Air Force Association Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Cyber Innovation Center, and Louisiana Tech Research Institute Symposium on “Second to None: Working Together to Modernize America’s Nuclear Deterrent,” with former Global Strike Commander General Frank Klotz

MR. PETER HUESSY: Good afternoon, everybody, I’m Peter Huessy. I am director of strategic deterrence studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, as part of the Air Force Association. On behalf of the Cyber Innovation Center and the Louisiana Tech Research Institute, I want to thank you for joining us on our nuclear symposium, the 20th in the series, entitled, “Second To None: Working Together to Modernize America’s Nuclear Deterrent.” We are honored today to have a colleague and dear friend of mine, General Frank Klotz, retired. He is an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation. He is the former commander of Air Force Global Strike Command here in Louisiana. He established and then led a brand new 23,000 people organization that merged responsibilities for all U.S. nuclear-capable bombers and land-based missiles under a single chain of command. From 2005 to 2007, General Klotz was the vice commander of Air Force Space Command. He was also the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and he headed the 20th United States Air Force. He also served as defense attache at the U.S. embassy in Moscow during a particularly eventful period in U.S.-Russian relations. He was director for nuclear policy and arms control on the National Security Council, represented the White House in the talks that led to the 2002 Moscow Treaty for new strategic nuclear weapons, and then he subsequently coordinated the executive branch negotiations with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that resulted with the treaty being approved 95 to zero by the full United States Senate. With that, General Klotz, I want to thank you on behalf of our sponsors and particularly myself. I want to thank you for joining us today to talk to us about the United States nuclear enterprise. Over to you, sir. GEN. FRANK KLOTZ: Thank you very much, Peter, for that very kind introduction. I am honored and delighted to have been invited to participate once again in a triad symposium and to join you and other friends and colleagues in this important discussion. Like many of you, I am of course very disappointed that we’re unable to meet in person this year. I was really looking forward to visiting the Shreveport-Bossier City area once again. I do take solace, however, in the fact that if all goes as planned we’ll have an opportunity to get together face-to-face in seminars and symposia hopefully by next summer. Before I actually start I wanted to give a shout out to you, Peter, for the magnificent work that you have done over many year, many decades in fact, in promoting an informed, civil and bipartisan discourse on the issues related to nuclear weapons and nuclear arms control policy. As some of you have heard me say before, when the Cold War ended it was as if we all heaved a sigh of collective relief and said, thank goodness we don’t have to worry about nukes anymore. During the long period that followed, a time in which our attention was diverted in other way more pressing national security challenges, you kept the flame alive. As a result, now that nuclear issues have once again returned to center stage, we are far better prepared to understand and to deal with them thanks to your hard work. Allow me to make a few introductory remarks, Peter, and then we can address any additional issues in the question and answer session that will follow. Since the 1960s the U.S. government has pursued two broad approaches to preventing nuclear aggression against the U.S. homeland, its military forces and its allies. The first and certainly the most visible, and the most expensive by the way, has been to maintain nuclear deterrent forces capable of surviving a first strike and mounting a response that would impose intolerable costs on the aggressor. To that end, completing the current programs of record to modernize all three legs of the triad, as well as the nation’s nuclear weapons enterprise – programs by the way begun in the Obama administration, continued through the Trump administration and supported by both sides of the aisle in both the House and the Senate – should in my view remain a priority in the Biden administration. While our existing nuclear forces and the nuclear weapons enterprise are still very capable, still very potent, they are aging. Based on my own recent first-hand observations, that aging process is actually accelerating in both the bomber and the ICBM force. There simply is no margin left in terms of the dates. These systems will no longer be sustainable and must be replaced if we are to retain a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent force, as we have for so many decades. The second, and perhaps less understood and less appreciated approach to preventing nuclear aggression, has been to negotiate arms control treaties that mutually limit the number, and in some cases the capabilities, of both U.S. and Russian nuclear forces. Since 1972 a total of six U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control agreements have actually entered into force. The fundamental U.S. objective in pursuing each of these agreements has been to enhance strategic stability, to bolster deterrence, and to avoid a costly arms race. The U.S. decision in 2019, last year, to formally withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the INF Treaty, in light of Russia’s failure to comply with its treaty obligations, means that only one bilateral nuclear arms control agreement currently addresses the nuclear arsenal of the United States and Russia. That agreement is the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, thankfully more commonly known as New START. New START places limits on the numbers of strategic nuclear delivery systems that the United States and Russia