[inaudible conversations] thank you very much for joining us for the second part of our interesting discussion on the commissions findings on strategic posture. Our first Panel Focused on what was at the heart of the report. Our second panel will focus on what they think about it in discussion with leading scholars on strategic posture and nonproliferation. Directly to my left, to reintroduce because it has been an hour, a senior fellow at forward Defense Center for strategy and security at the Atlantic Council. Is also former assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and Missile Defense policy. We have the honorable walt slocum, Board Director at the Atlantic Council and former undersecretary for policy at the department of defense and lynn rustin, the Vice President for Global Nuclear policy program at the Nuclear Threat initiative. Thank you for being with us today to share your own thoughts. I would like to kick it off with a very broad question. We just heard about the findings and recommendations to build up but i want to ask you, when you read through it, did the commission make its mark and come up with a solid path forward and what recommendations did you not see that you would have liked to see . Yes. I think that they didnt go in there. In that sense. You have to understand why the commission was created to begin with. When congress creates a commission that means theres an issue so politically divisive that they cant resolve it through the normal Committee Process and Nuclear Weapons was one of those. The Previous Commission chaired by bill kerry and james and or injure congress was arguing over whether to build a reliable warhead, robust nuclear pantry, these were nuclear systems, really divisive debates, they appointed a commission in the commission didnt solve those two issues but many of their ideas got worked into the Obama Nuclear posture in moderating that particular review. Likewise, whats going on here, theres a consensus, has been a consensus to continue to modernize Nuclear Forces and the system we are looking to modernize now began in the Obama Administration and reaffirmed under trump and reaffirmed under biden but is that enough . Is it enough . This particular Posture Commission found the program of record is sufficient but not enough. We need to do more in the question, how much more . And now we are going to argue over how much more and the administration has done a great job identifying the problem, the need to deter limited Nuclear Attacks as well as largescale Nuclear Attacks but havent taken the next step to determine what changes need to be done and whether its because they ran out of time or not engaged in more pressing issues. This will spur them into action, they have to react. If they dont, they risk now Million National concerns if they dont take action against the chinese threat, we have an election coming up in 2,024, right . I can guarantee you the republicans will see it as an opportunity to engage with the Biden Administration whether they are doing enough to make deterrence challenges. I respect the commission because the difficulty of getting people, if you know the people involved, they are doing a lot of things. They were able to writing meaningful report covering what they could agree about and in many cases formulations that dealt with alternative views. I have serious criticism. I think the first is cost. I know the argument it is all in the future, we have to anticipate these things in the future. It is a formidable list of things which includes rather quietly conventional defense that is adequate for both theaters and the report was published if someone had been doing a report like this on how to deal with the conventional threat in the future before 10 days ago would have said we will be cutting way back and save a lot of money that way. In order to make meaningful judgments you have to have some kind of sense of what the Research Requirements are going to be and for those who are not in favor of doing or doing very much there will be people who are in favor of doing it by raising taxes and people in favor of doing it by cutting other parts of the federal budget and probably at least in theory people in favor of doing it by increasing the total amount of gdp that goes through the government. Im not saying it is unaffordable. Senator kyl is right. We can afford what we need to do. Its a question of the other things we need to do that might be affected by this decision. Second, i think the problem, what we do in terms of the chinese build up, we are focusing on the wrong part of the chinese build up if we focus primarily on additional icbms. The chinese capability in the theater which some commissioners mentioned is more serious problem. I think the argument of a lot more systems or targets issue into the fallacy which says you define the size of the Nuclear Force, the number of things you could hit if you wanted to. Prolonged time, that drove our planning, wasnt supposed to. We didnt admit it but it drove the planning for nuclear deterrence. Personally, i would think it is more important for the 3 Party Problem to emphasize survivability, survivable force that cannot be preempted and has the capacity for a all practical purposes destroy the other side. Thats mutually assured destruction. It is not how we plan the force, not