Transcripts For CSPAN3 Congressional 20240703

Monitor Nuclear Deterrents summit. [inaudible conversations] right now, were going to have a session starting now and woven its way through the conference. So, if you want to take your seats i will have david and jeff prater introduce you to our panel. Here you go. Thank you very much. All right, well, thank you very much, nancy, and we want to thank everyone still out there staying until the bitter end and to hear what i regard not only a very important and phenal panel of the day, with four speakers that i promise will not just im jeff prater, and with me to moderate the q a today is my fellow cofounder and managing director, david charrington. We stood at the center to focus on educating policy makers, most importantly, new Congressional Staff on the u. S. Strategic Nuclear Deterrent and at the time we stood up the organization, the new programs. Its expanded with our podcast and i hope youre enjoying that hosted by dr. Adam louther. Reaching not only the United States, but to our allies. As the late secretary of defense under president trump, ash carter said, our strategic Nuclear Deterrent is the bed rock of our National Security, its what determines our theories on behalf of all americans and allies in europe and the pacific. From really repeating the horrific number of deaths and destruction that occurred during world war ii, where an estimated 75 Million People perished across the globe because we lacked an overafternooning strategic Nuclear Deterrent. But its the bed rook, the strategic posture report, we hear a lot of on this panel today is foundational and unique in this era of political division. Ordered by congress in the fiscal year 2022, National Defense authorization act, the 12 member Congressional Commission on the strategic posture of the United States was launched by house and Senate National security leadership, wellknown policy leaders with broad based experience and Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Weapons related issues. The commission was evenly split. Bipartisan between democratic and republican affiliations. They concluded their review with 81 consensus driven and nonpartisan recommendations. Now, i ask you in this day and age, when does that happen in government . Well soon find out how this unique consensus happened from the two commissioners here with us today. Madeline selected by the Senate Armed Services committee jack reed. Chair of the commission with vice chair and former u. S. Senator john kyles from arizona. The experience expands the decades that the Senate Armed Services committees and at departments of defense and National Security administration. Dr. Matt kronig who expands across many departments of defense, as well as academia. Hes talked and much about nuclear strategic deterrents. And the Atlanta Center for strategy and security and the councils director of studies. We will also hear, very fortunate to have them with us today, from two of the Senate Armed Services Committee Staff that helped instigate this review and were the recipients last fall of the bipartisan and officially titled america strategic posture, the final report of the Congressional Commission on the strategic posture of the United States. Dr. Jonathan epstein is counsel for senator reed on the Senate Armed Services committee, responsible for oversight over the department of defense and department of Energy Program as well as the dod Missile Defense and space and nonproliferation committee. And served as the council for oversight for the department of energys civil and Nuclear Science based program. And last line before my colleague, is a staff member also with Armed Services committee and his areas of responsibility include nuclear forces, Missile Defense, nuclear propulsion, threat reduction, arms control and counter proliferation countering weapons of mass destruction and Nuclear Cleanup efforts. Most recent adam was principal or acting principal of Nuclear Matters when the office of the secretary of defense and before that served in several positions at the office of secretary of defense and joint staff and departments of state. Adam served in our armed forces as an Army Abrams Tank crewman. Please join me in welcoming our distinguished panel and well turn to madeleine for her opening remarks. Thanks. [applause] well, thanks, jeff, i appreciate it and appreciate the opportunity to be here today to say and congratulations to your hearty souls who struck it out on the last panel of the last day, on friday afternoon to boot. My congratulations to you. So i just want to start a little about how pleased i was to hear some of general cottons remarks in many respects, he is really embracing a lot of the recommendations that we made in our commission all right. As jeff said, it was a Bipartisan Commission and not only was it split equally six people nominated by democratic leadership and six people nominated by republican leadership, but very interesting, i think, in this particularly in this policy arena, in this strategic arena, also six women and six men, which in and of itself i think is not only commendable. It was kind of by accident and it goes a long way in terms of bringing some different views to the table. Why and how did we actually get to consensus, which is a question i think ive been asked almost as many times as how what our different conclusions were. And i think in some respects. So, we really were committed. All 12 of us really were committed to getting consensus to getting a report. There was nobody interested in laying down in the road and preventing a report from going out the door. We also started this adventure of ours with, as i like to say, our 12 ecclectic commissioners by spending a tremendous amount of time getting ourselves all level set in terms of intel and threat briefings. Weve spent a huge amount of time with various aspects of the Intelligence Community and one of the things we spent a fair amount of time time with, interestingly enough not just who is deploying which systems, but spent time with the department of energy, intelligence folks and got insight on the warhead side of this as well. We reached out to a lot of outside experts and had series of unclassified discussions on china, north korea and russia so those as well. We also had a lot of discussions or written reports, depending on the case, from our allies. At the end of the day, there were a number of things that all of us together were very, very much focused on. We understood our charge and at least, as we understood our charge, hopefully, we met the requirements of the committees. But our charge really was to conduct a review of the strategic posture of the United States, including a