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Outside Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence Policy and Posture Update

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i [H.A.S.C. No. 116–9] OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON NUCLEAR DETERRENCE POLICY AND POSTURE UPDATE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD MARCH 6, 2019 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 36–235 WASHINGTON : 2019 COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman SUSAN A. DAVIS, California WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island JOE WILSON, South Carolina RICK LARSEN, Washington ROB BISHOP, Utah JIM COOPER, Tennessee MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JOHN GARAMENDI, California K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JACKIE SPEIER, California DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts MO BROOKS, Alabama SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California PAUL COOK, California ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland, Vice BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama Chair SAM GRAVES, Missouri RO KHANNA, California ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee FILEMON VELA, Texas RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana ANDY KIM, New Jersey TRENT KELLY, Mississippi KENDRA S. HORN, Oklahoma MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, Jr., California MATT GAETZ, Florida CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania DON BACON, Nebraska JASON CROW, Colorado JIM BANKS, Indiana XOCHITL TORRES SMALL, New Mexico LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey JACK BERGMAN, Michigan KATIE HILL, California MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas DEBRA A. HAALAND, New Mexico JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia PAUL ARCANGELI, Staff Director LEONOR TOMERO, Counsel SARAH MINEIRO, Professional Staff Member JUSTIN LYNCH, Clerk (II) C O N T E N T S Page STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services ................................................................................................ 1 Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services ............................................................ 4 WITNESSES Blair, Bruce G., Research Scholar, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University ............................................................................................ 7 Miller, Hon. Franklin C., Principal, The Scowcroft Group ................................... 9 Rohlfing, Joan, President and Chief Operating Officer, Nuclear Threat Initia- tive ......................................................................................................................... 5 APPENDIX PREPARED STATEMENTS: Blair, Bruce G. .................................................................................................. 69 Miller, Hon. Franklin C. .................................................................................. 87 Rohlfing, Joan ................................................................................................... 57 DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: [There were no Documents submitted.] WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: Mrs. Davis ......................................................................................................... 113 Mr. Kim ............................................................................................................. 113 (III) OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON NUCLEAR DETERRENCE POLICY AND POSTURE UPDATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 6, 2019. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman of the committee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTA- TIVE FROM WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and I want to welcome our witnesses, members of the audience, members of the committee. We are here today to discuss the Nuclear Posture Review and nuclear policy going forward, in terms of our nuclear weapons. Before we get to that, a couple of housekeeping issues. For the hearing today, as I understand it, the witnesses don’t have a hard stop. I do at 12:30. If there are still members around that want to ask questions at that point, I will have somebody else on the Democratic side take the chair to get through those ques- tions, and we will go from there. We will stop at 12:30. And tomorrow, when we have our first posture hearing, we are going to, for questioning purposes—and you should have gotten no- tice on this—go from the bottom up. So we will start with Mrs. Luria and work our way up for questioning. So just in terms of your planning tomorrow, we are going to try and do it—no, we are actually going to succeed, we are going to do it that way—have the more junior members get to go first, because we have so many members of committee, frequently we have hearings and they don’t get an opportunity to ask their questions. With that, we will start this hearing. I want to start by wel- coming our witnesses: Ms. Joan Rohlfing, president and COO [chief operating officer] of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; Dr. Bruce Blair, who is research scholar, program on science and global security at Princeton University; and the Honorable Franklin C. Miller, prin- cipal at The Scowcroft Group. I think this is an incredibly important topic to discuss. Two things I want to make clear at the start. I completely support a strong and robust nuclear deterrent. We need nuclear weapons in the world that we live in today in order to deter our adversaries and meet our national security objectives as a country. Personally, I don’t think that is debatable. We have, certainly, Russia, with their nuclear weapons; China, as well; rising threats from North Korea and Iran. And the best and most straightforward (1) 2 way to deter people from using nuclear weapons is if you are in a position to assure that they will be destroyed if they do. So having a nuclear deterrent is incredibly important. Second, our nuclear weapons have been around for a long time, and I have no question that we need to update and upgrade those weapons, look at what is working, what isn’t working. We need to recapitalize our nuclear structure. What I question is whether or not we need to do it to the tune of more than $1.2 trillion, as both the 2010 and the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review has called into question. And this hearing, I hope, will help us answer that question. Do we have to have absolutely everything that we have had be- fore, plus some of the weapons systems that the Trump administra- tion is now talking about adding, including a new, long-range stand-off missile, which was requested before the Trump adminis- tration, and a new low-yield nuclear weapon, launchable from our submarines, which is new to the Trump administration? The Congressional Budget Office just recently went through and analyzed all that is in the Nuclear Posture Review, and gave some options, in terms of we could not do that and here is how much money we would save. And I think those are questions that need to be asked, for several reasons. First of all, we have a $22 trillion debt that is going up by about $1 trillion. In fact, it increased dramatically in the first quarter of this year over the first quarter of last year. We also have a large number of needs within the national secu- rity environment. Forget for the moment everything else that the Federal Government does. Just within national security we have had a number of studies that have come out. We have heard the Secretary of the Air Force say that she needs 25 percent more air- craft for the Air Force. We just had a review of our missile defense program, which also said we need a dramatic increase. The Navy still says they need a 355-ship Navy, which is significantly more than we have now. The Army would like to build towards an end strength that is substantially larger than it is right now. And the question I have is—well, not the question. The state- ment is, that math doesn’t work. We are not going to have enough money to do all of that. So what we have to, at least in part, think about is what can we not do. Where can we save money? And within the nuclear weapons area, I believe that a credible deterrent can be presented for less than is called for in the Nuclear Posture Review. Now, I understand that a bipartisan group of peo- ple disagree with me on that. But a bipartisan group of people to some degree agree with me. So we are here to have that discussion and that debate. So number one is, you know, can we save money in here and still meet our national security objectives, still deter our adversaries? Because if we can, it is something we should talk about. And these are things that many people have contemplated. Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, you know, when asked about whether or not the triad was necessary, said he wasn’t sure, and talked about, well, if we had a dyad and didn’t have the ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles], then we would have a much smaller risk of mis- calculation, based on a false alarm. 3 You know, very, very hawkish people have contemplated the no- tion that we don’t need as many nuclear weapons as are con- templated in
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