how we shape the force but it is hard to get away from the proposition the biggest deterrent to nuclear war is uncertainty in everybodys mind about what would happen. It is all very well to have a limited attack and people but understand the fact that we went over rather than somewhere else. Is very significant. That depends on call judgment being made. I think the serious question is how do you develop a strategy and a doctrine which deals not with the ultimate attack against everything or the essentially demonstrative attack is hard but not as hard as the Commission Refers to as coercive so that, i think, is the problem. Also, Michael Quinlan who in my opinion was probably the wisest man ever to write on these issues said the problem of deterring nuclear war is conferring conventional war. It is for all practical purposes impossible to imagine a scenario in which any country would use Nuclear Weapons except are rising out of a conventional war or fear of a conventional war. That goes to the cost question. It is easy to say we should have a conventional defense and have a credible conventional deterrent you need a reasonably credible conventional defense. Thats a problem. Im not saying the commission didnt address it but it is somewhat harder problem and it addresses the cost. I have some other comments too. Thats going on too long. I want to express my deep respect for the commissioners. All of them i have known and worked with and had tremendous experience and deep commitment to our country. There are things i agreed with and a lot of things i had questions and concerns about. They got the threat assessment right and that is very important. I want to take a minute to say it was really impressive and important to have this Bipartisan Commission focused on how important it is to have us Global Leadership and work closely with our allies and partners, really important principles at a time when there are some in our leadership who are questioning that and in a more isolationist sense. Thats really important and they emphasize that in the event that i went to. It was a consensus report. It clearly papered over some significant different perspectives. I think one of my most important points, this is not the answer to the difficult question of how to respond over the longterm to the threat that has been described so well in the report, it is one input and one input heavily weighted toward the military aspect of a toolkit. In some ways it is like a worstcase defense planning document which says if the threat environment continues on the trajectory it is now, these are the things we need to think about. You can take issue with that but what it doesnt do because it wasnt from the congressional legislation, if it doesnt take back or stand back from the wider lens, what are the things we can do diplomatically through arms control, through lots of tools to actually, through our own actions including selfrestraint in some areas to discourage or insure or incentivize russia and china to not go down the worst case. I have lots of questions. I will save them. I will ask about this. Lets start with the numbers. We have for generations now thought of mutually assured destruction and deterrence as a numbers game. If we need to have so many, what struck me is that shifting away from that thinking, how can we start to plan in a way that china, where we have to have x. All due respect, you have misstated the significance of assured destruction. The term has become loaded. Another Michael Quinlan point, Nuclear Weapons, the cost of a war can be entirely independent of who, quote, won the war. The significance of the incredible power of Nuclear Weapons is used in theory and a particular way they would lead the initiator, the victor, vastly worse off than if they had not proceeded. As i said, that is a physical fact. People talk about we accepted assured destruction. We didnt accept it, we recognized it is a fact, like the law of gravity complicates airplane design. That is the kind of ultimate foundation of deterrence because the possibility that is where you will end up is the biggest restraint on starting. The serious problem on the numbers, in my mind the chinese build up is very unfortunate though from the point of view of china, the chinese will promptly say this, why are americans and perhaps russians, 1500 under arms control agreement, its not 1500 and reality. It is a lot more if you account for uploads, why are they pretending to be so nervous about us having a force that may be 25 . I think more numbers are important because it is important to show we are responding useful ways. I think the problem is less what we do and how we think about deterrence strategy, but not just simple numbers that go up on a blackboard. You asked numbers. That is the way people in washington think about this problem. What if it suggests to you the actual numbers that need to increase are modest and can be accomplished in an arms control framework. I will throw this out. The argument that we need to add up the number of chinese targets, the number of russian targets and match the combined route, nobody i know who has been involved in this business and the government is suggesting that. It is a smaller number. The treaty that existed prior to that is the moscow treaty and lets say we go from 15522200. Can we accomplish