tomorrow night, mitt romney speaking at the lincoln day dinner in utah. a republican party fundraiser, live friday, 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> our live coverage of the savannah book festival starts saturday morning 9:00 eastern. "future war preparing for the new global battlefield". >> and with the book" we need to talk" how to have conversations that matter. watch live saturday 9 eastern on c-span 2 book tv. >> up next on c-span 3, a discussion of the trump administration 2018 nuclear posture review. a periodic defense department review by congress.

nuclear weapons and u.s. national security policy. hosted by the brookings institution it's about 2 hours. >> we're thrilled to have you here today to discuss the trump administration nuclear posture review. an important document that came out on grounds hog day, february 2nd. and the national defense strategy of january. so doing a nice job keeping the clock running smoothly. prior to now the unveiling of the budget request. we're thrilled to have david beginning our discussion today. he has one of the longer titles but most important. the principal deputy under secretary for defense of policy. a job that jim miller had and we'll talk about that in the panel that follows with jim and others. but for now, i want to introduce david who has been one of the

administration's important authors and framing and writing of the document that we have available and you can access on the internet. about a 70 page document, much longer than the unclassified version of the national defense strategy. a lot of elaboration of the trump administration on a number of issues. david will give short remarks and then field questions and then swap out a little before the 11:00 mark for our panel discussion. that i'll moderate and introduce the panelists when we get there. let me say a couple more things about david. this is his second or third or fourth time in government. he was important in the bush administration working on international security policy. and nato and their nuclear posture review of the early 2000s. he hails from california by way

of college, went to the ufc. studioed foreign service at georgetown. involved in a number of jobs in washington with short waiver consulting. a job he had before joining the trump administration. so without further adieu, welcome mr. david track tenburg. >> thank you have much. thank you michael. it's a pleasure to be here at brookings. i appreciate the invitation and it's good to see everybody out here on a draery morning. thank you for making the trip to participate in this. it is really good to be here and it's been a while since i've been here and i appreciate the opportunity to come back. one correction i would note to

michael's very generous introduction and that is my title which was the indeed the principal deputy under secretary defense for policy has been changed to -- it's been shortened by one word thanks to the act signed into law a couple of months ago or so. the word principal has been dropped from all of the deputy under secretary titles because there is only one deputy under secretary. so now i have a better chance of actually fitting my title on a business card. so as the deputy under secretary defense for policy, again, it is my pleasure to be here. and to talk about this very critical, very critical issue, the nuclear posture. as you all know, each post war

president has early in his first term conducted a review of the u.s. nuclear policy posture and programs. president trump's first national security mem random issued one week in, directed secretary mattis to under take the fourth such review of u.s. nuclear policy. the aim of the review was to ensure the united states's nuclear deterrent, modern and robust, flexible, resilient, ready and appropriately tailored to deter 21st century threats and reassure allies. the department of defense conducted this review along with the departments of state and energy and in consultation with allies and experts from inside and outside the government.

the resulting 2018 nuclear posture review establishes the department of defense's priority as maintaining a safe and effective nuclear arsenal that can effectively contribute to four key goals. deterring nuclear and nonnuclear attack, assuring allis and partners, achieving u.s. objectives should deterrents fail and hedging against an uncertain future. the npr emphasizes that u.s. nuclear policy will continue to contribute to u.s. nuclear nonproliferation goals. now, these roles are consistent with past priorities of u.s. nuclear policy. indeed, the 2018 npr maintains longstanding nuclear policies adopted by both democratic and

republican administrations. for example, the new npr recognizes the need for the nuclear triad and sustains the previous administration's plan for modernizing the triad of land base, sea based and air breathing delivery platforms. supporting nuclear infrastructure and command and control. consistent with the 2010 npr, conducted by the prior administration. the 2018 npr declares that the united states would only consider using nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend u.s. interests. in addition, the npr reaffirms the u.s. commitment to arms control and nonproliferation by maintaining support for the

nuclear nonproliferation treaty and by sustaining the extended deterrent for allies. extended deterrents is critical to their security and promotes nuclear nonproliferation by checking their need to acquire their own nuclear weapons. now each of the previous nprs have rightly emphasized that u.s. nuclear policy must be responsive of the threat environment of its time. the 2018 npr addresses the reality that while the cold war has been overfor decades. since the prefs 2010 review. this is the reality that confronted the new administration when it became its nuclear posture review.

accordingly, the 2018 npr is grounded in a realistic assessment of the contemporary security environment. one that recognizes a return of great power competition and the increasing salience of nuclear weapons in the arsenals and doctrines of potential adversary's. for example, since 2010, the rugs leadership made repeated explicit nuclear threats to u.s. nato allis and others. -- in a way we really hasn't seen since the height of the cold war. russia is actively modernizing and expanding its strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons and doing so in violation of the landmark, 1987 intermediate

range forces or irf. -- including key u.s. allies. and doing so also through threat of force. china also continues to expand its nuclear capabilities in both quantity and quality. since 2010, china announced the development of or fielded new icbms and theater range bo lis stick missile, a new bo lis stick submarine and a new strategic bomber. china's transparent lack of transparency. serves to magnify uncertainties about its future's intent. and since 2010, north korea and a theater intercontinental and

submarine launch missiles. north korea made nuclear threats to theit united states and our allies in the region. and iran remains uncertain, it's the hedge monic aspirations are not. in contrast to these developments over the past decade, the united states has built no new types of nuclear weapons or deliver systems other than the f-35 for the past two decades. we have sustained our nuclear deterrent with life extension programs keeping systems and flat forms beyond decades, decades beyond the designed service life. former secretary of defense ash carter observed if there's an arms race under way, the united

states clearly is not a participant. it is clear that our attempts to lead by example in reducing the numbers and salience of nuclear weapons in the world haven't been reciprocated. since the 2010 npr the prospects for great power military have expanded while both russia and china increased the number of salience of their nuclear weapons programs. the intentional restraint reflect in u.s. nuclear policies did not lead the rest of the world to follow the same path. now, this is not a unique conclusion reflected in the 2018 nuclear posture review. the u.s. national intelligence council recognizes great difference in the u.s. and russia purchase of nuclear

weapons back in 2012 concluding, nuclear ambitions in the u.s. and russia over the last 20 years have evolved in opposite directions. reducing the role of nuclear weapons in u.s. security strategy is a u.s. objective while russia is pursuing new concepts and capabilities of expanding the role of nuclear weapons in its security strategy. end quote. the 2018 npr responds to this increasing challenging threat not by changes longstanding tenants of u.s. nuclear policy with bipartisan support but by emphasizing the maintenance of those capabilities needed to deter war in the current environment. it also seeks to clarify u.s. policies to help remove the potential for a mistake and

calculation by potential adversaryryes that limits nuclear first use threats and escalation can provide them with possible, use if you feel or political military advantage. correcting the potential for such calculations is a key to maintain deterrence of nuclear war. in this regard, i'd like to address three of the corresponding outcomes of the 2018, npr. the clarification of our nuclear policy and the recommended supplements to u.s. deterrence capabilities. all of which subject to considerable news accounts and considerable miss characterizations in much of the public commentary. the 2018 npr returns deterrence of nuclear attack against us,

our allies and partners to the top priority of u.s. nuclear policy. given the security environment and the changes in that environment that i have highlighted, this is a prudent realistic and i would argue, necessary change. second, to strengthen deterrence of nuclear and nonnuclear strategic attacks, the 2018 npr clarifies the policy regarding nuclear weapons. doing so does not expand the circumstances for nuclear use or lower the nuclear threshold as some commentators have suggested. providing some clarification what might constitute an extreme circumstance that could lead to u.s. consideration of a possible

nuclear response. this clarification enhances deterrents and raises the nuclear threshold by reducing the adversary miscalculation. as they become more and more lethal, u.s. policy must make clear that nonnuclear strategic attacks that would have catastrophic affects on the american people and allies, mub deterred. final in addition to pry prioritizing deterrents. the 2018 npr also recommends two nuclear programs to strengthen u.s. capabilities to deter tax and to assure allies. first, is the modification of a small number of existing

submarine launched missiles to include a low yield option? second, is the pursuit of a nuclear sea launched cruise missile. despite the awesome capabilities of our existing nuclear triad, russia's actions indicate that moscow may hold the mistaken belief that its numerous and diverse nonstrategic nuclear arsenal provides useful options for limited first use nuclear threats or employment. we believe that the two supplements to the u.s. nuclear arsenal presented in the npr are important to help correct this misperception and convince russia and any other potential adversary that the united states and its allies will not be coerced by the threat of limited

nuclear first-use. now the other point i would make. that neither of these capabilities, these two supplemental capabilities is a new capability. the low-yield option for submarine launched missiles involves minor modification to an existing war head and the sea launched cruise missile is a capability that the united states possessed for decades until recently. in addition, neither of these capabilities will require under ground nuclear testing and both are compliant with all u.s. treaty obligations. these capabilities are intended to strengthen the deterrence of war and the assurance of allies. thereby, helping that they are not employed or proliferated.

