
going have an alert force, and I am going to have a secure
force. I am not going to be pushed into launching because
somebody thinks missiles are really on the way.'' And if that
means we have to spend more money on command and control and
more money on how to get the President out of Washington
quickly or figure out who is in charge if we can't get him out,
we ought do that.
But we ought not to rest our deterrent on the belief that
we can go to the President and say, ``Fire before the Russian
missiles land.'' That does not mean we should change the alert
posture; it does not mean we should do anything called de-
alerting, but it does mean, in my view, that we ought to make
it clear that a prompt launch capability is not what we rely on
to deter a Russian attack.
Dr. Payne. I am in a position of agreeing, again, with both
of my colleagues' points.
Just to, in a sense, restate the point that Mort made,
which he made a long time ago--as a matter of fact, he was one
of the early masters of this particular subject--and that is a
re-alerting race in a crisis would be extremely dangerous, and
it is what we should avoid. Taking our forces off alert or
degrading alert would lead us to the potential for a re-
alerting race in a crisis.
We should do nothing like that because we want postures
where nothing requires Presidents to make hasty decisions. Now
what we do want to do is protect and expand the decisionmaking
time for the U.S. and Russian Presidents. And in fact, that is
what the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission said on
this subject. It said the notion of de-alerting, that the idea
that our forces are on a hair-trigger alert is simply
erroneous. That is how the Commission characterized that
particular point. And it said ``The alert postures of both
countries are in fact highly stable.'' I believe we were right
then, and I believe that's still accurate.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am sorry that took a little bit longer.
I yield back. I would ask unanimous consent that the report
Mr. Miller referred to would be made a part of the record.
Mr. Turner. Excellent. Without objection.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 77.]
Mr. Turner. Excellent answers and great discussion. I
really appreciate, as I said when we opened, both your
expertise and your willingness to share with us.
Ms. Sanchez has requested that I go to Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the Ranking Member for yielding.
And I want to thank our panel for being here on this all-
important topic. Let me start with this, how would you rank or
compare our nuclear deterrent to other nuclear weapons powers,
including Russia and China? And how does our nuclear deterrent
compare to other nuclear powers in terms of numbers?
Mr. Miller. We have approximate parity with Russia in
strategic forces. The Russians have an arsenal of nonstrategic
or tactical weapons which is 10 to 15 times ours. Both United
States and Russia have significantly more strategic weapons
than do China or France or the United Kingdom. Indeed, with the
growth of Pakistan's arsenal, it is rapidly approaching the
same level as the United Kingdom, but the short answer is the
same as Russia in strategic; deep imbalance with Russia in
nonstrategic; more than China; more than the rest.
Dr. Halperin. My understanding is that we do have a
substantial advantage in numbers over the Russians in
nondeployed strategic weapons which may, in fact, make the
overall number of weapons that each side has much closer than
we normally discuss.
I also believe that the United States' arsenal is much more
sophisticated and much more effective and much more reliable
than the Russian arsenal. And we continue to make improvements
through the activities of our laboratories, which I think are
second to none in these areas.
So I do not think there is any basis for concern that,
somehow, some other nuclear power is going to overtake us in
our capabilities.
Mr. Langevin. And we have heard the criticism that the
Russians will have to reduce their numbers of warheads and
delivery vehicles to a much lesser extent than the United
States. Are all delivery vehicles that the United States is
dismantling or shifting to nondeployed status currently
operational, or were some of these phantom delivery vehicles
not being used yet still counted as deployed?
Dr. Payne. To meet the New START ceiling on launchers,
which I think is the metric you are referring to, the United
States will have to reduce approximately 180 launchers to get
to the New START ceiling on deployed launchers of 700. The
Russians would actually have to build up by approximately 180
launchers to get that ceiling. So the context truly is with New
START ceiling on launchers, the United States will have to
reduce by approximately 25 percent.
Mr. Langevin. Define that term ``launcher.''
Dr. Payne. It is an ICBM, an operational in-service ICBM,
SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile] or bomber. So to
meet those ceilings, the United States will have to reduce by
approximately 25 percent its number of deployed launchers.
Mr. Langevin. Say that part again.
Dr. Payne. Approximately 25 percent its number of deployed
launchers. Russia would have to increase its number of deployed
launchers by approximately 35 percent to reach the New START
ceilings; that is the context we are in now.
Mr. Langevin. So given the perception of asymmetry in
implementation obligations, what is the value of the New START
limits and arms control in general?
Dr. Halperin. I think, as Frank suggested, the most
important was to reestablish the inspection regime that we had
before, and to reestablish a legally binding agreement between
Russia and the United States on its nuclear forces, which sets
a ceiling for both countries that each other can count on and
which may provide the basis for agreed further reductions.
I am, in fact, very dubious that we will at any time soon
be able to negotiate another comprehensive treaty, but I think
it at least provides a framework and a basis for that. It also
was, I think, part of building a national consensus on the need
to modernize the forces and provided a context in which, I
think, people otherwise were worried that modernization might
lead to a new arms race, that you had an agreed force level
which would prevent that from happening.
I do think we ought to try to find a way, if we can, to
persuade the Russians that they really should not build a new
large multi-warhead land-based ballistic missile. That is about
the least stable thing that either side can do, and I think it
is useful to try to think about ways, if there are any, to talk
them out of that.
Mr. Langevin. So how does missile defense affect the
numbers level and assuring confidence that we can either
prevent or stop a nuclear attack, and how does this affect the
limits that have been established?
Dr. Halperin. Mr. Chairman, while we are putting things in
the record, I would ask permission to put in the record the
chapter on missile defense from the nuclear commission report,
because I think it is an extraordinary document.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 82.]
Dr. Halperin. You had in that Commission people who have
been fighting with each other about missile defense for 50
years. Many of us, the same people--I mean Johnny Foster and I
have had literally had this argument for 50 years. And yet we
agreed on that document and what I think that document says; it
is unrealistic to think that you can build ballistic missile
defense against a large, sophisticated nuclear force--read: the
Russian force and the American force, with a question mark
about the Chinese, but certainly those, too.
And then on the other hand it is useful to develop active
missile defenses to meet regional and smaller threats, that
that is not only not destabilizing, but it is in our interest,
and that we have an interest in trying to persuade the Russians
that the defenses that we build against small nuclear threats
are not directed at them, and I think we all agreed on that and
I think that is the right way to think about ballistic
missiles.
Mr. Langevin. Clearly, though, having a robust missile
defense system undermines an aggressor's confidence in a
successful first strike.
Dr. Halperin. No, I think it is the reverse, absolutely the
reverse, because nobody believes a ballistic missile defense
can work against the first strike from a sophisticated country.
Mr. Langevin. But the aggressor could never be confident of
which missiles were going to survive and get through, and which
missiles are going to be taken out.
Dr. Halperin. Right, but he can hope to come to rely on the
fact that he has a ballistic missile defense to destroy the
incoming missiles against his cities. So I believe that if both
sides, if we and the Russians both had a robust ballistic
missile defense, that that would increase instability and not
stability, which is why I have been for many years and continue
to be a strong proponent of the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile]
Treaty. I think it was a mistake to walk away from it, but that
is done.
And I think it would be a mistake, as the Commission said,
for either the United States or Russia to try to build a
ballistic missile defense against the other.
Mr. Miller. If I could just jump in. If you have a sizeable
strategic arsenal--as with the United States and Russia,
Congressman--you can, through your targeting policies, deal
with a limited ballistic missile defense, that is really not
very difficult. I would carry this discussion, though, just one
step further, and that is to say that because we are working
with our NATO allies to build a phased adaptive approach in
NATO, some believe that the NATO ballistic missile defenses
obviate the need to have a forward-based nuclear presence, and
that is not what our allies think.
And if the Alliance is all about defending all of NATO, as
long as the allies believe that we need to raise the threshold
of aggression by threatening unacceptable retaliation, the
missile defenses in Europe would be a complement to our NATO
nuclear deterrent, but they cannot be a substitute for those
forward-based weapons.
Dr. Halperin. I would just say they can't be a substitute
for an effective NATO nuclear defense, but I do not believe
that that requires a forward-based force. I believe the
forward-based force, even as it exists now, plays an
insignificant role in the confidence of our allies in our
nuclear deterrent and in the confidence that the Russians have
that our nuclear deterrent protects not only us but our allies
as well.
Mr. Miller. But that is not what the NATO concept said in
November. The NATO concept is very clear about the need for
nuclear forces, and that is a judgment of the 28 heads of
government of the alliance.
Dr. Payne. Might I just add on this point, I think it is
important to recognize that the Russian defense professionals,
who are very cognizant of missile defense and the interaction
of offense and defense, frequently write--in fact, almost every
article that they publish on this subject says that they
recognize and acknowledge that the type of missile defenses
that the United States is in the process of deploying are not
going to be a threat to their strategic retaliatory capability.
