[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] thank you for joining us for the second part of our discussion on strategic posture. We focused on what was at the heart and are compatible focus on what we think discussion with leading scholars on the proliferation so directly to my left, a senior fellow for security, Deputy Assistant secretary of defense here and head for policy. We have the army Board Director of capital of the department of defense and the Vice President for Global Programs of the strategy. I like to kick off broad questions. We just heard about the findings or recommendations but i want to ask you, do you think the commission met its mark and come up with a solid path forward . What recommendation would you like to see in the bus. The secretaries of defense in 2009 timeframe and commerce was arguing to build reliable replacement and they are debates the couldnt resolve and the commission with these issues, many of the ideas for in an influence in modern life i. I think what is going on here is while there is a consensus, rises. It was reaffirmed the big question is this commission, the Replacement Program is sufficient but not enough the question is how much more . The need for Nuclear Attacks as well but hasnt taken the next step to determine what change whether they will commission they dont they risk not only National Security concerns section. The cost of war can be entirely independent of who will one the war and the significance of incredible Power Nuclear weapons is in the union a particularly they would leave the victor, it vastly wears off. As i said, it is a physical act. People talk about we accepted a short description. We didnt exactly recognize it is a fact the law of gravity complicates airplane design and that is the ultimate foundation because the possibility that is where you end up is the biggest restraint. The serious problem on the numbers in my mind yes, the chinese buildup is unfortunate also china, the chinese, why are the americans and russians, teen hundred under the armscontrol but its not 1500 and reality, it is a lot more, quietly pretending to be so nervous about force that will be 20, 25 . They may have the capacity to build up i think the numbers are part because it is important to show we are responding in useful ways but its much less what we do and how we think about deterrent strategy, not simple numbers that go up on public works connect having to ask numbers, the way people think about this problem but what if i suggest the numbers that need to increase our modest could be accomplished within the context of armscontrol teamwork so for instance, is a strawman argument people say we need to add a chinese target and russian targeted matched the combined amount. Nobody i know involved suggesting that. It is a smaller number. For instance, it could be the treaty that existed prior was called the moscow treaty and it was 2200 so 1550 up to 2200 can be accomplished are deterrent by going up to 2200 . Is something the administration would have to calculate on their strategy and target the movie that is possible. What if we agree with russia to go back to that level . We saw the china problem yet we have not started our. That assumes you need at least 1500, anything beneath that is sufficient. You definitely need more. I was determined and 2010, this is grandpa before. It is a nonstarter. The question is more, anybody agrees mark not everybody but is not just commission, Global Security research and international csis, they have done studies, they have all found to more is needed but we are not talking, we can solve this without arms race but what we need is the administration to put together a package to explain to us how they would meet requirements laid out in a manner that does not involve the arms race and that can be done. A couple things, i did not find the report compelling that we need necessarily more or different Nuclear Forces at this time. The report is ambiguous and it on the assumptions because you have to make assumptions about russia and china and what assumption not hardly discussed is what russia will doing and conversely, a constraint in russia and at what level . The question of whether we do need additional capability deal with china and china is assessed to have 500 Nuclear Weapons, not all deployed compared to 4000 so something happening down the road more quickly than anticipated a couple of years ago for sure but we are not there yet so it is not laid out in the report and another important question i have, the commissioner emphasized the urgency of some decisions that should be made so we have options available in the future which makes sense but the report was unclear on the decisions have to be made because it is definitely not about keeping production lines more strategic 15 and 20 years so that is not the issue. It wasnt stated until that sense of urgency matched by a discussion, this isnt urgent and the members now, back to the contrary and one other thing, it goes back to the issue of we ought to think more and there is the chapter at the end, can we mitigate the risk we are worried about with russia and china through negotiations and armscontrol agreement defined even a commitment to not succeed those limits and all of that will have the need for the options in this report which would be unachievable and too costly not to mention destabilizing and not a population going to. I suspect i know the answer but one of reports, it must continue order sufficient to get a baseline, we have not had a great one for years, what is it that is the biggest vulnerability that needs addressed now . For me it is the regional aspect so imagine we are engaged in a war with say russia and nato. We are fighting conventional war, we need forces to deter nuclear use and we have bombs delivered by Fighter Aircraft but what happens if while we are engaged china decides to engage taiwan . We are still deterring nuclear use against russia and deter china. All of our Nuclear Assets are in europe. Are you going to move them to the asian region . You dont