Transcripts For CSPAN Fmr. 20240703

Atlantic council for a Panel Discussion on u. S. Nuclear strategy and the challenges posed by china and russia. Good afternoon and welcome to the Atlantic Council for todays event. Introducing the strategic investment Posture Commission report. Im Vice President at the Atlantic Council and senior president of the center for strategy and security. This event comes at a time of significant deterioration in the International Security environment. For decades, russia was the only nuclear peer competitor to the United States, but in recent years, china has launched a rapid and farreaching Nuclear Buildup and aims to have 1500 Nuclear Weapons by 2035. This means for the first time in its history, the United States will need to contend with two nuclear peer competitors at the same time. To address this unprecedented challenge, congress established the strategic Posture Commission in the 2022 National Defense authorization act. Congress charged the commission to conduct a review of the strategic posture of the United States, including a strategic threat assessment and detailed review of Nuclear Weapons policy, strategy, and structure and factors affecting the ability of nuclear peer competitors of the United States. Convenings like this are central to the Scowcroft Centers mission of developing sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world. The center also honest general but scowcrofts legacy of service. He chaired the president s commission on strategic forces, better known today as the scowcroft commission. In many ways, this report set the basis for the bipartisan consensus in strategic enforcement policy that continues today. The Scowcroft Center is proud to carry on this legacy. We were proud to host an official rollout of the Biden Administrations Nuclear Posture review in 2022. Our strategic forcess work is run through ideas, to promote enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. We will begin today with the commissioner panel. Im pleased to welcome the chair and vice chair of the commission and a fellow commissioner. I was honored to serve as commissioner, and i will also join this panel, which will be moderated by Michael Gordon, National Security correspondent with the wall street journal. Madalyn creedon was previously the Principal Deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration at the department of energy and assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs. Senator kyle represented arizona in the u. S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, and he served as on the Armed Services committee for many years and was an influential voice for Nuclear Modernization. Bob share served as assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities in the pentagon and is now head of International Affairs. We will then proceed to a second panel in which we seek reaction to the report from outside experts, including a senior fellow here at the Atlantic Council and the former Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for Nuclear Missile defense policy, Vice President of the Global Nuclear policy program at the Nuclear Threat initiative, and the Board Director here at the Atlantic Council and former undersecretary of defense for policy. This session will be monitored by the pentagon correspondent at the associated press. We are grateful and excited for you all to be with us here today. Both panels will include audience question and answer in which attendees in person and virtually will be able to participate. To submit a question, please go to askac. Org. This committee is public and on the record. Thank you for joining. I hope you enjoy the conversation and now i would like to turn over to Michael Gordon to moderate our first panel. Michael i think we have an important event here. This report done by the commission has already gotten a lot of attention in washington among people who follow these sorts of developments, but i think in the broader country at large, i am not sure Everybody Knows that much about it, really. They only testified to Congress Just this week, so this is an opportunity for me to ask some specific questions about the report but also for commissioners to introduce some of their important findings and explain the logic behind them. Im going to ask some questions, get a discussion going for about 40 minutes or so and then turn to the audience who are submitting questions and give them an opportunity to ask their own very specific questions, so they will have that chance. First up, we are all informal here. Madelyn, what is, do you think, the main message of the report . It is a very detailed report of well over 100 pages, but what is the main message . What do you think the American Public really needs to take away from this document at this particular point in time . Mr. Creedon thanks, michael, and i guess i should add that, yes, it is at long report and does have some 81 recommendations. The key is that over the last several years, we have evolved the threat has evolved to a condition where the u. S. Is not really prepared, and we had not planned for the situation we find ourselves in. The idea behind the report is that we need to get serious about this threat and we need to take actions now so that we can prepare and have the flexibility to be able to address the threat as it evolves over the next several years. Mr. Gordon even though we are in informal, i am going to address you as a senator as senator kyl because it is in my dna. The United States is not sufficiently prepared to deal with a situation which we will confront. We are headed in that direction. I think a lot of ordinary americans, normal people would say, what do you mean we are not prepared . We have 1550 new start accountable Strategic Nuclear warheads. We have a nuclear triad. We have all manner of forces that would seem to have some deterrence value. In what way are we not prepared for this new era . Mr. Kyl thank