can possess and deploy, as well as the total number of warheads that they can mount on those systems. It also provides extensive measures to enhance the ability of each side to verify that the other is abiding by the terms of the treaty. It is also worth noting that the treaty does not impose any restrictions on modernizing ICBMs, SLBMs and nuclear-equipped heavy bombers, as long as the aggregate numbers are within the limits defined by the treaty. Additionally, New START affords both countries considerable latitude in determining the actually mix of delivery systems within their strategic arsenals, again as long as they stay within the treaty’s aggregate limits. New START, however, is set to expire on February 5, 2021, a few weeks away. If it does, the current caps on Russia’s long range nuclear forces and the associated transparency and verification measures, would no longer be in effect. The good news is that under the terms of the treaty New START can be extended for a total of up to five years. All that is required to do so is for both parties to make a decision that they want to extend the treaty. The president can make that decision on behalf of the United States. Senate ratification and Congressional action are not required. The Russian procedure for extension is a little more complicated, but I strongly suspect that whatever President Vladimir Putin decides will ultimately come to pass. Speaking of President Putin, starting in July 2018 he expressed Russia’s interest in extending New START on several occasions. The Russian government at first attached certain caveats to doing so, but by December of 2019, just a year ago, Putin and other Russian senior officials publicly stated that Russia was ready to immediately extend the treaty for five years without any preconditions. The Trump administration on the other hand, and in the meantime, repeatedly refused to articulate its position on extending New START, telling Congress and the American public that it was still examining the options. Finally, in April of this year, less than a year before New START is set to expire, President Trump appointed Marshal Billingsley as his special envoy for arms control. Billingsley and U.S. negotiators subsequently met with their Russian counterparts on at least three separate occasions, in both Vienna and Helsinki, for talks on a range of strategic security issues, including nuclear arms control and the extension of New START. Initially the U.S. position was that it would consider extending New START only if progress were being made towards a new trilateral arms control agreement, that is an agreement that included not only Russia but also China, an agreement that had strong verification measures, an agreement that covered all nuclear weapons, and as I indicated, involved China. Beijing, of course, publicly refused to countenance being drawn into any discussions with the United States and/or Russia related to Chinese nuclear forces. A month or so ago, press reports indicated that the United States and Russia were close to an agreement on the conditions for extending New START before the election, an agreement that would involve a short-term extension of New START, perhaps a year or so, and a mutual freeze on the number of U.S. and Russian warheads. That, obviously, did not happen. While it is theoretically possible that the Trump administration could still chose to pursue an extension before it leaves office on January 20th, it’s highly improbable that will happen with just five weeks left to go before the Biden administration takes over. On the other hand, the Biden team has made it very clear that it is committed to extending New START, which it describes as, and I’ll quote, “an anchor of strategic stability between the United States and Russia and a foundation for new arms control arrangements.” And there is also, in fact, a brief window of opportunity for an extension to happen after the inauguration and before the treaty expires on midnight of February 5, 2021 if Moscow is still prepared to do so. In this regard it is worth noting that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, made it clear in a webinar hosted by the Brookings Institution on December 2nd, that Russia’s offer to extend New START for five years, without preconditions, remains on the table. One way or the other, it appears that the extension of New START will be a significant issue over the next couple of months, so it is important for national security professionals to be able to articulate their views on the subject because you may well be asked for your opinion either officially or unofficially. There are a host of complex and interwoven political and diplomatic factors in play here, including our overall relationship with Russia, the views of our closest allies, the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and next year’s NPT Review Conference, and so on. But the audience for this symposium is primarily military or military related, so let me briefly focus upon the military case for extending the New START agreement. I will do that briefly so we can get to the question and answers that I know Peter has. As I mentioned at the outset, a total of six U.S.