conducted several overview briefings on various aspects of the strategic forces portfolio just yesterday officials from iowa city policy and u s strategic command briefed members on the administration's nucular policy and posture today's hearing provides our subcommittee with the opportunity to review the status of u s forces since u s strategic forces since last year strategic posture hearing a number of notable events have occurred and several new policy documents have been released that affect our nation's strategic posture and which ultimately frame the administration's fiscal year two thousand and twelve budget request we will hear from four distinguished distinguished witnesses and our first panel we are joined by gen bob taylor the new commander of strategic command and dr jim miller principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy i believe the committee's oversight is further enhanced through additional perspectives outside of the traditional department of defense witnesses we usually hear from therefore i asked  the chairman and vice chairman of the u s future posture commission to provide their views on our nation's strategic posture and the changes that have occurred in the last few years dr schlessinger was unable to join us today our thoughts are with him and i appreciate d filling in for him i want to thank each of our witnesses for appearing today and thank them for their service and leadership i will keep my comments brief to allow ample time for members to ask question however i would like to hide light for areas of concern and i hope our witnesses will address these and puts us further down the path to a quote world free of nuclear weapons close quote a vision the president described in his two thousand and nine prague speech we must be careful here the president admitted in that same speech that this vision is unlikely to be in our lifetimes we should slow down let the treaty ink be dry and reassess where we are our security requirements should guide the feasibility and desirability of for the reductions not the other way around one reason for caution is uncertainty none of us can predict the future china is quote rapidly upgrading its nuclear capability and is trying to reach parity with russia in the u s close quote russia would have a straightaway or missile defenses conventional forces and space capabilities to secure another arms control treaty that reduces their tactical nuclear weapons in the last few months nato has reaffirmed that nuclear deterrence is a core element of alliance security in the last week a senior south korean official suggested the united states reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons on the korean peninsula for deterrence and assurance there are long term implications of a rush to reduce our nuclear forces that merit thoughtful consideration second the  review and section two hundred fifty one report made several promises with respect to the modernization of our nuclear warheads delivery systems and infrastructure based on what i have seen thus far for the fiscal year twelve budget request i'm initially encouraged that the administration appears ready to honor these promises at last for the coming year but there is much work to be done and i remain concerned about the long term commitment to these investments responsibility shared by both the administration and congress we have been handed the bill of deferred maintenance we must ensure that these time lines are met and that these promises are kept third i have seen solid progress the ministrations implementation of the phase adaptive approach for missile defense in europe and a significant improvement in their engagement of congress from where we were a year ago this work is commendable i met with nato parliamentarians a nato officials just last week and was pleased to see how far the missile defense discussion in europe has advanced from just three years ago some of us remain concerned however about the department's hedging strategy for defense of the homeland in case the long range threat comes earlier or technical issues arise in the development of a new s m three interceptor i came away from r p a hearing last december believing at the department strategy was hollow i hope our witnesses can discuss the progress being made to add detail to the hedging strategy outlined in the ballistic missile defense review lastly i would ask that our witnesses discuss what they see as the key challenges and opportunities in national security space i'm particularly concerned about the health of our space industrial base and our export control policies and finding the right balance between protecting our national security interests and three strengthening our industrial capacity it goes without saying that these are challenging economic times and i'm certainly committed to working with the department to defy efficiencies and better ways of doing business with that said we are a nation fighting two wars and it is our subcommittee's responsibility to ensure our strategic forces are kept viable working with you and all the members of our subcommittee and i know that we can accomplish a lot this year i'd also like to recognize and thank mr lynn toobin for his strong and his steady leadership the subcommittee in the last congress and i want to join mr turner and welcome in our witnesses to our first this is our first our first strategic forces hearing of the hundred twelfth congress and we look forward to hearing from the general and from dr miller to examine the strategic posture of the united states and our strategic forces including our nuclear weapons programs our missile defense systems and our military space programs i've already had an opportunity to meet with you and i'm sorry general that you were a little delayed today and we didn't get a chance to talk but i'm sure that we will get to talk privately about some of the issues that we might have all i'd also like to thank d who provide their views in the context of