you. The simple way to approach the answer is we have prepared a force structure to deal with the one country we thought we might have to deal with with Nuclear Weapons. Thats russia. Two countries, russia and the United States, basically negotiated a force structure on each country based on how many weapons we thought we could deploy. Now we have another party entering the game, and china says it wants to be in parity with both russia and the United States, which means that no longer will there be only one country with the warheads that the russians have, but now there will be two, and it is troublesome because we know that russia and china desire to act in concert. They have acted in concert to some extent, and with respect to a potential confrontation with the United States, we cannot ignore the possibility that either those two countries acting together, planning to act together in concert, or if one starts something and we have to deal with it in one part of the world, the other could see it as an opportunity for that second country to get involved, in which case we would then be faced with the prospect of not having one war on our hands but potentially two, and we are not prepared to fight a twowar scenario simultaneously. Mr. Gordon i dont know which panelist wants to take this. One criticism that has been made or observation that has been made of this report by some in the armscontrol community is that it could further fuel the arms race if the u. S. Feels it imperative to build up above current levels. Surely the chinese and russians might add even further to their holdings. Is that a fair critique, and how can you reinforce deterrence without leading to an unending arms race . I think sullivan said last june the future Nuclear Force does need to be equivalent to the combined total of what russia and china has in order to add deterrence value. I think many if not all commissioners would agree with that, that this is not a simple additive problem. We have two threats, two arsenals we are looking out into the future, but that does not mean the answer is necessarily just doubling what we have now. In terms of the armscontrol piece, i think all of us spend a lot of time thinking about this as commissioners, but i think one of the important pieces is to look at we had a structure that has been fairly consistent for decades. We have a structure that we have said through treaty that we kept too and that our modernization program, in fact, was looking at a oneforone replacement. During that time, russia has looked to get new and novel and increase its strategically strategic Nuclear Posture and weapons. China has clear plans to increase and has increased. To some extent saying that we are fueling an arms race because we are looking at the new reality that is coming into the near future and think you must do more i think is missing the point that we were actually fairly consistent and concerned about that, maintaining the levels that we thought were appropriate, and the things we work trying to not spark in russia and china they are doing anyway. I would like to push back a little bit on that critique, which is is it fueling an arms race if it is happening without us doing anything and at this point it would be irresponsible for us to assume they will not continue on the path they have laid forth . Mr. Gordon i would like to ask about one particular formulation report going down the line. In the actual document, there is a carefully written sentence that says the u. S. Defense strategy requires a u. S. Nuclear force that is either larger in size, different in composition or both, and it says therefore decisions must be made now. The commission did not quite go so far to say we have to increase our forces, although all of the recommendations about having a plan larger b21 force power more Nuclear Submarines or more large Cruise Missiles seem to point in that direction. Can you explain that formulation to meet . Is the commission really saying we need to add more forces or is it stopping just short of that . Thanks very much. I will just quote directly from the report. One thing i would like to highlight is the strategy. For people who have not read the report, we do say that the United States needs a Defense Strategy that can deter and if necessary defeat russia and china simultaneously. Second, we say americas traditional nuclear strategy, the fundamentals are sound. We do not need a fundamental rethink but we need to adjust our posture to deal with this new twopeer reality. What we say is that the program of record that we planned in 2010 is necessary and should be pursued with urgency, but it is not sufficient. We need to do more. Some of the specific recommendations, we say prepared to upload some or all of the nations warheads, increase the plan number of deployed longrange standoff weapons, increase the planned number of b21 bombers and takers tankers, and plan to put the bomber fleet on alert. None of those things so we dont need an increase in the size of the arsenal immediately, but we do need to take steps now that would give us flexibility in the future, and i think that is where there is consensus on the commission, that if we dont take steps now, we will not have the option in the future. We also call for some things that are notable. We call for Additional Nuclear theater weapons in the inner pacific and in europe and also for the first time, we call for a homeland Missile Defense for russia and china to deter and defeat their socalled course of attack, so i do think there are notable changes from what we are thinking would be necessary when we plan the program back in 2010. It was very helpful for you to go down that list. Let me ask you about the specific recommendations. The recommendation that the u. S. Needs to have an air and Missile Defense against russia and china is a bit of a departure. The previous concept was we needed limited defense against socalled rogue states like north