-Russian arms control agreements have actually entered into force. Significantly, for each of these agreements, U.S. military officers were actively involved in all negotiations leading up to the signing of each treaty. Moreover, once signed, senior military leaders strongly supported ratification and implementation of these nuclear arms control agreements. That certainly was the case with New START. In the midst of the Senate debate over the treaty’s ratification in 2010, then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates wrote in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, quote, “The New START Treaty has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership, to include the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of the service chiefs, and the commander of U.S. Strategic Command. The cynical among us might say, well, senior military leaders are going to hue closely to the administration’s official line when making public statements or testifying before Congress. But I can attest from direct personal knowledge, that the senior military commanders responsible for U.S. nuclear forces did in fact support New START, both in private as well as in their public remarks. More recent statements by military leaders indicate that support for New START has remained strong. For example, in March of 2017 the then-commander of U.S. Strategic Command, General John Hyten, stated in Congressional testimony that “bilateral, verifiable, arms control agreements are essential to our ability to provide an effective deterrent.” Two years later, in February of 2019, General Hyten reiterated that he was, and I quote, “a big supporter of the New START agreement.” So, it is worth asking, why have senior military leaders publicly endorsed New START? What benefits do they see in the treaty for the U.S. military? In short, what is the military case for extending the New START agreement? To start with, military commanders throughout history have always sought to gather as much information as possible about an adversary’s capabilities and intentions. It’s no surprise, then, that the benefit of New START most frequently cited by senior military leaders is the additional insight the treaty provides into the size, disposition and operations of Russia’s military forces beyond those provided by more traditional intelligence methods. Under the terms of the treaty, the United States and Russia are required to regularly disclose to each other the numbers, types and locations of their respective ICBMs, SLBMs and nuclear-equipped heavy bombers. Moreover, they must also officially notify each other whenever any one of these systems is moved, for example between a central depot and an operational base. As of this month, over 21,200 such notifications have been exchanged between the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers located in Washington and in Moscow since the treaty entered into force in 2011. The treaty also permits each side to conduct 18 intrusive onsite inspections every year to confirm the accuracy of this data. In the process, our inspectors also get a close up view of the other side’s strategic nuclear forces, facilities and people. As General Hyten explained early last year when he was still the U.S. STRATCOM commander, we have very good intelligence capabilities, but there is really nothing that can replace the eyes-on and hands-on ability to look at something. If New START were allowed to expire without replacement, these verification and transparency measures would cease immediately, as was the case when START I expired without replacement in December of 2009. A second major benefit of New START, cited by senior U.S. military leaders, is the important role that arms control agreements can and have played in constraining the numbers – and in certain cases the capabilities – of Russia’s nuclear forces. The nuclear arms race between the superpowers during the Cold War was fueled in part by a concern that the other side might achieve a technological breakthrough or build up its forces in such a way as to threaten the other side’s ability to retaliate in response to nuclear aggression, thereby undermining a fundamental prerequisite of a stable mutual deterrence. Arms control was viewed by many strategists at the time as a means to prevent either side from achieving an overwhelming first strike advantage by capping the overall number of deployed nuclear forces. Similarly, imposing constraints on Russia’s nuclear force posture had the added benefit of reducing uncertainty and enhancing predictability about Russia’s long-term capabilities and intentions. This understanding allowed the United States’ military to size and shape its own forces with greater confidence in the adequacy of its own investment plans, programs and budgets. During the 2010 debate over the ratification of New START, the then-commander of U.S. Strategic Command, General Kevin Chilton, warned that the less certainty that the U.S. had about Russian nuclear forces, the greater the chances that the U.S. would either under-develop or over-develop its own capabilities, possibly ending up with assets that the U.S. military really didn’t need. Importantly, the size and scope of the U.S. military’s current programs to modernize U.S. nuclear delivery systems were conceived with New START limits very much in mind. The Air Force and the Navy plan to replace existing U.S. nuclear delivery systems on a roughly one- for-one basis, and thus within New START’s limits on deployed ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. As one senior Pentagon official put it, the New START numbers are baked into the services modernization plans. If New START is allowed to lapse without replacement, or if it’s not extended, it would mean an end to legally binding constraints on the number of U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles and heavy bombers, as well as the number of warheads that can be loaded upon them, which would have implications for the adequacy of the current U.S. modernization programs as well as the resources being allocated to them. