Reach a bipartisan agreement on the Strategic Forces subcommittee mark and that was a sad day for us on that subcommittee. My amendment would restore the authority of the department of defense to deploy the low yield variant of the w 762 warhead. Our deterrence requires that the United States have a proportional response available for any miscalculation. Low yield weapons are critical to our security because they give us a credible deterrent. Russias confidence that if they were to strike us we would have the capability and the will to respond in a proportional manners makes a strike by the russians less likely not more likely. Mr. Chairman, this is why the 2018 Nuclear Posture review included the requirement that the United States develop and deploy the low yield submarine launched Ballistic Missile as soon as possible. The npr highlighted how critical this capability is to close the deterrence gap and provide credible Response Options to russia to deescalate doctrine. There was an impressive job done in fy 19 with limit or no additional cost and prohibiting the deployment wastes millions of dollars that the dod has spent working to produce these weapons. Additionally, putting a halt to this program incurs several million more dollars worth of lost costs due to contract obligations. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is also directly in support of the nato partners in europe. Something i know my colleagues on this Committee Say theyre committed to. It is entirely possible that russias threat with their low yield weapons would be against nato conventional forces. Not against the sovereign of the United States alone. Therefore, it would be inappropriate and destabilizing if we were not to have an appropriate response because our allies would then begin to feel they needed to look elsewhere for assurances. Some of our colleagues on this committee have argued that low yield weapons are destabilizing despite the fact that we have had the weapons in our arsenal since 1945. Whats destabilizing is the chairmans remarks on march 12, 2019, and i quote, if the russians launch a Nuclear Weapon at us and we dont have anything but a bigger Nuclear Weapon, well, then we launched the bigger Nuclear Weapon thats what we do. Closed quote. That is brazen, its irresponsible, its completely inappropriate. Low yield Nuclear Weapons are a crucial part of our deterrent capability. Vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said quote a proportional reaction to the enemys attack is actually a righteous and reasonable thing to do. If all you have is large yield weapons and youre trying to answer a low yield attack, answering that with a conventional weapon is likely not going to have a deterrent value. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would simply say that we are not going to prohibit the deployment of these weapons that are crucial to our nations security. I therefore urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment so that we can continue in a manner in which we provide for the defense of the nation in a bipartisan way as we have for so many years on this committee. And with that, i yield back. Mr. Chairman, may i make an inquiry . You may. I think its a badge of honor that we have an open markup and my inquiry is if this debate requires it, have arrangements been made for the committee to move to a classified session in order to discuss fully the this amendment . Yes. And that would be upstairs in 2212 . Thats a good question. So we have a place to go should it be required. But that was my question. Thats what my lawyers tell me, yes. Thank you. Just a Quick Response to that. I dont think theres anything brazen, irresponsible or whatever other words we used about advocating for us having a deterrent to nuclear war. What the purpose of my remarks was, we need to make it clear to our adversaries, russia in particular, if they use a Nuclear Weapon theyll pay a price to it. I cant believe the gentle lady is opposed to that. That well hit them back harder. That is clear deterrence and the goal of all of this i think we do agree on this is to stop anybody from even thinking that they can under any circumstances launch a Nuclear Weapon and have it have a good outcome for them. My point on the deterrence is to say that well, the russians will launch the low yield and if we dont have one, they know we wont do anything because we wont want to be disproportional. Low yield is a bit of a misnomer, it implies well its a low yield nuke, its still a nuke with the destructive capacity greater than the nuke that was dropped on hiroshima. So if this is launched, it is going to set off a very destructive war. We want to discourage them from even thinking about launching it. And in that regard i dont think theres anything wrong with us making it clear to our adversary that you launch a Nuclear Weapon, well consider nuclear war. We have all the options on the table and ill point out as mr. Cooper has pointed out, we have other low yield Nuclear Weapons. Theres a low yield response is possible. But im sorry, i take the somewhat tough stance we should not tell our adversaries well measure how large the Nuclear Weapon you dropped on us was and make sure we dont respond in a greater way. I dont think thats an appropriate way to do deterrence. I dont think i dont have a problem with us the Nuclear Weapons being a deterrent to anyone launching a Nuclear Weapon at us. Putting it on a submarine, were not saying putting it on a submarine is a mistake. We have had this debate. Many of us have opposed this from the start. This is