under imf. so i certainly think it would be responsible to have the pentagon come back to us and have the chair man come back to us with how the chinese fit into the newest type of arrangement and support. i would like to register my support for studying this as well. i think that we could benefit from understanding what the implication are going

i don't think there's 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 can't 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 don't have one they know we won't do anything because we won't 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 don't respond in a greater way. i don't 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 don't 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 hasn't 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 we've 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, let's 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. let's 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

naïveté that because we don't 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 there's a great deal of yelling about escalation but in the case of a tactical nuclear weapon used by

russia, escalate to d escalate, doesn't make sense, it is nonsensical. deterrence is based on believability and if your adversary does not believe you it doesn't matter what you think. it doesn't 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 don't think it isn't 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 full-scale 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 doesn't 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 submarine's 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 god-awful situation. we should never go there. and a strategy of escalate, de-escalate. 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. i'm all for nuclear reduction and they should be by treaty. we should bargain it away, not given away. >> in the third-place 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 don't 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 russia's 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, can't 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. let's 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 there's a nuclear exchange we don't 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 don't do everything else? you should know that. in a classified session you should demand what would we do with this? if i'm going to ban this as an option shouldn't 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, long-distance 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 de-escalate i believe all of you should have a classified briefing of what is russia's 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 cheney's

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 sea-based 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 don't 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 anti-summary 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 dave's lessons are who served under two presidents, 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 sea-based leg of the triad. i support the mark and respectfully -- miss cheney is a serious member and put a lot of thought into this but deploying those missiles is in my opinion going to reduce the value of the sea-based leg of the triad and lower the threshold for nuclear exchange

happening in the future which with i think we all want to avoid. >> doctor desjarlais. >> thanks to all the members who have spoken up. it is a very important issue to debate and i think both sides have brought up great points. i heard the chairman mention the response is simple. if a low yield nuclear weapon is used against us or our allies we had them with a large yield weapon and i don't think it is that simple because we don't know what we don't know. let's assume the russians do try to escalator de-escalate

and they carry out a strike. in eastern europe, western europe or syria and it kills 4000 people. we don't know what the damage would be. if you're sitting in the white house and have to make that decision to launch a large yield nuclear weapon that will kill 3 million or more what is the next step going to be and what choice does russia have? you're going to escalate the crisis. on the other hand if you had to decide their is a small-scale nuclear attack and there can be a small nuclear attack and how it happens then the russians now you will respond in kind and that could do escalate. we have to be prepared for what they might think. miss cheney's amendment is

correct and should be supported. we know how we think but don't know how they think and i don't think it would be as easy a decision as the chairman indicates to launch large-scale retaliation that would end the world as we know it. we need to keep on the path to deter with our own system and respectfully i yield back. >> in no way did i think any of this was an easy decision, do not believe that at all. miss davis. >> thank you, mister chairman. we all have great respect for former secretary of defense james mattis. i don't think there is any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon, a strategic game changer. if you can ask the question and

not get a good answer for yourself what happens next? what is the result of that? we have to have a different frame of mind as we look at these questions. there is no question -- i would call it a baby nuclear weapon. is that what we are thinking about when we think about nuclear war? somehow that is not going to have a response that wouldn't be so damaging for country of our allies? i don't know why we are pushing so hard to think that we are ready to make the decision about this. i think the language being suggested here signals we have a plan for this and they ought to have one too.

we know we already have weapons that are so lethal that there is everything in the world that could be achieved from that that is horrible for the world. we are so excited to have deploy missile warheads on submarines that are devastating. we are not able to answer the question and i don't think anybody can. if you have a good answer for that you need to share with us what is next. that is an important question that a commander has to answer. we have certainly many many low

yield nuclear weapons and we have been modernizing them at great expense. if the president ever needed to use what is considered a low yield nuclear weapons he has those options. he has done today and presidents before him. instead we want to escalate this discussion to a point that i think brings us to a far worse place. >> with the gentle lady yield? >> i yield. >> i appreciate the gentle lady's contribution to the debate. one aspect that has not been covered yet, america's conventional capability, not nuclear is by far the best in the world. they have the same destructive