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that the United States or Russia would, if New START lapses without replacement, embark upon a significant buildup of long-range nuclear forces. Rather, each country might calculate that the currently existing and programmed forces are sufficient to provide nuclear deterrence and stability for both the near and the longer term. Likewise, they might prefer to allocate resources that would be used for a hypothetical nuclear buildup to improve conventional military capabilities and to explore the potential of emerging technologies. However, from the U.S. perspective, if Russia decided to expand its strategic nuclear force levels the U.S. would, in all likelihood, feel compelled to do likewise, regardless of whether or not it felt that there was a fundamental shift in the strategic nuclear balance taking place that would undermine mutual deterrence. Maintaining parity or rough equivalence in the number of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces has long been a fundamental objective of U.S. nuclear weapons and arms control policies. This is clearly an outcome the U.S. military would prefer to avoid. The current U.S. nuclear modernization programs are costly enough. There will be pressure on defense budgets in general, and perhaps the nuclear modernization programs in particular, as a result of the economic consequences of the pandemic. Increasing the number of U.S. nuclear delivery systems and warheads in a new nuclear arms competition or race would wreck havoc upon the overall Defense Department budget and other national security programs, as a recent Congressional Budget Office report spells out quite clearly. One final point, as I’ve run out of time. U.S. military leaders have expressed concern about the disparity in the number of U.S. and Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons, the Russian development of novel delivery systems, which have been publicly touted by President Putin, and the uncertainty surrounding China’s nuclear capabilities and intentions. They clearly believe that all of these issues will need to be addressed eventually in some form or fashion. That said, it’s my understanding that they also believe that there is merit in maintain the existing mutual constraints on the more traditional U.S. long-range delivery systems: ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers, systems which can directly threaten the homelands of the two countries, until these and other concerns can be dealt with. It is not, in their view, and all or nothing take it or leave it proposition. Given these considerations, the most prudent course of action from a military perspective, I conclude, would be for the United States to in fact ensure that New START is extended for the full five years before it is due to expire in February 2021. Doing so would ensure that Russia’s nuclear forces covered by the treaty are constrained for another five years. Additionally, U.S. military leaders would continue to have better insight into the disposition of those forces beyond those gained through more traditional intelligence collection and analysis. Finally, extending New START would also make time available to pursue a new set of negotiations that address the U.S. military’s other concerns with Russia’s nuclear systems, as well as China’s nuclear capabilities and intentions. I certainly hope and expect that the Biden administration will be successful in extending New START before it expires. It is clearly within our national security interest to do so. Finally, if you’d like to delve deeper into this topic, my report entitled “The Military Case for Extending the New START Agreement,” published earlier this year by the RAND Corporation, is still available on RAND’s publication web site, and best of all, it’s free of charge. With that, Peter, over to you. MR. HUESSY: Thank you, Frank, very much for those insightful remarks. I have a number of questions. The first one is, you’re quite familiar with the 2010 and 2018 Nuclear Posture Reviews by the past two administrations. What would you say are the significant areas of consensus in those two documents, albeit they were written by two different administrations that at first brush you would think it would have marked differences on nuclear forces? John Harvey was on earlier today and laid out that they were really quite similar. So, what do you think in the two documents are the significant similarities and consensus which we can then push forward into the future? GEN. KLOTZ: John Harvey is a very bright and insightful guy, and he is absolutely right. As I look at the two Nuclear Posture Reviews, 2010 and 2018, they are very similar in terms of their content. They talk about the importance of nuclear deterrence, it being one of the primary missions of U.S. military and U.S. national security. They talk about the importance of a survivable and effective triad of forces. They talk about the need for dual-capable aircraft. They stress the need for modernization. There is a difference in tone and tenor. The 2010 version focused I think perhaps more on reducing the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy as one of its stated objectives. It had a rather lengthy discussion of the potential of arms control and nonproliferation programs and working together with allies to enhance nuclear security across the globe. Those items were clearly reflected in the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, but not with the same emphasis or length. So, there are some differences there. Another difference is that obviously the Trump administration’s NPR called for certain capabilities to augment the existing triad of strategic nuclear forces with the development of a low yield warhead for the sea-launched ballistic missile and a study of the feasibility of returning to having a sea-launched ballistic missile, among other things. So, there were some differences in terms of specific programs. But again, the broad themes, the importance of deterrence, how you achieve deterrence, and the need for modernization, were very, very similar across both documents. MR. HUESSY: Let me turn to another issue having to do with the treaty, and that is a number of colleagues of ours have said that their concerned that the total number of warheads the Russians could deploy on their existing allowed SNDVs, or strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, is quite significant. Jim Howe, Mark Schneider and others have put that number in excess of about 4,200. Is there a way of designing a future arms agreement where a hedge is allowed? We’ve always talked about in case the other guy doesn’t agree to the treaty we have to have the ability to build up, but instead of just allowing – what you allow is a hedge but not a huge breakout. What’s your sense of