we must recognize that effective deterrence is about tailoring our capabilities to a potential adversary calculation regarding the use of nuclear force to ensure that it can never appear to be a useful option. we must assess our capabilities relative to the doctrine, exercises, statements threats and favor of potential adversaries. and the capabilities recommended by the 2018 npr are tailored to raise the threshold for nuclear use and to do so with minimal changes to the u.s. nuclear posture. we believe that the policy announced in the npr is a reasonable response to the changes in the current security environment. and let me be clear. the goal of our recommendations, the goal of the recommendations

contained in the 2018 npr is to deter war. not to fight one. modernization of the u.s. nuclear deterrent, adoption of tailored defense strategies with flexible capabilities, and clarification of the role of nuclear weapons all send a strong deterrence message to potential adversaries by reassuring our allies. finally, the 2018 npr helps ensure that our diplomats speak from a position of strength. russia has little incentive to negotiate seriously about a robust and on going u.s. nuclear mornization program. russian leaders have said as

much. and unlikely to give up something to gain nothing. critics who favor eliminating u.s. systems in the face of an expansive nuclear effort are undermining america's greatest bargaining leverage and the prospects for future arms agreements. the 2018 nuclear posture review is one of several important reinforcing u.s. national security documents meant to guide u.s. policy in an increasingly complex and challenging world. as much as we might prefer otherwise, u.s. nuclear weapons are the bedrock of american and allies security. colin grey said, nuclear weapons are a regrettable necessity in the real world. after the slaughter of two world

wars, they have prevented large scale great power conflict for more than seven decades. in an era of renewed great power competition. adversaries and allis and the american people should know that the united states has the will and resilient nuclear forces needed to protect the peace. before turning things over to michael and the panel for discussion. let me take this opportunity to thank the bookings institution for the opportunity to come here today to briefly present the department's work and to engage in an informed discussion on these issues that are tremendously vital to our nation's security. i appreciate you're being here and your attention and i look forward to your questions and insights. thank you all very much.

[ applause ] questions? comments? suggestion? recommendations? yes, sir. >> please wait for a microphone. so we can get this on c-span. anybody have a microphone in the back? >> all the way in the front towards the left. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> if you are going to get involved in a low-yield weapon exchange, how do you figure you're going to prevent it from escalating to a more

conventional size nuclear weapons? >> i don't think of it in terms of getting involved in an exchange at all. the way we look at this again, is what we're trying to do is we're trying to prevent an exchange, not engage in one. therefore, it is incumbent upon us to think about how do we do that in a world that has changed dramatically since the last npr was done and reflects developments by russia and other states that tend to suggest increased reliance on nuclear weapons and the possibility that nuclear weapons even in a limited way might have some degree of political or military utility. so the recommendations that we're proposing to include a low-yield missile and will a sea launched nuclear armed cruise

missile are intended not to engage -- or not to fight a nuclear war or not to even suggest that one could be fought in a way that is limited, however one wants to define the term limited. but to try to convince adversaries and potential opponents that they should not feel that they have some exploitable advantage by using a capability for which the united states has no counter. so the very purpose of what we're doing is war prevention, not war fighting. and i understand the characterizations, many of the characterizations i have seen that what we are looking to do is engage in precisely the kind

of limited strikes that your question suggests. i suggest looking at it differently. what we're trying to do is prevent an opponent from thinking a course of action is useful or beneficial. >> so you believe is small deterrent is more effective of the big one? we believe of having flexible nuclear capabilities tailored to specific circumstances. makes the most sense for deterrence and assurance. obviously, no two states are alike. we have -- we have multiple threats that we are trying to deter and to do that, may take flexible capabilities and some

cases certain types of military capabilities may be sufficient for deterrence and other cases opponents may see them as less efficient. so what we are trying to do is ensure that there is a necessary flexibility and resilience and robustness in terms of the capabilities we have at our disposal in order to deter, to suede opponents of believing they have any kind of military advantage that they believe they can use to initiate conflict or escalate conflict. that is the entire purpose of the recommendations that you find in the 2018 nuclear posture review. >> sir. >> thank you. i would like to know if you're concerned in enhancing nuclear

capabilities can be seen as a contra diction to the commitment you mentioned of nonproliferation agreements? and if can promote an arms race? >> i would answer this way. first of all i don't see it as a contra diction whatsoever. in fact, i mentioned our extended deterrence that we extend to over two dozen plus allies overseas. i would argue that our nuclear arsenal, the arsenal that we have that serves that deterrent function is quite possibly the most successful nonproliferation tool that we've had in our tool kit literally for decades. it has dissuaded friends and allies from feeling the need to develop or acquire nuclear weapons of their own. so from a nonproliferation standpoint, the nuclear

capabilities we have very much support u.s. nonproliferation objectives. in terms of the okays about the arms race. i have seen that in commentary as well a number of times. i go back to the statement that i read from former secretary of defense, ash carter. there's an arms race, the united states is not participating. in fact, the united states has not been participating for quite some time. if you look at the details of what the russian federation has been doing in terms of its own nuclear modernization program. if you look at russian military doctrine, the exercises, the strategic force exercises that russia conducted. a number of which really have been unrivalled since the days of the cold war. a number of which involve the exercise of their strategic

nuclear forces and in fact, the simulated use first use of nuclear weapons, . if you look at all of the system that is the russians have been engaged in modernizing in recent years, it is very difficult for me to understand what we are proposing to do in this nuclear posture review in terms of maintaining the efficacy of the existing triad and developing these two supplemental i believe, very modest supplemental capability in anyway holds as a arm race. we are not looking to match what russia is doing weapon for weapon. we are not looking to build up the thousands of nonstrategic nuclear weapons that russians have in their arsenal.

again, what we're trying to do is trying to convince potential adversaries whether it be russia, china, north korea or whoever. that there is no benefit to pursue a course of action which could lead or might lead to their actual use of nuclear weapons first or in some kind of so-called limited way. what we want to do is make absolutely certain that the cost to an opponent, an aggressor of any nuclear use far outweigh any perceived benefits that they think might accrue to them. that's the essence that we recommended in this npr. and i would argue that it is relatively consistent with sort of the traditional u.s. nuclear policies as they have evolved over my decades. so again, i think there's more

continuity to this particular npr and its conclusions and recommendations vis-a-vis prior nprs than differences. there's a lot of continuity there. and that continuity is -- has been occasionally overlooked. >> thank you, sir. i come from a country that was under an extended nuclear relationship with the united states knew zealand and decided if we were not nuclear. so we withdrew from that nuclear deterrence relationship and we're now signed the new treaty of the prohibition of nuclear weapons. would you be supportive of others deciding that for their

interest they would be more secure and signing the treaty? >> it's up to individual states and allis to decide what approach they want to take. but i will tell you we've had similar discussions and debates in the nato context for many years and nato remains a nuclear alliance. i don't see that changing in the near future. there's a general recognition among allies that nuclear deterrence remains important. i think there's also a general recognition that because of some of the changes that i said have taken place in recent years, the issue of preventing nuclear conflict has taken on a growing importance. and the role of nuclear weapons in doing that is also generally

recognized by allies. i don't want to obviously, speak for what other countries should or shouldn't do, but i think it's clear not only to the united states but it's clear to u.s. allies abroad as well. many of whom share our threat perceptions and understanding of some of the dangers that we see posed by others. and share our recognition that it is critically important, perhaps more so now than ever before, to make sure that we have the where with all and the capabilities and the resolve to ensure that potential adversaries do not miss calculate and do not believe they have some kind of advantage that is exploitable and they can take advantage of.

so, i think again, it is sort of in the mainstream of u.s. nuclear tradition. i don't see anything odd or unusual about that. again, whether we like nuclear weapons or we don't. we might wish we lived in a world without them, but we have to recognize reality and reality is nuclear weapons do exist. some states have gone in a direction quite opposite the direction that the united states has gone in terms of size of its nuclear arsenal and its attention to its focus on nuclear weapons as part of the national security strategy. that's a disquiting development in my view and we have to be forth right in confronting, straightforward. yes, sir.