strategic threat assessment, a detailed review of Nuclear Weapons policy and strategy and force structure and factors affecting the strategic stability of new peer competitors of the u. S. And peer and near peer competition. One of the things that we were not chartered to do and did not do and have gotten a number of questions about it, of course, why didnt we cost out our recommendations . Well, there are a couple of reasons. You know, among others, we werent staffed to do that and it wasnt in our charter, but one of the reasons we were successful is our recommendations were about much Bigger Picture things. This is a long game report. This is not, you know, do these things next week. Its begin to take actions now so that down the road, as decisions are required, there is an ability to actually make decisions. There are people who can support them, theres the infrastructure to support them, and theres the investment to support them. Because without that, these decisions that are going to need to be made over the next couple years are just not possible. We also focused very much in terms of our allies and how important our allies are across the board and all of those really were concerned that we dont do enough as a nation with our allies. So, its more that we need to do. So, its more investment, its more joint r and d. Its more joint technology development. Its more having them incorporated in our planning and theres so much more we need to do with them. We also all agreed that innovation is absolutely necessary and not only innovation, but also how the Defense Department and how nnsa absorbs innovative thinking. Obviously, we were know the procurement commission, theres an entirely different commission working on that. But we did talk about and certainly share a lot of the concerns about how to improve not only the speed, but also the scope and the reach of the two departments with respect to startups and innovations which we heard in the earlier panel. The other couple things that i just want to highlight. This is a long game report. Our time frame was 2027 and beyond and one of the other things that we all agreed at the outset is we werent going to pick winners and losers. We knew if we got into a very specific debate we were never going to get out of that loop. So we focused on what was needed from 2027, 2035 and beyond and what are those capabilities. So we identified different sorts of capabilities, not specific systems. As a result of this, and you know, again, this is why we were not able to cost things, we did knowingly present a very big task to the administration because having decided that we have to be prepared for a twotheater simultaneous war, now making that force structure, both conventional and nuclear, to deter so it never goes nuclear, thinking about that force structure is an analytic task for the administration. It wasnt an analytic task for us, but having put that concept out there that we really have to think about two simultaneous wars is probably our biggest recommendation. Two more things and then ill close. One, i know theres been criticism of the report, somehow weve sanctioned an openended arms race in nuclear systems. Thats absolutely not the case. In fact, we did just the opposite. One of our big focus actually areas is really on the conventional side and how much more needs to be done on the conventional side to deal with two wars simultaneously because at the end of the day, if the goal is to prevent nuclear war, you have to prevent war and to prevent war you have to have conventional capabilities. And finally, we did, certainly, as mentioned earlier, we did put a lot of thought and thinking into risk reduction. Yes, we acknowledged and, you know, understood and nobody was particularly happy about it that Neither China nor russia are interested at the moment in doing any traditional arms control. That said, we were very strongly urging the administration, think tanks, others, to be very creative about how they think about risk reduction. How we think about norms. How we think about other creative opportunities that might get us to improved strategic stability. Not just treaties and part of that, too, is also the research and development because if we get to the point where we have a treaty, that treaty has to be enforceable and those tools to enforce those treaties are going to have to be in place. Some of those tools take years to develop and so having the research and development that would support future arms agreements, whatever they look like like are also important. Anyway, i think ill probably close with that. Its sort of a one over of our 81 recommendations. Some of those recommendations, i think, we probably all know wont get implemented and one of our recommendations is for congress to get annual budgets done on time. And i guess that laughter certainly wanted to just put it out there. So, with that ill stop. Thank you,. Thank you, david and jeff for hosting this important event. Its an honor to be here. Thank you all for sticking around. And thanks to madelyn for chairing the commission and my fellow commissioners. Its opinion been an experience. We really did have a terrific chair and we had some difficult conversations, but she was always there to keep us on track. Thank you for your leadership. So i want today spend my time talking a little more about the substance of the report. I want to talk about the strategic environment, the recommended Nuclear Strategy and then the recommended adjustment to posture. So we Start Talking about the strategic environment and we say that this is in some ways maybe the most difficult Nuclear Threat environment the United States and its allies have ever faced and that for the first time in u. S. History we have to deal with two near peer Nuclear Armed powers, russia and china at the same time. So in the past, we could consider china, north korea, lesser included cases of the russian threat and given the trajectory of the china buildup thats no longer the case. How do we deter two armed revisionists, autocratic powers at the same time. A difficult environment. On the strategy we say that needs to be the goal and the goal needs to deter russia and china at the same time and youve had and we argue to do that, the fundamentals of our Nuclear Strategy should remain the same, that the major roles for u. S. Nuclear weapons of deterring adversaries, assuring allies, achieving objectives as deterrents fails, those remain the same. And then also, when it comes to what is at risk, that traditionally we point out during the cold war, that the United States held at risk, that we think adversary leadership values, themselves, their militaries, their nuclear forces, ability to command and