our targeting objectives by going after 2200 . Maybe that is possible. What if we agree with russia to go back to that level . We solved the china problem. What it seems is we need at least 1500. Anything beneath that is insufficient, you need more. When the senate did advice and consent, this is ground that has been plowed before. Thats a nonstarter. The question is everybody agrees more but not everybody. Not just of this commission but the center for Global Security research, csis, steady bipartisan groups all found some more is needed but we are not talking about an address, we can solve this without an arms risk about what we need, the administration to put together a package to explain to us how they would meet the requirements of the commissioner in a manner that does not do that. I think that can be done. A couple things. I did not find the report compelling is that we need necessarily more or different Nuclear Forces at this time. The report is ambiguous, actually silent on the assumptions. You have to make some assumptions about russia and china and the number one assumption thats not hardly discussed is what will russia be doing with arms control. And conversely an interest in constraining russia at what level. Than the question of whether we need additional capability to deal with china and when because right now china is assessed to have 500 Nuclear Weapons compared to 4000 below or above for russia and the United States. This is something that is happening down the road more quickly than anticipated a couple years ago. We are not there yet. It is not laid out in the report. Another important question, emphasize the urgency of some decisions that should be made so we have options available in the future which in principle makes sense to me but the report was unclear on specifically what are those decisions that have to be made now. As Michael Gordon pointed out, its not about keeping the production lines for strategic delivery vehicles, 15, 20 years, thats not the issue. I suspect there might be issues in the weapons comments, it wasnt stated so the sense of urgency wasnt matched by a discussion of what isnt urgent ormonde bears now that dont seem urgent to me. This goes back to the issue of we ought to be thinking more, there is the chapter at the end of the report, can we head off and mitigate the risks we are worried about with russia and china through diplomacy and negotiation and arms control agreements broadly defined, the commitment at new start not to exceed those limits, and all of that could obviate the need for the kinds of options in this report, many of which would not be achievable and too costly, not to mention destabilizing, not the path we should be going down for our security. To set a baseline, where the report finding the program of record modernization methods may continue, not sufficient, we heard, to get a baseline, weve not had a great power war for 80 years with the arsenal. What is it about the current arsenal but insufficient, the biggest vulnerability that is addressed now. Is the regional aspect of the problem. Imagine we are engaged in a war with russia in nato. We are fighting a conventional war. We need forces to detour alluded nuclear use by the russians and p609 bombs by Fighter Aircraft and what happens when we are engaged there if china decides to invade taiwan . We are still deterring nuclear use against russia and deter china from going nuclear. All our Nuclear Assets are in europe, move some of them over to the asia region and the european determined. You dont have to make that choice if you build Nuclear Capabilities in the pacific region. Of china knows we have those capabilities they are less likely to engage in a war. Thats not a modernization issue. We dont have any Nuclear Force structure there. One of the examples is the Cruise Missile where you dont have to ask allies for permission but china knows we have submarines that can be used promptly in a contingency, now they understand there is no way they could use limited Nuclear Employment and gain an advance and add to the deterrent effect so it does require additional capability. To be fair, the administration recognized that problem. They are suggesting perhaps you could launch a b52 bomber with a Cruise Missile, take technical fires into the region or maybe use submarine launched Ballistic Missile radio, we have those capabilities but they are not necessarily present in the region and they are deployed to the region and not survivable but most importantly, china is building up its regional Nuclear Capabilities. If we dont respond to that, that sends a signal potentially to china that we are not willing to compete in that area and a signal to the allies that maybe we are not willing to run risks. The last point, nuclear see launch Cruise Missile is a good idea, it is not so much because it has military capability although it does for all the reasons. One of our biggest problems n asia is building structure in the region that people are willing to stand up to have the option of some kind of accommodation. And its cop probably dont have nearly to thea same degree and i think one of the greatest advantages of a Nuclear ArmedCruise Missile is that it is for all practical purposes, not necessarily, but for all practical purposes it is an asia focused capability. And it would allow