They say, ``We understand that; others don't, but we understand
that'' and that, in fact, some of the articles by these folks
will say this is a political issue; it is not a military
technical issue.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you very much.
My time is expired, but I want to thank the gentlemen for
your testimony here today.
I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Langevin.
Well, gentlemen, thank you again so much. This has been a
great discussion, and I really appreciate the opportunity to
hear from each of you on these issues, and I certainly
celebrate the areas where there has been agreement.
But for all of us who are engaged in this discussion and
dialogue, I also want to thank you for the clarity in which you
describe the issues, because in addition to your conclusions,
you give us some backdrop as to how the decisions are made and
the policy issues that arise from these challenges. And with
that, I really thank you.
Dr. Halperin, I hope that you are correct in your
assessment of this Administration's direction.
Dr. Halperin. I hope I am wrong.
Mr. Turner. That is great.
You know, between us, you know, our concern obviously is
that we, because of the areas that we have identified as
concerns, we have placed in the National Defense Authorization
Act some specific language that would, you know, provide some
boundaries, in part, to get assurances from the Administration
that they had no intention of going beyond those boundaries.
And instead of getting those assurances, which you are
confident of, we actually got veto threats.
Dr. Halperin. Yeah--well, Mr. Chairman, if I may, I suspect
that the veto threats came from the fact that the previous
Administration educated all of us about the importance of
Presidential prerogatives and that the veto threats--I haven't
seen them, but my guess is that they are about Congress
interfering in what the executive branch thinks of as its
prerogative, not about the substance of whether they are
going----
Mr. Turner. They actually have been a little bit of both,
and I certainly understand the prerogative issue and would have
similarly expected some objection there. But I did expect that
the Administration might come forward, as you have, and said
that, you know, their lack of interest in going beyond those
boundaries. So we give, everybody, again, that ability to come
back and have some bipartisan support for what is going on
because there is a great deal of concern.
And I would like to go to one of the areas where you said
we did have some disagreement because I think there is probably
still a large area in which we do have agreement with respect
to NATO and our forward-deployed nuclear weapons.
We had William Perry, former Secretary of Defense and Chair
of the Strategic Posture Commission, here, and I asked him, the
issue of, you know, our concern that there would be unilateral
withdrawal of our weapons from Europe without a corresponding
concession from Russia in their tactical nukes. As you are
aware, during the START negotiations, the Senate was very
adamant that the Administration must look now to not reductions
in U.S. weapons but look to tactical nuclear weapon reductions
on the part of Russia. And Secretary Perry said he thought that
would be a bad idea to have unilateral withdrawal without
corresponding concessions from the Russians.
I would--and I am going to, of course, ask all of our
members of the panel this, but I would suspect that we probably
have an area of agreement between you, me and Secretary Perry,
that the value of these weapons as a bargaining opportunity
with respect to Russian tactical nukes, should not be
dismissed.
Once we go through a process of, withdrawal reductions, we
lose an opportunity because we don't have many other things,
unless this Administration is willing to go past nuclear
weapons in bargaining to gain those concessions.
And I would like your thoughts. I am assuming--perhaps you
could give us your insight as to whether or not you agree with
Secretary Perry that it is a bad idea.
Dr. Halperin. I agree that--well, I am not sure I agree
with him because I have a view that is different.
I do not think we should be willing to trade our withdrawal
of our nuclear weapons from Europe for some reduction, even a
substantial reduction, in Russian tactical nuclear weapons
because if it is the case--which I do not believe, but my
colleagues do and many people do--that the credibility of the
American nuclear deterrent for our NATO allies depends on the
presence of nuclear weapons in Europe, that will not change if
the Russians cut their tactical nuclear arsenal by two-thirds,
or even eliminate it because they will still have their
strategic weapons, which, while they can't have intermediate-
range missiles, they can find a way to target them on the NATO
countries.
So I think we have to debate this issue on its merits. I
understand that the alliance has said that. The alliance has
been saying that for many, many years. It said that about
6,500. We are now down to a number, which I think none of us
are allowed to say, but we all agree is lower substantially
lower than 6,500.
And the same things that we were told would happen now if
we go to zero. I was in the Pentagon. We were told, ``If do you
that, if you freeze at 6,500, all these same terrible things
will happen; nobody will believe that the deterrent is
credible.'' And of course, the Russians were then in Berlin, so
it was a different situation.
My view is we ought to say to our NATO allies what our
military has said publicly: We do not believe those weapons are
necessary for a credible deterrent. But if you believe they
are, we will leave them there. But we have to deploy them in a
way that we are confident they are not subject to sabotage.
One of the issues that I think we need to worry about, and
that the military certainly worries about is that, as has
happened in the past, people end up on those bases and hold up
a nuclear weapon and then you get a demand to take them out in
a way that would be counterproductive to the Alliance. So I am
not for taking them out because the United States decides.
I am for saying what our military has said: We don't think
we need them for a deterrent, but if you do, we will leave them
there. And if we conclude that, we should not bargain them away
for any amount of reduction in the Russian----
Mr. Turner. Well, as I turn to Mr. Miller and Dr. Payne, I
will expand the question based on what Dr. Halperin has
answered. In addition to the bargaining chip aspect of my
question, we know that the Nuclear Posture Review states that
in Europe, ``The presence of U.S. nuclear weapons--combined
with NATO's unique nuclear sharing arrangements under which
non-nuclear members participate . . . contribute[s] to Alliance
cohesion and provide[s] reassurance to allies and partners who
feel exposed to regional threats.'' If you might comment, then,
on both issues. I will go first to Dr. Payne.
Dr. Payne. Let me, I might mention a couple of points with
regards to the unilateral reductions.
We saw unilateral reductions by the United States in both
deployed launchers and warheads.
Mr. Turner. Dr. Payne, could you move the microphone a
little more in front of your----
Dr. Payne. Yes. The New START treaty mandates U.S.
unilateral reductions in the number of deployed launchers and
warheads, and we will implement that. The United States has
decided to unilaterally reduce the US number of tactical
nuclear weapons with the taking down of the TLAM-N [Tomahawk
Land Attack Missile-Nuclear] system, and the Administration has
announced the possibility of further unilateral reductions.
These are the kinds of statements that I am concerned
about, and that is what I would lay on the table with regard to
Mort's confidence; these are some of the reasons why I am
concerned.
The problem with unilateral reductions isn't that
unilateral reductions are necessarily bad, but if you have
unmet negotiating goals, such as the United States has,
engaging in unilateral reductions simply limits your ability to
ever get to where you want to go in the area of arms control.
So there is a strange juxtaposition where we have said as a
country, we want to be able to find reductions in the Russian
tactical nuclear arsenal because it is so large, and yet we
engage in unilateral reductions at the strategic level. We have
engaged in unilateral reductions at the tactical nuclear level,
and now we are talking about further unilateral reductions.
Those two positions don't make sense. If we have unmet
negotiating goals, engaging in this long stream of unilateral
reductions, at least in my mind, doesn't make any sense.
And, in a sense, I find Mort's comment reassuring because
what I understood Mort to have said is, if the allies want U.S.
nuclear weapons to stay in NATO for their assurance, then they
should stay. That is, in fact, what the Commission said, the
Strategic Posture Commission, and that strikes me as a fully
well-thought-out position.
Mr. Turner. For the record, Dr. Halperin nodded in the
affirmative.
Dr. Halperin. Yes.
Dr. Payne. If--and one of the processes that the Commission
went through was we heard from a large number of foreign
representatives. And I--without breaking any confidences, I can
assure you that representatives from Central European and
Eastern European allies who are now in NATO were strongly
opposed to the notion of the U.S. essentially withdrawing its
nuclear weapons from the continent.
In fact, they made the point that one of the reasons they
wanted to be NATO allies was because they came under the U.S.
nuclear umbrella, and those nuclear weapons were in Europe.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. I agree with that.
The first point I would make is this is why most of the new
allies joined the alliance, to be under the U.S. nuclear
umbrella.
The presence of those weapons is highly symbolic. The new
allies believe that that represents the U.S. commitment to
their defense. The threat is not really just Russian tactical
nuclear weapons; it is Russian local superiority in Central
Europe and in the Baltics.
We hear a lot about NATO's superiority. If you lived in the
Baltics or if you lived in the Slovak Republic or Czech
Republic, you are not thinking that NATO has conventional
superiority. And that is why they want the presence of U.S.
nuclear weapons there. And that is why they have told us that,
and that is why the Alliance in its policy statement of last
November said that we will retain weapons there.
The notion that we can just do it all by strategic systems
from the United States is something we have tried before and
failed.
In the late 1970s, when the Soviets were deploying the SS-
20 missile, the Pentagon's first approach was, ``That is okay,
we can just add more strategic warheads to Supreme Allied
Commander Europe's targeting capabilities,'' and the allies
said, ``No, that is not going to cut it; we need something on
the ground that we can feel and touch and see.'' This is a
similar situation, and I don't believe we should ever go to
zero in Europe as long as the allies believe they need to be
there.