not a change in position. Yes, there are some democrats who support it. Im not one of them. Thats why we put it in the mark mr. Cooper is not one of them either. So thats why were having this debate. We dont think its the proper approach to Start Talking about a proportional response because it plants in peoples minds the idea that theres somehow an acceptable nuclear war. I dont believe that there is. I think we need to make it clear that under no circumstances will we allow that and if the russians think they can quote, escalate to deescalate we need to make it clear every second of every day that they are dead wrong about that. Escalation leads to escalation so dont even think about doing it and with that i yield to mr. Cooper. I thank the chair for yielding. My colleagues are not on the subcommittee should know we have literally hundreds and hundreds of low yield Nuclear Weapons. Many hundreds of which are deployed. Its all by the air force. If we dont do whats this will be the first time in history that our strategic assets, our Nuclear Submarines have been used for tactical purposes. If we stop deployment now we wont have wasted any money. Its probably a good thing we have the new warhead developed in production but it hasnt been deployed. The two primary risks you face if you deploy these socalled low yield weapons are one, you fire the weapon, the submarine is exposed. Two, there are a limited number of missile tubes is something we have never done before and all of the decades we have had Nuclear Weapons. So why risk the most survivable, the most precious leg of the triad with this fairly new idea . You know, we have the weapon developed but lets not deploy it now. At least not without thinking on this important topic. Its an important and fundamental principle of Nuclear Doctrine we do not deploy this weapon on a strategic asset. And would the the one thing i want to point out, you know, we fully support the b21 and the columbia class Nuclear Weapon and the rlso. We are spending a lot of money on Nuclear Deterrents in this mark. This is the one area that we disagree. Thanks. The clock is reset at 4 40. Thank you. I believe first, lets grant that and we have the intelligence that low grade Nuclear Weapons exist. They exist with our adversaries and in a growing number. So we may not wish to consider that theres a its a tactical weapon our adversaries do. What level of naivete to think it isnt that our adversaries will not. Deterrence is based on believability. Your opponent has to believe that in fact if they deploy a low yield Nuclear Weapon, say in eastern europe, that we would have that our nation would have the willingness to take out multiple cities in russia in response. Id ask people in this audience how many people believe that is the case . We delose ourselves with the idea, well, im aware you do, mr. Chair, and i think youre erroneous. We delude ourselves with the idea that we would respond in that manner. I find it ironic given when we deployed a sub in response to issues with iran theres a great deal of yelling about escalation. But well say in the case of a tactical Nuclear Weapon used by russia, well escalate to deescalate. It doesnt make any sense to me. Deterrence is based on believability and if your adversary doesnt believe you it doesnt matter what you think. It doesnt matter when the moment of time they use it and then were at a disadvantage. The idea is that we would have less tonnage. Think about that. We would be reducing our nuclear tonnage. Our Nuclear Impact if we had to use anything. It would exist to be less of it in the world and somehow were opposing that. Its just astonishing to me. So i support the amendment. I urge people to think about this because this is the one of the most important things well do tonight of all the other discussions well have of how it is we offset a threat right now its more russia, but you dont think that threat is growing with other nations . It absolutely is. Will the gentleman yield for a question . I would like to yield to ms. Cheney. Im sorry . Who did you yield to . Ms. Cheney. Okay. Thank you very much. You know, what matters is not what we think its what the russians think. And for us to be in a situation where the suggestions made that somehow those of us who are arguing about the importance of low yield Nuclear Weapons is part of our deterrence are not arguing in favor of deterrence is simply wrong headed. When you look at the approach that the russians would take in terms of the likelihood that they would be calculating that the use of a low yield Nuclear Weapon on a battlefield for example in europe, and tape that listened to the kinds of comments we have heard in this committee theyll make the calculation, you know, of course not. If it comes down to it, the United States will not deploy a larger weapon in response to the low yield attack. For us to be in the situation that were saying the responsible thing, the thing thats necessary for a national security, is to have deployed a low yield weapon. In fact, they do not destabilize. They make a strike by the russians or by any of the adversaries less likely not more likely. And the argument that the chairman is adopting simply would take us down the path of saying, one Nuclear Weapon is enough. One can destroy the world and i have heard the chairman say things that approximate that. And the notion is seriously . Well, the notion its my time, mr. Chairman. The notion its actually mr. Mitchells time. But he yielded to me. But the notion well want to be less secure because we have available every possible response