>> i appreciate your presentation. thank you for it. i've learned a lot from it. but i wonder whether your approach may in fact, run the foul of some of the very things that you warn other people about. particularly, thinking about how other countries will view our strategy. when we decide to build new nonstrategic nuclear weapons, why will that not appear to russia and to other countries to be a ratification of their new strategy of escalation to deescalate and acceptance of limited nuclear war? and why is it that the

administration decided to focus only or predominantly upon nuclear responses to a possible limited nuclear attack rather than looking to the area of conventional response in which we have such an overwhelming superiorty, remembering of course that in the old days when we thought the russians had a conventional superiority, we were the ones who believed in first strike. >> let me say this. there is nothing in the nuclear posture review that assumes an automatic nuclear response to any particular contingency. there is an element of strategic

ambiguity there which absolutely does not rule out our ability to respond in other ways as well. in ways of our choosing. appropriately to the nature of the threat that we face. it could be response with conventional arms, it could be other types of response. there is nothing in the npr that says, united states under this or that circumstance will respond with nuclear weapons. there's no automa tisty there. so your point about other possible types of response is certainly valid and not negated by anything in the nuclear posture review. why is the focus of this review on nuclear weapons, because it is a nuclear posture review. and the tasking was to review

nuclear posture. so that of course, is what the review did. in terms of the possible reactions of russia, china, and other states. i have no doubt that anything the united states does or proposes to do would likely generate negative reactions on the parts of those who would prefer the united states not to take any action at all. to bolster and improve the nuclear deterrent capabilities. so it is not surprising to read or hear statements from russian officials or chinese officials or north korean officials critical to the nuclear posture review and saying that the review does the opposite of what it is intended to do. i think the document itself has to be taken as a whole.

and i think the context that is provided within the review itself in terms of our assessment of the overall nuclear security environment provides a realistic framework and rational for understanding why we have come to the conclusions and recommendations we have come to. now, look, i realize certainly, reasonable people can have reasonable disagreements over this and that specific recommendation and the rational behind it. that's -- you know, that's what makes debate over this issue so -- so robust. but nevertheless, i would encourage everyone, if you haven't read the full document. i encourage to you do that. take a look at how the security environment is described.

and assess the conclusions and recommendations of the npr in the context of our assessment. see whether or not it holds together and makes sense as you do that. i think it is a logical approach. i think it is a rational approach. and i think it's an approach that is in fact, tailored to the kinds of 21st century threats we currently confront. and are likely to confront in the future. so regardless of what some opponents might suggest, i think we've kind of hit it right in this particular review. i think its balanced. i think it's consistent. and i think it's appropriately

tailored to the different threats we face today. >> last one. >> sure, bob. >> thank you. thanks so much for joining us at bookings today and making the case for the trump npr. to achieve its ambitious objectives, modernization of the triad, the doe nuclear come fpl command and control system, the supplements and so on. this is expensive. a high price tag associated with them. you're going to need strong bipartisan support in the u.s. congress. presumably you and other senior officials engaged with consultations with members of congress to make the case of the npr and get their support.

how have those consultations gone? are you confident that you're going to have the necessary domestic consensus for this program and what are the particular challenges? what are the two or three challenges -- when you think of the talking points you're going to use in the congress -- what are the challenges you need to confront? >> very good question. and i would say so far, our discussions with others with folks on the hill and elsewhere, democrats, republicans. i would generally characterize them as overwhelmingly positive. obviously, not everybody supports everything we propose in the nuclear posture review. there are some we believe that we go too far and there are others who believe we don't go far enough. again, which goes to show you in washington, you can't please everyone all of the time.

i think by in large, i have been quite please the by what i have seen as generally bipartisan support for what we have done and what we are attempting to do with this particular npr. again, it's not universal but it's quite substantial i would argue. the biggest challenge is, i think are several fold. number one, explaining the rational behind what it is we're proposing in a way that is understandable. this is of course, and everyone here in the room knows it, a veryess veryess sew ter rick issue and lends itself to miss characterization or

misinterpretation. explaining what we are proposing to do and why we are proposing to do it. in a way it makes sense to multiple audiences is a challenge. but is critically important to do. if we're going to not only generate but maintain a level of bipartisan support that is needed to actually carry out the recommendations that we are proposed here. the other challenge, of course, and you alluded to it in your question. is the issue of funding. no question that what we are talking about carries a substantial price tag. just the very modernization of the existing triad is an expensive undertaking. relatively speaking to other things we spend defense dollars

on, it's a relatively minor fraction overall of the defense budget. maybe some 3% to 4%. which historically is rather low if you look at past periods of modernization and recapitalization of the triad. so it's not a question of affordability, we can afford to do what we need to do when we talk about issues like preventing nuclear war. secretary mattis likes to say we can afford survival. and he's absolutely right. we can afford to do that, we simply need to be able to, number one, understand that doing so will require time, this is not something that will be done over night. and it will require a commitment of resources that must be

sustained over a period of time. to get us to the point where we've actually achieved the objectives set forth. that in itself is a reasonably heavy lift. i would argue that as difficult as it was for us to spend the last year sort of constructing the npr in a way that is reflective of the current security environment, that was probably the easy part. now that we've done it, the easy part is over. the hard part will be trying to ensure that the recommendations are sustainable and actually carried out in order to accomplish the objectives that we set forth from a policy

perspective. so the challenge is just beginning and by the way, it's a challenge that will last beyond this administration into the next administration. again, this is not something that can be done over night or with a flick of a switch, so -- >> so now i ask the panel to join me on stage. we're not going to take a break. please join me and thank you secretary. [ applause ] >> that was great. >> thank you, sir.

well, thank you everybody for staying on with us. i would like to briefly introduce the distinguished panel up here. we'll go straight into a discussion. we don't have so lett me briefly introduce folks and then we'll have another round of discussions. just to my left is madeleine creedon. she was principal deputy administrator of the department of energy main arm that works on the nuclear war heads of our arsenal, the national nuclear security administration. a lot of issues concerning war head modernization or potential need to beef up the war head complex in case we need to modernize and expand in the future which the npr addresses will be questions i want to pose to the secretary. she also has considerable experience at the department of defense where she was assistant secretary and also on capitol

hill. that is one of the distinguishing characteristic of almost everybody up here is capitol hill experience as well which is important for the reason that bob einhorn got at a moment ago when it comes to resources. then dr. jim miller who is under secretary of defense for policy in the obama administration. prior to that he was principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy in the first term under michelle floy and he helped to write the nuclear posture review of 2010 that we heard referenced several time that was the previous npr. my opening question for jim and s. the panel in general is going to be, in fact, how much continuity is there from the 2018 npr and how much change. we'll get to that in just a moment. if you read jim's bio, you'll

notice in the farewell speech, that jim was an excellent tennis player at stanford. jim running me into the wall of the indoor facility. that's just a personal note that i appreciate the indulgence. just to jim's left is bob einhorn who had a distinguished career in government. he's done atomic writing as well. he's here with me at brookings. bob was hillary clinton's main adviser on nonproliferation strategy and worked very hard on issues like north korea and iran as well as arms control treaties more generally in the obama administration, had been at csis, clinton administration, great distinguished career. he has done many things since the 1980s. james akten, a physicist by training. has done a lot of the most rigorous technical writing on arms control including on broad subjects such as the potential long term hope for complete nuclear disarmament, but also

question kws on building a stabilize armmenment. i want to hear your comparison of the 2010 npr to this one. >> thank you. michael is a terrific talented player as well as an intellect. three quick points on the 2018 nuclear posture review relative to the 2010 review. first is that there's a very strong threat continuity, both with respect to the policy and with respect to the programs. at the policy level, this npr reiterates what the 2010 nuclear posture had to say about the u.s. policy towards deployment of nuclear weapons and that is nuclear weapons would be used only under extreme circumstances that threaten u.s. interest or interest of our allied partners.

this nuclear posture reiterats s the security deterrence that says that the united states will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against nonknew leer weapon states that are compliant with their treaty obligations. and finally this review rejects no first use or sole purpose for nuclear weapons but makes clear in my view the fundamental role of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear weapons use. so at the policy level, a lot of consistency and similarly support of arms control including new start and desire to return the russians to compliance of the imf treaty, and nonproliferation, and finally, a reiteration that the united states will abide by the test ban treaty that it will not seek nuclear testing although this administration says it will not pursue ratification of that

tr treaty. so testing althoughing this is administration says lit not pursue ratification of that treaty. then focused on sustaining and modernizing the triads. real priority on investing in survivable nuclear and command control which is critically important for nuclear stability. and this is very much in madeline's area of expertise, continue to invest in the nuclear infrastructure that the ns, and department of energy is responsible for. all those areas continuity and i think that's fundamentally important. the place where we see the changes in the two weapon systems that david was mentioning a low field itm and a sea lawn arech cruise missile which i hope will be solely used

on submarines not only surface ships because of the greater survivability. i prefer to come back to those issues. third point i want to make is this -- there's important difference and there's no question that the 2010 nuclear posture review was president obama's nuclear posture review. he noted that this is an implementing mechanism for the prague speech. there is a question, and we'll learn over time, i suppose, does this 2018 nuclear posture review signed by secretary mattis, does it include the views of president trump. president trump's comments about having a bigger nuclear button and bringing fire and fury causing one to wonder. i hope it is the case, but tinl will have tell. >> one additional question i think you laid that out clearly and a good frame.