us without the incredible political chaos of trying to deploy properly deploy american Nuclear Forces in japan or the philippines or wherever, it provides a genuine answer, it is highly survivable. It is prompt. Its very accurate. It can be made very, it is very accurate. It probably has as good penetration as anything else, and we can point to it and say this is the physical manifestation of our commitment to use Nuclear Weapons if necessary in asia. Now, i dont necessarily believe that that would succeed in deterring chinese a chif for some ultimate reason they decided it was important but in order to have credible convention conventional defense with a Nuclear Element to it, and in order to have a Political Coalition in asia that will stand up to the chinese, in many ways it is as important to reassure the allies as to deter the chinese, because they are eminently late, and the system like this i think is a big contribution to doing that. So first of all i just want to agree was something walt said earlier, which the Commission Also said which is the best way to deter a nuclear war or conflict is to deter a conventional one between great powers with Nuclear Weapons. Thats where our focus should be and, frankly, a thats got as a taxpayer i would rather see my added dollar go to defenses and new technologies and not to the Nuclear Weapons which i dont think we need. Second of all we do have capabilities. With s. O. B. S, submarine launch plastic missiles. Now thanks to the Trump Administration s blms, a low yield option on those systems. We have air delivery capability. When investing in more longrange weapons. Theres plenty of Nuclear Capabilities like me brought to bear in the region certainly to assure allies and also to deter china. This is when the boys were brought up in the first panel but want to talk about or ask your views on the recommendation about new arms control agreements and the likelihood we could even get rush or john to come too the table at Different Levels of numbers come different types of testing, different types got new modern bombs china is developing and so just given the current context of the war in your great how can you get one rush to table into account you get china to the table . Its an important element of the report and i like to sit amplified in that we should be looking to seed whether armscontrol broadly defined meaning that is legally mining agreements but cooperative arrangements, commitments, Risk Reduction with all of that can be usedl to reduce the threat that we see currently and could develop further. I thought the report was kind of silent on the fact or the question of whether actual managers in more to try to maintain mutual restraint with russia on strategic numbers which i think is still important and as when mounting the threat and also has to do with china. I also think its potentially achievable not now clearly but at some point the fighting in ukraine is going to stop and the anmate will change and opportunity i think will arise especially with the pending expiration of new s. T. A. R. T. , that there will be a desire and hope it is a mutual desire to maintain some mutual limits on Strategic Forces. And that does need to include now the new systems that russia is bringing online. I also share the aspiration to bring in all new Nuclear Warheads and strategic warheads. I think that may be a longerterm proposition. And again, with china its an even longer i think were for the way from armscontrol but the first steps of dialogue, mil to mil got a needs to be pursued the part of that is, i mean the report talks about kind of individual establishing our requirements and then seeing what you do with armscontrol but its really more of an iterative process because your requirements are partly determinedca by so for new s. T. A. R. T. It wasnt just how many weapons do we need. Its how w many will kind of weapons to think we need a fresh will agree to these limits. And do we need more if they exceed it . Its not, its not a question that you answer on your own. Its the question you answer in connection with what is the other party willing to do . And may not seem viable right now but i think the opportunity will return in the future. I think there is well, you only have armscontrol agreement or any of the kind of agreements if both parties think its in their interest. I think one of the things we ought to do is to focus on some of the things, some of the concerns that only Nuclear Superpowers can have, and one is being sure that if you use Nuclear Weapons, it was really, really necessary. And this is sometimes described as an accidental problem. It is i think much more a problem of decisionmaking under incredible pressure. And i think there are a number of steps which could be taken which do not include dealerting which is the worst possible answer and worst made way to make the problem harder rather than easier. But therere areth other things t could be done. T it might be an area where you could talk seriously to both the russians and the chinese. There is another area which is how do you, well, let me think about how to articulate it and i will comment later. I was going to do a two finger and note the Biden Administration is totally undertaking a Nuclear Failsafe review as mandated in the National Defense authorization act. Its looking