force and that is the precision weaponry and other technical advantages. it is not a fair question to say nuclear nuclear. we can respond in london limited -- unlimited dimensions, that is one of the spurs that encourages foreign nations that our conventional capability that are exquisite and expensive to develop, they almost feel forced to develop nuclear weapons so they have a way of responding. that is an aspect of firepower that has not been acknowledged in the debate and we should acknowledge it because that is one of many ways in which the pentagon excels to the advantage of the country and greater capacity than any other nation on earth. i think the gentle lady for yielding. >> i think the gentleman for adding to that and i yield back. >> mister gallagher. >> the line of argument would negate the line of arguments advanced by mister courtney. if there is no meaningful

dissension between tactical or low yield nukes, we shouldn't have concerns about mixing and matching them on subs but my primary argument, not along those lines. i would say first in response to the argument we don't need to expand options for low yield use because we have larger nukes, i would say that doesn't work because it gets to the problem of strategic deterrence and white is an important shift in the national defense strategy, puts the onus on escalation on us. in order for this to work we have to believe, our adversaries have to believe we are willing to escalate to nuclear armageddon. we have the capability to do so but whether this president or a future president would be willing to do so is an open question, only one president has been forced to confront

that very momentous decision. the whole point is to give presidents options below that in order to de-escalate and put the onus of escalation on to our adversaries. if you bring a flamethrower to a knife fight you have to be willing to employ the flamethrower. this gets to the second point which is the shift, contained in the national defense strategy from deterrence by punishment, particularly and overwhelming reliance on strategic deterrence by punishment, deterrence by denial, fielding the capabilities that will allow us to the military strategy, or degrade them. and your innocence opposing the most consequential shift contained in the national defense strategy. i would say in response to mister cooper's argument this it the conventional balance of power is in our favor may be true at the present moment but that balance of power is

trending in the wrong direction for the last two decades. if you doubt that look at the chinese response to the taiwan strait crisis, and improve the congressional power ever since. i think miss cheney is advancing the bipartisan position, the nuclear posture is clear, this was a good move and they also argue low yield warhead, and to support the deterrent effect. it will provide additional diversity in platforms, range and survivability and hedge against future nuclear breakout scenarios. and our aircraft are likely to get smoked if they are on european runways in the unfortunate scenario of

considering and it is bipartisan because former obama secretary of defense - carter said my views are related in the posture review meaning jim miller, undersecretary of policy and the obama administration argued secretary of defense jim mattis's nuclear posture review offers policy and plans including those in the 2010 npr. it deserves bipartisan support. 's proposal for a low yield weapon and a new nuclear tipped the large cruise missile are sensible responses to changed security conditions especially russia and north korea. i urge my colleagues to support cheney's amendment which i believe to be a thoroughly bipartisan amendment and i am happy to yield the minute i have back to miss cheney. >> the majority seems to think stability served by limiting

america's capabilities, i hear no distinctive as we nuclear capability in the hands of the russians or adversaries and one in our own hands, the nuclear posture review which was completed undersecretary mattis makes clear we need this capability and assessments of error in this area's capabilities show the russians have an active stockpile of nonstrategic nuclear weapons. i would urge particularly the freshmen on this committee what mister turner said, your fully briefed and fully aware of all the classified information about our adversaries capabilities and the military has requested, i have tremendous respect for my colleague mrs. davis and i say asking what the plan is requires a classified briefing and it is absolutely responsible for us in this committee to say we are going to limit the military, prevent them from this capability without seeking that classified

material because it is there. >> let me make a point. we have had classified briefings on this subject matter and to imply we haven't is very incorrect. every member of this committee has received classified briefings on the subject over the years. a whole lot of hands over here but mister whitman next. >> thank you, mister chairman. and listening to my colleagues i agree with several points. first of all, that both a low yield and high-yield nuclear weapon are very devastating. both have their own level of deterrence. ballistic missile submarine is ordinarily effective. it is the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. for our adversaries it creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty and when you combine that with the uncertainty about whether there is a low yield or high-yield nuclear weapon on board that uncertainty equals stronger deterrence communicated in the