If at some point the allies don't feel we need to have the
weapons there anymore, we should take them home. That is what
happened in South Korea in the late 1980s. It is interesting
now that some South Koreans are beginning to say they want the
weapons back. They are never coming back, and we know that.
So, again, if the allies believe this is important to their
security and NATO is an alliance where the collective security
is in everybody's interest, we need to listen to all the
members of the Alliance.
Dr. Halperin. Mr. Chairman, may I just comment on that?
Mr. Turner. Yes, please.
Dr. Halperin. The Central Europeans I talk to are much more
concerned about their conventional military balance. They agree
with Frank, as I do, that the real concern we have--and that we
saw in Georgia--is whether the Russians can move conventionally
along their borders, including against NATO countries.
I am much more interested in our building up the
credibility of our military presence in that part of the world,
of our conducting exercises with the Poles and others on the
border, and of finding ways to redress that local, tactical,
conventional military balance which the Russians have shown us
they do have and are capable of using, if not in NATO
countries, at least in countries that are independent.
And I think the lesson of the Cold War and of the period
since the Cold War is that nuclear weapons are not a substitute
for conventional military forces. They do not deter
conventional action, either by nuclear powers or by non-nuclear
powers, against nuclear powers, and I think we should be
worried about the balance in the center of Europe.
But the answer to that is not the few nuclear weapons we
have in Western Europe; the answer to that is to take seriously
that concern as a conventional military concern.
Mr. Turner. Well, I am going to take Mr. Miller's comments
about South Korea and expand this in the same genre for a
moment. As we talk about the issues of reducing our strategic
forces or our weapons in Europe, there are--beyond just our
NATO allies--implications, both with those who would have
confidence of our extended deterrence but also on whether or
not they independently pursue nuclear weapons programs. Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Japan, South Korea or others, may look to
whether or not they feel, in the environment that they are in
or with those nations that are now becoming nuclear powers,
that they must independently pursue these programs.
And if you would all comment on that for one moment, and
then I am going to turn it over to Ms. Sanchez, and we will go
to a second round.
Dr. Payne.
Dr. Payne. Going back to the point that Frank made about
South Korea and the call by some South Koreans for the nuclear
weapons to come back, that is exactly the type of thing that we
are seeing in response to the new fears that various allies and
friends have as a result of proliferation.
North Korea obviously has a nuclear capability. There are
fears that Iran may soon have a nuclear weapons capability and
missile systems to match that and exactly, as a result of those
types of developments, we are, indeed, seeing allies who are
reconsidering their past commitment to be in a non-nuclear
status.
I don't want to suggest that that is about to happen or,
for example, that the Japanese are about to acquire nuclear
weapons. I am not saying that. But what we do see is a very
heightened concern by allies--key allies--and people in serious
positions of authority who will say specifically that the
directions that they are seeing in their region, the direction
of nonproliferation they are seeing in their region, combined
with the apparent U.S. interest in pulling back nuclear
weapons, is of great concern to them and, in fact, they may
have to reconsider their commitment to their non-nuclear
status. We are hearing that explicitly from a number of allies
and implicitly from others.
Dr. Halperin. Again, I think we all hear from people in
allied countries things that we are interested in hearing
because those are the people we talk to in those countries.
One of the recommendations of the Nuclear Posture
Commission was that we needed to fundamentally change the way
we consulted with Japan on nuclear questions and that we should
not move on the TLAM missile but, even more generally, on
nuclear deterrence without genuine consultation with them.
The Administration took up that recommendation. There were
more extensive and serious consultations with Japan during the
Nuclear Posture Review than we ever had before.
And my reading from Japan, having visited there and talked
to people in the Government and the defense establishment after
the Nuclear Posture Review is that they were fully satisfied
with the consultation in cooperation and were comfortable with
all of the decisions that we had announced in the Nuclear
Posture Review.
To be fair, they were worried, as people in this room are,
about what the next phase might be and wanted to be sure that
they continue to be consulted.
But I believe--and I think the European example shows it as
well--that consultations with our allies about our nuclear
forces, about how we plan to use those nuclear forces, about
why we think they are credible, are as important to the
effective credibility of our deterrent in dealing with the
potential nuclear proliferation threats than the specific
deployments and that we ought to continue to pursue both.
Mr. Miller. I think that the weapons that we have in Europe
are weapons of war prevention.
I obviously disagree with Mort. I think that the presence
of those small number of weapons does symbolically raise the
cost of a conventional attack on our NATO allies. I think that
is why the allies believe they are so important.
I believe the weapons in Europe have served an anti-
proliferant. It has caused nations that could develop nuclear
weapons not to do so.
I think in light of what is going on in Iran, withdrawing
those weapons would send a signal which would cause people to
lack confidence and to consider proliferating. And I think that
our Far Eastern allies, Japan and South Korea, are also
watching what we do with the NATO weapons when NATO allies have
expressed a strong desire and a need to have the weapons
forward.
If we were to take them out, I think it would cause leaders
in Tokyo and in Seoul to start questioning our commitment. And
5, 10, 15 years down the road, we could have, we could have a
proliferation situation in the Far East that I think would be
very, very worrisome.
Mr. Turner. Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and, again, thank you,
gentlemen.
I think Dr. Halperin is probably correct in saying, you
know, it depends on who you talk to on any given day as to how
people feel about having our nuclear capability and, certainly,
tactical weapons within Europe.
And I just want to put for the record that, from my
standpoint, one of the things that we are doing to reassure our
allies within Europe is continuing as well as we can--
considering we are also in two other wars, some would say
three--to do forward-basing to put new bases in some of those
countries in Romania, in Bulgaria, to move our troops out of
the German line, if you will, and put them further south and
further east in that area.
So I think we are trying to, given the constraints that we
have had on our military during what has been a very costly set
of wars, that we have tried to do that, too.
And given this concept that maybe what some of our NATO
allies, especially the ones that used to be or were closer to
the Soviet ring, that they view this whole issue of
conventional warfare or somebody coming over their line--as we
saw, for example, in Georgia, just a couple of years ago, that
maybe that is what is making them want to hold onto this whole
issue of strategic weapons.
What other things do you think we could do, aside from
nuclear, to assess and reassess and to build that confidence
level with these former and, particularly, former satellites of
the USSR?
Dr. Payne. I agree with Mort in the sense that there are a
number of measures that the United States can take to help
reassure allies that don't necessarily have anything to do with
nuclear weapons.
As a matter of fact, the Administration has talked about
missile defense as helping reassure allies and, obviously, that
is non-nuclear, and other non-nuclear forces and actions as
well. And I agree with that.
But let me suggest that, in a sense, there is no substitute
for extended nuclear deterrence to nuclear weapons. You can't
provide extended nuclear deterrence with purely non-nuclear
means. And so the question is, how important is the nuclear
component of that? And this isn't something that we can judge
usefully from here because that judgment is made in foreign
capitals.
And I will respond a bit to Mort's point that you--the
answer you get depends on with whom you speak and so everything
is all equal: I haven't found that to be the case. I mean, what
I have found is very serious military and foreign affairs
professionals who express the type of concerns that we have
identified here.
So I would like to suggest that I agree with Mort that
there are a number of steps that we can take--close
consultations, close cooperation on the conventional forces, a
whole series of actions that we should and, in some cases, are
taking to help affirm the allies' confidence in the United
States--but if you take the nuclear portion out of the
deterrent, in a sense you are taking the pillar out from the
building. I mean, the nuclear deterrent as part of extended
deterrence is a key to the allied assurance with regard to U.S.
commitment. This isn't my interpretation; this is what many of
them say.
Ms. Sanchez. And, Doctor, do you think that--and I will ask
you both--but do you think that the number of nuclear weapons
that we have based in Europe, is there an ability to eliminate
some of those and still have that capability and that assurance
to our allies, or must we have all the ones that we have there?
Because there are definitely countries that--whose people and
whose politicians no longer are thrilled about having them
there.
Dr. Payne. Congresswoman Sanchez, that is a great question,
and I would only suggest that an answer that I might give isn't
worth very much because we want to go to the allies and see how
the numbers affect their feelings of assurance with regard to
the U.S. commitment. And so----
Ms. Sanchez. But I am not talking about their feelings now.
I am talking about your--your knowledge of, are there actually
some that we could eliminate and still have the coverage that
we need should there be somebody coming across the eastern
lines?
Dr. Payne. Let me take the ``feelings'' word out this and
say it depends on how the allies see it. In terms of the
assurance that is provided by our nuclear weapons to our
allies, the relationship between numbers and that level of
assurance is all in their perceptions of the situation. So
whether that number can come down and provide the same level of
assurance is going to be in the perspective of our allies.
And so some allies, I believe, would say those numbers can
come down. Other allies, I think, would be very wary about the
United States even coming down to the numbers at this point.