specifically at assuring the safety, security, reliability of u. S. Nuclear weapons and commandandcontroli systems to avoid inadvertent or mr. Scott glittered nuclear use pics of things like looking at Cyber Threats or problems in the supply chain. This review should hopefully yield both some technical as well as some policy recommendations for steps the u. S. Can do, maybe unilaterally but also the may be some ideas for things we could do in parallel with other states with Nuclear Weapons, or encourage them to do on their own. Anyway, i think Something Like this was done 30 years ago, its now being done again and thats an example. Can i just say one other thing, which is about the threat from the other side. There is some element of we have to ask ourselves about our own risk restraint and think about what his reaction that our actions, even our planning, let alone are actually developing and deploying these things, you know, will engender any other side . The Missile Defense discussion is a good example of something that could be seen as very provocative to china and russia. Everything in this report, the laundry list of items that matt read to us, i mean just the idea were planning for that can be very provocative and to think some thought needs to go to whether, because at some point if we dont do certain things, it wont be sensible for another country to keep building up. So i agree with land that as we start to get close to the expiration of the new s. T. A. R. T. Treaty in february 26 peoples mind will focus on what comes next, okay . I think we have time to assess our deterrent requirements, and built it into a proposal that we can then present to the russians. China is not going to come to the table. Forget about a three wood talk, happen. Could so i just say it but we need to figure out what our deterrent for garbage art. Russia will forget what theres are and that we had the basis for negotiation. Lets bring the politics in. You would look whenever another treaty. Republicans are not going to agree to a fall the one new s. T. A. R. T. Framework unless there is some additional Nuclear Force capability. Im not talking about 5000 were Nuclear Weapons, but some number of uploads of the current missiles. Likewise, its really difficult i thinknk the republicans to secure administrations support for these additional capabilities unless there is some armscontrol framework built into that, right . There can be restraint. Going back to 2200 is a constraint. The arms Deal Community will not like the fact were going from 1550 to 2200 d but they should like the fact we now still have constraints. I would like to also before we get to audience questions talk about the other ways to provide deterrence through space, through cyber. Lets start with space. Th itss becoming a more and more critical of the twowo detection, to potentially be able to shoot down an incoming missile. What more needs to be done in this realm to bolster strategic posture . It is probably, well first of all i assume most of the answers interesting answer to the question are a classified, for very good reason. The second thing is i think space is primarily relevant for warning and surveillance and commandandcontrol rather than another place to put Nuclear Weapons. I mean, yeah, the two sides should agree not to do fobs because fobs is a stupid system. Very dangerous but also stupider i think we need to think a lot more and it may will be going on in the system on how we use space to strengthen surveillance and control and survivability and resilience of a workable command system. I go back to something walt said about survivability with used Nuclear Forces. The key to stability to the cute in that having to use Nuclear Weapons to the q did you drink have safe from attack you is to make sure you have the ability to respond. So either Nuclear Force of that we need to survival space forces will. The administration the general approach is to proliferate the number of sensors with up to make sure the adversary cannot conduct a first strike that would blind us. We are also looking at a potential counterspace capabilities against the other side. So this is happening but again the key here is going to be survivability. I dont think theres a armscontrol framework that solves this problem. And the least survivable part. I think it is survivable but the most vulnerable to disruption is that any of the nuclear systems, the platform. Its the commandandcontrol system. The early warning, the command, the key medications to the force. That i think is a place and understand why the commission did not emphasize it, because theres not a lot you can say about it, but it is terribly important. The commission spoke about Missile Defense. Thats another capability. There is probably no issue in u. S. Nuclear policy that evokes more emotion than the Missile Defense issue. Missile defenses stabilizing and those that believe revise protection and they can deterrent by trading certainty of the attack. Weve had this terrible debate going on since the days of the abm treaty and before. To make aof long story short at the end of the cold war we decided we will no longer build homeland Missile Defenses against russia and china, only against iran and north korea. Now as the Committee Point out and as a china report points out, china is building a conventional