but i want to understand one further point. to the extent the trump administration or secretary mattis, to the extent they do talk about the 2010 npr they do want to emphasize continuity just as you have. in those places where they acknowledge discontinuity, they seem to attribute that less to a world view, obama versus trump, vision of nuclear disarmament versus big button and more to the world has changed since 2010 and we've seen in particular russia's more aggressive behavior. do you accept that what most has changed is in the international security environment rather than the occupant of the white house here in washington? >> i can't speak to the embodiment of the white house in this review as i noted but the world situation has changed

substantially relative to 2010. most notably, north korea has advanced its missile and nuclear capabilities and i believe that's an important reason to look at bolstering our extended deterrence posture, the so-called nuclear umbrella. and second, i also agree that russia has continued to invest very substantially in tactical nuclear weapons and its posture associated with them in multiple exercises and its rhetoric has been such that thinking about how to bolster deterrence of russian coercion or attack using nuclear weapons is appropriately an important focus of this review. and i'll just say, i'm sure we'll talk about later, the steps that were taken in this review with low yield, slb weapon and with the nuclear weapons makes good sense given those changes. >> i have one follow up and then we'll move on to bob einhorn and then madeleine and james. you mentioned north korea and russia.

you didn't mention china explicitly. of course you are being concise and cogent, and i'll give you a chance to speak about china. one striking dimension of the national security strategy, the trump administration paint russia and china with the similar brush. the npr does that a little bit as well. i see china's nuclear behavior much more strained than russia so i'm concerned about the single brush. i wonder if you want to comment on that question as well? >> i agree with your assessment. my focus on north korea and russia was intentional. both advanced their nuclear capabilities over the last eight years. and in each in its own way is relying significantly on nuclear weapons not only for deterrence but for coercive capability. china has no first use nuclear policy. i find that relatively credible and i believe their behavior in their modernization programs is consistent with one would expect

given their no first use policy for a country that is not just a, to be a rising great power, but it is a great power today. and it has a diverse set of responsibilities so that the people's republic of china leadership can be confident that they have a secure second strike capability, is a sensible set of steps from my perspective. it would be surprising to me if a great power took a different approach. >> thank you. bob, let me turn to you and, again, we've been wrestling how much choeng, how much continuity. you've been thinking about declaratory posture. >> the sum of both continuity and change like the 2010 nonproliferation, the 2018 npr

preserves the option for the united states to use nuclear p weapons in response to both nuclear and nonnuclear aggression. as jim just pointed out, both nprs, therefore, reject the idea that deterrence of nuclear attack should be the sole purpose of u.s. nuclear weapons, so there is some continuity there. also, and david trachtenberg mentioned this. like the 2010 npr, the trump npr says the united states will only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances when the vital interests of the united states, its allies and partners are at stake. but there's an important difference here, at least in my view. the 2018 npr defines extreme circumstances more broadly. to include nonnuclear strategic

attacks against u.s. allies, united states and u.s. partners. now the trump npr doesn't really define nonnuclear strategic attack. it doesn't explain what would make a nuclear attack strategic. instead it provides some examples. nonnuclear attacks against civilian population centers, and critical civilian infrastructure against early warning, command and control, attack assessment capabilities. now, previously, before the current npr, the u.s. maintained the option to use nuclear weapons in response to massive conventional aggression, to stave a major defeat.

for example the warsaw pact overrunning western europe. china conquering taiwan, north kree ya crossing the dmz and occupying seoul. the u.s. also preserved the option to use nuclear weapons in response to a nonnuclear wmd attack, equivalent to the use of nuclear weapons in lethality, such as a truly mass casualty biological weapons attack. these circumstances, in my view, set a very high bar for the u.s. initiation of the use of nuclear weapons. the examples that are provided in the trump npr, i think, lowers the bar. the use of nuclear weapons, in my view, would hardly be the most effective proportionate or credible way to respond to, for example, conventional bombing of

population centers, conventional or cyber attack against critical infrastructure, such as the electrical grid or kinetic assets. in my view a better way to protect those potential targets is to make them more resilient, redundant or defensible and to threaten to retaliate with more credible but still highly potent nonnuclear means. the trump administration may believe that declaring a readiness to use nuclear weapons in a wide arrange of circumstances will enhance deterrence, but i think such a declaratory mission has a down side.

if ap an adversary believes that the united states is going to use nuclear weapons early in the kcon flick, it may calculate tht it is better off using the nuclear weapons first. and concerns that the administration may be increasing the role of nuclear weapons -- if this perception were to become widespread in the american public it could undermine the domestic consensus that's required to pursue the recapitalization of the u.s. deterrent. the trump administration may have been motivated at least to some extent by a political impulse to adopt a more robust approach to deterrence than its predecessors, but the 2018 npr declaratory process may raise some questions about the administration's nuclear intentions and might even do so

without significantly increasing deterrence. >> bob, thank you. one follow up for you. do you have a sense there were certain scenarios the administration may have had in mind of this sort of nonnuclear strategic variety, that they were really concerned about that we had somehow underappreciated the severity of the situation, and for example high altitude nuclear burst. but the equivalent in a cyber realm that brought down much of our national electricity grid and put us on our heels as a nation for a year or what have you as we try to rebuild the electric it is infrastructure. was it is a scenario like that or a broader sense of wanting to leave a sharper contrast with predecessors? >> i'm not sure of that. i think that the administration is going to be under pressure in the week and months to come to

begin to articulate what kind of scenarios they consider to be the nonnuclear strategic attack that could warrant our consideration of the nuclear use. some of the scenarios that you mentioned are in their minds, but clearly, the administration is going to be reluctant to be drawn out into specifics. i think it believes that ambiguity enhances deterrence. but i think ambiguity can be confusing and lead some u.s. adversaries to jump to the wrong conclusion that the u.s. is really prepared to initiate nuclear war early in a convun conventional conflict. i think this is going to be -- it may be difficult to sell current declaratory policy. i think, fortunately for the administration, issues like the price tag of modernization and the supplements, the low yield sbm are easier to grasp on to in the public debate. declaratory policy tends to be

more abstract, more complicated. so maybe the administration may avoid some very searching questions. but i think, you know, in the kind of strategic community, i think some of these questions about declaratory policy will become very prominent. >> thank you. madeleine, if i can go to you please. i would first like to get your thoughts on explaining to us a little bit about what might be up with these new nuclear war head concepts teen the extent you want to talk about your understanding of those. so secretary trachtenberg said that the slb, the submarine launch variance is a minor modification to existing war head type. i guess we can guess what that might mean. maybe you are not comfortable in an open forum speculating yourself, but if you could give us any insight on how you can have a much lower yield warhead. it's only a modest modification. and for this cruise war head what kind of time sense are we

talking about. it to start with another little twist. >> please. >> in really a bit of the emphasis on this. and that's really the lack of emphasis on nonproliferation, threat reduction. that was in the 2010 npr. so in terms of tone, although as both jim and bob has said, a lot of the policies are relatively consistent, i think this lack of emphasis on threat reduction and nonproliferation is telling, and the reason i say that is even though there is good language with respect to staying in new start and both russia and u.s. have come in to compliance with new start, what's miss cigarette really any commitment to the five-year extension which is in

new start, so i understand the reticence to have any discussion with russia on new treaties. russia made it clear they are not interested in that. teen omission of the five year extension is telling. the reason i put all that there is because i think it has -- it does have some influence on the language that deals with the nuclear weapons infrastructure at nsa because i think that is much more subtle in this npr but i think in many respects it is much different from the previous npr. so we all know that infrastructure at nsa large part it's very old, outdated, it needs replaced and it's been a long process to get and difficult and expensive to get some of that infrastructure going in terms of the replacement. what nsa has been doing and this is more to your point is that it has been doing the life

extensions on the existing war heads. okay. so the plan, as i understand it from the npr is to take some number of the war head for the ballistic missile currently on the submarines, so that w-76 is almost finished with the life extension. this was the first big life extension. my understanding is that they will do something to it. i actually don't know exactly what they are going to do to modify it so it's not the single high yield and it will have, i think, based on the reading thvg it will have a single low yield. what that actually is, isn't terribly clear. but based on some of the reading it's probably not a new war head. but it is a new military purpose. okay. so there's -- you got that debate. the second piece is the supplement for the sea launch cruise missile. so right now tariffs and nsa are