that is going to be effective and the most clear headed way in demonstrating both our will and our capability to respond to keep ourselves safe and keep our adversaries safe its crucial that we do that and its unfortunate that the majority has chosen to zero this out in terms of the submarine based missiles. I yield back. Mr. Mitchell . Yield for a question . So if you grant the premise of your statement, mr. Mitchell, that its only what the adversary believes not what we believe, is it your contention then that if the adversary sees a tactical Nuclear Weapon, a low yield Nuclear Weapon by the United States in thats usable that it will increase the frequency or the likelihood that that will be used rather than a strategic weapon that would have a greater yield . I think you have allies that have to depend upon you standing up to defend them if they if the tactical Nuclear Weapon is used against them. You have people that believe you have the capability to do that and you have the willingness as a nation to do that. We have gone this long without a full scale Nuclear Weapon because our adversaries have believed because our adversaries have believed that they dont want to have that tradeoff. This is a different level tradeoff and we have our adversaries believe the gentlemans time has expired. We will not do that. This argument is missing the point of the amendment. And the point of the weapon itself. The chairman is very clearly pointed out that a low yield is really a very, very large explosion. Extraordinarily devastating and we have a lot of low yield weapons deployed in europe today. They have been there for decades. So with regard to tit for tat on a low yield, very, very large explosion, were perfectly capable of doing that. This argument that really in the amendment and the mark itself deals with the way in which that weapon would be deployed. Not that it doesnt exist, it does exist. As the chairman, mr. Cooper, said a moment ago, its been built. At least one, perhaps more have been built. The question is how is it going to be used and deployed . Thats the point of this mark and that is the point of the it should be the point of this debate. And that is are we going to for the very first time take the most valuable of the Strategic Deterrent that we have, which is the submarines, and i have heard from ms. Cheney and mr. And from our colleagues on the other side, it is the deterrent thats important and certainly the chairman has pointed that out. The deterrent is ultimately the Strategic Value of the submarines which would lose that value by deploying a low yield weapon on a Ballistic Missile. One of the valuable tubes that mr. Cooper pointed out. Furthermore, when that missile is launched that submarines location is known. Can it scoot away fast enough . Well, consider the range of the missile. And the likelihood that an adversary is not so far away. Which is probably going to be the case. A Strategic Deterrent is gone. The chairman could not be more correct. Nor, ms. Cheney, could you be more correct. This country has been and is today willing to use a Nuclear Weapon as a counterattack. Therefore, a deterrent. Nobody is backing away from that. Nobody. Now, the notion of a Tactical Nuclear war has got to be beyond the imagination and it should be. Not excuse me, absolutely incorrect, ga a mehndi. A Tactical Nuclear war should be in our imagination. We should clearly understand what it is. It is a nuclear war. Small yield, low yield makes no difference. If it is a tit for tat nuclear war, it is a god awful situation. We should never go there. And for planning to go there with a strategy of escalate to deescalate, which apparently russia has and by the way the United States had for more than 30 years in europe, is you know, like the end of this thing. So what were talking about here is how will this weapon be deployed . And to use it on a submarine which is the point which is the language in the mark. We think is inappropriate. With that i yield back. Mr. Turner . Thank you, mr. Chairman. For the freshmen, the people who have been on this committee for the first final i want to take you back to a coupal of places. First off, this is not going to become law. Let me take you to the understanding of what we do on this committee and the house floor has to go over to the senate and you need 60 votes and this is not going to become law. You know that. The second place i want to take you is the place where you were standing before a Community Forum and you were standing there as a candidate and you had to answer question as to what you believed. At that time if someone said do you believe in the unilateral disarmament of the United States, you would have said no. Im all for nuclear reduction, but they should be by treaty. We should bargain it away not give it away. Now, the third place i want to take you is the when you were standing there in that Community Forum and people were asking you what you believed, if they told you theres a Nuclear Weapon that i dont like, and id like for you to eliminate it, ill give you a list of some of the things that youd believe that you want which is why Mac Thornberry asked about classified. Well, before i place myself in the position of commander, i would want to know what is russia doing in its current exercises with low yield Nuclear Weapons and how are they deploying them . Thats noble, thats classified you should get that briefing before you make that decision and the second are what is are russias weapons . The third and by the way this is a red herring you are hearing about we have low yield