And so that is why this is, in a sense, an act that is very
challenging because we have a large alliance, and some allies
feel very strongly about this issue. Other allies perceive the
threat as being much more benign. And that is why I would put
this in the context of an allied question, really not a
question that we can answer here as well as we would like to.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. Doctor.
Dr. Halperin. Thank you. I would agree with that last
sentence. The nuclear element is an important element of our
deterrent and our assurance to our allies. The question is
whether that requires the stationing of the weapons in the
territory of the countries we are trying to defend or the
alliance we are trying to defend.
We have had credible nuclear assurance with Japan from the
beginning without storage of nuclear weapons in Japan, because
the Japanese did not want them.
We now have no nuclear weapons in Korea. I believe the
credibility of our nuclear deterrent against a North Korean
attack on South Korea is every bit as strong as it was before
because there are large numbers of American troops in South
Korea. And the North Koreans know that if they launch an attack
with chemical weapons, or conventional weapons or nuclear
weapons, they are going to kill lots of Americans and there is
going to be a deterrent threat.
I have always believed in Europe, the presence of American
forces and the alliance conversations about both nuclear and
conventional weapons were much more important than whether we
had nuclear weapons here.
I do want to go back into history because it is my
understanding of the history that we were the ones who came up
with the idea that nuclear weapons had to be stationed in
Europe.
It was not that our allies said we do not want your
conventional forces unless we had nuclear weapons as well, but
exactly the opposite. We said we are not sending our
conventional forces unless they are accompanied with nuclear
weapons. That is how it all began, and we have taught our
allies to believe, because we believed, that the presence of
nuclear weapons in Europe was necessary.
This same debate with the same predictions of dire
consequences occurred for every reduction from 6,500 to the
current number. And every one of those moments, we were told
exactly the same thing, talk to the right people in Europe,
they will tell you this will have disastrous consequences. And
the numbers have gone down steadily and, in my view, there have
been no consequences because the Russians fully understand the
credibility of the nuclear deterrent.
I think it denigrates our commitment, and the understanding
that our allies have of that commitment, to suggest that a few
weapons in Europe somehow are an important part of the
credibility of that deterrent.
They are certainly no part, and here I want to be careful
not to get into areas that we should not be discussing, but
they are certainly no part of what we would actually do if
there was a Russian invasion across the line. The notion that
we would wait until those weapons were ready to begin to launch
whatever defensive attack, including, if we thought it was
appropriate, nuclear weapons--I think it is just wrong.
We have weapons that are much more alert--if I can use that
term--and if we decided nuclear weapons needed to be used, we
would use. So this is not a matter of the operational need for
those weapons in Europe because we might have some reason to
want to deliver them from Europe rather than from submarines or
from----
Ms. Sanchez. Well, I asked that in the context of, I
remember last year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman General
James Cartwright said that, from a military point, there were
probably 200 U.S. tactical nuclear bombs stored in Europe that
didn't serve a military function that wasn't already covered by
other assets we had.
So that was in my context of the fact that we have some
NATO allies that have expressed very strong, to me, at
different levels of Government, have expressed very strong
desires to, you know, some of this moved out whether, in fact,
we can move some and still have the effect that we need from a
deterrence standpoint.
Mr. Miller. Let me respond if I might.
The first question you asked was, are there other things we
can do to reassure the allies? Absolutely, we can. There are
consultations. We can develop contingency plans to defend them.
We can carry out exercises to make those contingency plans
real. Unfortunately, some of the older allies in the Alliance
have blocked our ability until very recently to even do that
contingency planning, saying that it was not allowed.
So the new allies were feeling pretty alone in that regard.
We tried to do other things. We were blocked by some of the
older allies.
Second, the question of numbers of weapons and Jim
Cartwright's comment, I think, is not really the focus. Those
weapons do not serve primarily a military purpose. They are
weapons of war prevention and to reassure the allies. And I
suppose it is true that you can get different views from people
depending on who you talk to. You could walk through this
building and get very different views.
But, again, I hate to hold this [Active Engagement, Modern
Defence: Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the
Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation adopted by
Heads of State and Government in Lisbon, Nov. 19, 2010] up like
it is Mao's Little Red Book. But this represents not people you
just talk to on the street, this represents what the NATO
governments--all 28 of them, believe in. And what they said
was, we will ensure that NATO will maintain an appropriate mix
of nuclear and conventional forces and we will ensure the
broadest possible participation of allies and collective
defense planning on nuclear roles in peacetime basing of
nuclear forces.
So it is not just anybody; this is what the leaders of the
alliance said just last November.
I think that the situation in the Far East is different.
History plays a role here. We do extended deterrence in the Far
East by central systems, but there are weapons on the ground in
Europe today. And if we took them out, we would be changing
that situation, and the allies know it.
Starting from scratch, could we have done it with strategic
systems only? Perhaps. But we are not starting from scratch, we
are starting from the history of those weapons being there
since the 1950s and with new allies joining the Alliance to be
under their umbrella. So I think that is very important.
I was present from the late 1970s in Government through
2005. I was deeply involved in many of the reductions from
7,000 to the current level.
At no point in those did we have real allied concerns that
we were going to change the situation. The allies concurred in
the way we were doing it, as long as they were reassured that
there was going to be some sort of a presence.
And I will say in closing, Congresswoman, to your question,
I think, and I said it before, I think it is morally wrong, I
think it is morally failed, for those allies who wanted those
weapons there during the Cold War, wanted the United States
homeland to be at risk to help deter a Soviet conventional
attack on their soil, can now say that it is okay, we are
several hundred kilometers behind the lines now, we don't care
what the guys who are on the line think.
I think that is a failed moral policy of some those allies,
and it is a complete and total disregard of what NATO is all
about, which is collective security, not an individual nation's
point of view.
Ms. Sanchez. So let me ask you just a question for my own
purposes. Do you, if you could start all over--let's say you
had a blank slate and you were thinking about nuclear
capability and what we wanted to see in that arena, what would
you put in? And I guess I am asking this question from a sense
of, Where should we think about putting funds? Where should we
be accelerating what we need to do in order to not only have
confidence from our allies there but, really, deter?
Mr. Miller. I think it is pretty simple. The B-61 bomb
needs to be modernized anyway. There is a program to do so. The
B-61 has both tactical and strategic capabilities. It needs
modernization; some money is going to that.
We are buying the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35. That is
very important, too. It is going to have a nuclear capability,
and allies are going to buy that fighter aircraft.
So it is not a question of cost or buying new aircraft that
they weren't going to buy anyway. It is a question of having
the political will to have a couple of nuclear weapons on their
soil as part of a collective defense.
The new allies would take nuclear weapons, but because we
made a pledge in the late 1990s to reassure the Russians, we
can't put them there. So now it is back to the collective good.
As to the numbers of weapons, it is more whether countries
will stay in the basing role as to whether we can reduce the
number that we have there. I personally think we can reduce the
number that we have there as long as countries continue to base
them.
I think the last thing we can do is to ensure that we
continue to tell the old allies that we have protected their
freedom for four decades or more, that they have a moral
responsibility to help protect the freedom of the new allies.
Ms. Sanchez. Doctor.
Dr. Halperin. I have to say I have now reread the NATO
Strategic Concept, and I don't, I didn't remember it saying and
I don't find it saying that there is an agreement that there is
a requirement that nuclear weapons be based in Europe. I think
on the--can't turn.
Mr. Miller. Other page. Widest possible--peacetime basing
in the United States.
Dr. Halperin. No, it says. Frank, it says ensure the
broadest possible participation, allies, in collective defense
planning on nuclear forces.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Dr. Halperin. In peacetime basing of nuclear forces.
Mr. Miller. In peacetime basing of nuclear forces--in
Europe.
Dr. Halperin. No.
Mr. Miller. It doesn't mean in the United States and France
and----
Dr. Halperin. It doesn't say that. It says the broadest
possible participation in collective defense planning. You know
and I know there were people who want----
Mr. Miller. Keep going.
Dr. Halperin. I am going to keep going. And in command and
control and consultation arrangements. It is the broadest
possible participation in those things.
Mr. Miller. In peacetime basing among the three.
Mr. Turner. Gentlemen, I think we have noted your diverging
opinions.
Mr. Miller. We disagree.
Ms. Sanchez. Any other thoughts, Doctor, before I go over
to Dr. Payne.
Dr. Halperin. No.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. Dr. Payne, any finishing thoughts?
Dr. Payne. The question with regard to the blank slate,
again, I think is a good question. To answer that question, we
do need to do, I believe, what Frank was getting at, and that
is to go to the allies as an Alliance and see what they see as
necessary for their assurance.
Let me just add that I frequently hear it said that the
credibility of our deterrent to Russia is strong without
nuclear weapons in Europe, and Mort just made that point. I
hear that frequently. And the implication is, therefore, we
don't need weapons in Europe.