have to make that choice if you build capabilities dedicated to that feature. If china knows we have those capabilities and they are less likely to engage in war. We dont have any structure there so one example you have to ask the allies the fact that china does have another we can use promptly and there is no way to use limited and it adds to the deterrent and it requires additional capability. To be fair, they recognize that problem. You could take tactical fires and move into the region are used the watch they are not necessarily prompt. One of our biggest problems in asia is building a structure of in the region that people are willing to stand up to china because most of the Asian Countries have the option of some kind of accommodation, and its a problem we dont have to nearly the same degree in nato, and i think one of the greatest advantages of a nuclear arms [inaudible] Cruise Missile is it for all practical purposes, not necessarily, but for all practical purposes, it is an asiafocused capability, and it would allow us without the incredible political chaos of trying to deploy permanently deploy american Nuclear Forces in japan or the philippines or wherever. It provides genuine [inaudible] highly survivable. It is prompt. It is very accurate. It probably has a good penetration capacity 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 the chinese strike if for some ultimate reason they decided it was important, but in order to have credible 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 intimately linked. A system like this i think is a big contribution to doing that. So first of all, i just want to agree with something that was said earlier in which the Commission Also said is the best way to deter a nuclear war or conflict is to deter a conventional one between great powers with Nuclear Weapons. As a taxpayer, i would rather see my added dollar go to defenses and new technologies and not to [inaudible] Nuclear Weapons which i dont think we need. Second of all, we have capabilities, we have submarine launch ballistic missiles, now thanks to the trump administration, has a low yield option on those systems. We have air delivery capability. Were investing in more Long Range Standoff weapons, so theres plenty of Nuclear Capabilities that can brought to bear in the region to certainly to assure allies and also to deter china. This is one of the points that was brought up in the first panel, but i wanted to ask your views on the recommendation about new arms control agreements and the likelihood that we could even get russia or china to come to the table on Different Levels of numbers, different types of testing, the different types the new modern bombs that china is developing, so just, you know, given the current context, how can you get one russia to the table and two, how would you get china to the table . Well, first of all, i think it is a really important element of the report. I would like to see it amplified in that we have to we should be looking to see whether arms control broadly defined, meaning not just legally binding agreements, but, you know, cooperative arrangements, commitments, risk reduction, whether all of that can be used to, you know, reduce the threat that we see currently and could develop further. I thought the report was, you know, kind of silent on the fact about or the question of whether it actually mattered to us anymore to try to maintain restraint with russia on strategic numbers which i think is still important and as a way of bounding the threat and also what we have to do with china. Also i think it is potentially achievable, not now clearly, but at some point, the fighting in ukraine is going to stop, and the climate will change, and an opportunity i think will arise with especially with the pending, you know, expiration of new star that there will be a desire and i 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 russias bringing online. I also share the aspiration to bring in all Nuclear War Heads and nonstrategic war heads. I think that may be a longer term proposition. Again, with china, it is an even longer. I think were further away from arms control, but the first steps of dialogue, it needs to be spur pursued, but part of that the report talks about kind of independently establishing our requirements and then seeing what you could do with arms control, but it is more of an iterative process because your requirements are partly determined by, you know from new star, it wasnt just how many weapons do we need, how many, what kind of weapons do we think we need if russia will agree to these limits, and do we need more, you know, if they exceed it . So it is not you know, it is not a question that you answer on your own. It is a question you answer in connection with what is the other party willing to do, and it may not seem viable right now, but im i think the opportunity will return in the future. I think there is an well, you only have arms control agreements or any other kind of agreements if both parties think its in their interest. And 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 Decision Making under incredible pressure. I think there are a number of steps which could be taken, which do not include dealerting which is the worst possible answer and the worst way to make the problem harder rather than easier, but there are other things that could be done. 