the recommendations made by the congressional commission on the strategic posture of the u s and i'm also sorry sorry sorry that the secretary could not join us today in april two thousand i'm president obama committed to working towards a world free of nuclear weapons and last year the administration took several important steps to implement progress towards that long term vision and to provide guidance with regard to our strategic forces first on the nuclear forces the president nuclear posture review in april last year which outlined a plan to reduce the role in the number of nuclear weapons while committing to maintaining our nuclear determined to reliably defend our country and our allies and so that blueprint address the most pressing threats i think to u s efforts security the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries and to terrorists and i know i worked quite a few years now being on this committee in trying to move part of that forward but i'm concerned that programs that underpin the maintenance of our nuclear deterrent and urgent nonproliferation efforts didn't receive fiscal year eleven requested level funding in the house passed continued resolution and i know that myself and some of my fellow democratic colleagues submitted to chairman ryan a letter talking to him about the concerns of those cuts and stressing the importance of strengthening this country's nuclear threat reduction efforts and especially with the work that's carried out at lawrence livermore los alamos and sandia national laboratories i think those are very important efforts in order to bring down the risk of nuclear terrorism and i think it also helps us to maintain a strong deterrent so i'm pleased that the administration in particular completed and that the senate passed the new start treaty with russia i think those are that was of course one of the most important things that we had on our list it's been able to reset i think our relations with russia have a lot more in my opening statement mr chairman but i do know that votes are coming up and so all submit the rest of it for the record but i had already dr miller yesterday some of my concerns and questions and i hope that i'll get to talk to the general too and hopefully with our five minutes they will get more information out of the both of you to thank you for being with us and with that i look forward to the for the first time as commander of strategic command i'm also pleased to appear with dr jim miller a great colleague with whom i look forward to working in the coming years today's national security landscape is marked by protracted conflict constant change and enormous complexity we are facing a significantly different operating environment than those we have experienced in the past an operating environment that's characterized by extraordinary technological advances rapid changes in the number and type of actors and hybrid combinations of strategies tactics and weapons of the threats we face weapons of mass destruction clearly represent the greatest threat to the american people particularly when pursued or possessed by violent extremists or state proliferat to deal with this environment demands faster more comprehensive awareness strategic thinking flexible planning decentralized execution rapid innovation and unprecedented information sharing our mission remains clear to detect deter and prevent attacks against the united states and to join with the other combatant commands to defend the nation should deterrence fail strike comes first priority is to deter nuclear attack on the united states and our allies as we implement the new start treaty are committed to maintaining a safe secure and ready nuclear deterrent were also the strongest possible advocates in favor of the investments that are needed to sustain and modernize the nuclear triad and the nuclear weapons complex that underpins while nuclear deterrence is our number one priority strat com also has broader responsibilities in the twenty first century ongoing operations demand our full commitment as well so in partnership with the other combatant commands our next priority is to improve our plans procedures and capabilities to address regional problems especially where those problems and capabilities cross regional boundaries threat comes activities to synchronize plans and capabilities for missile defense i asar electronic warfare and weapons of mass destruction are helping to bring unity of effort to regional operations and increased effectiveness to our overall investment another priority is to improve our capabilities and operating concepts in the important civil and national security areas of space and cyberspace space is increasingly contested congested and competitive and its importance to the united states goes far beyond national security ensuring uninterrupted access to space and space based capabilities improving o awareness of objects and activities in space and enhancing the protection and resilience of our most critical systems are all essential objectives achieving those objectives demands continued investment to improve space situational awareness and to sustain our critical space capabilities while we also pursue increased opportunities with allies and commercial partners our greatest challenge in cyberspace is to improve our ability to operate and defend the d o d d o d network at network speed and to make our critical activities continue even in the face of adversary attempts to deny or disrupt the strad comet sub unified command u s cyber comm are working hard to improve our organizations and relationships enhanced network situational awareness  protection increase our technical capacity and develop the human capital we need as we look to the future we have much to do but we also know today's fiscal environment demands that we must maximize both mission effectiveness and taxpayer value will continue our efforts to identify every possible place where we can become more efficient as we work to