nuclear posture review to say let's put more uncertainty in the minds of our adversaries and then there's a higher level of deterrence especially as our adversaries are building broader and more "in depth" capabilities whether it is conventional or nuclear. how do we make sure we have the calculus in our favor? we make sure we have more options to create more uncertainty on their part where they will say you know what? we better not do this because we are not quite sure if one of these low yield nuclear weapons will be on board one of their ballistic missile submarines which by the way we have a hard time identifying where they are versus putting it on other platforms where they know exactly where it is. those are elements of what this nation has to do in the modern era of great power competition. it is could go for us to do this, taking options off the table we can us, taking options off the table do not create the full scope of deterrence that

we need to keep our adversaries not only at bay, but make sure their decision-making is always in the realm of saying no, we are not going to do that because we know what the result will be from the united states or we think we know or we are too uncertain to take the chance. that is truly what this is all about, that is what the debate out to be and i hope my colleagues on the other side see it for that. i want to make sure we provide every opportunity for our leaders in the pentagon, combatant commanders to say we created just enough uncertainty with our adversaries to where we have prevented a war, strength through deterrence, uncertainty creates the deterrence, that is what this is about. miss cheney's amendment allows us to do that. it is critical for our nation to have this happen. thank you, mister scott. >> thank you, mister chairman. i won't take the full 5 minutes

but i will point out the miss cheney's amendment does not deploy the weapons. i would love nothing other than to be sitting passing legislation taking options away from the russian and iranian and other countries military leaders but if there's one thing i have figured out in my time in washington i trust our military leaders to make these types of decisions more than i trust congress to. i would point out my colleagues and friends the cheney amendment does not deploy the weapon. without the cheney amendment we are taking options away from the united states military leaders and i don't understand why we would want to take options away from our military leaders. >> could we get an idea from counsel whether the dental and at interpretation of the amendment is correct? it is not my understanding. >> very awkward here but i don't know if this is a parliamentary thing or just a

matter of debate but what exactly does the amendment to? >> the amendment strikes the prohibition on availability of funds for deployment. it is availability of funds, not mandating the funds. >> mister banks is not here. mister wallace. i will say good debate. we are getting to the point we need to wrap it up. >> quickly, mister chairman. i think it is, i would encourage everyone to receive -- i am not sure everyone received the classified briefings on russian nuclear posture and intentions for use but it is completely plausible and idsa likely that the russians could use nuclear

weapons in western europe, carrier strike group with the assumption the united states would not launch a high yield nuclear weapon in response. i think that is a likely assumption the president of the united states from either party would launch that escalation in response to losing a carrier strike group. that is what the russians believe, that is what they are banking on, that is what makes us less safe. we need this capability and low yield nukes are not nearly as easily deployable and survivable as those coming from a ballistic missile submarine. i encourage everyone to take those pieces into account. i yield my time and i am done.

could someone -- don't know if mister cooper wants time. >> yield my time. >> first let me say i value the gentleman's service and i was impressed with your jump on celebrating d-day. i hope your parachute wasn't as old as your uniform. >> it opened. >> remember, in the awful event of a russian attack, we have hundreds and hundreds of low yield weapons. with greater flexibility, greater accuracy, greater everything. the only question is whether a token amount on a new platform makes sense including for the sailors on the boat, 12 for the security on the country. that is the question, where you put them on a boat.