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 do i articulate it and i will comment. I was going to note that the Biden Administration is currently undertaking a nuclear fail safe review. It was mandated in the National Defense authorization act. Its looking specifically at kind of assuring the safety, security, reliability of u. S. Nuclear weapons and commandandcontrol systems to avoid inadvertent or miscalculated nuclear use, so things like looking at Cyber Threats or, you know, problems in the supply chains. This review should hopefully, you know, yield some technical as well as some policy recommendations for steps the u. S. Can do, maybe unilaterally but also there may be some ideas for things that we could do in parallel with other states with Nuclear Weapons or encourage them to do on their own, and anyway, i think if Something Like this was done Something Like this was done 30 years ago, it is now being done and thats an example. One other thing about the threats from the other side, there is some element of we have to ask ourselves about our own restraint and thinking about, you know, what is the reaction that our actions, even our planning, let alone actually developing and deploying these things will engender on the other side. You know, the Missile Defense discussion is a good example of something that could be seen as very provocative to china and russia. You know, all these everything in this report, the laundry list of items that matt read to us, i mean, just the idea that were planning for that can be very provocative, and i think some thought needs go to whether, you know, because at some point if we dont do certain things, it wont be senseical for another country to keep building up. I agree with her as we get close to the expiration of the new star treaty in 26, peoples minds will go to what comes next. I think we have time to assess our requirements and build that into a proposal that we can then present to the russians. China is got not going to come to the table. Forget about three way talks. It is not going to happen. We will determine our requirements. Russians will figure out what their requirements are and now we have a basis for negotiations. Lets bring in the politics. Republicans are not going to agree to a follow on new star framework unless there is some Additional Nuclear force capabilities. Im not talking about 5,000 more Nuclear Weapons but some number of up loads of the current missiles. Likewise, its going to be difficult i think for the republicans to secure Administration Support for these additional capabilities, unless there is some arms control framework built into that; right . And there can be restraint. 2200 going back to 2200, theres a constraint. The community will not like the fact that were going from 1550 to 2200 but should like the fact we still have constraint. I would like to also before we get to audience questions talk about the other ways to provide deterrents through space, through cyber. Lets start with space. Its becoming a more and more critical element to detection, to potentially being able to shoot down an incoming missile, what more needs to be done in this realm to bolster strategic posture . It is probably first of all, i assume most of the interesting answers to that question are 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 [inaudible] because it is a stupid system, very dangerous, but also stupid. But i think we need to think a lot more and it may well 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 of u. S. Nuclear forces. I think it is the same in space. The key to stability, the key to not having to use Nuclear Weapons, the key to deterring the adversary is to make sure you have the ability to respond; right . Survivable Nuclear Forces, now we need to have survivable space forces as well. I think the administrations general approach is to, you know, proliferate the number of censures that we have out there to make sure the adversary cannot conduct a first strike that would blind us, right . Were also looking at potential Counter Space capabilities against the other side. So this is happening, but again the key here is going to be survivability. I dont think theres an arms control framework that solves this problem the least survivable part i think it is survivable, but the most vulnerable to disruption is not any of the nuclear systems, the platforms. Its the commandandcontrol system, the early warning, the communications to the force, that i think is a place and i understand i understand why the commission didnt emphasize it because theres not a heck of a lot you could say about it, but it is terribly important. The commission spoke about Missile Defense. Again, thats another capability, and theres probably no issue in u. S. Nuclear policy that evokes more emotion than the Missile Defense issue. Those who believe in Missile Defense is destabilizing and cause arm races and those that believe it provides protection and you can deter by creating uncertainty of the attack; right . We have had this terrible debate going on since the days of the [inaudible] and before. To make a long story short at the end of the cold war, we decided were no longer going to build homeland defenses against russia and china only against iran and north korea. Now as the committee points out and as the china report points out, chinas building a conventional icbm [inaudible] the United States, now it begs a question would it make sense to move the needle in our 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 . Well, we can explore that issue with the other side. There may be a way to do this without threatening russia or Chinas Nuclear retaliatory capability which is really what they are most concerned about. Isnt a more sophisticated conventional or Nuclear Defense in their theater ultimately provocative . Would we allow the same in [inaudible] we would be deploying this on u. S. Territory. Talking about regional, like pushing forward also its a little hard for me sitting here to figure out why it would be a good idea for a country to use an icbm if an icbm means anything like what we understand it to mean today, delivering a thousand pound bombs, that strikes me as a remarkable nonproblem. I mean, theres some vulnerabilities that maybe you can think of, point defenses, but they would be a very different kind of defense, among other things, you dont have to ballistic Missile Defense against Nuclear Weapons which is 90 percent effective is essentially not very good. Ballistic missiles if you are protecting the homeland populations, but if you are trying to protect u. S. Retaliatory forces, thats a pretty good probability yes, up to a point, 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 whole force so that defending