Or, I have heard the point that says that we don't need to
employ nuclear weapons deployed in Europe; therefore, we can
pull our nuclear weapons out of Europe. Those are the two
points that are frequently made in this regard.
But let me just suggest that neither of those points are
really pertinent. We don't have nuclear weapons in this case.
We don't judge our nuclear weapons by how we grade their
credibility to Russia for the purposes of assurance of allies
and we don't grade our nuclear weapons by whether they would be
useful and employed; that is war planning. We don't do war
planning on this panel.
What we are looking at is, what does it take to assure the
allies of our commitment to their security? That is the number
one question, and that has very little to do with these other
points that are often made.
And so I think this Administration has done a good job in
going to allies and done serious consultations with them on
this question. The only thing that I would suggest here, in
conclusion, is that I would hope that once we take those
consultations, we actually act upon them and don't act
unilaterally in ways that these key allies who have joined NATO
for this purpose or for this reason find very, very alarming--
because, in a sense, it is the United States backing out of
both treaty and moral commitments that we have made.
Ms. Sanchez. Well, certainly, I know that this
Administration has worked very hard and we are very fortunate
to have Ellen Tauscher over there working. She has got a very
good working relationship with our European allies and they, to
a large extent, trust her on a lot of these issues.
I know that this committee has worked very hard. We have
made trips, even though we get slapped around for going to
Europe to talk to our allies when, you know, when we are
switching up or changing some ideas in particular with respect
to missile defense that we have really, you know, worked hard
to go and reassure and talk about what we really see. And I
hope that we continue to work in a very bipartisan manner to do
that.
We are--I don't think any of us are suggesting let's pull
everything out of the land over there. I think we are just
trying to, in a time of very limited budgets and, you know, I
mean, that is why we are at a standstill right now, even in
trying to raise this debt limit.
At a time of limited budget, we are trying to figure out
where do we--where is the strategic place for us to be, given
that we can't do everything anymore? I mean, we can't do
everything. We just can't do it anymore, so we have to just be
smarter and that is why we ask you, what do you think is the
best way for us to move forward?
So I thank you for being before us.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Franks.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.
Let me start with a question about the Nuclear Posture
Review. In that review, the Administration mentions as a
subject for study for future reductions the effort of exploring
new modes of ICBM basing. When they say for possible
reductions, that fascinates me. Can you tell me what in the
world that means?
Dr. Halperin. I have been, I have been asking about that,
and I am told there was one person somewhere in the Pentagon
who had this, an interest in this and somehow got the sentence
in when people weren't paying attention.
As far as I can tell, there is no--there is no serious
interest in this. Nobody is thinking about new modes. I mean,
that seems to be a reference to rail mobile----
Mr. Franks. Not putting on family cars, things like that?
Dr. Halperin. No, no. Rail mobile is something we have
thought about from time to time for many years. There are many
things uncertain about America, but that we will never have
rail mobile ballistic missiles, I think, is a certainty. It is
not going to happen. There are many statements in the Nuclear
Posture Review to worry about, but I would not worry about that
one. You have my assurance.
Mr. Franks. Well, okay. I am glad you are comforted by all
of that.
Well, anyway, let me ask you about the nuclear triad. In
testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 4,
the Principal Deputy Secretary of Defense James Miller stated
that the upcoming deterrence review would proceed consistent
with what he called the ``principles'' of the Nuclear Posture
Review.
One important conclusion of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review
was that the triad should be preserved. But in an interview
published that same day, White House official Gary Samore
suggested that this deterrence review would look at whether we
should eliminate one of the legs of the triad. And some might
wonder, therefore, which of the conclusions the NPR [Nuclear
Posture Review] the Administration considers definitive, and
which parts of the NPR are subject to change.
The NPR reaffirms that each of the legs of the triad has
unique characteristics in terms of assurance, survivability,
visibility, upload potential, accuracy, and ability to
penetrate defenses. And, of course, I agree with that.
So remind us if you can--and if those that are in the
Administration are listening--what are some of the respective
virtues of each leg of the triad, and I will kind of ask that
as a broad question to each of you.
Dr. Halperin, if you want to begin.
Dr. Halperin. Well, let me say, I think before you came in,
Mr. Franks, I said very clearly what I have always believed: It
would be a mistake to open the question of whether we should
move away from the triad.
I believe that for foreseeable levels of nuclear forces, we
should maintain the triad and that each of them does have
different characteristics.
The most important, in a way, is that what you worry about
some catastrophic failure that you wake up some morning and
discover, you know, three missiles exploded on the launch pad
and you suddenly realize there is a technical flaw, and you
have got to take them all down and fix them. Or you suddenly
discover the Russians know where our submarines are, or that
you conclude that their air defenses are so good that no bomber
will ever get through.
The essential point is it is possible to conceive of one
system having a catastrophic failure like that. If you are a
real worrier, you can conceive about two systems going out
simultaneously. But three cannot, you know, then we get to the
law of averages. They may all go out over time, but not at the
same time.
So just for that reason, it seems to me----
Mr. Franks. Just redundancy alone.
Dr. Halperin. It is redundant. It gives you flexibility on
how you can use them. You may be in a situation where you don't
want to fire from the land, but you feel willing to fire from
the sea. You can imagine many different characteristics of the
systems.
But in my view, the most important one is that unexpected
vulnerabilities, if they arise, are going to arise probably in
only one system. It is one of the reasons why--because the
other vulnerability we are worried about is suddenly
discovering none the weapons work, and it is why the
modernization of our weapons infrastructure is so important and
finding ways to test the systems without nuclear tests is so
important, so we don't wake up one day and discover the weapons
failed.
But if we have three delivery systems in several different
weapons, then I think we can be pretty confident that enough of
it is going to work to deter.
Mr. Franks. Thank you.
Mr. Miller, I might expand on that a little. All things
being equal, do the virtues of a triad become more or less
relevant at lower nuclear numbers? And if you want to expand on
the question that I asked Dr. Halperin, that is fine, too.
Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. I believe that they do become more
important at lower numbers. I think Mort has adequately has
beautifully described the various attributes of the triad:
Offsetting capabilities, offsetting vulnerabilities, offsetting
failure modes, different signaling capabilities in a crisis or
pre-crisis period. And as the force comes down, you absolutely
want to have the capability in three legs to offset a failure
mode in one leg.
So I think that is absolutely essential. It is why I think
the Administration really needs to be a lot more transparent
with the Congress and the American people as to what it intends
to do with the air breathing leg, with the bomber force, and
with the ICBM force.
I would also say that there is almost a fourth leg that is
unremarked upon, and that is Prompt Global Strike. We have been
talking about prompt global strike for probably 6 or 7 or 8
years, and all we have deployed are more and more PowerPoint
slides. We could break that ceiling. We could have in place a
system based on Trident in about 3 years.
The Senate held that up for a long time because it argued
that was destabilizing. It asked the National Academy of
Sciences to do a study on that. The National Academy came back
and said this isn't a problem. But we still haven't moved
forward. We are still studying to find the best of the best of
the best systems. So that, I think, is a fourth component to an
overall strategic triad.
Mr. Franks. Well, not to beat the question to death but,
Dr. Payne, can you give me some idea of what you think the
elimination of a leg of the triad would do to strategic
stability of the United States?
Dr. Payne. Well, to the extent that stability is based on
the character of our force posture, it would ease, or
potentially ease, an opponent's efforts and strategy to get
around our deterrent by reducing the survivability of our
forces, by reducing those characteristics that Mort and Frank
so nicely described. I mean, the whole point of having those
characteristics isn't just because we like to collect
characteristics for forces, it is because they are extremely
important because in toto what they do is they deny an opponent
any plausible strategy for getting around our deterrent. And as
you pull the legs of that triad down, you reduce that ability
to deny them a theory of success, as it is called.
Mr. Franks. Well, of course, I couldn't agree with you
more. I could try, but I couldn't agree with you more.
Then, am I to assume, essentially, that this talk of
removing a leg of the triad is just some low-level person in
Administration that slipped that line in there somehow, right?
And the person's name is not Obama; correct?
Mr. Miller. We are all private citizens. I don't think we
can comment authoritatively.
Mr. Franks. I was just trying assure myself here a little
bit. All right. Well, thank you, all very much, and we
appreciate your service to the country.
Mr. Turner. Gentlemen, I am going to ask you a wrap-up
question that goes to the role of Congress.
Doctors Payne and Halperin, you participated in the
Strategic Posture Commission, which actually called for, as a
part of its recommendations, renewed congressional involvement
and dialogue between the executive and legislative branches.
Now, Dr. Halperin, you noted the one source of
administration angst and veto threat motivation is executive
prerogative.
Mr. Miller, you said in your written testimony and in your
statements here that both the Senate and House need to be more
active and have deeper involvement in nuclear and strategic
issues.
So I thought we would take a moment and end on your
collective thoughts on how the executive and legislative
branches should be working together and how the House of
Representatives might reinvigorate its robust oversight of
these important issues.