korea, that there was not any real utility in having Missile Defense against russia and china, that they could easily overwhelm it, but now you are saying we do need Something Like that. I noted in the recent China Military power report, they talk about a possible Chinese Program to develop an intercontinental range. What are the scenarios you are worried about, and how would an air Missile Defense protect against that . Who wants to take that . Mr. Creedon needless to say, amongst our many robust discussions, this is one of them. One of the things that is very important, and i dont want to leave the impression that we have changed the nature of the crownbased interceptors. Those are not what we are really talking about here. What we are talking about are looking at where there is key Critical Infrastructure, where there are key basis, those sorts of things, and to think about how we would protect those with integrated air and Missile Defense systems, those sorts of things, so that if russia or china were trying to keep us out of something, right . They want to do something over here, they want to keep the u. S. Outcome of that that coercive attack to keep us out to prevent us from doing anything would not be effective. In other words, we would have a deterrent capability, so we just want to take that off the table. That is part of what we were thinking. It is not as stark as reversing decades of Missile Defense policy with respect to defending against russia. If i could add one other thing, one of the reasons we were able to discuss this is because of the advances in technology from the time 20 or 30 years ago when we were first thinking about Missile Defenses, and it was such a daunting task because of what the offense from a then soviet union could throw at us, and it would be very costly. Now with the cost of boosting satellites much less than it ever was before, the commercial sector putting literally thousands of satellites into orbit, for example, we see opportunities for using all domains potentially, including the space domain, for developing a system which really could be effective, at least against a limited or coercive kind of attack. Therefore, we urge the Defense Department to do a full are dtf rdtf, not Just Research and development. I dont think we all need to respond to every question. I would just like to add on that certainly, this is one of the more meaty discussions that we had, but also looking at a couple of things i wanted to just add to, one is there are a lot of people who think Missile Defense is destabilizing and creates these problems. I guess i would argue, if you look around moscow, the air and Defense Missile protections around moscow have always been quite strong. Looking at us and figuring out if there are Critical Infrastructure pieces with you been looking to make sure to protect where you could not have a limited attack and then prompt a larger war or have limited attack and have your adversary think it is limited enough they wont have a fullscale war because of this, those are the kinds of things we are looking to do. The technology piece i think that senator kyl said is also critical. We are not saying what we have is exactly right for every defense purpose in the future. We are not looking at more. Theres a big problem with some parts of our Missile Defense where it is more expensive to have an interceptor than it is to have a missile. You dont want to be on the wrong side of that cost curve, so lets look at technology and other things out there to potentially help with this problem which is, in fact, only getting worse. Among the other recommendations, and it has been noted by the panel already, is that the u. S. Should have a theater, Nuclear Capability in the asiapacific. I would like to ask you to explain that a little more. In the Trump Administration and it called for aclaunched Cruise Missile Nuclear Capability, but it certainly was not treated as an urgent priority during the Trump Administration. My recollection is it was a good decade away before that kind of capability would have been fielded, and also in the Trump Administration National Defense strategy, it was even suggested that it could be traded away if the russians made certain concessions on the inf. Of course, that treaty is now gone. More recently, when general said there should at least be the possibility of a theater, just not necessarily a claunched Cruise Missile. Why do we need a Theater Nuclear system in the asiapacific at this time . And how could we achieve it, since the Biden Administration has said they dont want to do ac lunch Cruise Missile a claunched a sealaunch Cruise Missile . Mr. Kroenig flexible response has been part of u. S. Strategy for decades starting in the cold war. The reason is we dont want to put ourselves in a position where the options are suicide or surrender. We want options other than surrendering and launching a fullscale nuclear attack, so by having those other options, we can threaten to respond in a limited way of an adversary work to conduct a limited attack. The purpose is for the adversary to see that we have Response Options and be deterred in the first place. We have a lot of these theater Nuclear Weapons during the cold war. At the end of the cold war, we got rid of almost all of them, but russia and china have retained and are building more nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons. China has hundreds or thousands of short and intermediate, mediumrange nuclearcapable missiles. Russia has 2000 or so nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons. We know russia has this kind of scary the doctrine. We want to be able to deter that kind of attack against a nato ally. Same thing in the asia theater. China could have incentives to news toulouse china could have incentive to use nuclear coercion, and we want to have a response to that, so the commission calls for theater based on Nuclear Weapons in the in the pacific. We have a number of