>> very briefly, all potential adversaries, talking about russia, and the ability including some groups that aren't countries. and each of those, i yield the balance of my time to mister turner. >> this is not fair to new members because every person who is not a new member has voted to do this, every person on this committee is not a new member voted these weapons to be configured and deployed. this is only new members being put in this position of voting for the first time on a nuclear weapons issue where no one -- everybody wants nuclear weapons do not exist. i would love that world too and

have done so without the proper information. and you had that community meeting i'm certain you never said i am going to vote how mister cooper tells me when he tells me other weapons we have that are low yield are better. everything we have on our subs, the same as everything on our subs, everything on our subs, big or small is bad. it is not of high quality but it is. the question is, mister garamendi and i had a conversation on how long it would safe for nuclear weapons to be deployed. i was shocked. i can tell you mister garamendi was pissed. what would it take to shock me? an hour, a week, weeks, how long would it take to shock me?

i can't tell you -- this is white is not fair. the chairman said we had classified briefings, not one of you, this committee has not had briefings in the committee. on the nuclear weapons component. this committee, and individually, most of us have not. the deployment of nuclear weapons, if we had a committee briefing, have committee briefing with missiles -- how long it takes a briefing on how long it takes for the low yield that everybody who wants to do this, you're instantly available and available today. i wrote the words down, it is not true. no one has had the classified briefing of what would we do

with these. it is a battle plan, where people have planned, if this happens we will do this, we should review all that. it is not fair for all the people who were new without these classified briefings, and contrary to what people in the committee made in the opposite. i yield back. mister mac thornberry. >> i am concerned about our ability to fully discuss the issues involved here in an open session. seems to me the essence of the argument supporting the underlying provision is, since we already have a number of low yield weapons, we don't want to

have low yield weapons on a survivable platform. it goes back to what mister scott said, why we would want to take away options for ourselves while adversaries have a full range of options does not make sense to me. a number of references were made about the russians, what we have are low yield weapons on air platforms. we can't get into detail but russian air defense system are pretty formidable. the idea behind the nuclear posture review, have a full range of options on the delivery, full range of delivery systems or full range of delivery systems and that increases the credibility of deterrence. why would we not want to have a

weapon on a survivable platform. that is hard to understand the two a points that haven't been talked about. our allies support this deployment. think about the storm and drum we had about trying to get our allies to do more, trying to keep nato together, our alliances in the pacific etc. our allies support the deployment of this and so we are going to sit here and say you may have stuck your neck out but we are going to backtrack on it, that has ramifications. lastly the other thing it has ramifications, this is what i am particularly concerned about, we can't talk about the status of this program. somebody says we didn't have a debate about this last year, we did. and his vision -- a decision was made. it would be one thing, i think a mistake, to say we are not

going to begin this, it is a completely different and more serious thing to say we have become this program and now we are going to backtrack. our nuclear deterrent is not just about us. there are lots of countries all over the world that depend on the credibility of our nuclear deterrent. the decision to backtrack on that has severe implications. the gentlelady's amendment is exactly right. we need the full range of options, the confidence of our allies, we need to take a decision and move forward with it. the underlying provision would undercut all of those things and be a significant step in the wrong direction. i yield back.

>> mister carbajal. >> thank you. you don't need a classified briefing, thousands of different types of nuclear weapons that can destroy this world over 1000 times. what we are doing here as discussing another grade or category of conventional nuclear weapons. it is simple but so complex, i am missing it. it boggles my mind, i think that if deterrence are already there the fact that we have all

these weapons that already exists, and we are fighting over another category of nuclear weapons. i don't understand. i yield back. >> this has been a joke with one exception. a good robust and fair debate. people were too ignored to make this decision. we don't know enough, let the pentagon do what it wants, that is not the way i interpret our job. of that was the point we should all go home. why do you guys have all your amendments? why were you talking about it? the idea that you can't

possibly support going against a low yield nuclear weapon, your too stupid to make the decision is something i very strongly reject. >> i gave you a lot. >> no one said that. no one said that. >> it was heavily implied. i used stronger language because i was frustrated by the way that was presented. it was said that you don't know what you are doing, you don't have sufficient information to make this decision which is why i traumatized it a little bit by saying it was stupid but it gets to the same point. i 100% reject that. we have had classified briefings, freshman members are more knowledgeable than some of us who have been on this committee for a long time so we are perfectly informed to make this decision. those are good arguments on both sides but don't base your