-- so right now the air force and the nsa are developing an air launch cruise missile and have decided that war head on the air lawn areched cruise missile will be modified w-80 which is what's currently on het air launch cruise missile and in fact on the old tomahawk launch missile, the old tomahawk. my guess would be that if this sea lunch cruise missile goes forward to that the war head on that just like in the past would be the modified w-80, which once it's gone through life extension would be the w-80-4. the first production unit for that 80-4 isn't until 2024. all of this is very much out there in term of timing and that first set of 80-4s will be for the air launch cruise missiles. so, again, if that's the way they go, that's not a new war head, but, in fact, sort of a return to an old capability. >> one more question for you before i go to james who i hope will address this question as

well with your physicist background and unclassified background in approach to these questions, you may be more willing to speculate about how you make a war head with a much lower yield without much testing work. in any event, madeleine thank you very much. i want to ask you about the ambitious plans to modernize the department of energy that we see in this npr. it seems to me as you point out you were part of an administration that worked very hard as its two predecessors had to sustain the u.s. nuclear arsenal without testing. the last time we tested was 1992. that was a concept that was well accepted. we have been spending close to $10 billion a year on science-based stewardship and also refurbishment, and we continue to have major weapons

labs to oversee this work. a lots of ongoing and didn't need a big injection of federal funding. now in this 2018 npr a commitment to bummed an infrastructure that could produce up to 80 new war heads a year if necessary. that strikes me as worth focusing on as a separate issue from all things that you were so rigorously focused to in the past. do you see all that ambitious planning and spending as necessary or would you scale it back or not do any of it all together. >> i think this is exactly what you just described is exactly what i think is a very subtle change in this npr from the last npr. there's a much more aggressive approach to the nsa infrastructure, and the reason, the rationale for this more aggressive approach is not just to maintain our stockpile through stockpile stewardship but there's a subtle shift here. the npr talks about increasing

test readiness. the new npr talks about pets but uses some new language. it talks about 80 pets and before the discussion was 50 to 80. it talks about really pursuing the new statutorily mandated stockpile responsiveness program in a very aggressive way so that you're having the labs and the plants really do prototyping, almost, doing design, maybe even doing a little metal bending. so you've got a lot of things that are being put in place that -- and also some of the discussion with regard to hedging that really looks like it's laying the foundation for a much larger arsenal down the road. that's how i would interflet. whether it becomes that or not, obviously, is something only the future knows.

but it certainly seems to be building a more capable infrastructure. >> larger arsenal and perhaps also new kind of war heads some day with this hedge language on testing, we won't do it now but maybe some day we might reserve the right to return. >> yes. >> james, among financial we heard some concerns from madeline and bob and jim but you might be the sharpest critic of any of us or at least i'll invite you to be that if you wish. let me address to you the very simple question of what do you find most concerning about the npr as well as anything you want to say that you applaud or support. >> let me first weigh into this debate about continuity versus change. i think the government reports are a bit like t-shirts. in the real world there's only so many changes you can make. right? any t-shirt has to have to have two holes for your arm to come out and one hole to come over your head. in the same way there's only so much how you can change a government report. obviously, there are elements of

continuity with previous nprs, but i think that within the range of nprs that one could imagine the government of the united states conceivably producing, this one is much more changed than continuity. let me identify four different areas. firstly is the changes in declaratory policy. bob has outlined. let me emphasize just one thing here. the united states is now threatening to use nuclear weapons in response to attacks that almost would certainly not kill a single human being. attacks against the space elements of the command and control system. those attacks could be extremely consequential. i'm not playing down their significance. i think threatening to respond with nuclear weapons to those is dangerous and incredible. secondly, this document does not make any attempt to reassure russia about the survivability of its nuclear force. for decades the united states has been willing to say whatever incredibly serious political

disagreements we have with rush sharks including the annexation of territory the of two sovereign states, we accept, and we are in a relationship of the mutual deterrence of russia and not trying to undermine russia's nuclear arsenal and this document does not do that, and for practical intents and purposes, this is going to take armed control off of the table. it pays lip service to the armed control and it does not exclude the possibility of doing it, but it is lip service. there are is no serious constructive arms controlled agenda laid out. and forthly, the issue of new capabilities.

there is no serious constructive arms control agenda laid out. fourthly there's this issue of new capabilities. which quite rightly, you know, the frame of this npr in my opinion rightly has concerns about russia and russian first use. the issue here, though, is i think our fundamental problem is not with russia's willingness to use nuclear weapons first. we don't have a no first use declaratory policy. we reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first if we were losing a large scale conventional war. the problem we have with russia is its combination of conventional superiority around the vortex coupled with threats of first use. it's those two things together. russia may overtake the baltic states because nato is weak there and then use nuclear threats to deter nato from taking back nato's territory. when you frame the problem in

the way i've just done that the root cause of the problem is conventional weakness around the vortex, the solution is let's become less weak. i don't mean we should bring hundreds of troops around the vortex and much russia. but conventional deterrence fails when the other side believes it can execute a rapid rand bloodless fate de compli. it would take two weeks of effort and tens of hundreds of thousands of casualties rather than two days and hundreds of casualties, i think would enhance our deterrence posture around the vortex much, much more than two different types of nuclear war heads would. i don't want to go on too long, but there are real additional dangers and costs associated with the new war heads, but the big idea that i want to get across here is the problem of addressing the security problems in a nuclear posture review is

that you are never going to end up looking for nuclear solutions to that. to my mind there's a real security threat from russia out there and i don't play that down in any way. but i do think that our fundamental response to that is much more effective in the nonnuclear domain than in the nuclear domain. >> outstanding. here's what i would like to do. in ten minutes, we'll get to your questions. i'll put on my old cbo hat. i want to look at some of the budget numbers for the modernization strategy and then work down the row one more time for anyone to offer any additional comments either in regard to that or in regard to what they heard from each other. we'll do that fairly quickly and then get to you. let me off terrify following. we saw in this document and we've seen, i think, in other trump administration statements over recent months the constant reiteration of nuclear modernization as being the top priority which was also the obama administration's view and

often the comments you would hear from obama administration official, i remember once we had admiral richardson here and i challenged him in a friendly if that was the right way to think about nuclear modernization, and he said that it must be, because our submarines are getting old philanthropy ohio class is getting close. they are not safe any more. what i want to propose we look more critically at the overall estimated price tag and i want to suggest we may need prioritize. right now there are five as i define them five big categories of nuclear modern consolidation in trump administration plan. mostly consistent with obama administration plans. there is the replacemen of the ssbm forks ballistic missile arms nuclear submarines, the ohio class becoming a columbia class. there's the b-21 bomb terrify raider being built. and that among all these

capabilities has dual purpose. there's the desire to replace the minute man icbm force. it's been around for a long time already there's questions how much longer it can effect. the nuclear command and control being seen as vulnerable to cyber attack, to nuclear attack, just getting old itself. then finally the whole department of energy, nuclear weapons, infrastructure question. i want to put forth the simple point first of all that i'm not persuaded by the math that i see in the npr. it claims this entire agenda will never lead to a higher percentage of the defense budget for nuclear modernization than about 6.5%. i think that's very low estimate. when i do the math i come up with a number of 10% which doesn't even include madeleine's domain of the nuclear weapons activity of the department of energy which are when you add up

clean cleanup, close to another $20 billion. this is real money. right now there's a little bit of giddiness in washington, the defense budget is fully funded robustly across all domains. i don't think that's likely the case. we need to start to prioritize and at least have a debate which of these five areas of modernization are most important. to my mind there are three that are clearly more important than the other two. that's my own judgment. others may disagree on this panel or among all of you or elsewhere in town but i think clearly we do need to replace the nuclear arm submarines. they are getting old. they are not going safe for our sailors that much longer. they are already pushing 40 year service lives which is the longest we ever operated a submarine in the united states. i fully support -- you can debate the numbers and specific details -- fully support replacing the ohio class with the columbia class. >> also the most survivable strategic system. carrying the bulk of our strategic war heads. >> thank you. i support the b-21 raider because it's useful for conventional war fighting. it's one of our asymmetic fighting.

we only have two in the b-2 force. any kind of large scale deterrence is going to require substantially more long-range stealth than that. so for me the overwhelming argument for the b-21 is the dual capability of that platform and i'm glad to see at the moment robustly being funded. nuclear command and control, and with jim miller here i could have mentioned his affiliation with the defense science board. a year ago the defense science board put out a report i lose sleep over because it talks about how we couldn't vouch for the cyber resilience of any of our nuclear systems. didn't go so far to say they are vulnerable to be taken down tomorrow by hackers but there's questions about all of them. we need a decade to remedy. to the extent we can't vouch for the integrity of our nuclear command and control that's got to be seen as a top tier problem.