control their military and holing those targets at risk remains the goal. Now, there have been some outside experts that say given this environment. We need to fundamentally change our Nuclear Strategy and maybe think about socalled Counter Value target and we reject that in the report and say our Nuclear Strategy has worked pretty well over the past 75 years, so theres no reason to reinvent deterrence theory or tragedy. Instead what needs to change is our forces and our posture that we need to adjust those to deal with the two peer environment, and so, i just want to highlight some of the changes that i think are most important and if you havent read the report, i have some copies, you can find it online, but page 48 and 49 layout some of the key changes to Nuclear Posture and ill just mention some. Prepare to upload some or all of the nations warhead, plan to deploy the fentanyl icbm and increase the plan number of Long Range Standoff weapons, increased the plan numbered of b21 bombers and tankers and expanded force would require. Increased the production of columbia ssbn and trident missile systems. Pursue the feasibility of fielding some future of the icbm force and mobile configuration, exercise upload and warheads on existing deployed systems. So as you can see, were not recommending an immediate buildup in the size of the strategic force, but as madelyn put it, we need to give future administrations options to do that if they think thats necessary and given the way the strategic environment is developing, that maybe necessary to deal with the increased number of targets presented by china and so on. And we also talk about the importance of having the president having flexibility options and nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons and we welcome developing and employing Theater Nuclear systems that are having the following attributes that are deployed and deployable in asia, survivable against attack and a range of explosive yield options, including low yield and so on. And then also, i think there are some important recommendations on Missile Defense. We argue that the United States should continue to have a homeland Missile Defense capable of staying ahead of the north career and thats debated as the Nuclear Program has green and we argue that staying ahead of that threat is important. And then also, we recommend whats changed to what has traditionally been u. S. Missile defense policy in the past and weve said that its only to deal with rogue states. Not for russia and china and in the report we recommend having homeland Missile Defense system capable of deterring coercive attacks of russia, not large scale russia or chinese attack which would not be possible, but the ability to deter and defeat limited coercive attacksment attacks. So i think those are highlights of the report and our understanding, the administration is taking it seriously and i hope that we can maintain this bipartisan consensus because this is so important. Some of the recommendations we make we wont be able to act upon until the 2030s, 2040s, so, i think maintaining this bipartisan consensus and making the case to the American People about why this is important and to their elected members of congress so we can sustain this path and maintain a Strategic Deterrence to protect the United States and much of the free world for the past 75 years. So ill end my remarks there and look forward to the discussion. Thank you very much. On to jonathan epstein. Ill just give you the logistics, you know, first of all, its very rare to see staffers up here. Were usually hiding under the desk, theres a fight going on and theres no good to come out of it. So feel well endowed that were here. I also hold the madelyn share when i came to 2011 gave me the same phone number, same parking spot and same desk, i replaced her so relationship goes back well over 20 years. You know, this report came because adam got the good idea and i said, you know, Congress Laughter has the role to play and we pitched it to the members. And thats another point. And it was senator levin that taught me we make recommendations to members. He was very stern about that to me, to keep us in the box. We make recommendation to members, put it in front of them and they decide how to proceed legislatively. So we did that. We made the recommendation to senators king and fisher then on up to senators reed and inhofe at the time and made its way through the conference and it became law. The hardest part of this report, to be honest with you, as an attorney, was the department of defense. Because we ran into constitutional problems in prior reports between the legislative branch and the executive branch. The department of defense laid this kind of firewall ive never seen before and i dont know how many times i was slamming the phone down and cussing and over to the department of Defense Attorneys and having to go to my colleagues, my other attorneys and then do back channel calls and meetings with adam and i and other people saying, look, youve got to give some leeway here. The executive branch was very adamant that this was a Congressional Commission and they were probably right. It is a Congressional Commission. We had to get our colleagues here. Their own clearances through the senate and the house. And we had to find the appropriation and get Bill Chambers through the institute of defense analysis on. So you should realize, unlike prior commissions, this was really a clean slate, a separated firewall and getting the briefings to our colleagues near again, a phone slamming event, trying to get the ic without dod minders in the audience, you know, taking pieces of paper back and screening it. So my role, more than anything else, was phone slamming. [laughter] and, but they came up with their conclusions. It was presented to the congress. I think what strikes many members and not staff was, look, we had everybody from speaker pelosis designee, to the republican designees agreeing and it wasnt so much in many ways the content of the report evaluated over time, but the enduring thing, i think, was the fact that in a time like this, we had 12 people from varied backgrounds agreeing on the conclusions of the report. The most significant, i think, to many members was the fact that they said, its not the traditional fight one hedge, its the fact we have to deal with two european adversaries now. From that, Everything Else flows and from that time will tell whether many of these recommendations can be accepted or not. Whether its in the executive branch through bugetary process, the political legislative process, all of those things have yet to be sought out. So, ill end it there. I dont have much more to say to be honest