whether that’s viable? GEN. KLOTZ: Clearly, that is, as I have expressed in that RAND report that I referenced earlier, that’s one of my concerns, that if New START lapses and there is no replacement put in place, then the Russians – right now they are constrained by the number of warheads that they can load on their existing delivery systems. We exchange information and we carry out onsite inspections to ensure that they have not exceeded the caps. Perhaps maybe I should back up and, for our audience, and say what those caps are. Under the New START Treaty both sides are allowed to have 800 long-range delivery systems, that’s ICBMs, SLBMs and nuclear-equipped heavy bombers. Of that 800 only 700 can actually be deployed. On those 700, there can only be 1,550 warheads loaded on them, with the caveat that a heavy bomber only counts as one warhead regardless of how many weapons might be loaded on them or could be loaded on them. So, there is a legally binding constraint ceiling cap on the U.S. and Russian ability to load warheads on their missiles. Now clearly, it’s public knowledge, it has been publicly stated by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, that the Russians build bigger missiles than typically we do. They have the capacity to load more warheads on them than they are currently allowed to do by treaty, as we have the capacity to load more warheads on our systems than we do by treaty. So, if the treaty limits are lifted then there’s nothing to prevent the Russians – or no legal document – to prevent the Russians from doing that, or for that matter to prevent us from doing that. I think that’s the benefit of the treaty, that it constrains both sides from building up the number of warheads that their missiles are technically capable of carrying. To me, that’s one of the key reasons why we ought to extend this treaty and come up with a successor treaty or set of agreements that will impose the same kind of restraints on both sides. MR. HUESSY: Let me follow up. You’ve been head of 20th Air Force. You have been head of Global Strike Command. In both of those jobs you were intimately involved in both sustaining Minuteman and developing eventually the GBSD. What is your sense of the value of ICBMs? In particular, would you address the criticism we hear from such esteemed people as former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, that have called for the elimination of the entire land-based leg of the triad? It is a point even echoed by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, but with a recent caveat where he said we can extend the life of Minuteman by another 30 years. I’d like you, to the extent you can, to address the value of the ICBM leg of the triad and the consequences if we got rid of it. Can we do kind of the cheaper alternative which is to just extend what we have?

GEN. KLOTZ: Let me say bottom line, right up front, I am, no surprise, a great proponent of the ICBM as an essential leg of our nation’s strategic nuclear triad. I think it is absolutely essential that we get on with the task of modernizing the ICBM. We’ve already gone through a series of significant upgrades and refurbishment of the ICBM system. While I was still very much on active duty we essentially replaced the propellant in all three stages of the missile. We’ve updated the guidance system. We’ve fixed issues with the propulsion system rocket engine. We have updated the command and control consoles in the launch control centers. We have done quite a bit to that. The question, and it’s something that is often overlooked, is when you think about the ICBM system and the ICBM business, it’s not just the missiles and the launch control centers. There is a lot of handling equipment, diagnostic gear, test sets, that our maintainers use on a regular and recurring basis to ensure that we can keep these missiles fully functional, operationally effective and on alert. That equipment is also getting very long in the tooth. It has gotten to the point where many times our maintenance people will take out two, sometimes three, pieces of a particular equipment to make sure that when they get out to the field at least one of them works. So, the system is long in the tooth and long overdue. A good metaphor, perhaps – all metaphors have flaws – but a good metaphor may be if you own a car that is getting on in years you eventually get to a point where the costs of repairing that old car begin to approach the costs of buying a new car and operating that car over a period of time. I’m convinced from the work the Air Force did before it formally went ahead with the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent system, the GBSD, the cost tradeoffs in terms of trying to extend the life of Minuteman III one more time, even if that was technically feasible, and the cost of investing in a new system -- and oh by the way, being able to take advantage of the capabilities the new system would give you from an operational perspective and the potential a new system would give you in terms of reducing the labor intensive nature of maintenance that’s currently involved with the Minuteman III, and thereby reducing costs in terms of manpower over the longer term -- made the economic argument that we should proceed with the replacement of the system. By the way, I think there is enough support within the Congress on both sides of the aisle for continuing with the modernization program as laid out in the Obama administration and continued through the Trump administration, and as I said, voted on many times by members in both houses on both sides of the aisle. I actually am fairly optimistic that that logic will prevail. MR. HUESSY: Thank you, Frank. You are right. There was an amendment in the House Armed Services Committee in May in which there was a proposal to delay GBSD and re-study the whole issue again, which was a proxy for basically shelving things for a year. The vote was 14 in favor and 43 against, and that was in the House Armed Services Committee. So, it was a three-to-one vote.