Mr. Miller, since it was actually in your written
testimony, I will start with your thoughts.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, sir.
I want to commend you and Ms. Sanchez for having these
hearings and for doing that. I was a creature of the executive
branch for 28 years. Some of my trips up here were more
pleasurable than others, shall we say. But it was always
important.
The Congress has to be involved in these issues because it
is through the congressional involvement that, in fact, the
American people see a broader picture of all of this and,
therefore, I strongly support a reinvigorated series of
hearings and having the Congress say that these are important
issues, that nuclear weapons may have a reduced role or a
smaller role in our national strategy than they have had in the
past. But they are, by God, truly important subjects on which
the life of the Nation could depend at some point and a
vigorous public debate to put these issues out into the open
and to examine the Administration's promises and its actions is
terribly important.
So I would commend you for that. And as I said in my
written testimony, I think the Section 1051, where you are
asking the commanders, the nuclear commanders, to provide you
annual reports is terribly important.
Mr. Turner. Dr. Halperin.
Dr. Halperin. I have always been and remain a very strong
believer in Congress' equal role in this. I noticed in your
back room, you had the right section of the Constitution up on
the wall.
I think Congress does have the power to make rules and
regulations for the Armed Forces and that the Armed Forces
cannot spend a penny that they don't get from the Congress. So
I think it is clear this is and should be an equal
relationship, and I would hope it would be one that was not
marked by suspicion and by, in effect, a struggle to find
differences or to exaggerate differences.
I think you need to understand every administration has
different people in it who say different things because they
are engaged in debates within the Administration about one
subject or another and that they are appealing to different
audiences. And so I think it is important to remain calm and to
engage in a dialogue which is open in both directions.
So, as I have said, I think it is important that we not
have a study which assumes the purpose of the study is to
reduce the numbers, but I think it is also important to have a
study in which people are not saying in advance, but if you
leave open the possibility that you are going to say a lower
number is okay, that there is something wrong with that.
I think my own view is that the nuclear forces should have
a very high priority within the defense budget. Put a different
way, I cannot imagine the defense budget, even in the current
climate, going so low that we should not spend every penny
which increases the credibility and effectiveness of the
nuclear force.
And so I don't think there should be a fight about funding.
I think we need to fund what we say we are going to fund, and I
need to--we need to honor the sequencing that we committed
ourselves to when the treaty was ratified.
But I think within that, there is scope for debate about
whether we should change some elements of the way we operate
the force to make it more stable and more secure.
Mr. Turner. Dr. Payne, in addition to answering that
question, since the clock was running during your opening, if
there are additional comments that you would like to add in
closing, you may take that opportunity now.
Dr. Payne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The first part of the question was, I think it is between
the Congress and the executive branch, and I am very encouraged
by the hearings that you and Ranking Member Sanchez have put
together. They strike me as enormously important and, I hope,
something that will be continued; particularly your willingness
to ask the questions and then asking the second and third order
questions, because the answers to these types of questions can
get somewhat arcane. The language isn't all agreed upon. There
are different buzzwords. It is not easy to have a clear
understanding of this area, but I want to compliment you all on
having hearings that have really brought this material out, and
I would just say more of that would be great.
I think that is one area that was somewhat lacking in the
past and moving on to hearings that really get into these
issues. And I am not talking about nuclear employment issues.
Obviously specific questions about nuclear employment aren't
for public discussions. But that is not necessarily all that is
important. In fact, in the types of things we are talking
about, it doesn't necessarily pertain.
Being able to ask the question of what is your theory of
deterrence? What do you think deters, and why do you think the
forces that you have talked about that you either want or don't
want, will deter or assure the allies, or provide persuasion,
or any of the other number of goals that these forces are
supposed to support?
And so I guess the bottom line of the comment that I am
making is, more transparency in all of this is much better than
the lack of transparency, and you have a prerogative with the
power of the purse strings to ask these questions in very
direct ways and insist on transparent answers. I think that
would help, that would help enormously.
And as for maybe the last 30 seconds that you graciously
offered me, I would just like to suggest that when we look at
future reductions, I didn't say that there is no room for
future reductions. There may well be room for future
reductions.
What I did try and point out is, just because people now
claim that we can have a retaliatory capability at lower
numbers doesn't equate that there is room for future
reductions. That is an absolute non sequitur. Because how we
judge the value and adequacy of our forces isn't just based on
whether we have the number of forces necessary to meet some
targeting requirement.
Reassurance to the allies has its own set of requirements.
Extended deterrence of the allied--of our allied enemies,
enemies of our allies, has another set of requirements. So the
set of requirements that helps us get to a real understanding
of our strategic force needs is much beyond what might be
considered appropriate for some employment policy. That is only
one--in fact, I would say that is only one small part of the
answer.
Mr. Turner. Gentlemen, I want to thank you again. This has
been a great discussion, and thank you for your important
contributions to an issue that I think we all believe goes
right to the heart of our national security.
So, thank you.
[Whereupon, at 5:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
July 27, 2011
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
July 27, 2011
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
July 27, 2011
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
July 27, 2011
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SANCHEZ
Ms. Sanchez. What do you think should be the appropriate level of
our nuclear arsenal to meet our requirements for deterrence and nuclear
defense?
How should the Executive Branch determine ``how much is enough'' to
deter a nuclear attack on the homeland or against our allies, what are
the assumptions upon which those judgments are made, and how, if at
all, should we adjust nuclear deterrence requirements to reflect 21st
century realities?
Have we ever had a fresh look that was not tied to simply reducing
the number of weapons from Cold War levels, but rather based on what we
really need to deter our adversaries?
Dr. Payne. ``How much is enough'' for deterrence depends on the
opponents, threats and circumstances US deterrence strategies are
intended to address. These factors are not fixed and can change
rapidly. Correspondingly, the answer to the question ``how much is
enough'' also is subject to frequent and rapid change--there can be no
enduring, fixed answer in terms of the number of warheads and
launchers. In general, because US deterrence requirements can change as
rapidly as the threat conditions and circumstances, the most important
characteristic of the US arsenal for deterrence purposes is its ability
to adapt rapidly to changing requirements across the spectrum of
pertinent opponents and contingencies. Consequently, the number and
qualities of the US arsenal for deterrence purposes should be shaped by
the requirement that the US force structure be sufficiently flexible
and resilient to adapt to a wide-range of plausible threats. This
suggests the need for a diverse force of sufficient size to be so
flexible and resilient.
There have been several official reviews of US nuclear requirements
that do not appear to have been so tied to simply reducing the number
of weapons from Cold War levels. These reviews include the 1994, 2001
and 2010 Nuclear Posture Reviews. In addition, the 2009 report of the
bipartisan Congressional Strategic Posture Commission on which I served
made numerous recommendations regarding arms control, but was not
simply tied to reducing force numbers.
Ms. Sanchez. As we modernize the nuclear weapons complex and build
new billion dollar facilities for producing new plutonium pits and
uranium secondaries for nuclear weapons, should we be thinking about
how to incorporate verification capability in the event nuclear weapons
capabilities are ever subject to arms control agreements? Why/why not?
Dr. Payne. Yes. For the purposes of transparency we should think
about the potential benefits, costs and risks of incorporating such
verification measures, as well as the prospects for strict reciprocity
by at least Russia and China in doing so. Thinking about this issue now
could help US negotiators to understand the implications of moving in
this direction before they engage in discussions of the subject.
Ms. Sanchez. We learned earlier this year that Russia already has
met most of its arsenal reduction obligations under New START. The
State Dept. reported June 1 that Moscow was below the treaty's limits
of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed delivery vehicles
and close to the 800 limit on launchers. The United States does not
currently plan to reach these limits until 2018.
In addition, Russian nuclear policy expert Alexei Arbatov has
warned that Russian nuclear weapons might fall well below New START
levels in the next few years, potentially to 1100 or 1000 warheads, and
that Russia is designing a new heavy ICBM with MIRV capability to build
back up to New START levels.
How would this affect strategic stability? How might US nuclear
posture and signals affect this decision?
Would you agree that rather than induce Russia to build up, it is
in the security and financial interests of both countries to pursue
further, parallel reductions in their strategic nuclear forces and to
cut the size of their non-deployed reserve stockpiles?
Dr. Payne. Prior to the ratification of the New START Treaty, it
was obvious from the open Russian press that the number of Russian
deployed warheads and launchers would not be reduced by the Treaty
ceilings. Russian forces already were moving to lower numbers due to
natural aging and withdrawal of the systems. This is why Treaty
skeptics rightly argued that the treaty effectively requires unilateral
warhead and launcher reductions by the United States.