vote on whether you are too involved to do it or give appear job. i believe we have been informed and know what we are doing and we are not going to yield to the pentagon because they know more than we do, that the purpose of civilian oversight. there have been a lot of arguments made but as you hear this debate go back and forth the most troubling aspect of low yield nuclear weapon is it makes people contemplate an acceptable nuclear war and that is what a lot of this debate is about. we will make a calculated decision, they launch a low yield nuke, we will contain it and if the whole point of our nuclear arsenal is to deter a nuclear war from ever happening, my opinion is this debate makes our point. to not deploy this weapon. once you start walking down the road, our adversaries are going to listen to that conversation

and say if we launch a nuke it is possible we could manage it. have an acceptable nuclear war and at the end of the day our support for the underlying provision and opposition is because that is exactly what we are afraid of, make it clear that there is not an acceptable nuclear war. for the life of me i can't understand why it is apparently in a classified briefing we can be told exactly what the russians, we will know exactly what they are going to do and have perfect information. you can tell from my tone of voice i don't believe that. they are going to lie to us a lot and we are going to pull it apart but on the other hand we don't think we can convince them that it is our position, our deterrent position that if you launch a nuclear war, on a proportional response, you better understand if you do that it will lead to severe consequences. why would we tell them if you do that we will try to manage

our response in an acceptable level. these people in this committee who have fought in wars i haven't, i don't think when you are going against an adversary with the bullets flying i want to make sure my response is proportional. now. you want to win by overwhelming force. we say on this committee the united states military, we don't want a fair fight, we want our adversary to be clear on the point that we are going to kick their ass if they take us on. why we are obsessing about a proportional response i don't know. the concerning part of it is again, if you get into the discussion down the road there is an acceptable nuclear war. there is not. i reference the 1982 wargames with computer found out no matter how you started this it ends with completed iteration. that is what we are trying to avoid. with that -- a question occurs

on the amendment by ms. cheney. all in favor say aye. opposed now? we will have a recorded vote. next up, pretty sure, we can move through more quickly, we will consider 397 r1 by ms. cheney, what purpose does she see to the commission? >> i have an amendment. >> without objection we will dispense with the reading and the gentle lady is recognized for her amendment. >> this amendment restores the funding necessary for the slb and deployment to the 76, on the debate, nuclear a bladder ration and instability in the world in which we live. what i fail to understand and

find extremely troubling is the majority response to the growing instability and threat and complexity we face around the globe is to disarm america. my colleagues on this committee say they are not for unilateral disarmament but as i pointed out before, the russians have 2000 nonstrategic nuclear weapons, the idea that the way to avoid this calculation or instability is to show that america cannot deploy this low yield nuclear weapon, blaming america first response to this. we live in and america where the cold war concept of deterrence are outmoded, or those concepts are insufficient to provide for security and it

is simple and easy to say nuclear weapons are horrific, we agree they are horrific and we've got plenty of nuclear weapons. that is unsustainable, indefensible and irresponsible. i agree with the chairman, and we are not carrying those obligations out, and all the capabilities we know our adversaries have. we know the russian nuclear strategy escalate to de-escalate. a limited nuclear escalation will give them an advantage. we must guard against that. the point of making sure we have funding for and authority to deploy these weapons on submarines is to raise, not lower the nuclear threshold. i take issue that anybody on the side of the aisle, nobody said that. what we did say was members of this committee who are not on

the strategic committee, and have not taken part in other briefings mister turner mentions needs to be aware that they are being held accountable. simply cannot effectively and responsibly conduct oversight that is necessary to go home and explain to your constituents why you cast a vote to disarm the united states, to disarm the united states unilaterally in a circumstance in which our adversaries have these weapons without full access to information available in these briefings. i think that is the epitome of failing to leave up to effective and responsible oversight on most important set of issues any committee in this congress addresses. the amendment we are discussing now is restore the funding for these crucially important