icbms to attack the United States. Somehow it begs the question, would it not make sense to maybe move the needle in her homeland Missile Defense policy to include some limited protection against these capabilities . Of course the other side is how will the other side react to it . We can explore the issue with the other side but there may be a way to do this without threatening russia or Chinas Nuclear retaliatory capability which is really what their most concerned about. But isnt a more sophisticated conventional or Nuclear Defense in their theater ultimately provocative . Would we allow the same . We would be deploying this on u. S. Territory, right. Youre talking a regional. Also, also its a little hard for me sitting here to figure out why it would be a good idea for country to use an icbm if an icbm means anything like what we understand to mean today. To deliver thousand pound bombs. That strikes me as remarkable nonproblem. I mean, there are some vulnerabilities and maybe you can think of point defenses, but there would be a very different kind of defense, among other things. You dont have to holistic Missile Defense against Nuclear Weapons, which is 90 effective, is essentially not very good. Ballistic missile if youre protecting the homeland population but if youre trying to protect u. S. Retaliatory force a cup thats a pretty good probability. Up to a point, but i think there is a real danger that we fall back into the illusion that youre going to defend, youre going to defend the hold force so that defending is not the way to make a survivable force. It is to put in places and in ways that are hard to attack rather than affirmatively the syndicate. And thats still too. Can we get back to basics . The idea is that our nuclear Strategic Force is supposed to be first and foremost a deterrent against use by russia or china. And so any kind of, and the whole idea national Missile Defense is not n viable againsta russian force, and we dont actually say it explicitly, but against chinese either. This idea of kind of having a limited capability, i, dont knw what, i dont even know what that means because its the idea that china or russia would even think they could send one message the installment of think that would be limited. I mean its just more scenarios. If theres no capability to defend against it, itit becomesa much more feasible, its more of the question of seriousness. They can be overwhelmed by the offense. Why is China Building a conventional ice against workers thats a good question. The United States consider that. They decided it was destabilizing and we wouldnt go ahead. Lynn is getting back to the most fundamental question in this field and that is what deters . How easy is it to deter . I get the sense that lynn believes a relatively modest Nuclear Force thatt can threatn russian or chinese population urban areas would be sufficient for deterrence. I think a dim view. I think its much more complicated. When youre trying to extend the term a map of the allies you have to threaten to use Nuclear Weapons at your own risk, and the abhisit would believe he is attacking their cities would be a credible deterrent because if we attacked theirir states, the attack are. Im talking about the Current Record which is not based on right . The baseline is a program of you think we can get by with fewer Nuclear Weapons . Have i said that . So far ive said i dont see the case of the need for more. Okay, all right. Its a very interesting the chinese would want to do that. I believe the chinese may well exaggerate the degree to which modest damage too American Homeland would coerce us and not responding in a theater. On the other hand, if we have any targets were an icbm delivered high explosive weapons and cannot out important essential capability, we better fixt that problem by fixing the system, notot explaining that were going to defend against it. The. Defenses a muchh t bigger problem in every of defense and there may be options. It just doesnt strike me on any kind of a largescale as a place to put a lot of emphasis. The Northern Command commanders are worried about a texan use critical infrastructure. Attacking ports with high explosive weapons is not done with one bomb, no matter how powerful. It would be a suite of bombs. They could be Cruise Missile attacks got it could be icbms, but if youre concerned that china and russia may attack european ports or south korean ports, or guam, why wouldnt they also attack force in the United States . Because the americans would be furious. I can let them keep going. I do want to get to some audience questions. Question one, does the commission adequately address the scale of change needed in the weapons production complex to make this evolving threat environment . I think one of the most interesting parts of the report is the proposals with respect to what is called thero Nuclear Enterprise. That is the infrastructure that is responsible, not to the platforms which is were almost all the public debate is about platforms in many ways. The question of the infrastructure to make sure that the weapons are safe and reliable and effective, not viable, is extremelyly importan. I dont have anything like the detailed knowledge of the enterprise, but i think there are probably things in the Nuclear Enterprise system as a whole that do need