d doe, and we have heard doubts and ambitious planning there. finally on the icbm force, i the they we can delay it with the way that the gao found to shrink it somewhat so that some of the depleting missiles are a repository of test missile, because there is a certain number of flight tests that you need to do. do a combination of refurbishmen of the minute man force and down sizing can you buy another five, ten, 15 years before you replace it. so if resources get tight, we might need to have these kind of options in mind. that's my little sermonette for the day, and so woit further ado, and there's a lot of questions already, i would ask my colleagues to off any thought s they would like to discuss

before we get into the discussion and just work downb the row. >> one thing you forgot is also the f-35. it has an important role in terms of being dual capable aircraft for delivery of the nonstrategic war heads. like the bomber it has two important missions. it's part of this mix. and as you mentioned, and probably one more you forgot at some point we have to come back around and do something with the d-5 which is the missile that's on the columbia class and will transition or on the ohio class and will transition to the columbia class. at some point it has to go through a life extension. and then in addition to all of the physical infrastructure, nsa, there's also the physical infrastructure at d.o.d. which is also not discussed very much in the npr other than a quick mention of the modernization of the silos themselves for the

minutemen three/minutemen four. and then the other large problem out there is you also have a people infrastructure that really has to be paid attention to. as we transition from a period of time from the cold war when there was testing with some of these war heads to a period of time where we've gone -- we've made the hand off for the most part from folks who had testing experience to the scientists and engineers who are taking it forward and the next big transition is going to be when they handed it off to the next j generation. to do that we also have to have a significant investment in long term science and engineering for stockpile stewardship and that's not very well laid out in the npr as well. then finally as we get rid of the 40% to 60% of these old buildings across both the dod and nsa complex you have to pay to get rid of them and that's another big unpaid bill. i'm in agreement with you some of these rough estimates, 1.3 trillion, all of us are pretty

low. >> jim. >> michael, i agree with your concern about the cost associated with the nuclear programs. at the same time i fundamentally agree with secretary mattis said as david para phrased which means we can afford survival. we can't afford to invest in national security that we need. no one sells going to take care of our nuclear force. our nuclear deterrent forms a nuclear umbrella for key allies and partners around the world. to me if it's 7%, 10%, that's an acceptable price. doesn't mean that any nuclear program let alone all of them should get a free ride. you probably remember secretary gates when he was secretary did a hard scrub both of the columbia class ssbn and of the b-21. at one point the program was schedule.

it took a year and half to come back with new recommendations that was more cost effective. both within programs and across programs we need be asking those questions. my own view is that although the department has concluded so far that the most cost effective way to go forward with an icbm leg is to modernize. you're right if one takes down the overall size of the force from the 400 deployed today to a somewhat smaller number one can buy time. i'll say my own recommendation is not going to save is a lot of money because i believe the most important role of the icbm leg of the triad is to hedge against any further problem with the leg of the submarine. a hedge program that includes some research and development on potential mobile options for future icbm makes more sense than putting a whole bunch in the near term. >> bob? >> having a sustainable deterrent requires very broad domestic support.

this npr, the trump npr builds on what president obama did. president obama actually had a very robust modernization program. and the trump administration follows that. where trump administration departs, where it's less continuity than change, in some areas that, i think will raise questions about the ability to sustain that national consensus. the idea of new nuclear systems, declaratory policy that suggests that the u.s. is prepared to use nuclear weapons in a wide range of circumstances. i think these will create challenges for building that

kind of national consensus. and i think it's important that the administration do more to build that broad support, including a number of panelists suggested in the area of arms control. simply agreeing what the russians proposed which is a five year extension of new start. dave trachtenberg talked about this earlier and the administration, you know, will have to try to keep this consensus together, but it will be a challenge with the current npr. >> thank you. finally, james. >> so as some of you may know, a pre-decisional draft leaked in the "huffington post" a few weeks ago. can you compare the original draft to the published version. the single most interesting change was in the letter from secretary mattis in the beginning. and in the draft it said that nuclear modernization was quote the top priority of the department of defense and in the final version it is a top priority of the department of

defense. and you don't need to observe government, which i haven't, to understand that the difference between the top priority and a top priority is a very significant difference. and the fact that this change was made in the letter from the secretary of defense himself -- i don't know who made the change -- but i would hazard to guess that it is the secretary of defense himself who made the change given it was the letter that was signed by him. if i'm right about that, i have no idea if i am or not, that suggests to me that your assumption, you know, that there will have to be tradeoffs made in the nuclear budget is right. if there are tradeoffs made i agree with mike with where those should be made. let me say one thing about nuclear command and control. which i am weary, we are short changing at the moment. for me it's kind of balmy to be looking at a third and fourth

low yield nuclear option, and that's what the low yield slicker, the sea launch cruise missile are, they are the third and fourth lower options. when we acknowledge we have a vulnerable command and control system on which everything depends. the fundamental challenge, i think, with command and control is that so many of the assets are used for dual control and used on joint uses. the high frequency satellites, communication satellites are used, would be used to transmit execution orders to nuclear force, they used by special operators, used by ground forces, used by naval forces. the other side may have an incentive to attack those in a war to undermine our conventional war fighting ability. that would have huge implications for our command and control system. as an analyst in a think tank i can come up with ideas for

rectifying this problem cheaply. as is well known every time analysts in think tanks come up with cheap ideas, they are never implemented in practice. so easy to implement these ideas in practice. my sense is in the current security environment, particularly in the face was developments in anti-satellite weapons and cyber weapons, actually building a resilient and redundant command and krol center has a potential to be an extraordinarily expensive prospect. to my mind that's the single biggest priority we as a nation face when it comes to nuclear force at the moment. >> okay. let's go to all of you. wait for a microphone and we'll start with three questions. we will start here in the third row and work our way backwards. >> no one mentioned disarmament. so nonnuclear weapons states say

the nonproliferation treaty has two legs. and describing article six of the treaty. the npr explicitly rejects disarmament in the context of the treaty, and so can you talk about the disarmament and the nonproliferation treaty. >> okay. thank you. >> let's see who is -- let's go to the woman in the red shirt and then the gentleman on the far aisle, and then back to the panel. >> susan burke. state department. this is a question about the low yield. as a veteran of low level nonproliferation negotiations, this is a hard sell to the international community, but there else seems to be real focus on low yield as if that's somehow better, and i just would

like some sort of comment on that. i've seen, you know, low yelled as a hiroshima-type bomb. do we know what we're talking about there? is this somehow better and i think that's a discussion that's going on, on social media and so forth is what exactly is meant. >> thank you. then over here, please. >> thank you very much. my name is raphael from the brazilian embassy. we have heard a lot on the rationale on the npr regarding other nuclear powers or american allies but i would like to hear, please, some comments on the impact on npr on other countries and on the future of the nonproliferation regime. since we understand that the nuclear are power countries are

upping their bet on the nuclear arsenal, what does this message convey? and lastly, regarding the stability, it's explicit in the npr that united states will not pursue its ratification. what do you think is the future of this structure that we have from 20 years and is not in force. thank you very much. >> great. we got a couple of questions on war head related issues and a couple of questions on broader disarmament strategy. i would ask madeline to begin, whatever question you wish. and then each person can comment on one or two. >> let me talk a little bit about the ctcb and how it relates to our commitment to article vi. one good think about this new npr is that it does -- it does commit to continuing the moratorium which is good. i don't think it was a surprise that there's no interest in seeking ctp ratification from

this administration but to me the thing that was most important and which has been swirling for a while is that there's a stated commitment to the ctpo and international monitoring system. that is hugely important in terms of making sure that the foundational abilities to monitor testing will remain in place and will continue to grow. there's also a comment in there about the support the iaea as well. in many respects that tempers what is frankly something that was expected in terms much not seeking ratification. the two other big issues on article vi get back to change on emphasis on this npr and lack of significant focus on further reductions, or really working to achieve zero, and, you know w-more emphasis on securing nuclear materials and making

sure others don't with any terrorists or other development of nuclear weapons. so, i'm concerned about this. but i think from usa perspective, the most important thing we can do is get that five-year extension to the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. >> let me start by strongly agreeing madeline about exfending the -- extending the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty and that should be an easy straight forward decision for the trump administration and should be be a priority. the united states has benefitted not only from reductions we would have in russian strategic force without a treaty but from the data exchanges that october on an ongoing basis.