characteristics we think those capabilities should have low yield, survivability, etc. , but we dont pick winners and losers. There could be other answers to that. Mr. Gordon what might the other answers be . Mr. Kroenig if you go back to the cold war, we have a lot of different systems, so there could be a lot of different things. Some people have talked about having a ground launch capability now that the United States is out of the intermediate range nuclear enforcement treaty. That could be an option. Some might say some of the systems we have planned maybe bombers or Fighter Aircraft with gravity bombs or Cruise Missiles could maybe fit that description. Again, we dont want to pick winners and losers. We just want to describe the capabilities that we thought we needed for deterrence in those regions. Mr. Gordon an important feature of the report is it is not merely about Nuclear Weapons systems but strategic posture. It is about conventional capabilities as well. In that respect, the report is very critical of the pentagons one war framework, which has now been embraced in two National Defense strategies, one during the trumpet ministration in 2018 and one by the Biden Administration in 2022. There was a reason that they embraced it. They were well aware that things could happen simultaneously in different areas, but they just thought if you were really going to find a twowar strategy with all the logistics and the transport that would be involved, it would eat into the cutting edge capabilities that one really needs to stay ahead of our competitors. I would like to ask you, bob. You said a twowar strategy does not mean twice the spending. What does a twoconventionalwar capability really mean when you spell it out in terms of Program Spending capability . What does that really entail . Mr. Scher sure. One of my pet peeves as a defense planner, which before coming to the nuclear world, that was where i spent a lot of my time. I think it is important to be able to separate planning and what you do for planning and what you do for scenarios to develop a conventional force and Nuclear Force. You dont actually these are separate things, although they often are conflated. I lived through many of the 2 mrc strategy and 2 mtw strategy and if you dont know those acronyms, you dont need to care about it. They know theres major adversary is going on. They know we may have to fight that kind of war. What we are looking at is building the structure, what can you fund successfully . What do you need to do in terms of setting out conditions, and separately, we do a process in the pentagon that says, ok, how do you use these forces that we have . I think one of the things we talk about in the report is it is not just about conventional forces. It has never been. We have never planned just about conventional forces. Part of the point we try to make is if you are not willing to invest more, you are recognizing you have to have a greater alliance. In general, that is not something we want to do. We would like to lessen the importance of Nuclear Forces in our strategy. Its never going to get to zero in my opinion, but if you dont make the investment on the conventional side, then you necessarily have to look more to what you are doing on the nuclear side, and i think that is the message we were trying to send in that you cannot disentangle these two pieces, that you have to look at them together. It is a difficult challenge. It is a costly challenge. We have a very large defense budget. We have to make sure we do all this, but it has to be built against the threats we actually have, and that is why that threat section of the report is so important, to highlight that the threat is changing, not just on the conventional side but also on the nuclear side. Mr. Gordon in the past, Strategic Nuclear modernization and armscontrol have been linked. They certainly have been linked politically, and conceptually. You start with ratifying because there was an extensive Nuclear Modernization program, and i think the connection is important to maintain public support and support in the congress. The impression i have from this report, though, is that the details and recommendations, which are very interesting and usefully, very specific, are more extensive than the discussion of Diplomatic Options and armscontrol approaches that the u. S. Might take recognizing that the twoto your problem is a very complex one. The twotier problem is a very complex one. You have no discussions going on with russia at all and the chinese engaged in nuclear discussion. How might the u. S. Approach armscontrol as diplomacy to mitigate these threats, both to reduce the danger to the United States but also to reestablish that link that has been so important over the decades so that you can go to the congress and go to the American People and say, well, yes, we are modernizing our arsenal and enlarging it, if you follow your recommendation, but we are also dealing with the threats through diplomacy and armscontrol. How do these go together . What is your vision of armscontrol . Two way, threeway . Mr. Creedon i do want to point out in the report there is an entire chapter dedicated to diplomacy. Part of how you think about armscontrol in the future, you have to think a little more creatively than just a strategic arms treaty. We have to think about the broad range of things that actually reduce the risk. There is confidencebuilding measures, strategic talks. I would love to see if it were possible the military to military talks the way they were with russia years ago. Anything that has opportunity normbuilding we should really explore for all of this. One of the things that, again, we supported a lot is be ready for armscontrol. To be ready for verifiable, mutual agreement. Hopefully it will be a trilateral agreement, but do the research. Have the department of energy. Understand what it is they would need to have a triparty agreement and how it would be