improvement in the commissions list of recommendations for that, certainly sounds plausible. Even if youre planning to expand the capabilities you would still need to bolster the current infrastructure just to support the socalled program of record. And i would just say the report was strong on that. It does strike me as a thing that is urgent, to answer my own question, in terms of, or at least urgent to keep at it and continue bringing the weapons complex up to the modern day so that you are in a position to respond in the future if you need to. I didnt quite know what it meant by expanding the capacity. I think weve got our hands full of just being able to bring the complex uptodate to do what were doing now, but certainly thats important. And its always underinvested in, in congress, you know, people are more interested in the next widget, the next weapon, the next delivery vehicle more than they are in the people. The report makes a strong case for the investment in our scientific and Industrial Base and the personal and all that is so important, and you know. I think one of the biggest problems is to attract brilliant young scientists to be willing to work on nuclear problems, and thats if you dont have that you face much more difficult problems. That goes back to the whole basic question of how do we support education and science in this country . How do we build trust in scientists . Whether we make it an attractive field for people to work who have the scientific, Technical Capability to work in. A question for you. You said you need to find ways to incentivize china and russia on arms control to reduce this threat. The question is how to do this while balancing adversaries own security and youth negotiating leverage . And u. S. Negotiating leverage . Its hard but i think, i do think historically and again rush is doing things right now so we d dont know what the fute direction of russia will be but historically they have found in their mutual interest, as we have for over 50 years, to maintain mutual limits on our Strategic Forces. I think the russians are still interested in that. Its a more complicated negotiation because there are capacity with strategic fact that we know they want to bring into the conversation. I still think theres an overarching mutual interest. And i think the opportunity will open up to, get back to the tae with russian. And again, legally binding verifiable agreements are the gold standard, but there are other options short of that. I know it will be tougher, tougher because they are in a different place but i think i agree, dont think we should still be pursuing bilateral constraints withou russian, even as china is building and we are trying to establish dialogue with them but it dont think its a three Party Negotiation realistically. I dont think we should be letting russia run free, because all second graders are writing to the soccer ball which is a china. But meanwhile it is russian the still is more than 1000 Nuclear Weapons, so we cant take our eye off that fall. Did you have something . Well, i agree with the lynn that we would probably, probably should engage the russians. Put everything on the table. But at the end of the day it cant just be about extending the current framework. Even this administration has asa great the next round of discussion with the russians have to include nonstrategic systems. Its got too be included and now the commissioners recommended theyre going to need some, i will use the word modest increase in our Strategic Forces. Lets start negotiating with the russians and see where this turn out. With the capability of a u. S. Attack at how witch hunt be able to differentiate between conventional and nuclear Cruise Missiles during a crisis . It doesnt matter. It doesnt matter. Because they will see Cruise Missiles coming at them and it would think they are Nuclear Weapons so they will launchy their own Nuclear Weapons. Leduring this crisis the Chinese Forces will be on alert. They will be dispersing therefore. Theres no way that one or two u. S. Cruise missiles heading to china is going to be misconstrued as a force strike. They can wait with a Cruise Missile hits to determine whether its nuclear not and then respond. Theres a reason for them to have to. We will be attacking them with conventional Cruise Missiles. Just because a see christmas a come at the do think theyre going to the problem is not limited to cruiset missiles. We plan to use b52 bombers, which strange enough were designed before i was born. Weve all kinds of Fighter Aircraft that are nuclear capable, and its hard to tell which ones are nuclear capable. This problem i think is overstated. The problem of seeing an attack on the homeland coming out of nowhere i think is overstated but there are waysin to deal wih that. I think discrimination something to be concernedal abo. Just out of my own curiosity what did you think of the commissions recommendation on a mobileis Sentinel Program . And the potential risk or advantages it might bring. Well, the Clinton Administration tried that. The enthusiasm for robust National Defense doesnt seem to apply in sparsely populated parts of our country. I think theres an issue which is real, and i think there are better ways we should look at the options for some kind of mobile system. We thought we had one but nobody