with you. These are the people that wrote the report and ill turn it over to adam. All right. Well, thank you, jonathan and adam. So, as the more junior staff up here and the ability to pass the buck and the blame all certainly onto me. Not exactly accurate, but still very, very well done, john. So and i echo all the appreciation, certainly, on my part and for, you know, the extent that i can reflect what the members offer. They appreciate all the strong work that the commissions put in on both sides of the aisle. I think it was very wellreceived on both side for both the extensiveness of it and the willingness to select what they saw as the growing realities that the United States and our allies are facing around the world with the growth of threats from china, russia, north korea and various other actors. We can get in we can always get in the specifics of what they talk about and what they reflect for nuclear forces, which obviously the most relevance in this forum. But i think the thing thats kind of resonated more with the members, beyond the very accessible, very clear description of the change in the security environment that the commission offered is the level of effort that we will need to actually engage in a multidecade strategic competition with other peer potential peer adversaries, or the level of effort that well need to try to mend those relationships to the extent that we can coexist in a relatively peaceful manner. When we talk about the Nuclear Investments and weve heard what things are going on in the programs recently and the amount of funding and time thats going to be required to execute those, but the idea of returning to a twowar construct. I think a lot of people have underestimated had a that actually entails and how much thats going to take, because i think the members, to the extent that i can communicate what they think collectively, sees the United States as largely unprepared financially, industrially and frankly, even socially to compete on an all facets of National Power with multiple countries over multiple decades, even in a larger sense than what we competed with the soviet union during the cold war and so, i think that what theyve done is theyve given us a bit of a call to action and its a huge complex program. Its not simply lets build more lrsos or we can find ways to negotiate away certain forces, certain types of forces, with either the chinese and the russians. It is a full spectrum competition and if we want to seriously compete on that at that level, were going to have to radically rethink how to approach our ability to provide National Security. Its not simply weapons, its not simply diplomacy. Its economics, its all of its everything. Its our ability to exist as a cohesive Cultural Society thats not that can find ways to marshal all of our talents and all of our abilities to in under not necessarily a single message, but at least a single vision of how we want to see a world where we dont necessarily have to grant our children to fear for annihilation the way we did during the cold war. And so, that is a hard problem and i dont want to under sell it, but i think what the commission has done is given us all a good kickoff to be able to engage the American Public in the debate about what it is we think we need to do and what is americas place in the world. So, i dont want to belabor the points because obviously the commissioners and then john has made great points on all the other pieces. So we can turn it back to the rest of the group. Very good. Im going to pick it up here. Let me start, madelyn. You opened your remarks by thanking this audience for being here and surviving to this point of the day and let me turn that because i know why theyre here and it really goes to its really congratulations back to you and and the other commissioners for this. The effort and thoughtfulness that went into this vigorous and insightful report. Its really quite impressive. So its really a congratulations back to you and i think theres a lot of people here, should here what were saying and should be able to ask their questions. Thank you very much. Im going to go ahead and ask a few questions and in turn, well come to the audience, so, start thinking of the questions youd like to ask any of the panelists. Let me start with you, and im going to ask a few questions here, kind of weave them together to kind of give you can pick how you want to take this and ask. One of the things im interested in further elaboration on is with regard to the recommendations from the strategic posture report, requires an expansion of the current will it require an expansion of the current Modernization Program or realignment of the current Modernization Programs . Also, weve been talking about the near two peer nuclear adversaries, russia and china. Will nuclear still work with twopeer adversaries. Ive heard you address that a bit. Will our allies feel confident in a Nuclear Umbrella provided by the United States . Madelyn, why dont we start with you. Thanks, i appreciate that, dave. The program of record as senator cotton said, certainly the commission viewed from the beginning, we said it multiple throughout this report. The program of report is absolutely essential, but probably not sufficient. And so what does that mean . And i think that this is where my comment at the outset about misinterpreting some of our findings may have come from by saying its not sufficient. This doesnt mean that we recommend it because we clearly did not. A one for one match of the total russia and Chinese Nuclear systems. We didnt say that. What we said is that we have to get smart and we also have to look at what theyre doing and what is important for deterrents. So when we talk about modifications. It was important to have a flexible complex, both at nnsa side and dod side. So as things are determined to be needed down the road. We have a complex that can actually deliver something. So thats people, its the materials, its the walls and everything, you know, across the board. Its the security systems, its the cyber systems, so that we can actually improve. So, a couple of the things that we clearly thought fell into that category are really looking at capabilities. Nuclear capabilities for the asia pacific and thats where i mention we did not get into this sort of death spiral of debating this, but what we did recognize is that there are capabilities that are needed for the asia Pacific Theater and we listed characteristics, how the Defense Department goes about meeting those capabilities, those what we thought were the these requirements, are not obviously, but what we thought was needed, is really part of that analytic work that need to be that needs to be done by