I dont think theres anything brazenly irresponsible 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 we use Nuclear Weapon, he will pay an enormous price for it. I cant believe the gentle lady as opposed to that. The goal of all of this is to stop anybody from thinking they under any circumstances, to have a good outcome for them. My point on the deterrence is the russians will launch the low yield and if they dont have one they know we wont do anything because we wont want to be disproportional. It implies a low yield nuke. If this is launched. It will set off and instructive war. We want to discourage them from thinking about launching it. In that regard, nothing wrong with making it clear to our adversaries you launch Nuclear Weapon we will consider nuclear war. We have all the options on the table. I will point out as Mister Cooper pointed out we have a low yield Nuclear Weapons. There is a low yield response possible. I take a tough stance that we should not tell our adversaries, we are going to measure how large the Nuclear Weapon you dropped on us was to make sure we dont respond in a greater way. I dont think that is an appropriate way to do deterrence. The Nuclear Weapons we have being a deterrent to anyone launching a Nuclear Weapon against us was for other reasons we believe the low yield Nuclear Weapon putting it on a submarine, and Mister Turner, Mister Turner supported this in a bipartisan way, many of us suppose this from the start. There are some democrats, i am not one of them. That is why we are running this deep 8, not the proper approach to think about a proportional response, the idea that there is an acceptable nuclear war, i dont believe there is. Under no circumstances will we allow that. We need to make it clear every second of every day that they are dead wrong. Escalation leads to escalation, and i yield to Mister Cooper. My colleagues should know we literally have hundreds and hundreds of low yield Nuclear Weapons 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 low yield weapons, you fire the weapon the submarine is exposed. 2, there are limited number of missile tubes, to use one of these very precious tubes for a low yield weapon is something weve never done before and all the decades we had them. The most precious leg of our triad, with this fairly new idea and we have the weapon developed, it is available, lets not deploy it now without further thinking on the simple topic so it is an important fundamental principle in the Nuclear Doctrine that we not deploy this weapon on a strategic asset. The one thing i point out, we fully support the columbia class Nuclear Weapon and the lrs so, we are spending a lot of money on nuclear deterrence, the one area we mentioned. The clock resets at 4 40. Lets grant we have the intelligence at low yield Nuclear Weapons exist, they exist for our adversaries at a growing number. It is a tactical weapon, our adversaries do, what level naivete that because we dont think it is or should use that way our adversaries will not. Deterrence based on believability, your opponent has to believe that if they deploy a low yield Nuclear Weapon in Eastern Europe that we will have, our nation would have the willingness to take multiple cities in response. I ask people how many believe that is the case . We delude ourselves with the idea, we delude ourselves with the idea we would respond in that manner. I find it ironic given when we deployed the sub in response to issues with iran theres a great deal of yelling about escalation but in the case of a tactical Nuclear Weapon used by russia, escalate to d escalate, doesnt make sense, it is nonsensical. Deterrence is based on believability and if your adversary does not believe you it doesnt matter what you think. It doesnt matter when the moment we are at a disadvantage. The irony is we would have less tonnage. Think about that. We would be reducing our nuclear tonnage, our Nuclear Impact if we had to use anything, there would be less of it in the world, but somehow we are opposing that. So i support the amendment and i urge people to think about this because it is one of the most of things we will do tonight of all the other discussions we will have of how it is we offset a threat. Right now it is more russia but dont think it isnt going on with other nations, it is. Will be gentleman yield . I will yield to miss cheney. Who did you yield to . Miss cheney. What matters is not what we think about what the russians think. For us to be in a situation where the suggestion is made that somehow those of us arguing that the importance of low yield Nuclear Weapons is part of our deterrence is not in favor of deterrence is wrongheaded. When you look at the approach the russians would take in terms of the likelihood that they would be calculating the use of low yield Nuclear Weapon on a battlefield in europe and they listen to the comments we heard in this committee they will make the determination that if it comes down to the United States is not going to deploy a larger weapon in response to that low yield attack so for us to be in a situation where we are saying the responsible thing, the thing that is necessary for National Security is to have deployed a young lowly yield weapon they make a