It also is clear from the open Russian press that Russia has robust
nuclear modernization programs that will lead to the deployment of a
variety of new Russian nuclear weapons later in this decade, primarily
after the term of the New START Treaty. It appears that this Russian
nuclear buildup has been in process for years and that even the recent
US unilateral reduction in tactical nuclear weapons and the US
unilateral reductions called for by the New START Treaty have not
dampened Russia's nuclear modernization programs. This Russian nuclear
buildup is not induced by US behavior, but by Russia's felt-need to
meet its many and varied security requirements via heavy reliance on
modern nuclear capabilities, including vis-a-vis China.
It certainly is in US and Russian interests to have the lowest
number of forces compatible with each country's respective security
requirements. And, it is my hope that Russia will reduce the size of
its very large tactical nuclear arsenal--an arsenal that is
approximately 10 times the size of the comparable US arsenal. However,
because Russia has significantly different security requirements than
does the United States, and sees great value in its continuing nuclear
modernization programs, the prospects for Russian acceptance of further
deep parallel reductions are limited, as is the prospect for Russian
acceptance of negotiated deep reductions in the number of Russian
deployed warheads or in the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons.
Ms. Sanchez. Last year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen.
James Cartwright has acknowledged, that the approximately 200 U.S.
tactical nuclear bombs stored in Europe do not serve a military
function not already addressed by other U.S. military assets. Do you
agree/disagree? Is there any contribution to nuclear deterrence that
could not be achieved by our strategic weapons?
Dr. Payne. I have no reason to disagree with Gen. Cartwright's
statement. However, the lack of an immediate military function for US
nuclear forces in Europe has little to do with the value of these
forces for extended deterrence and the assurance of allies. Deterrence
and assurance are political and psychological functions--the value of
nuclear weapons for these missions is largely in their non-use, not
their military employment per se. In this regard, US nuclear forces
located in Europe certainly appear to be important for the continued
assurance of some key NATO allies and the continued presence of US
nuclear forces in Europe may contribute uniquely to the credibility of
deterrence in plausible scenarios.
Ms. Sanchez. Under what likely scenarios would the US tactical
nuclear weapons in Europe be used, and in what situations would they be
preferable over other existing weapons, including conventional and
strategic nuclear weapons?
Dr. Payne. I would prefer not to speculate about actual nuclear
employment options or to compare those options to the employment of
non-nuclear forces. My focus is on the deterrence of war. Whether or
how nuclear forces would be employed for military purposes may have
little direct relevance to their potential value for the deterrence of
war and the assurance of allies.
Ms. Sanchez. How relevant are the U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to
Russia's security calculations? To what extent might the Russians see
the presence of the tactical nuclear weapons in Europe as an excuse for
inaction on addressing their own tactical nuclear arsenal?
Dr. Payne. Russia's requirement for tactical nuclear weapons
clearly is not driven by the number or presence of US tactical nuclear
weapons in Europe. According to numerous open Russian discussions of
tactical nuclear weapons, Russia's conventional forces are far from
adequate to defend Russia's extensive borders, including against
conventional attacks. Russia essentially has chosen to rely on tactical
nuclear weapons to compensate for the inadequacies in its conventional
forces to defend its borders. Russian doctrine specifically leaves open
the option of using tactical nuclear weapons to defend Russia's borders
against conventional attack. Consequently, I do not believe the removal
of the relatively small number of remaining US nuclear weapons in
Europe would have any effect on Russia's felt-need to maintain a large
number of modern tactical nuclear weapons.
Ms. Sanchez. In 2008, the Air Force conducted a Blue Ribbon Review
and found security to be insufficient around some of the sites where
U.S. tactical nuclear weapons are likely based in Europe. Allies
apparently made security adjustments. Since then, protestors breached
security at Klein Brogel Airbase, where some of these weapons are
thought to be stored. To what extent should nuclear security and
terrorism be considered in a decision to remove or reduce the tactical
nukes?
Dr. Payne. Maintaining the security of US nuclear forces should be
a priority consideration at all times and circumstances.
Ms. Sanchez. What do you think should be the appropriate level of
our nuclear arsenal to meet our requirements for deterrence and nuclear
defense?
How should the Executive Branch determine ``how much is enough'' to
deter a nuclear attack on the homeland or against our allies, what are
the assumptions upon which those judgments are made, and how, if at
all, should we adjust nuclear deterrence requirements to reflect 21st
century realities?
Have we ever had a fresh look that was not tied to simply reducing
the number of weapons from Cold War levels, but rather based on what we
really need to deter our adversaries?
Dr. Halperin. We have not had a fresh look at the requirements for
deterrence since the end of the cold war. We need such a review asking
for each potential adversary what forces are necessary to deter nuclear
attacks on the United States or other countries that we protect from
nuclear attack with our forces. We need to understand that a major part
of the deterrent of such attacks is our capacity and will to respond
promptly with conventional forces. Our nuclear forces should be seen as
a backup. The level of nuclear forces that are needed is difficult to
specify in advance. I am confident that the number we need for this
purpose is well below 1,000 total weapons both deployed and non-
deployed. Whether we can go to such numbers would depend on whether the
Russians would agree to the numbers and whether we can reach some
agreement with China.
Ms. Sanchez. Could you explain the link between nuclear non-
proliferation and progress on nuclear arms control?
Dr. Halperin. I believe that over time there is a direct link
between nuclear non-proliferation and arms control. Unless the US and
Russia (who still possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons)
continue to reduce their forces and decrease their reliance on nuclear
weapons the non-proliferation regime could come apart. The most
important step we could take now would be to ratify the CTBT and bring
it into existence.
Ms. Sanchez. As we modernize the nuclear weapons complex and build
new billion dollar facilities for producing new plutonium pits and
uranium secondaries for nuclear weapons, should we be thinking about
how to incorporate verification capability in the event nuclear weapons
capabilities are ever subject to arms control agreements? Why/why not?
Dr. Halperin. We need to be thinking hard about how to verify
existing stockpiles and production facilities both in the US and Russia
as well as new facilities which we are building. If we are to get to
agreements on total stockpile levels below 1,000 we will need new ideas
for verification.
Ms. Sanchez. We learned earlier this year that Russia already has
met most of its arsenal reduction obligations under New START. The
State Dept. reported June 1 that Moscow was below the treaty's limits
of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed delivery vehicles
and close to the 800 limit on launchers. The United States does not
currently plan to reach these limits until 2018.
In addition, Russian nuclear policy expert Alexei Arbatov has
warned that Russian nuclear weapons might fall well below New START
levels in the next few years, potentially to 1100 or 1000 warheads, and
that Russia is designing a new heavy ICBM with MIRV capability to build
back up to New START levels.
How would this affect strategic stability? How might US nuclear
posture and signals affect this decision?
Would you agree that rather than induce Russia to build up, it is
in the security and financial interests of both countries to pursue
further, parallel reductions in their strategic nuclear forces and to
cut the size of their non-deployed reserve stockpiles?
Dr. Halperin. A Russian decision to build a new heavy ICBM would
reduce strategic stability. To ward this off the United States should
announce that it will meet the START levels as soon as possible and
give a timetable for that. We should also consider proposing an
amendment to the START Treaty to provide for lower levels of deployed
warheads and delivery systems leaving all other aspects of the treaty
in place. Alternatively we should propose to the Russians that we each
go to a lower level by mutual restraint without amending the treaty.
Ms. Sanchez. Last year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen.
James Cartwright has acknowledged, that the approximately 200 U.S.
tactical nuclear bombs stored in Europe do not serve a military
function not already addressed by other U.S. military assets. Do you
agree/disagree? Is there any contribution to nuclear deterrence that
could not be achieved by our strategic weapons?
Dr. Halperin. I agree with Gen. Cartwright. The weapons deployed in
Europe do not, in my view, make any contribution to deterrence not
achieved by our strategic forces. The decision to remove the remaining
weapons should be made by the NATO alliance by consensus but the USG
should state this conclusion as the official position of the American
government.
Ms. Sanchez. Affirming that ``As long as nuclear weapons exist,
NATO will remain a nuclear alliance,'' and that ``The supreme guarantee
of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear
forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States,'' the
November 2010 NATO Strategic Concept, unlike its 1999 predecessor, made
no mention of non-strategic weapons forward deployed in Europe. In
addition, German, Dutch and Belgian government officials have called
for the removal of forward-based tactical nuclear weapons at bases in
these countries.
With tactical nuclear weapons no longer appearing to be a unifying,
but rather a divisive, element within NATO, what alternatives are there
to demonstrate US resolve to defend European allies that could replace
the political value of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe?
Dr. Halperin. We need to discuss what we should do if a decision is
made to remove the remaining nuclear weapons. We should commit to
continuing close consultations on our nuclear posture and to
maintaining a significant conventional military presence in Europe.
Ms. Sanchez. Under what likely scenarios would the US tactical
nuclear weapons in Europe be used, and in what situations would they be
preferable over other existing weapons, including conventional and
strategic nuclear weapons?
Dr. Halperin. There are no conceivable scenarios in which the
weapons now in Europe would actually be used. They are not available
for immediate use as are our strategic weapons and our conventional
forces. They have no operational role.