the administration. And as we think about numbers and additional capabilities, we also thought and matt mentioned a little bit. There are ways in the near term. Particularly as it expires, that we need to have more capability. There are ways to do that without increasing our total stockpile. So one of our several of our recommendations encompass, preparing to dose, icbms, the potential of reversing as you know right now the d5s are not fully loaded out on the submarines. So, the four of them, basically, ballast. Reversing that, putting d5s back on the submarines. Uploading looking at whether or not it necessary to even bring back the idea of having bombers sit on alert. What would it take . So, doing these sorts of things that if we needed near term capacity we could do it without increasing our overall numbers. Being a little more flexible in how the how the administration thinks about things. So, you know, recently the department added another variant of the b61, not just the 12, but this new one. Okay, thats a little flexibility. Its a little niche. Its not increasing the total numbers, but its a little flexibility. How you feel about that isnt whats relevant. Its the fact that its a little flexibility to meet a requirement. So, its, you know, its those sorts of things that we thought were really essential to, you know, tackle with our program. And i guess one more thing in all of that is, i should point out that this whole report started with a chapter of the stakes. You know, this is why this is important. We, us and our allies, have been enjoying this post World War Ii International order that allowed us prosper and our allies to prosper, and frankly its at risk. If china and russia dont change their trajectories, this is what well have to do. We have to get serious about this. Ill just make four points and the first, i was going to make the stakes point because in the report we dont start with Nuclear Deterrents. We start with world order over the past 75 years and the system that the United States and its allies have built that have provided unprecedented levels of peace, prosperity and freedom for the American People and globally. And so thats what were deterring, were not deterring Nuclear Weapons, were defending this world order that the United States and its allies built. The question on the program of record, i completely agree with madelyn. The program of record is necessary and essential, but insufficient and that we need to do more and the more is laid out in pages 48 and 49. A lot of the many ways that i mentioned earlier. On deterring two powers at the same time and can we do that, you know, im one of my hats is a professor, it wasnt an academic discussion of Nuclear Deterrents so much, its grounded. As said, weve got weeks, months of briefings, how do putin and xi, the russian and the chinese leadership think about the world, what does it take to deter them and everything we heard and our conclusion was that the traditional deterrents work. If were able to hold at risk what they value, its not what we think should deter, its what they value, what do they determine to be an unacceptable cost and if we can persuade well impose an unacceptable cost on them if they attack us and our allies that should hold. It would work the same for two as it would for one. The final things on the allies. Almost all of our recommendations are to the u. S. Government, but we essentially have some recommendations that, in a way, are to our allies, because on the conventional piece, we say the United States and its allies need the ability to deter, if necessary, defeat russia and china at the same time. Ideally with conventional forces alone. If thats not possible we need to rely on Nuclear Weapons, more on our strategy, so, essentially its a recommendation to our allies to do their part. N. A. T. O. Allies meet their 2 commitments. Get us the conventional forces we need to deter in both theaters and on the assurance piece, as mentioned, we did speak with allies throughout the process and i think our assessment is that if we do whats necessary, if we follow the recommendations in our report. If our allies see that were taking this security environment seriously, that we can continue to assure them. Thank you very much. Let me jonathan and first, let me just say with regard to jonathan to your comments about how we got here. Congress is an easy target for folks and pointing out whats going wrong and pointing to congress. Let me tell you, the expertise, professionalism of the staff of the professional staff throughout the senate observed is unbelievable and the work and professionalism they do all year on the programs that we have been talking about these last few days that are so important to everyone in this room. So, i hope everyone understands the professionalism and the expertise you have sitting in front of you and youll have an opportunity to ask questions of. Id like to ask jonathan and adam. The report has been delivered now and its sort of a now what . Let me start with, you know, how has the report been received by the senate and what do you see Going Forward . Do you have expectations of what you like to see the administration do and so forth . Well, i can only speak for senator reeds comments. You know, i think he held a very interesting hearing with the commissioners and at the end of it, i think in many ways hes right, that were in a new world. We have a three potentially near peer adversaries vying for deterring each other. And that problems not solved. Im sure stratcom is going to say, mr. President or whatever, weve got options and thats what theyre supposed to do. But in my background as a scientific person, its not a done deal. Its an incredibly complex problem of three potentially near peer adversaries jockeying and deterring each other, chaotic instabilities occurring and hes grappling with that, i think, is looking for sound advice on that. And i think that is a starting point of at least where his comments are during that hearing, and its something that we should all take quite seriously. Ill leave it at that. All right. I mean, i think i touched on it little bit in my opening remarks, but i think a lot of the members see this as a a bit of a call to action and right now, theyre trying to because its an expansive set of recommendations and a commission for the next several decades where the commission believes the United States should move in terms of a strategic posture. And a strategic posture is so much more than any one particular tip of capabilities. A lot of people use strategic synonymous with nuclear, but its far more than that. So how we posture ourselves to compete on the global stage in this type of environment is more, at least