strike by the russians, less likely and the chairman adopting, would take us down the path of saying one Nuclear Weapon is enough, one Nuclear Weapon can destroy the world. I heard that approximate that. The notion is, it is my time, mister chairman. The notion, Mister Mitchell yielded to me. The notion that somehow we are making ourselves less secure because we want to have available in our arsenal every possible response that is going to be effective in the most clearheaded way in demonstrating both our will and our capability to response to keep ourselves safe and keep our adversaries safe it is crucial that we do that and unfortunately majority has chosen to 0 this out in terms of the submarine based missiles. Yield for a question. If you grant the premise of your statement that it is only what the adversary believes, your contention that if the adversary sees a tactical Nuclear Weapon by the United States that is usable it will increase the frequency or likelihood that will be used rather than a strategic weapon that would have a greater yield . You have allies that depends on you standing up to defend them if a tactical Nuclear Weapon is used against them, people that believe you had the capability to do that and the willingness as a nation to do that we have gone this long without a fullscale Nuclear Weapon because our adversaries have believed they this argument is missing the point of the amendment. The point of the weapon itself, the chairman clearly pointed out that low yield is a very large explosion, extraordinarily devastating and we have a lot of low yield weapons deployed in europe today. So with regard to tit for tat on a low yield very large explosion we are perfectly capable of doing that. This argument, really an amendment and the market itself deals with the way in which that weapon would be deployed, not that it doesnt exist, it does exist. As chairman Mister Cooper said a moment ago, it has been built. At least one how is it going to be used and deployed, as the point of this debate, are we going through for the first time the most valuable of the Strategic Deterrence we have which is the submarines and i heard from miss cheney and colleagues on the other side it is the deterrent as the chairman pointed out, 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 Mister Cooper pointed out. Furthermore, when that missile is launched that submarines location is known. Can it scoot away fast enough . 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. The Strategic Deterrent is gone. The chairman could not be more correct, nor could you be more correct. This country has been and is today willing to use a Nuclear Weapon as a counterattack, therefore deterrent, no one is backing away from that, nobody. The notion of a Tactical Nuclear war has got to be beyond the imagination, a Tactical Nuclear war should be clearly in our imagination. We should clearly understand exactly what it is. It is a nuclear war, small yield, low yield, makes no difference. A tit for tat nuclear war, it is a godawful situation. We should never go there. And a strategy of escalate, deescalate. In 30 years in europe, like the end of this thing. What we are talking about is how would this weapon be deployed. To use it on a submarine which is the language in the mark we think is inappropriate. With that i yield back. The people who have been on this committee the first time, this is not going to become law. Let me take you to the place of understanding of this committee and the house floor, to the senate and 60 votes and this is not going to become law. The second place is where you were standing before a Community Forum in your first time as a candidate and you had to answer questions your constituencies and as someone stood up and said do you believe in unilateral disarmament in the United States you would have said no. We should do trees. Im all for Nuclear Reduction and they should be by treaty. We should bargain it away, not given away. In the thirdplace i want to take you, what you were standing in that Community Format asked what you believed, if they ask you there is a Nuclear Weapon i dont like, what you believe you want which is why Mac Thornberry asks about classified, you said before i place myself in position of commander i would want to know what is russia doing in its current exercises with low yield Nuclear Weapons and how they are deploying them. What are russias weapons. What do they have . This is a red herring your hearing about we have low yield Nuclear Weapons, because Mister Cooper, even our chairman, cant tell you what the true answer is how long does it take before those other weapons are deployed. A nonclassified basis, it is not immediate, not the same. Let them certify there is no other additional option. You would be shocked how long it takes. Wife that relevant to give back to the things you would require that you know, the person sitting the committee for when you were running for office. Bbc recently did a program on world war iii. You know how they started it . They started with russia nuking one of our aircraft carriers with a low yield Nuclear Weapon. Lets think how long this takes the United States to respond to a low yield Nuclear Weapon in one of our aircraft carriers