is not the way to make a survivable force is to put it in places and in ways that are hard to attack rather than affirmatively defending it, and thats still true. Can we go back to basics . I mean the idea is that our Nuclear ForceStrategic 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 is its, you know, national Missile Defense, you know, is not viable against, you know, a Russian Force and we dont actually say it explicitly but against chinese either, and so this idea of kind of having a limited capability, i dont know what that i dont even know what that means because its the idea that china russia would even, you know think they could send one missile to the u. S. Homeland and think that would be limited. If theres no capability to defend against, it becomes much more feasible. It is more of a question of seriousness it can be overwhelmed by the offense. Why is China Building a [inaudible] . Thats a good question. The United States considered it. Decided it was destabilizing and wouldnt do it. Its interesting go ahead, sorry. Going back to really the most fundamental question, and what deters . How eay is it to deter . I get the sense that lynn believes a relatively modest Nuclear Force that can threaten russian or chinese population, urban areas would be sufficient for deterrence. I take a different view. I think its much more complicated. I think when you are trying to extend deterrence on behalf of allies, you have to threaten to use Nuclear Weapons at your own risk. Why would the adversary believe that the u. S. Attacking their cities would be a credible deterrent . If we attack their cities, they attack ours. [inaudible]. Youre talking about the program of record which is not based on that kind of targeting. You think we can get by with fewer Nuclear Weapons . Have i said that . Right now so far i dont see the case has been made for more. Okay, all right. Very interesting question, why the chinese would want to do . I believe the chinese may well exaggerate the degree to which modest damage to the American Homeland would coerce us into not responding in a theater. On the other hand, if weve got any targets, where an icbmdelivered high explosive weapon can knock out important essential capability, we better fix that problem by fixing the system, not explaining that were going to defend against it. Point defense is a much easier problem than area defense, and there may be there may be options. But it just doesnt strike me as on any kind of a large scale as a place to put a lot of emphasis. Well, the Northern Command commander is worried about attacks on u. S. Critical infrastructure, the ports of attacking ports with high explosive weapons is not done with one bomb no matter how powerful it would be a suite of bombs, but it could be Cruise Missile attacks. It could be icbms, but if you are concerned that china and russia may attack some european ports or south korean ports or guam, why wouldnt they also attack ports here in the United States . Because the americans would be furious. I could 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 meet this evolving threat environment . I think one of the most interesting parts of the report is the proposals with respect to what is called a Nuclear Enterprise, that is, the infrastructure that is responsible, not to the platforms, which is where almost all of 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 vulnerable, is extremely important, and im not 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, and the commissions list of recommendations for that certainly sounds plausible. If you are applying to expand the capabilities, you would still need to bolster the current infrastructure just to support the socalled program of record. Yeah. And i would just say i mean i think the report was strong on that. Its the it does strike me as the thing that is urgent to answer my own question in terms of if you or at least urgent to keep at it and continue bringing that 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 dont know i didnt quite know what it meant by, you know, expanding the capacity. I think we have got our hands full with just, you know, being able to bring the complex up to date to do what were doing now, but certainly, thats important, and its always underinvested in congress. People are more interested in the next widget, the next weapon, the next delivery vehicle more than they are in the facilities and the people actually the report makes it a really strong case for investment in the scientific, Industrial Base and personnel and all that is so important. I think one of the biggest problems is to attract brilliant young scientists to be willing to work on nuclear problems. If you dont have that, you face much more difficult problems and that goes back to the old 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. Theres a question for you. You said you need to find ways to incentivize china and russia on arms control to reduce a threat. The question, how do you do this while balancing adversarys security and the u. S. Negotiating leverage . It is hard, but i mean i think, you know, i do think historically and again russias doing [inaudible] things right now so we dont know what the future direction of russia will be but historically they have found it in their mutual interest as we have for over 50 years to maintain, you know, mutual limits on our Strategic Forces. I think the russians are still interested in that. It is a more complicated negotiation because its there are other capacities with strategic effect that we know they want to bring in the conversation. I still think theres that overarching mutual interest, and i think the opportunity will open up to get back to the table with russia, and again, you know, legally binding verifiable agreements are the gold standard, but there are other options short of that. China is going to be tougher, you know, tougher because they are in a different place, but i think i agree. I think we need to i dont think we should still be pursuing bilateral constraints with russia even as