it significantly reduces the propsect for worse case planning and on both military sides. on the question of disarmament, and it's worth noting this npr does say the administration continues the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons, what it says is that goal looks further away not closer than it did. i took it as a positive it still included that goal, and what does concern me and bob einhorn articulated this well is the subtle appearance of the expansion of the role of nuclear weapons in u.s. strategy. it's below the top line, it's not the fundamental points of declaratory policy but does appear that there are elements of an expansion in attempting to deter additional attacks relative to what certainly the 2010 nuclear posture believed or asserted. that's important but the bigger deal again, to me is not the difference between the 2018 nuclear posture view and 2010 it's whether the 2018 posture review reflects the view of the

president of the united states. on question of the yields, of the low yield sblm war head in particular, no question in my mind it will end up being much larger than largest u.s. conventional weapon. so the u.s. is modernizing the so-called massive ordnance penetrator, the mop, 30,000 pound weapon. we're talking about, i would guess at the lower yields that they would contemplate something that's hundreds of times more, has more explosive potential than the largest conventional weapon that we have, and if that's the case i certainly don't see that it reduces the nuclear threshold. it may be a more credible response to nuclear use and to the extent this nuclear posture view focus on that role of nuclear weapons, the fundamental purpose ever nuclear weapons to

deter nuclear use ever others goes in the right direction to the extent that in any way expands that role relative to where it has been in the past i think it goes in the wrong direction. >> thanks. bob. >> there was a question about the international response to the npr. i think it will be mixed, i think. many u.s. allies and partners around the world will like the npr. the idea of enhancing extended deterrence, you know, countering possible russian interest in initiating the use of limited use of nuclear weapons, i think our baltic allies, eastern european allies and northeast asian allies will find a lot to like in this npr. japan is an interesting case.

japan is the only country that's been the victim of nuclear attack and has been a strong proponent of nuclear disarmament, but the day after the npr was issued, the japanese foreign minister came out with a very strong statement of support for the nshpr. the japanese relied heavily on the nuclear tomahawk, the nuclear sea lunch cruise missile and were upset when it was retired. i think they will be very happy with the resurrection of this capability. the south koreans also will see a lot to like. many other nonnuclear weapon states won't be happy with it. they will be at least relieved that the administration retained the negative security assurance, the assurance the united states will not use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear weapons

stateses party to the npp in compliance with the nonproliferation obligations. they will be relieved by that but there will be concern about the implication that the u.s. may be increasing the role of nuclear weapons in its strategy. the non-allied has been unhappy. it won't change. that it will give stronger support for the nuclear ban movement but i don't think it will fundamentally affect the prospects for a proliferation. countries don't pursue nuclear weapons because they don't believe that having them is essential to their national security. i don't think this will change that very much. >> let me tackle both questions that brought disarmament into the fray.

the npr does reject the ban treaty as did the bahama administration before it as any u.s. administration would have done. it does endorse is long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. i think that was not a foregone conclusion that that statement would be in the npr. nonetheless, there is clearly a big difference between the trump's administration on disa armament and the predecessor. the logic of the obama administration, and let me say this with some modesty, the three people to my right were involved and i wasn't. but when obama in prague renewed the u.s. commitment in a world without nuclear weapons my interpretation of what that strategy was is building upon the argument made by many nonnuclear weapon states if you want us to do more you have to

do more on disarmament. the obama administration was trying to catalyze a coalition to work on nonproliferation. it wasn't as sometimes claimed that the obama administration thought that if the u.s. gave up nuclear weapons that north korea would do as well. it is the practical towards having to deal with nonproliferation. the more widespread adoption of enhanced iaea safe guards. the more rigorous enforcement of export control, sanctioning countries that break the rulings. doing that required a political quid pro quo between disarmament and nonproliferation. let me talk about implementing that practice. the first is efforts to abolish nuclear weapons can be led by the u.s. but can't to be done by the u.s. solely. the obama administration was absolutely willing to continue negotiations with further reductions with russia.

the russians had no interest in doing so. china won't even enter into a serious dialogue with the u.s. about nuclear weapons and further reductions. other barriers to disarmament here in the u.s.? absolutely. are there barriers in other countries that sometimes get ignored when criticism is heaped on the u.s.? yes. and secondly, i was really disappointed by the reception among many nonnuclear states to the prague speech. not one single head of state, and somebody of the equivalent stature of obama stood up and welcome welcomed that speech and pledged to work with him. not one. standing up alone in the security council. so it is not my job to tell the nonnuclear states how to respond to the npr and i would love to the hear more from the

nonnuclear states response to the npr, but if in the future you want to take disa armament more seriously, the more that there is public support for efforts made by the u.s. president for disarmament, let's not forget how brave the prague speech was, and how much it was endorsed by other states and the more chance to reach agreement. >> and also, you have heard us reference the prague speech, and this is president obama's april 9th speech in the presidency to arctic ticulate the vision of t nuclear free world in a time that it would be conceivable to making near term progress towards it, and he didn't have any utopian view that it could happen and obama even questioned if it could happen in his lifetime, and you have heard

referred back to for those who do not follow this stuff as much as we do, and then secondly, my personal speculation on the low-yield, and to have are the security clearances on how to know not be able to say it and i would give a potentially wrong answer and i would say it and this is based on what's come out over the years of weapons design and von hippel and that i would try to devour over my career. you know that modern american nuclear weapons are essentially two stage and they're thermonuclear hydrogen bomb like a hiroshima or nagasaki bomb goes off that creates the necessary temperature and pressure to ignite the hydrogen fuel in the secondary. so you need a small nuclear burst to make a big one. the simplest way to take one of those weapons and turn it from a big-yield weapon to a small-yield weapon is to contain the hydrogen fuel that will not

ignite as much and want produce as much yield and what i don't know, i don't claim to be able to speculate about is just how much you can dial down the yield to the secondary sort of, as you wish without a particular new design or testing, but i do think it's predictable that you could eliminate the second orr render it inert, and you can wind up with yields that are smaller and jim hinted to this how he was scaling by a factor of 100 or 100s in the one kiloton range is what you can confidently produce as a readily available weapon out of this kind of approach. that's just my, hopefully, informed speculation not based on classified information, not speaking for anybody else on the panel or the mpr. by the way, one last thing. i'll make a personal note to thank steve peifer from

brookings who has written on nuclear issues and he will continue to do so from a sunnier perch from california which is probably why he's not up on the panel, but when we get to the end i will ask you to not only thank the panelists, but thank steve and we'll hold off on that until after the last round. yes, sir, in the back with the -- >> i'm john price from johns hopkins. first on the lower yield, i think bob was quoted in defensive news as talking about primary only so that's unclassified and my question goes to the crisis stability implications of strategically using a system for a non-strategic warhead or mission. there are a lot of ways to deliver a lower yield warhead in a regional crisis and some of the questions that arise with the trident, in particular, this is in some way using your endgame capability and the

second strike capability at the beginning of a limited nuclear confrontation and there are certain questions that i think the discussion needs to be had about whether that's the wisdom of that and the implications of that in a crisis which is by definition nuclear crisis. >> thank you. ? we'll see if weigh can take one or two. the woman in the very back of the room in the aqua shirt, please. >> hello, my name is alicia dressman. i'm a nuclear policy specialist. i have a quick question for madeleine creeden and jeff miller. madeleine creeden, do you see in the future an lep that would require physics package knowing they're focusing on the non-nuclear components. for jim miller, you mentioned icbms in the recent air force aoa they cancelled that option. could you gauge qualitatively the hunger for a road-mobile option knowing, of course, that russia just slashed that because they're broke, as usual. thank you. >> i'll take one more before we

finish up here with the panelists. i'll go here to the fourth row, please. >> aaron system son and the question for jim and others on the panel and you put forward the icbm force and i wonder if you envision that as part of long-term arms control or you would do that unilaterally. >> in this round which would be also our concluding statements why don't we begin with james and we'll give jim the last word since a couple of the questions would go with him. james, bob, madeleine and then jim miller. >> thanks. let me just say a couple of things briefly to the low sobm option which is what i've already said and i would spend the money on bolstering the financial deterrents, and there's two real operational issues with using a low-yield sobm. the first is you risk giving away the submarine that the missile is fired from. russia is rebuilding the

conservation of the early warning satellites and those would detect a missile very shortly after launch which would mean that russia would know where the u.s. trident was fired from which would presumably be a significant aid to russia in hunting down ssbms. when we are in a conflict where they are used, i would think that keeping our most sur vileable forces survivable would be a high priority for u.s. decisionmakers. so i think if we were in the nuclear war the use of this option would want be an attractive one for the decisionmakers because there the survivable warheads are on ssb, ins. the second is the so-called discrimination problem which is russia could not distinguish between the low-yield trident and the normal trident. does that increase the chance