in the near term, at least more fundamentally of a cultural, financial, and industrial change in our approach. Its what level of effort, what level of investment, are we willing to put forward into rebuilding a detect Industrial Base to deal with all the issues were seeing with ukraine and trying to prepare our east asian allies to resist any aggression in that region. How we build rebuild Nuclear Weapons sustainment and production infrastructure as its own unique questions. And then how we maintain funding at a macro level on the congressional side when we have such divided, partisan approaches coming from both sides of the house and the senate. How we come together on a cohesive unity vision to make the investments and the level of effort we need to rebuild the capabilities that the commission recommended, its going to take several decades, multiple administrations, multiple congresses and how we can navigate that onto a singular path is going to be the biggest challenge and frankly, were moving into an election year, so, thats going to be an extremely hard lift to try to come up with something cohesive, but i think that what they look to john and i try to do to find ways that makes sense, nonpartisan way that makes sense for the country and sustainment of the capabilities that have been outlined by the defendant of department of defense and the new program record. It would be great to see Congress Move forward and working together across party lines as well as this commission, and i hope that take that as a strong example as well around these issues. Madelyn. Let me come back to you as a hedge. Its my understanding that this hedge was decided and the numbers decided and so forth when we had just one primary adversary and it was really the former soviet union and then russia. Now with the rise of china in this space and north korea and even others, as we talk about taking warheads out and putting them back into the putting them back into deployment, do we have the right numbers for the current state of the world . Do we have the right numbers and the right variety to make sure we can respond to the threats that are out there . So we start with right here, right now, the answer is clearly yes. Where the report looks is really into the future, its seven 27 and beyond. There are a couple of ways to tackle this, one is as you know, traditionally, with the last several nprs, china has been a lesser included case and as we look at the trajectory, that china is now on, theres going to be a period of time where thats no longer possible. The good news is that certainly, when new start was negotiated, there was a recognition that there was some additional flux in those numbers that were negotiated under new start and at the time when that treaty was rolled out and you know, again shortly after obamas 2009 speech in prague. There was a recognition that there was space, if you will, in the stock pile to go for further reductions, obviously, that never happened, but the space is still there. That space never went away. Some of it is in the hedge and thats why we have the hedge for both geopolitical and frankly, technical, technical uncertainties. So, a lot of it, obviously, depends on where china and russia both go over the next years. Do they maintain their current efforts to undermine the u. S. And its allies or not . And its being ready. And thats why, i keep going back to this, we have to take,s to be ready in the future if we have to. And a good part of that, frankly, is nnsa and infrastructure. Having the ability to produce the materials. Dod has a lot of issues as well with respect to infrastructure and people, but nnsa does, too. So, you know, our overarching Industrial Base, everything from skills like welders and ship yard capacity and you know, all of these things to help grow, if we need it, and as we need it, the capabilities both on the conventional and the nuclear side should we need them. But, you know, first we have to get back to having the ability to do that. You know, we lost these abilities in many respects over 20 years. Its going to take us time to get back. But as we think about our plans, as we think about capacity, as we think about recovering some of these capabilities, i would argue that if we think about this as a one and done or if we have the wrong mindset. This is investment in perpetuity, to make sure we dont lose these capabilities in the future and transition into more innovative capabilities while we transition into the new systems. Thank you very much, matt. Ill maybe say a similar thing in a different way. The current force, the program of record, the current force size was designed in 2010 and were in a very different security environment now than in 2010 and if you look at the time frame that we were asked to look at 2027 to 2035, that the threat environment looks like it will get even worse with china, with 1500 Nuclear Weapons by the end of that period, essentially a nuclear peer with the United States. So i think the force that worked in 2010 likely will not work in 2035 and so thats why we make the recommendations that we do to give us additional flexibility. Of course, it is 2035 is a long time from now. Maybe china or russia will drastically change their plans, but from where we sat, we didnt see any indications of that seems like the hostile intent is there, and the plan to build up the Chinese Forces is there and so, i think we do need to plan for that future. Thank you. Im going to ask one more question and then well come to the audience. I wanted to ask, did the commission spend time and thought and focus with regards to a technological surprise . Something thats not the threats and the systems that we talked about, China Building up to 1500 warheads and so forth, was there other things, you know, Artificial Intelligence is all the headlines right now, but theres another thing just over the horizon were not thinking about. What are we going to do to make sure that were not surprised by an adversary and again to make sure they can maintain our security . We did. We spent a lot of time talking about that. And it wasnt just in the nuclear arena, its really in how we see adversaries rit large. A good bit of it, actually, is in space. Understanding whats going on in space and understanding cyber. We have a little piece in here about the chinese test, this is an area where we thought maybe this is a maybe this is right for some kind of arms control because its fundamentally destabilizing capability. But space is important, obviously, recognizing the reductions in cost of launch, more flexibility in satellites, understanding resiliency so were not big targets, but you know, space also plays a very large role in being able to