verified. How they would do the inspections. That would also help in terms of thinking about what you would want to do. Obviously it is a huge challenge because everybody wants to see numbers, and to be meaningful, it has to be triparty. It might work if you had multiple bilateral, but i think that would be terribly confusing. But we have to figure out how to do this. Maybe with the thinking we have put forth in this report about thinking about strategically, not just nuclear, maybe there will come a time i hope there will come a time when china is there. To the point when china is ready. China has not been ready to engage in serious armscontrol policy. Russia has suspended Nuclear Compliance with the new start treaty. There are questions about what happens when new start expires. In the report, speaking for myself, i think armscontrol agreements with russia and china would be terrific. It is just tough to imagine anything in the near term, so i think thats why the report took us on Risk Reduction measures, lunch notifications, other things like that to put predictability and stability into the relationship, even if what we thought of as the core of armscontrol for the past several decades numerical limits on numbers of warheads is difficult in the near future. We have, however, put forward one concrete idea for a new armscontrol arrangement. China has conducted this fractional orbital bombardment system. We see that as very destabilizing, so we argue that the United States should try to negotiate a dan a ban on this. Mr. Gordon what with the United States give china in return . Mr. Kroenig we agree not to develop a system of our own. Mr. Gordon i do think that in the armscontrol sphere, even though russia has suspended participation, it is important to note they are adhering to the limits of new start and have made that point publicly, that they continue adhering to the life of the treaty they are doing. Hightech notifications, and even though they recently rescinded ratification of the treaty, they do not appear at this point to be resuming moving toward nuclear testing. This questions about their compliance theres questions about their compliance, so they have not thrown the entire framework out the window at this point in time. Theres one question i think a lot of people have. The value of the report is it is so significant in terms of a lot of its recommendations across a whole number of areas than Nuclear Weapons infrastructure, plans to enlarge our strategic forces, specific recommendations on conventional forces. Theres how many recommendations . Mr. Creedon 81. Mr. Gordon 81, but a lot of them have to do with what we can do in terms of weapons structure and weapons and support infrastructure that supports them. A question that im sure you got a lot on the hill and from others is you have done a pretty good job of laying out the threat. You laid out a whole menu of ways to address the threat, but in an environment in which of constrained resources in which it appears unlikely that all of these things will be funded, what are the priorities here . Senator, what are the priorities . Which of the programs that should go first, and which are the programs that should be pursued if we be nice to have but less essential . How should we proceed . Mr. Kyl one point we have not made yet today is that our report is a consensus report. 12 people appointed by leadership of the congress on both sides of the aisle. This was, i think, a fairly remarkable proposition, and the directive we were given by congress was to answer a series of questions that they asked and to give our recommendations on what should be done. It did not include listing all the things in the order in which you think they should be done. Every obviously, that is congress prerogative, and that is what they are going to do. Our approach is you ask for what we think you ought to do. Here it is. I would argue there is nothing in what we recommended that we cannot [indiscernible] it is up to congress to decide what the number one priority of the United States is. Are your secretaries of defense and of the joint chiefs of staff have for the last couple of decades at least testified to congress that the number one priority for the defense of the country is the strategic deterrent, and the Nuclear Deterrent is the key component of that. We described that as the foundation for everything else. That is the number one priority. By definition, it tells you as a congress or administration, these other things these are the things that you need to fund first, and if you can do some other things, go ahead and do that. I would argue that is the number one principle, secondly understanding we are only spending about half as much as we did during the buildup of the 1980s, for example, on defense. We are just about 3 , barely, of our gross domestic product. Clearly, we cannot afford these things, so our thinking has to change from here is the top line, what can we cram in . Two how much do we need to deter war . The object is to prevent another war, particularly with enemies who have nuclear capabilities. Mr. Creedon can i add one thing to that . Mr. Kyl please. Mr. Creedon the report is over the longterm. It is not do everything in two years or five years or 10 years. A lot of the things we recommend because they just started, they are years down the road before you go beyond what is now there. The submarine, the same thing. It is of years before you will get that other one. This is the long game in terms of thinking about what are the requirements for deterrence. The executive branch, congress should take our report, look at the longterm, nearterm, midterm things we have recommended and think about how they start doing those things now. One of our biggest concerns was that in some number of years when assuming the threat continues on the same course it is there will have to be some serious decisions made. If we dont take steps now, then those decisions cannot be