that russia would respond with a high-yield nuclear weapon before or multiple high-yield multiple weapons even before it was low yield if indeed it does have the capability to determine yield rapidly after detonation. now this is a very complicated issue which i'm not going to go into a huge amount here because time is short. all i will say is that there was a proposal ten years ago called conventional trident identification. i know one person on the panel has multiple scars from that experience. all i would say is that was the idea that it would take nuclear warheads off trident d-5 and replace them with conventional warheads. congress decided to be on that capability because of the discrimination problem and that was not even a capability that anyone was talking about firing at russia. this was the issue that we're using this against iran, north

korea and china, but the discrimination problem was so severe that even we wouldn't be firing at russia that congress wouldn't provide money for it. now we are talking about a low-yield capability specifically for the use against russia. so i think we have to take this discrimination problem seriously even if the question would russia would respond with multiple high-yield warheads when they detected one of our tridents and that's a complex question to answer and one i won't try to do in five seconds. thank you. bob? >> i'm going to give my time to jim because i want to hear his answers to jim's questions about discrimination and about exposing the location of ussbms. >> great, madeleine? >> so i want to emphasize what james has said and as hard as it would be to modify to have a

low-yield option and maybe a primary yield only, operational considerations will be much, much harder and james has only touched on them so that is a huge issue with respect to employment and i'll just add out there that our d-5 missiles have multiple warheads and when you think are you going have multiple low-yield warheads is on a d-5? the operational issues associated with this are extensive and extraordinarily complex and more so than the complexity of the warhead itself. so let me go to the iw. one of the interesting things about the mpr is i'm not sure there is any discussion of the obama three plus two strategy. there is a small discussion of interoperable warhead, but it has kicked it out for the future because under the obama three plus two strategy, sort of the

next life extension up for ballistic missiles was going to be the iw-1 and it was ostensibly going to be a warhead that could be used on an icbm and an slbm and it would look like something that would replace the air force w-78 and also the navy's 88. the 88 -- the w-88 which is the warhead for the navy is going through, sort of a rehab and not a real life extension and it's sort of less than that and they called it alteration and think of it as a rehab, but it has extended the life. so as a result of that, the language in this mpr really talks about doing life extension on the w-78. so in my mind, that means we may have walked away from the initial three plus two strategy and will retain four for a while rather than going to three.

now, one of the interesting things that i would throw out there for general discussion is maybe if there is real seriousness about thinking on low yields, maybe something that could be explored would be an iw down the road that would have variable yields, you know? so that you're not giving up, if you will, a strategic -- a strategic delivery platform, but maybe you look at something that looks like an iw with variable yields for both the sls and the icbms. again, way out there. way long term, but i do think that this mpr walks away from the iws in any operable warheads in any near-term thing and has definitely walked away from the three plus two strategy. >> jim, we'll finish where we started. over to you. >> alicia, i have not seen a great clamor in the land for a mobile icbm, and indeed, i'm not

arguing for that approach. what i do believe is that the single most important role of the icbm like in a world where we have large numbers of weapons on the icbm with the submarine leg and the most important role is to service a hedge with the new problem with the survivability of the sea base length. if that happens 20 years, 30 years down the road and i would not expect it to have a prospect of happening any earlier than that, and the answer of deploying more icbms and putting more warheads on the icbms would not serve strategic stability. because of that i think that a better program even today would be to go to a light rather than a heavier icbm, the minute man replacement looks like it would be the same 78,000 as of minuteman 3. the old small icbm was roughly

half that weight which gives it less capacity and sufficient to have a single warhead and a more attractive candidate for going to rogue mobil and to answer aaron's question on this topic, and my recommendation that has been great clamor in the land according to the defense department to deploy, perhaps a couple of hundred in silos to have them as necessary and when necessary to have a research and development program and a demonstration program for rogue mobile. my guess is that that would cost about the same as going forward with 400 icbms and silos over a period of years. the cost would be somewhat later which is useful, but most importantly would provide a hedge that we otherwise would not have and it would be a stabilizing hedge in the event that ssbms and our strategic

submarines became vulnerable, 20 or more years down the line. on the question of crisis stability that jeff asked. it's a good question. my view is that a low-yield warhead on a trident, and on a d-5 missile is a nuclear warhead and b, a strategic warhead and that one should not imagine that because something is lower yield that that will be known immediately by russia or by anyone else nor that it means it's not a strategic asset. so there will be significant and would be, i believe, significant hurdles beeven above the hurdles that we should rightly have the deployment of any nuclear weapon because it's a strategic system and my guess is for that reason that the administration decided it would also go forward with the longer range program to have a sea launch cruise missile with

that's again, nuclear tipped and let me just say that from my% pimy% perspective, the reason for eliminating the sea launch cruise missile with the nuclear tip at that time was not that it was either destabilizing or inappropriate to have. he said it was at, if not past his end of life and the question was at that point in time, eight to ten years ago, should it be a priority investment of the united states nuclear poft tosto reinstate that capability or far more important things? at that point in time the president, and there was unanimous recommendation from the joint chiefs that was required as well was that that system was not necessary and it was not -- did not -- it was not needed to fill a gap in the extended deterrence in particular. i do think it has changed with

respect to north korea and with respect to russia and at the same time it's a ten-year program so secretary mattis has said it also provides an opportunity for the united states to have a development program that could be part of negotiations going forward with russia to stay with the inf and b, to put its tactical negotiations and something that the obama administration attempted and the russians did not agree to pursue. i still believe that that would be a valuable next step and that the united states should continue to pursue extension of new start and to pursue negotiations on tactical nuclear weapons. >> fantastic. thank you all for being here. please join me for thanking steve peifer. [ applause ]

this weekend, the c-span cities tour takes you to lynchburg, virginia, located along the james river. it's home to both liberty university and thomas jefferson's retreat, poplar forest with the help of our comcast cable partners we'll explore lynchburg's rich literary life and history. on saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern on book tv we'll visit the ann spencer house to hear about how this poet brought the harlem renaissance to lynchburg. >> ann spencer was a poet, an american poet mostly associated with our renaissance period. >> how she becomes part of the harlem renaissance is how harlem comes to lynchburg. unfortunately, there is a whole group of people who are

associated with that period of time like ann spencer that people don't know about. >> and then on sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv, an interview with liberty university president jerry fallwell jr. about the origins of its university, its impact on lynchburg and the role evangelicals play in politics. >> in spite of trump's background, they're really pleasantly surprised the way he's come around on issues important to evangelicals and how he's really been the best president for those issues and really for, i think, i think he'll end up being one of the greatest presidents we've ever had. >> then a conversation with lance johnson whose grandfather, dr. robert johnson hosted a tennis camp in lynchburg for young african-american athletes including althea. >> that my grandfather and his ability and phenomenal physician

and somehow he managed to be a student of the tennis game and transformed that learning into a program that would, for decades provide players and opportunities for african-americans to integrate the sport. >> watch the c-span cities tour saturday beginning at 5:00 p.m. eastern on book tv on c-span2 and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv on c-span3. working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. >> this weekend on american history tv on c-span3. saturday, at 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures in history, former virginia governor douglas wilder at virginia commonwealth university. >> i had a one-word definition that i used for politics. can anyone guess what that is, and i've said one word would define politics.

money. give me something that's a proposition before any tribunal that doesn't involve money. >> sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern from the west point center for oral history, henry hank tom a a combat medic during the vietnam war. >> my grandfather served in world war i. my father served in world war ii. always for a black man, whenever you served, it was your military service you hoped were bona fides as a first-class red-blooded american citizen entitled to. >> at 4:00 p.m. on real america with the cpac conference in washington, d.c. next week, we look back to 1988 when president reagan worked at a cpac dinner. the american people know what limited government, tax cut,

deregulation and the move toward privatization had meant. it's meant the largest peacetime expansion in our history and i can guarantee you, they won't want to turn that away for a return to budgets behold to the liberal special interests. >> watch american history tv every weekend on c-span3. c-span's history series "landmark cases" returns this month with 12 new supreme court cases. each week historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind the significant supreme court decisions beginning monday february 26th live at 9:00 p.m. eastern and to help you follow all 12 cases, we have a companion guide written by veteran supreme court journalist tony morrow, landmark cases, volume 2. the book costs $8.95 plus shipping and handling. to get your copy go to

c-span.org/landmark cases. >> earlier today u.s. northern commander general lori robinson and southern commander testified on their operations including how they handled the threat of ballistic missile attacks and what's being continue to combat the opioid drug crisis. speaking before the senate arms services committee this is an hour and 50 minutes. we will call the meeting to order. we're going to receive testimony from two of my favorite people, general lori robinson. i have to say i taught her everything she knows from when she was wing commander at tinker air force base in ok