china is building and were trying to establish dialogue with them, but i dont think it is a threeparty negotiation realistically, and i dont think we should be letting russia run free because, you know, all the second graders are running to the soccer ball which is china, but meanwhile, it is russia that still has more than 4000 Nuclear Weapons so we cant take our eye off the ball. Did you have Something Else you wanted to say . No, i would just be repeating myself again. I agree with lynn that we probably should engage the russians, put everything on the table, but at the end of the day, it cant be just about extending the current framework. Thats just even this administration has agreed that the next round of discussions with the russians have to include the novel systems, the nonstrategic systems, they have to be included. Now the commission is recommending that were going to need some im going to use the word modest increase in our Strategic Forces start negotiating with the russians and see what this turns up. We have another question. With the capability [inaudible] how would china be able to differentiate between the conventional and nuclear Cruise Missile during a crisis . It doesnt matter in a sense; right . The assumption is that they will see Cruise Missiles coming at them and [inaudible] during this crisis, the Chinese Forces will be on alert. They will be dispersing their forces. There is no way that one or two u. S. Cruise missiles heading to china is going to be misconstrued as a disarming they can actually wait to see where the Cruise Missile hits, determine whether its nuclear or not and then the spot. Theres no reason for them to have to look, were going to be attacking them with conventional Cruise Missiles. Just because they see a Cruise Missile at them, do you think they will respond with a Nuclear Weapon . That makes no sense the problem is not limited to Cruise Missiles. We plan to use b 52 bombers which strangely enough were designed before i was born. [laughter] we have 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 too, but there are ways to deal with that. Did you want to add anything . I think discrimination of dual capable systems is something to be concerned about, and out of curiosity, what did you think of the commissions recommendation on a [inaudible] program and the potential risks or advantages it might bring . Well, the Clinton Administration tried that. The enthusiasm for robust National Defense does not seem to apply in sparselypopulated parts of our country. I think theres an [inaudible] issue which is real, and i think there are better ways to 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. But it strikes me as a very hard way to approach the survivability problem, maybe as 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 i no longer have the access to be sure about this, but supposedly, we worry about the oppositions ability to track things that are moving, and presumably we believe we have a pretty good possibility of tracking. Anyone want i mean so mobile missiles theoretically, you know, are more survivable. I mean, they are. Although you just pointed out that there are challenges to that too. Politically to me it seems like a complete nonstarter. I cant imagine that people want to start seeing mobile missiles. Maybe it would be good because it would remind the American People who [inaudible] that we have Nuclear Weapons and that we have a lot [inaudible] than other countries. I think it is completely a nonstarter. I cant imagine having can i say one other thing which is i do not see the wisdom from a strategic stability stand point of up loading our icbms, and the report does call for adding more war heads. Right now there are single war head, adding more war heads and also planning to do it in the next generation. It is the least stabilizing. It is not where i would add more weapons. First on the mobile, again, i think it speaks to survivability. We had a debate over this during the cold war. I understand that, but things are different now with the two nuclear peer environment. Look, youre not talking about Nuclear Weapons roaming the countryside. These things will be based in garrison, and during a crisis, they would be flushed out. I dont that thats the one we couldnt sell [laughter] lets toss it in the mix. Lets figure it out. Look, part of the response to this two nuclear peer problem is we may need more Nuclear Weapons or we may need to make the existing force more survivable or some combination of the. Two instead of adding another 150 [inaudible] if you make 150 more survivable, then maybe you have to choose the same objectives. We are at our final minute. I wanted to offer the opportunity for any closing thoughts or something you would wish to be able to raise before we conclude . Im sorry, i think this uncertainty is creating a lot of friction. We need the administration to take on the recommendations of this commission and try to think about how they would react to that, whether its some theater capability, some additional Nuclear Forces lets get a position on the table, and then we can have more logical debate over this. No go ahead. Then i will get the last word, but be short. Okay. One of the things the Commission Report does is to bring to an admittedly but limited and Specialized Group the kind of focus on these issues, and one of the remarkable things is rob made a real contribution to this in the defense department. We have a pretty good consensus in this country on supporting a very ambitious, a very strong, very survivable Nuclear Force, and maintaining this is the subject that people understand, and also that isnt wildly divisive, like abms abms are an article of faith as much as anything else. We are out of time. Were actually over time. I have a feeling this panel could keep talking about this. Everyone, thank you very much for attending. Thank you for your expertise. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversation] a healthy democracy doesnt just look like this. 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