made because there will not be anything to decide. We just want to make sure that the planning has started, the research has started, the thinking has started, the funding has started so whoever is making those decisions can actually make a decision and not be foreclosed. We do not want a foreclose option that might not be needed in the future. Obviously, we would like russia and china to change their course, but we want to be prepared. Mr. Gordon i was remiss and i should have pointed out that time period you are addressing is 2027 to 2030 five. Mr. Creedon some of the things go beyond it. Esther gordon really, it is. A lot of it. Mr. Gordon really, it is. A lot of it. The Biden Administration is in the middle of its own nuclear guidance review. They must have hurt you out. What has been their response to these recommendations . What sort of feedback are you getting from them, and where do you think they are going in their own review . Mr. Creedon we have not heard from them, but also, we only rolled this report out last week. We just did the hearing before senate Armed Services committee after that. We did preview brief them, so they had an inkling of what was coming. But it is a long report, and, frankly, they need more time to digest it because we have a lot of tasking that we have laid at their door. Mr. Gordon if you were on the hill, senator, yesterday. What was the response . It was the senate . Mr. Kyl the senate Armed Services committee. Mr. Gordon what has been the response . Mr. Kyl the senate Armed Services committee was one of the committees that generated the requirement for our commission, so they were anxious to receive our recommendations. It was very well attended, and it was apparent to me that they have been very well staffed because they ask a lot of specific questions, many similar to what you have asked today, and i think they got right to the point. I think it was well received by the majority of the members there, and it is my perception that there is a possibility for a lotta bipartisan agreement, at least in the senate Armed Services committee. I think perhaps they are thinking if our commission of 12 very disparate people could render a consensus report with this degree of specificity in the amount of things we are talking about here, maybe we could get together and come up with a consensus one of our recommendations, by the way, was that congress and the administration ought to arrive at consensus on all these things and then take the case to the American People because they will need the support of the American People, particularly if we are going to spend more money on these things. There has not been a lot of that in the past. I was happy to see the president speak to the nation last night to try to justify some asks that he was making. That is important for the president to do. Congress needs to do that, too. Mr. Gordon while the administration has not blessed your report, it didnt enable it, right . Maybe you can explain the scope of the input you received and from what types of people and over what period. I think this report was about a year in the making. Mr. Kroenig we had our first meeting in the summer of 2022 and just finished the report, so more than a year. An enormous number of briefings around dod, the intelligence community, outside experts, the intelligence community. The administration was cooperative and wanted to make sure that we had the information we needed to carry out your mission. Mr. Creedon another very important aspect of this report, we had some really good conversations with different allies. Mr. Gordon at this point, i think im going to turn to some of the audience questions because im sure there will be a few and if there are not, i will throw in some of my own. Heres a question how much emphasis should command and control arrangements be given in terms of strengthening strategic posture . For example, we have seen russia and china develop weapons with hypersonic vehicles that pose potential problems for early warning. What recommendation does the report make, if any, for strengthening command and control dealing with the Nuclear Threat russia and china will pose in the future . Mr. Kyl one of the things we did, by the way, was to visit Strategic Command in nebraska. I went to an exercise to show how our command and control system really works. We also were briefed on the well, ill be careful here. There was a classified annex to our report, and there are discussions there that would also go to this question, but throughout the report where we talk about the modernization of our Nuclear Enterprise, we included that, all of the command and control elements that need to be modernized we include in that all of the command and control elements that need to be modernized. The plan will extend out another decade or so, which will bring all the elements of our Nuclear Enterprise and strategic posture up to date. That includes a lot of new command and control components. We also recommend that there be some strengthening of that for the new threat because of the entry of china into this construct and developments that the russians have developed. Because of the hypersonic weapons, for example, you end up with a situation where you have warning a potential attack. How do we deal with that in situations where command and control could be jeopardized at the very beginning of a conflict , how do we deal with that . Mr. Scher the question was about command and control, but part of the question was about early warning. We have a number of recommendations directed to improve our ability to see things like hypersonic and Cruise Missiles to give u. S. Leaders and military commanders better Situational Awareness of the different threats that they face. Mr. Creedon also important in this one is the idea of having resilience and redundancy so you are not always reliant on one Warning System or one command and control system. Obviously, we have that. Is it hard to