discriminate what allies are doing so that we dont miscalculate. Theres a second piece of that that we havent touched on and one of our other recommendations is as we shift to great power competition, as we shift to this twopeer competition, our intelligence assets also need to grow so weve spent a lot of time with our intelligence, the Intelligence Community has been very much focused on terrorism in the middle east and they dont have, for the most part, the nsa, probably the exception, thats where most of the russia, china intelligence actually still lives. But the Intelligence Community rit large doesnt have the depth that we need in terms of understanding russia, understanding china policies, strategies, that sort of thing, so, thats also an area where when we look at this whole of government, we need to have additional investments because we dont want to get into a war thats the result of a you know, of a misinterpretation or, you know, assuming the wrong thing by certain actions. Thank you. Did you want to offer further on that . Just two lines, we did spend get a lot of briefings on new technology and in talking about that and both the threat that that could pose to our deterrent because of adversarial technological developments. Also, how can we use technology to strengthen our deterrents. How can we use technology to improve arms control with verification and things like that so we did spend a lot of time trying to identify the surprises. Of course, theres always the unknown unknowns, as former secretary rumsfeld put it, and so that cant account for that, but we did our best to see what might be coming. Thank you. Lets open it up to the audience. We have microphones coming around and raise your hand and i see a hand here, a hand back here. If we can get lots of them, great. A question over here to the left. In a moment. Thank you very much for the presentation. My name is dave, from the Government Accountability office. Youve discussed or you all have discussed a lot of components of strategic deterrents, National Strategic deterrent, technology, work force. But, you put in a comment i thought was very interesting about being culturally ready and i wonder if the commission has given any thought to what are the elements of a lack of political or cultural consensus that position undermines American Investments and all of the parts of the strategic deterrents. For example, ive seen consensus over ukraine frey over a short period of time. Or a lack of consensus. I wonder if the commissioners have given thought of what the political vision that you all are painting. Thank you. So we certainly did and you know, i want to go back to thats one of the reasons we have the stakes section is to be able to explain to the American People why its important for the u. S. To be engaged in the world, to resist some of the isolationist tendencies that are now going on, certainly on the hill and elsewhere. This is whats important. Its been a long time since people a thought about these things come have thought about Nuclear Weapons come have thought about Strategic Deterrence because we have for the most part been very much engaged in the counterterrorism sort of operation. Its going to take a lot of work. Its going to take a lot of education and, frankly, its going to take leaders who understand this and who are willing to have conversations with constituents to pull this off. Its hard and its going to be a long slog. As commissioners were trying to do our best to be on panels and have Community Discussions and under all 12 of arguments usually are out and about trying to talk to people, but it is deathly going to be a long slog to get this back into the general public of circulation. Senator kyle was vice chair of the commission and he felt very strongly about this and was worried about some of the divisions within the country on Foreign Policy and said essentially its our fault my colleagues fault in congress, u. S. Leaders need to do better job of making the case to the American People about what are the stakes, why does this matter, why do they need to support Nuclear Modernization and other u. S. Efforts. So we do have recommendations to members of congress to help us make the case and persuade the American People why this is important, why its necessary. You mentioned whole of government primary and a preface you made a statement, United States does not have the right approach and the approach must be committed by the United States. What does that mean . So from a detroit perspective means all of government has to be working together in in a coordinated fashion. The that includes commerce and treasury. It includes the state department, clips duty includes nnsa. Step think about it from a pure traditional ministry of defense deterrence perspective, we also have to broaden that aperture and think about what are the other tools and levers of government they can add to deterrence. So for instance, our sanctions and addon our sanctions thought out well in advance as part of a strategy. It would even go to things like how you get the department of education working with various states to make sure that the workforce is going to be there. Somebody told automotive its true, have to look to see if its true, that 529 accounts cannot be used for trade schools . If thats true and i dont know if it is true, making sure that our Educational Opportunities across the board for trade schools, junior colleges, four year colleges so we have the workforce of the future that we need. Its a much different approach, that thinking, messaging as whole of government. We all talk about russia and china to quite a good job in terms of getting their messages across in a court need away. The challenge is can we make those distinctions at the artifact propaganda but nevertheless, they give a good job of getting out the door. We dont. How do we think about looking at deterrence writ large through wholeofgovernment approach. Its hard. Weve had sometimes, of course whole of government but we dont seem to be able to do it. This is one of the real tasks is to get serious about really look at all of government approach come all the agencies. Just add briefly, whole of government sometimes physical shape or throw relied and we try to talk, walk the walk not just talk the talk so we recommendations for careful about how treasury Department Defense can cooperate for sanctions complaining d campaigns to betty contribute to our deterrence. And other conditions like that the do try to go beyond just the dod. With time for a couple more questions. Thank you, sir. My apologies if this is mentioned in your report but was a lack of prioritization delivered and can you speak to why that was . So remember this is