Ms. Sanchez. How relevant are the U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to
Russia's security calculations? To what extent might the Russians see
the presence of the tactical nuclear weapons in Europe as an excuse for
inaction on addressing their own tactical nuclear arsenal?
Dr. Halperin. I do not think our tactical nuclear weapons in Europe
play any significant role in Russian security calculations. I also do
not think that removing them would have any significant impact on the
Russian tactical nuclear arsenal.
Ms. Sanchez. In 2008, the Air Force conducted a Blue Ribbon Review
and found security to be insufficient around some of the sites where
U.S. tactical nuclear weapons are likely based in Europe. Allies
apparently made security adjustments. Since then, protestors breached
security at Klein Brogel Airbase, where some of these weapons are
thought to be stored. To what extent should nuclear security and
terrorism be considered in a decision to remove or reduce the tactical
nukes?
Dr. Halperin. Concerns about nuclear security and terrorism as well
as the costs of guarding against them should be primary considerations
in deciding whether to remove the weapons. A successful penetration by
a protest group could generate strong public demands to remove the
weapons.
Ms. Sanchez. There have been some criticisms that the US decision
to retire the TLAM-N (Nuclear Tomahawk) prompted concern in Japan. Can
you shed more light on this and how would this inform the process and
consultations with our NATO allies and East Asian allies on extended
deterrence?
Dr. Halperin. I visited Japan both during and after the NPR. I am
very confident that the Japanese government and private analysts
understood the rationale for the USG decision to retire the TLAM-N and
that it did not prompt any concern in the context of exceptional
consultation between the two governments. The lesson is to fully
consult and to explain the options we are considering and listen
carefully to the responses of other governments.
Ms. Sanchez. What do you think should be the appropriate level of
our nuclear arsenal to meet our requirements for deterrence and nuclear
defense?
Mr. Miller. U.S. deterrence policy must be based on assessing the
goals and valued assets of our potential adversaries. We must threaten
to destroy, if attacked, the assets which a potential enemy leadership
would rely on to dominate a post-war world. In the case of
authoritarian states, this often includes military forces, the ability
to control their own country (thus including leadership, intelligence,
and internal security forces), and the industrial potential to sustain
war. This intellectual template must be fleshed out by continued and
focused intelligence and scholarship on the value structure of every
potential enemy leadership which would threaten nuclear attack or major
aggression against the United States or our allies.
Ms. Sanchez. How should the Executive Branch determine ``how much
is enough'' to deter a nuclear attack on the homeland or against our
allies, what are the assumptions upon which those judgments are made,
and how, if at all, should we adjust nuclear deterrence requirements to
reflect 21st century realities?
Mr. Miller. As noted above, we must determine ``how much is
enough'' by understanding what assets potential enemy leaderships value
and then holding those assets at risk. This construct is as true in the
21st century as it was in the 20th century, although the specific
assets to be held at risk may differ from historical models.
Ms. Sanchez. Have we ever had a fresh look that was not tied to
simply reducing the number of weapons from Cold War levels, but rather
based on what we really need to deter our adversaries?
Mr. Miller. The major review of U.S. nuclear war plans carried out
by the George H. W. Bush administration and the Nuclear Posture Review
conducted by the George W. Bush administration both focused on what was
needed to deter potential adversaries.
Ms. Sanchez. As we modernize the nuclear weapons complex and build
new billion dollar facilities for producing new plutonium pits and
uranium secondaries for nuclear weapons, should we be thinking about
how to incorporate verification capability in the event nuclear weapons
capabilities are ever subject to arms control agreements? Why/why not?
Mr. Miller. I am no longer sufficiently well versed in nuclear
weapons production techniques to be able to provide the sub-Committee
with a useful answer in this regard.
Ms. Sanchez. We learned earlier this year that Russia already has
met most of its arsenal reduction obligations under New START. The
State Dept. reported June 1 that Moscow was below the treaty's limits
of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed delivery vehicles
and close to the 800 limit on launchers. The United States does not
currently plan to reach these limits until 2018.
In addition, Russian nuclear policy expert Alexei Arbatov has
warned that Russian nuclear weapons might fall well below New START
levels in the next few years, potentially to 1100 or 1000 warheads, and
that Russia is designing a new heavy ICBM with MIRV capability to build
back up to New START levels. How would this affect strategic stability?
Mr. Miller. The Russian government is evidently content that
strategic stability is not endangered, from its standpoint, by having
reached the New START levels well before the United States. We should
not try to second-guess their judgment as regards the sufficiency of
Russian strategic nuclear force levels. From an American perspective, I
cannot believe Russia's having reached the New START levels before we
have poses any issue for strategic stability. I would, however, regard
Russian development and deployment of a new heavy ICBM as a
destabilizing act and I would urge the Russian government not to do so.
As for Mr. Arbatov's assertion, this could either be a ploy to frighten
American policy makers into further reductions they may not deem in
America's interest or another example of heavy-handed Russian bluster.
If it in fact turns out to be true that Russia builds a new heavy ICBM
it will tell us that Russia places little regard on U.S. views of
strategic stability.
Ms. Sanchez. How might US nuclear posture and signals affect this
decision? Would you agree that rather than induce Russia to build up,
it is in the security and financial interests of both countries to
pursue further, parallel reductions in their strategic nuclear forces
and to cut the size of their non-deployed reserve stockpiles?
Mr. Miller. No. I believe we need to continue to deploy whatever
sized nuclear deterrent meets US national security objectives as
described above in my answer to question 1. If the New START levels
exceed those U.S. requirements we should consider negotiations to
pursue additional reductions. If our requirements cannot be met below
New START levels we should not pursue further reductions as those would
endanger our national security. The Russian government is perfectly
capable of determining for itself whether its nation requirements are
met by the level of forces it currently fields. Strategic stability is
a far more important goal than lower numbers.
Ms. Sanchez. Last year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen.
James Cartwright has acknowledged, that the approximately 200 U.S.
tactical nuclear bombs stored in Europe do not serve a military
function not already addressed by other U.S. military assets. Do you
agree/disagree? Is there any contribution to nuclear deterrence that
could not be achieved by our strategic weapons?
Mr. Miller. I have enormous respect for my friend Jim Cartwright. I
believe he meant only to indicate that the military task assigned to
U.S. nuclear weapons based in NATO can be met by other U.S. systems. Of
course nuclear weapons are different from any other type of weapon and
have primarily a political role. The political roles of our NATO-based
weapons--reassurance of allies and deterrence of potential adversaries
from ``limited aggression'' against NATO--cannot be fulfilled by U.S.
strategic weapons. Those political roles--influenced deeply by the long
and unique history of NATO nuclear policy and politics--can only be
achieved through the continued deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons ion
NATO soil.
Ms. Sanchez. Under what likely scenarios would the US tactical
nuclear weapons in Europe be used, and in what situations would they be
preferable over other existing weapons, including conventional and
strategic nuclear weapons?
Mr. Miller. The assurance and deterrent values of our nuclear
weapons in Europe are used every day.
Ms. Sanchez. How relevant are the U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to
Russia's security calculations? To what extent might the Russians see
the presence of the tactical nuclear weapons in Europe as an excuse for
inaction on addressing their own tactical nuclear arsenal?
Mr. Miller. The obscenely bloated size of the Russian tactical
nuclear arsenal cannot be justified in the 21st century in any way. It
is risible to state or conclude that the small U.S. NATO-based nuclear
stockpile threatens Russian security in any way, much less that it is
an excuse for Russia to deploy today a tactical nuclear arsenal at
least 10 times the size of NATO's. The intent of Russian policy--which
seeks the total eviction of U.S. nuclear weapons from NATO soil--is to
undermine and destroy NATO allies confidence in the U.S. security
guarantee to the Alliance and to increase their own ability to
intimidate NATO members with the nuclear saber-rattling the Russian
government has repeatedly indulged in over the last several years.
Ms. Sanchez. In 2008, the Air Force conducted a Blue Ribbon Review
and found security to be insufficient around some of the sites where
U.S. tactical nuclear weapons are likely based in Europe. Allies
apparently made security adjustments. Since then, protestors breached
security at Klein Brogel Airbase, where some of these weapons are
thought to be stored. To what extent should nuclear security and
terrorism be considered in a decision to remove or reduce the tactical
nukes?
Mr. Miller. The 2008 Air Force study was intended to bolster the
view of those elements in the U.S. Air Force who sought the return of
all U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe. The subsequent 2008 Secretary of
Defense Task Force on DoD Nuclear Weapons Management (also known as
``the Schlesinger Task Force'') reviewed the security of U.S. nuclear
weapons in Europe from an objective perspective and concluded that
security at our nuclear sites in NATO Europe was adequate as of that
time but urged that improvements be made when and if required by new
threats. I believe the Air Force is taking those recommendations
seriously and acting on them.
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