go into a lot of detail because so much of it is classified, but the other piece is really looking at new technologies and how to get new technologies in to the Defense Department faster. Mr. Gordon another question. This is from kristen at the finish institute of International Affairs whose name i will murder if i pronounce it, but i will try anyway. [indiscernible] apologies for that. Can our panelists elaborate on what the Commission Hopes to see from the Nato Alliance and natos Nuclear Planning in terms of dealing with the twopeer threat environment and how they envision countering russias advantage in theater Nuclear Forces . Mr. Kyl a fairly High Percentage of us had the responsibility to oversee Nuclear Planning. The first thing is to emphasize the point that madelyn made, which is the importance of allies. We brought them in to hear them. We wanted to understand what they thought was important out of the u. S. Strategic posture, and that was something that is critical to us, and the report makes it clear the critical importance of allies. As you get toward the nuclear piece for nato, we have a strong and longstanding approach to how we plan to use Nuclear Weapons and the theater of Nuclear Weapons we have in nato, and there are some countries that are sort of frontline states when it comes to participating in the nuclear commission, and we have other countries in fact, all the other countries can have a role in this, and almost every country in nato is part of the Nuclear Planning group that looks at how we go forward and how you can Work Together to ensure that the Nuclear Pieces of the plan are integrated into a broader defense plan, and that is always the important piece. This is not just about nuclear. Youve got to be able to synchronize it with how you are thinking about the war and deterring the war in the first place. If there is a role for nato anywhere outside when it comes to this, i think that is a difficult question. The first thing i would say is lets make sure we get the nato piece right and see what we can do to increase the knowledge, the nuclear sort of understanding within the alliance that i think we would all agree has deteriorated since the end of the cold war. How do we build that back up and make sure the alliance as a whole old members, new members understand the role of Nuclear Weapons in deterring aggression and can be part of that as they see fit . Esther gordon heres an interesting and perceptive question, as one would expect from bob einhorn. The report says the twopeer problem can be addressed by judgments in the quantity of u. S. Nuclear forces, their position, or both. Thats the radiology i went out, which i assume was drafted to enable consensus. For those supporting adjusting composition, what adjustments would meet twopeer deterrence requirements . Ms. Creedon some of this gets into flexibility. Part of the tenant is flexible response, tailored deterrence, and to do this in a way that makes sense, we have to have an infrastructure in place, so we have to be able to use our infrastructure to produce whatever it is that we need. It may not be large numbers. It may just be different things, but we need this ability to be able to address whatever it is that comes our way in the future. If it is something that is a oneoff, if you will, that is fine, but we need more capabilities in this complex across the board, at dod, nsa, within the Industrial Base to be able to address this. That is a little bit on what we talk about how you shape the composition. Mr. Gordon tis not a direct answer. Is there a direct answer . What modification would you like to see . Or maybe none of this group here is an advocate of doing modifications without increasing, but what modifications might satisfy the requirements and might address the twopeer threat . First of all, i think every person here would address that in a different way. All of us, despite having an long history here, realize that all of us sitting around the table were not going to be able to answer specific questions in the future about exactly what we needed, the size, composition, deployment of Nuclear Weapons would be. The 12 of us around the table at some point in different times have done this and maybe think we could, but we also recognize that is not our job. That is the job of people in place, in strut, and elsewhere in stratcom and elsewhere. Our job is to say these are the things you need to look at. Our job is not to tell them a solution to something we saw in the future but simply to make sure people saw those same things, and as madelyn said, made decisions today that enabled decisions and choices to be made in the future. Ms. Creedon if you are looking for a hard answer mr. Gordon bob einhorn is looking for one. Ms. Creedon think about what specific capabilities you would want. Maybe a hard target is the answer. What are the hard targets you want to go after . What are the capabilities of a system and multiple systems . How do you think about the specific things you would want a capability for . Mr. Gordon tom countrymen has an armscontrol question that follows on a question i asked earlier. Seeking bans on technologies china is developing. Is there any possibility or appetite for negotiating bands and limitations on technology in which the u. S. Hypersonics [indiscernible] if we were trying to get them to ban something they see a value, what would we put on the table in return is the question. We spent a lot of time lamenting the fact that the opportunities for working with the chinese leadership or Chinese Military are virtually nil today and we dont see that changing in the future. We say that in the report. Under the current circumstances, particularly because of ukraine, russia seems very disinterested in talking to us as well. As a result of which, you have to go into this planning for the possibility that there will not be armscontrol elements that can be brought into the mix, and we say that in the