become even more effective finally we're committed to taking care of our warriors our government civilians and our families to this and we will fully support the efforts of the services to properly train equip support and care for our men and women and we will work diligently to ensure a safe and positive work environment mr chairman great challenges lie ahead but so do great opportunities the men and women of strat com perform their difficult mission with remarkable skill and dedication every minute of every day i am proud to be associated with them and look forward to working with you in the committee as we address the important national security issues thank you again for this opportunity and i look forward to your questions so ok i want to apologize to you for all the conversation going on here but i'm trying to the logistics of our vote and this is what i've come up with and if this is acceptable hopefully to you guys you gentlemen i'm going to hand the gavel to mr lamb born who is going to chairman turner ranking member sanchez as you as you depart and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon it is a great pleasure to join the new commander of u s or to command general bob taylor as chairman turner alluded to just over a year do submitted to congress the bliss of missile defense review and soon thereafter the nuclear posture review and along with the office of the director of national intelligence recently submitted the first ever national security space strategy to complete the congressional space posture review my prepared statement summarizes the progress that we've made in each of these areas and i'll just touch on the highlights in each area on nuclear issues the administration has made significant progress over the past year including r ication and entry into force of the new start treaty and an updated investment plan for nuclear modernization a key contribution of the new start treaty is its verification regime the u s and russia will exchange initial new start databases no later than march twenty second and this information will help us to better track the status of russian strategic offensive arms the treaty as you know allows each side to conduct up to eighteen onsite inspections per year these inspections will begin after april f nuclear capable penetrating bomber with funding starting in fiscal year two thousand and twelve as you know the national nuclear security administration part of dia we has proposed spending about eighty eight billion dollars over the next ten years to sustain our nuclear arsenal and to modernize infrastructure the m p r identified a number of n s a facilities that are decades old and must be upgraded to replace to ensure the reliability of our nuclear arsenal and  committee is aware and as ranking member sanchez alluded to the house proposed budget bill h r one would cut an essay funding in two thousand and eleven and fiscal year twenty seven by about ten percent from the president's request propose cuts include over six hundred million from the nonproliferation program over three hundred million from nuclear weapons activities in over one hundred million dollars from nuclear naval reactors in enacted these cuts will delay needed investments will drive  being able to defeat time urgent regional threats with rapidly executed high precision attacks without having to use nuclear weapons such capabilities would increase the options available to the president d o d s currently focusing in particular on conventionally armed long range missile systems that would fly a non blistery trajectory so called boost glide systems such systems could steer around countries to avoid over flight and have flight trajectories clearly distinguishable from an i  and such systems would not be considered to be new kinds of strategic offensive arms in quote for the purpose of a new start treaty and so not be accountable d o d s proposed investing about two billion dollars between now and twenty sixteen for research and development just these types of systems to turn out a missile defenses as you know the us is currently protected against limited i c b m attacks with thirty ground based interceptors at fort greely alaska and vandenberg air force base california the president's f y twelve request provides a substantial investment in the defense of our homeland to ensure it remains viable over the long term and as mr turner alluded to the united states must also be well hedged against the possibility of rapid threat developments or unexpected technical delays in u s missile defenses that apartment is in the process of finalizing and refining this hedging strategy and i look forward to briefing this subcommittee on results soon at a classified level since the president's announcement of monterey a guided missile cruiser equipped for ballistic missile defense is due to depart next week on march sixth from its home port in norfolk norfolk virginia for a six month mission and this is the start of phase one of the e just a couple of words about missile defense cooperation with with russia our approach on this topic starts from our conviction that nato must be responsible for defense of nato territory and russia should be responsible for defense of russian territory o concept is to operate our respective missile defense systems independently but to cooperate by steps such as sharing sensor data to improve the ability of both systems to defeat missile attacks by regional actors such as he ran as president obama has stated this cooperation can happen even as we have made clear that the system we intend to pursue with russia will not be a joint system and it will not in any way limit the united states or nato is missile defense capabilities u s space capabilities allow our military to see w clarity communicate with certainty navigate with accuracy and operate with assurance and to meet our requirements in space d o d s requesting about twenty six billion dollars in fiscal year two thousand and twelve this includes