seemed to like it very much. It strikes me as a very hard way to approach the survivability problem. Maybe in an adjunct to relatively small, highly survivable force, but with modern surveillance technology, its not clear what, how you would make it survivable. I mean, supposedly we have a lot of and no longer no be sure about this, but supposedly we worry about the oppositions ability to track things that are moving, and presumably we have a pretty good possibility of tracking. Does anyone want so mobile, theoretically are more so, im more survivable. They are. It seems like a complete nonstarter. I cant imagine people want to start things mobile missiles. It may be good because it would remind the American People who are kind of blissfully unaware that we have Nuclear Weapons and that we have a lot in other countries. Anyway i think it is completely a nonstarter. I just cant imagine having can assume one of the thing . Which is i do not see the wisdom from a strategic stability standpoint of uploading our icbms and the report does call for adding more warheads. Right now they are all single warheads. Adding more warheads and a plan to get on the next generation. Its the like of the triad that is a lease stabilizing. Its just not right to add more weapons. First on the mobile, i think it speaks to survivability. We had a debate over this during the cold war. I understand that things are different with the two nuclear and from a. Were not about Nuclear Weapons roaming the countryside. These things would be based in gerson said country a crisy would be flushed out. Thats the one we couldnt sell. But lets toss it in the mix. Lets figure it out. Part of the response to this problem is we may be more Nuclear Weapons, or we may need to make existing force more survivable, or some combinatin of the two. Instead of adding another 150 sentinel scope if you make 150 more survivable maybehe that achieves the same objective. We are at her final minutes i just want to offer the opportunity for any closing thoughts or something you wish to build a raise before we conclude. Im sorry, i think this uncertainty is grading about the friction. We need the administration to take on the recommendations of this commission and try to think about how they would react to that come with its some other theater capability of some additional Nuclear Forces. Lets get a position on the table and to make it more logical debate over this. Go ahead. Then i will get the last word. But be short. Only that i think one of the things the Commission Report does is to bring to and admittedly limited and Specialized Group the kind of focus on these issues, and one of the remarkable things that rob made a real contribution to this in the defense department. We had a pretty good consensus in this country on supporting a very ambitious, a very strong, very survivable Nuclear Force, and maintaining this as a subject the people understand, and also that isnt wildly divisive. I have to apologize. We are out of time period were actually over time and have a feeling this could keep talking about this. Everyone, thank you very much for attending and all of you, thank you for your expertise. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] today on capitol hill House Republicans are meeting behind closed doors to vote on the choice for speaker o eight declared candidates. Th happening before the full house returned at 11 a. M. Eastern with the of holding a fourth round of voting tole a new speaker. On cspan2 the senate isac at 10 a. M. Eastern and will vote in the afternoon on whether to limit debate on the nomination of Michael Whitaker to the hd of the federal aviation administration. You can watch theouse live on cspan, and t senate live on cspan2. You can also follow along when using the free cspan now video app or go online the cspan. Org. Onednesday President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden host a state dinner on australian Prime Minister anthony alba nice. That evening will show hilights from the eve including the Prime Ministers arrival to the white house took the guest arrivals on theed carpet and the dinner toast. Watch at 11 p. M. Eastern on cspan, under free cspan now video app or online at cspan. Org. By sunday, november 6 on author and fmer aclu president Nadine Strossen join booktv to talk and take calls about civil rights, free speech, censorship and more. Shes off of defending pornography, eight, and the recently published free speech what if one needs to know, i guide to freespeech law and the debate surrounding it. Join in a conversation with your phone calls, Facebook Comments and texts. Indepth with Nadine Strossen live sunday november 5 at noon eastern on booktv on cspan2. The. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more including cox. Koolende vries syndrome is extremely rare. Hi. But friends dont have to be. This is joe. When you are connected you are not alone. Cox supports cspan as a Public Service along with these other Television Providers giving you a frontrow seat to democracy. Several republic president ial hopefuls spoke at a fundraiser in iowa city, iowa, hosted by reprentative mariannette millermeeks. During the remarks candidates addrs a range of topics fm Border Security to Government Spending and energy policy. This is about an hour and 20 minutes. The. [applause]