report. I think the way we put it is we have to plan to be able to deter these two adversaries with or without armscontrol. As madelyn said earlier, that does not mean that all possibilities that does not mean all possibilities are foreclosed to reduce risk. There are a lot of ways to reduce risk, but interestingly, the chinese leadership does not appear interested in allowing their military to talk to our military, and i suspect i know why. The fact is we could probably make it away if our military talk to their military, and they both know what is at stake, and they might reach accommodations about how to reduce risks. There interested their leadership is not interested in accommodating that. We have got work to do now. One of the other things we say in the report is the first step is determining our deterrence requirements, and it is only once we have determined our deterrence requirements that we can decide where is the room, excess that we can try to weigh in armscontrol, and historically that is the way we have done it, and what we are doing this report is saying we are not where we need to be with our deterrence requirements. Where do we need to go to get there, and that is the first step, and once we have done that we can begin to design more creative armscontrol solutions. I think during the Clinton Administration the chinese did sign a cooperative treaty. There was a second signatory but the United States did not ratify. Hence your proposal. There have been in the past to engage the chinese. Here is a question. With regard to particular deployments in asia, how will we can our allies to for deploy these weapons . Well the political leaders like japan may welcome this, they already have issues when their citizens who are against increased conventional military infrastructure from both the u. S. And even their own militaries, so what is their sense particularly if you are talking about theater systems and if you are contemplating theater systems . How do you address this question . Ms. Creedon let me just point out one interesting tidbit here. And the obama npr, and i believe it was in the trump npr, there was a statement about exercising the ability to for deploy, and it was exercising the ability to use dual capable aircraft. We have not done that. We have never exercised that, so that is an option, so this is something that we can start gradually, exercise this, figure out what it would look like, and how it would be received by countries where we would have these exercises. So there are ways to do this and ways that have been supported over multiple administrations. Possibly in the context of the extended deterrence of reassurance. Lets be clear, we cannot do anything if the countries are not supportive of it. That is what you have these discussions, and these are just our recommendations about things to think about given the countries themselves are able to determine the threat level that they feel, and most importantly as we are talking to our allies together so together we can figure out the best way to deter and make them feel comfortable in the security environment in which they operate. Were not saying anything has to do that has to be mandated. That is the great thing about having allies. We were together and they tell us what they have to accept. In 2020 china initiated a clash with india and in 2020 invaded ukraine. One of these states might wannabe states might assess they have denuclearize. We discussed it, but one of the things that we focused a lot on in the context of our allies is we really talked a lot about the importance of extended deterrence and wide that is fundamentally important and why we supported, and we recognize that is not a concept that a lot of people understand or even that a lot of people on dell support, because it is often viewed is something we do for our allies, when in fact there is Mutual Benefit of all of this. So we did look at it, we talked about it in that context certainly. There is a section in the report on nonproliferation and we say the United States efforts to stop the spread of Nuclear Weapons around the world have been effective in slowing the spread and that the United States should continue to play that Important Role when it comes to nonproliferation, included with extended deterrence, dissuading our allies because they feel confident in relying on the Nuclear Weapon umbrella of the United States. Here is a question you can answer concisely. Where my Artificial Intelligence play a role in the updated u. S. Strategic posture . Everywhere. Everywhere. When we talk about emerging technology and how that is important for a variety of different ways, including for our own forces and making sure the United States maintains its traditional technological edge, but also how this could be potentially destabilizing with adversary capabilities that we need to be focused on, and the role that mental i mentioned earlier that he could play for armscontrol, using new technologies for verification and things like that. It is a Good Opportunity for us to talk about better integrating with civilian industry, and that in fact while it used to be the best advances were in the military sector and the commercial sector took that. That is not to say the Defense Sector does not take advantage of that, but lets figure out whether there are ways we can at the Cutting Edge Technology from the commercial side play a part in be better able to brought into the Defense Department and the department of energy and how could we better take advantage of that. And to understand where it fits and make sense and do not always be so afraid of it. I am down to the last 13 seconds. Does that mean we are out of questions and ready to move on to the next group . I am getting a nod. I would like to thank everyone for a difficult and collegiate discussion for perplexing issues, and this is the conclusion of this panel, but there is another very interesting one coming up shortly in just a few