and in proportionate response if you vote to ban this question. How long . If theres a Nuclear Exchange we dont worry about we are going to reveal where one of our subs are, there are bad things already happening. Another thing that is classified is what do we do . What are we planning . What are the commanders what does the secretary of defense believe we would do with his low yield nuke we dont do Everything Else . You should know that. In a classified session you should demand what would we do with this . If im going to ban this as an option shouldnt i know what that option was going to be . This is our family, this is our country, the basis of us having an adversary attacking them. You would want to know what russia just did in weapons exercises. I would want to know what a classified basis and this discussion they keep saying over tactical and strategic, what does that mean. For this type of weapon it is unclear. Tactical and strategic and means small nukes or big nukes, longdistance nukes, typically when we think of tactical, we mean long and short. These are not small in short, they are the same distance as the ones in this submarine. We just made them small. If, and again in a classified setting, what would happen if they nuked our aircraft carrier. Do we take out moscow or do we take a group of their battleships with a low yield nuke . Is that where we stop and hope because they hope to deescalate i believe all of you should have a classified briefing of what is russias Nuclear Policy . We know from our Intelligence Community what they would do, what they intended to do, you should know that. When you stood in that Community Forum and answered those questions saying you would exercise your vote is an independent person and say i need to know all those things, i would ask we should study this, demand those answers to unilaterally of which how we use it. How it protects us and we should support miss cheneys amendment and a significant amount of body for Strategic Thinking that we need to support all over again. It is important to remember we are not talking about banning these weapons but the deployment of these weapons on submarines. The first patrol of our seabased Nuclear Triad started in 1959, 41 for freedom which was the first class of ssb ands launched from my district in connecticut and for 70 years they have been the big insurance policy for this country which basically says if anyone is stupid enough to fire a Nuclear Weapon at our country in any way, shape, or form we have a second strike capability you dont know where it is. That is what admiral rick over, he was a genius and figured out we could create a Nuclear Deterrent on a platform the enemy could not detect and for 70 years we have had strategic, high yield missiles so that the message was crystal clear. There was no ambiguity about what those subs were capable of doing. Their batting average has been pretty good. The 41 for freedom class was replaced by the ohio class and we have had strong bipartisan support to recapitalize the program with the columbia class of Nuclear Submarines which is in our budget which we are funding and bipartisan, we have been working on this for 10 years in a robust way, which is 70 of our Nuclear Warheads is still going to continue the great work they are doing year in and year out for our country. If we stop mixing and matching of the missiles they carry, the other piece, but we have to think about what the russians are thinking, you have low yield and high yield and the missile gets fired, how does the enemy discriminate in terms of what is coming at them, the notion that you can control a nuclear war by being able to regulate or moderate the yield of the weapon you are firing, when things are happening in an instant, defies logic. That is why george shultz, many experienced folks who served during the cold war articulated the point that this low yield initiative on submarines, not across the board but on submarines is folly and i add another point which is we are getting into a situation where antisummary warfare is getting more sophisticated. The ability of our enemies to find subs is far from perfect. They are the most effective self out there right now but it is Getting Better and the fact of the matter is daves lessons are who served under two president s, nixon and ford, in the middle of the cold war said it best when he said as soon as you fire you expose the boat. The whole value of that Strategic Deterrent, the second strike capability that has warned off our enemies for 70 years is gone once you fire that and if it is a low yield missile, how does that make sense in terms of the decision that is being made . For 70 years we had that policy. Last year we had the Nuclear Posture review from the administration that this is a big change about putting low yield on submarines and we have 0 debate last year. A brief flurry took place and what this park does this year is we are not going to rush into this, we are not going to put missiles on these subs, we are not going to change 70 years of Strategic Policy for this country without thinking this through in terms of how much safer it makes us and what does that do in terms of degrading the value of our seabased leg of the triad. I suppo