weapons along with the authority that we need to restore from my previous amendment and with that i urge my colleagues to support this amendment and i yield back. >> i will quickly note 1st of all the idea that deciding not to deploy a low yield nuke amounts to unilateral disarmament is a slight overstatement. .. this issue is tough. there's a lot of information but no matter how much information you have you have to make a decision on what is a fairly critical i will agree on this, this is an important decision in terms of whether the united states -- i'm confident again this committee is smart enough, intelligent enough to make that decision. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to speak in opposition

to the amendment. >> go ahead. >> as a chairman has ably said, there's loose talk and this committee about unilateral disarmament for disarming america, is completely wrong and worse, it's irresponsible. i know some people on this committee are running for higher office, but i think people on the subcommittee will recall that i tried my best last week to have a debate on these issues as the subcommittee level where more people were able to go to the briefings that at the full committee level because many people are not even on the strategic forces subcommittee. at the gentlelady will recall despite my efforts there was only one amendment offered, your amendment and it was a combination of four amendments and there was zero debate when we had a wonderful opportunity to have a debate on these important issues. i support briefings. i support knowledge. i want full committee understanding, but loose talk at

the full committee level after many hours of market is not the best way to achieve a sensible national defense policy. many of us from the south, being a hawk isn't a bad thing, but don't give hawks a bad name if you accuse anybody who's in favor of any moderation, including most republicans and most presidential administrations in recent years, men like george schultz, for example, and others, james schlesinger, you go down the list. what the modern republican party is talking about is a clear departure from 60-70 years of sound nuclear strategy. let's not go overboard here. there's been a lot of discussion about our freshmen members. we are proud there on the committee. i think that i've been personally to every briefing the

strategic forces committee has had for at least the last seven years. every secret briefing. and nobody's trying to pull in the wool over anybody's ayes here. i do think if you look at the w76 dash two, that is such a tiny, tiny, tiny tiny fraction of our over all forces that's not even a rounding error. so to make this a be-all and end-all of use nuclear strategy is completely misleading. it might be a a nice new featue and i personally am glad we developed a war had ended in our stockpile and available for use. but lets that endanger the lives of our sailors and are precious nuclear submarines. and let's not disclose to our enemies and potential enemies around the world that these rascals have been deployed. we don't have to do that, at least at this stage. we are ready. we are prepared. we can do this if we need to.

so i'm glad we are prepared, , t this extra step the gentlelady is doing with her largely redundant amendment is pretty remarkable. so wish the gentlelady success in her future efforts, but -- >> was a gentleman yield? >> i will not yield to the gentlelady. the gentlelady had the chance last week and subcommittee to office have an informed debate on these topics. >> the gentleman is casting dispersions on the substance of my amendment and on my motivation offering speedy we do have to keep things in order here. there would be plenty of people who will give you time and you should have time, but mr. cooper's time. >> no one on this site, no one on the committee, no one in congress that i'm aware of ever mention things like unilateral disarmament disarming america. so those wild accusations are just wrong and as i say it responsible. we should project an image to the world right now because our adversaries and potential adversaries are watching. if they see such a loose and

uninformed debate, if they see such divisiveness in the congress of the united states, that only gives them hope. let's not give them hope. let show that we are adults, that we are responsible, that we can measure our language and together to the right thing for the country. i see that my time is expired. i think the chairman. >> mr. thornberry. >> what is not wild and irresponsible is the fact that the underlying mark takes away an option. now, it's not total disarmament but it takes away an option. and to me the most concerning underlying theme of this whole debate is that we are the problem. in other words, if we were staying ourselves compete in the world will be safer if we take an option away from ourselves, then some a nuclear war is less likely to happen. we are the problem. and i do not believe that's the case.