a loan game report. And he goes from 2027235 and, frankly, beyond. So when you say prioritization, the real question is what are you really meaning in that question . So if you were to say what are the things we should prioritize, we should prioritize the things we need to do now to enable us to make decisions in the future. Let me pick on one. So lets say the air force is going to purchase more be 21 bomber. We know that socko and happen next week. Its going to be years down the road. But as air force looks at the procurement profile funding profile for the obama dont do anything now that will make it harder or prevent the acquisition of our many more we need, ten, 20, 100, 200 down the road. So do i say lets prioritize the acquisition of a new b21 . No. But what i want to prioritize izzy ability to procure one if we needed. Its that thinking. Prioritize the saints you need to do now. Prioritize how nnsa plans out its infrastructure. Prioritize how dod plans for the transition from legacy systems to new systems. Thats can he be really hard. I dont think, i think that doesnt get fully discussed and a dont think its well understood. Because its also a a challene for congress. Congress tends to defund older systems at new systems come online peer we cant do that for these. They have to be fully funded. It goes all the way from the actual systems all the way down to the testers and mechanics of people who know how to work on these to maintain them. It do all that work now. That to me is a priority so you dont foreclose these options in the future. Senator kyl got a similar question so i will paraphrase him, that the u. S. Department f defense has said for a long time to get deterrence is the most Important Mission of the u. S. Department of defense. This is what we think is whats necessary for Strategic Deterrence. So this is the priority, all of it, and anything that is not in your is not a priority. [laughing] listen, we are at time. Im okay to go a few minutes and less summer once to put the hook on me. I want to respect our folks appear. Can we do three more questions . Russian writer. Hello. One question, just as, think about the answer. Different question. I may need to one of the commissions, concern the report doesnt get the notoriety and press it deserved. Can you comment on that and how you would respond . Well, our timing was a lot to be desired. We rolled our report out on october 12 and what we did this we were actually focus and was not the government would the operating and, or whether it be shut down. As it turned out that wasnt a problem. My days before we rolled up the report [inaudible] so that was all the news and thats still pretty much a large part of the news cycle. I think were starting to see more attraction. As they say our timing was not wonderful. The other thing is these are really hard topics. They are hard topics to understand, hard topics to discuss. And the changes weve seen since the last Strategic Commission which was chartered in 2008 and issued its report in 2009 was a very different view of the world. I mean it was, it was, i would call more hopeful view, more optimistic view. And that is changed remarkably, too. So thats also a very hard message to get out, to get out the door. Its the combination of all those things. So for me what i hope, i know a lot of the commissioners have discussed about how we have to figure out how to do more outreach, had to do more grassroots, how to get outside of washington. Okay. That was very good. Certainly jonathan and adam, theres been a lot of talk about the word culture, how does it look politically so feel free to weigh in on some of these things as well. Certainly be part of whats happening forward. Question right of your place. National institute for deterrence studies. First of all i applaud the committee for putting together this. It provides a common language in which we can talk about national strategy. I thought it was an excellent idea. But my question is, and get it might be too much in the weeds, two years ago everyone was talking hypersonics, hypersonics. It reduces the decision timeline, et cetera. Thats going to kill to terms. We didnt see much about that in the commission report. Im curious especially with question about surprise technologies, that was one creeped up when it won. I would be curious what the committee thought of that and how that played out in your discussions. Do you want to go first . Go ahead. So we did talk a lot about hypersonics but we also really begin to understand, look, this is really hard. One of the other themes that we havent talked about today in the report is by and large not anywhere but by and large the Commission Found a lack of a sense of urgency in many aspects of the various programs. The hypersonics was one of those where we saw not a lot of urgency on the part of the Defense Department with respect to the development. So one of our recommendations was lets figure out how to go a little bit faster, how to take this capability on board, howo dresser with a little more urgency. But it also from a defensive perspective we did talk about it and it is embedded in this idea of being able to protect key aspects of Critical Infrastructure from a course of attack. And one of these vectors would be hypersonics. Obviously there are others those part and parcel of thinking about how to protect key infrastructure. And it could be patriots, its point, its theater, but really think about how we protect from some of these lesser warned capabilities. Well look, please. I would just add that in congress i know that hypersonics definitely have not followed out of that theres a lot of concern about the pace of what those are. The relative lack of rapid pace. You mightve noticed and luscious National Defense authorization act that was provision that directed Public Defense essentially field a first hypersonic defense capability about eight years as of when the department of Defense Initiative wanted to field of that. And so in our discussion we believe technology isnt sure enough to meet that is more like a resource and prioritization goal. I think it goes to the point of his the urgency that the commission calls for being reflected in not just policy but policies across years government. I think thats one area where it is their competence may not get the notoriety that it deserves. Thank you, adam. Want to thank our panel. This is such an interesting discussion, such an interest report. If you not read this report you all to yourself to do it. It is filled with just extremely informative and interesting information, regarding these programs you heard a lot about today so thank you so much to our panel and thank you to the audience for staying. [applause]