GEN. KLOTZ: And there’s peril in delaying systems for any reason. Stretching out a program, delaying a program, either through a conscious, deliberate delay or inadequate resourcing of that program, drives up costs. It has been proven time and time again over the decades. The empirical evidence is there. You draw out a program, you drive up the cost. There’s no doubt about it, the modernization of all three legs of the triad, plus let’s not forget the nuclear weapons enterprise that supports that, that falls under the purview of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, is long overdue. We took about a two-decade holiday from worrying about these things because, quite frankly, we thought, as I indicated at the outset, perhaps the nuclear competition was over. Besides, our time, attention and energy were rightly drawn to the conduct of military operations in Southwest Asia and in fighting terrorism. But, we took at least a 20 year holiday. So, the bill is coming due. We might as well get on with it. By the way, if we want to negotiate with the Russians or with the Chinese, who are in the midst of a nuclear modernization programs of their own – the Russians, it has been said, are maybe 75 percent complete with the modernization of their triad. It’s pretty tough to come to the negotiating table unless you have something that indicates that you’re very serious about maintaining your own capabilities and that you have things to negotiate over. MR. HUESSY: I want to ask you one last question. You took on the job as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and things were not well. You turned a lot around. I think that has also been continued with the administrator that just recently left us. What are the two or three things you would lay on the table as the most important that Congress and the administration get right with respect to NNSA as we look into the next FYDP or particularly the next year?

GEN. KLOTZ: Let me tell you first the things that I think were most important in terms of making the NNSA more effective in carrying out its mission. The first was to instill in the organization discipline in terms of how it did its planning, programming and budgeting. When I arrived a lot of that work was being done by the separate mission functions within NNSA, and then at the end of the day it was all sort of kluged together in a single plan, program and budget. We tried to adopt things that we had learned from time spent in the Pentagon. We brought over a number of people from the DOD, from the Navy, from the Air Force, to help us out in this regard to instill rigor and discipline into how we built our programs. The second thing we did is we really put a great deal of emphasis on hiring very capable experienced program managers for large projects, and then giving them a lot of authority to carry out those projects, whether it was a life extension program or the construction of a multi- billion dollar nuclear facility. The third thing we did is we tried very, very hard to build a strong relationship with our counterparts over in the Department of Defense. I think that, by and large, was very, very successful. Now, we had an advantage in terms of doing that because both myself and Madelyn Creedon had come from the Pentagon and knew that world well. Also, a number of the people, as I indicated, that we hired into senior positions at NNSA had ties to the Pentagon, so that helped. That’s very, very important to carry that out, on a mutual, respectful, reciprocal basis, I might add. The NNSA is not a vendor. The NNSA is not a contractor. The NNSA is a civilian agency outside the Department of Defense that is carrying out a 70-year old tradition of civilian control over atomic energy, and I doubt very seriously that that is going to change any time in the near future. My advice to Congress is, continue to fund the programs that are essential to modernize our nuclear weapons enterprise. Some of the buildings that we have out there as part of the national laboratories and NNSA’s production facilities, are 60, 70 years old. There are actually still buildings out there in the complex that were built during the Manhattan Project in the Second World War. MR. HUESSY: True. GEN. KLOTZ: So, we need to continue to fund to do that. The other thing I would do is stop studying where NNSA should be set within the government. It is a separately organized semi-autonomous organization within the Department of Energy. There are arguments that can be made to put it in DOD, to fully roll it back into DOE, to leave it where it is, to make it a separate independent agency. Just stop it and let the great women and men of that enterprise do their job, rather than spending an inordinate amount of time responding to this commission or that commission or this Congressional report or that Congressional report about how they should be organized. When you spend most of your time trying to figure out how you’re organized, rather than doing the mission, you’re shortchanging the mission.

MR. HUESSY: With that, Frank, I want to thank you on behalf of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, the Cyber Innovation Center and Louisiana Tech Research Institute and our friends and colleagues at Global Strike Command. General Ray is going to participate on the 10th of December at this event. I want to thank you on behalf of all of us for your wonderful remarks, your support for these efforts over the years, and continued good luck to you in everything you do. You are a friend and a colleague that I’ve know now for, I think decades. GEN. KLOTZ: I think so. MR. HUESSY: I want to thank you for your help and support. Thank you for your remarks today.

GEN. KLOTZ: Thank you, Peter. It has been a pleasure.