i believe that we have, as we develop more options, survivable options, then we increase deterrence and decrease the chance that a nuclear weapon will ever be used. but this underlying notion that we've got to tie our own hands and, therefore, the world will be safer goes to the heart, i think, of what many of us are concerned about with this amendment and with an overall approach to defense i believe we need to be strong. i believe we need to have more options, not fewer. and i believe we need to increase the uncertainty of our adversaries or potential adversaries, not simplify their calculations. i think in a lot of ways that's the bottom line of this. and i hope that our colleagues will vote to be stronger with more options rather than blame

us for the problems. >> thank you, mr. chairman. with all due respect to our colleagues from wyoming, many of us have dedicated our lives to the defense of this country and would never do anything that we thought would jeopardize that and put our country men and women and our country and the world at risk. and certainly many of us have thought about this issue long and hard. when it comes to matters of existential existence, it falls directly within the purview of this committee and congress. many decades ago our country made a decision to reserve the decision to use these types of weapons to our elected political leaders. because we believed it was important to reserve matters of

existential existence in risking this type of war to those who were elected by the people of this country. so there is a history and precedent preserving matters of these issues to this body. and that's why i think important that we understand that, and that we don't just default to giving options when it comes to matters of these weapons to our military leadership. so i do believe in this instance that the risk of destabilization, that these weapons cause, the uncertainty that they would cause and the risk of starting another arms race is greatly concerning to me, and i certainly will not be supporting this amendment. mr. chair, i yield back. >> thank you. votes have been called on the floor. i'm 100% confident that we can

complete this debate in time to go over and vote. so it's been a robust debate by a healthy debate. i'm trying to encourage to wrap this up quickly so we can go vote. move on to the next one. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think this committee deserves to hear sponsor ms. cheney site yield my time to the gentlewoman from wyoming. >> thank you very much, ms. stefanik. this issue come appreciate it very much, chairman cooper, the way that he began our convening meeting in the subcommittee on strategic forces when he talked about this issue as being the single most important issue our strategic forces, that any subcommittee in congress deals with and dresses. and i think that's the kind of treatment this issue deserves. i think it's completely uncalled for for mr. cooper to suggest that somehow there's loose talk going on or to suggest that there's somehow political aspirations and less mr. cooper's nelson today that he is

seeking higher office, which i would say this is an inappropriate place for them to make that announcement, he ought to stay with the facts. i can only imagine paretsky can't argue the facts if he's going to to go to personal dispersions and questioning the motives of the people who are having this discussion. in my motives for offering this amendment. with respect unilateral disarmament it is unilateral disarmament by definition. this is a capability that our adversaries have, a capability that they have the ability to deploy, that they have deployed, and it is a capability my colleagues in this committee on the democratic side of the aisle are suggesting that the global stability and security requires we not let the united states have the funds or the authority to have this capability. so that is both unilateral disarmament by definition and it is also blame america first by definition. now, i think this is a crucial important issue. i think it's one we ought to be debating and discussing and it's

one we ought to debate based on facts and we ought to not go down the path of some of suggesting that there are alternative motives here. and, frankly, i think we ought not go down the path of saying we need to read it up and move it along of the chairman did. it's really important issue, and those of us on this side of the aisle are suggesting that our colleagues needful information, that our colleagues need to be fully informed, are simply saying you need to recognize and understand if you're not at the briefing about what our adversaries can do, indeed you've not at the briefings about the capabilities that our military has requested, and if you've not had the briefings about the plans of use and the department of these weapons systems, then you need to recognize when you're casting his vote you you are doing it without full information. there's nothing political about that. we are not playing games. where some of suggesting to you that you got a full information. that's what i offer this amendment. i simply do not believe and it's highly responsible to suggest that the world is more safe if our adversaries have a capability that we do not have

and this committee takes every step to prevent the united states from having that capability. that's absolutely wrong. with that i expert reclaiming the balance of my time. >> i i want to make it clear, i served under strategic forces committee for 18 years and that subcommittee has never had the briefings that we discussed would be necessary to determine whether we should recall a nuclear weapon. i yield back. >> here's a look at live coverage tuesday.

>> there has been discussion about an appearance before congress. any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. it contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made here we chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. the report is my testimony. i would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. >> former special counsel robert mueller is set to appear before two commits a congress congress on wednesday july 17 at 90 9 p. eastern he gets testimony to the house judiciary committee, and later in the day he will take questions from house intelligence committee. open sessions. coverage of his congressional testimony will be live on c-span3, online c-span.org or listen with the free c-span