three point seven billion dollars for satellite communications one point eight billion dollars for missile warning one point seven billion dollars for g p s consolation and a number of other investments there are currently more than twenty two thousand tractable man made centimeters or more and many tens or hundreds of thousands of smaller objects but but potentially large enough to damage a set satellite and to deal with this increasing congestion of space d o d s take a number of steps we're expanding sharing of space situation data to increase transparency and cooperation we're looking at how to transform that transform the joint space operations center at vandenberg air force base california into a combined space operations center operator with international partners and the administration is currently closely evaluating the european union's proposed international code of conduct for outer space activities as a potentially useful set of guidelines for safe and safe activity in space finally the united states is developing a range of capabilities plans  options to deter defend against and if necessary defeat efforts to interfere with or attack u s or allied space systems and i'd like to make clear that while u s responses to interference or attack on space systems must be proportional proportional and in accordance with the law of armed conflict our responses would not necessarily be limited to the space to man so in conclusion reducing strategic risks to united states and sustaining to us or future capabilities are long term challenges that will require support from a succession of administrations and congresses success will clearly require developing into standing bipartisan consensus on p issues and i'm very pleased to have that the opportunity today to continue that engagement and we'll look forward to your question you thank you dr miller and thank you general kaylor for your testimony we know your time is very valuable and so we thank you for your patience and flexibility while we go over and vote and then come back because we do want to hear your responses to our questions and so we will be in recess until chairman turner returns well thank you for your patience during votes we're hoping to keep this efficient and moving that's why we're doing this in shifts and i appreciate you your gentleman giving us your patience will do is the ranking member myself we will ask our questions i think we should have about fifteen or twenty minutes and then we'll go for the next two votes and then return with the other members for the purposes of addressing additional questions then turned or second i obviously have questions for both of you dr miller i'm going to start with you and is my opening statement i made you know some broad construct of the issues that i'm concerned about and i want to give you an opportunity to to respond to those i basically put them into three different categories to for the purposes of this question i'm very concerned i think as are others that the president's concept of a world without nuclear weapons or going to zero can can be a pressure for driving policy instead of the real threat or deterrent assessment driving policy the now that's not to say that the concept of  nuclear weapons or the concept of zero is not something that we all would aspire to and it's really not to say that there isn't room for the types of reductions that we have seen in the new start or issues of trying to look to what is an appropriate shape of of our strategic posture but ensuring that those two things are disconnected that we that we don't have the pressure of going to zero driving these issues is a concern i think that many people  have we had new start and the senate made it clear that as we look to issues of further reductions that we had to look to russia's tactical nuclear weapons one of the points that i made when we had our conversation is that when we have a river view of our deterrence we have to have a concept of what we are deterring we cannot merely do an assessment of our posture without the concept of what are we determine that means that we have to both agenda fire who those are we are who it is that we are deterring and what their assets are and what is necessary for deterring it i'm aware as we have discussed that nato is also undertaking it it turns review and i have concerns there as well that we not want a political deterrence review but a real policy and substantive technical review of both the needs of nato and the in the concepts of what exactly we we are determined i'd like you to talk about about that for a moment on the issues  of what are we trying to deter how do we relate then that to our actual strategic posture and how you see the deterrence review in nato unfolding secondly as i discussed in my opening statement i'm very concerned about the viewed as a hedge we had a discussion in that another hearing i know you've had additional thoughts and that i'd love to hear them today and i would also like your thoughts on what other reductions currently  are you looking at from a policy perspective as we take up this issue as we look at what currently is on the table what do you see ahead of us d president has taught in the past about the next step we intended to take on an arms control so let me let me start there and what he has said and what we state in the m p r as well was that we would look for a next bilateral round with russia that would deal with both deployed and not deployed nuclear weapons and both strategic and non strategic nuclear weapons as you alluded to the there are not exactly symmetries in each of those categories but overall there is parity and it's and so useful basis to think about conducting the next round of negotiations in terms of the process that will undertake prior to starting those negotiations step one is to do  the hard look at our at our guidance and at the implications of the guides that comes from the white house that comes from the secretary and the chairman that goes to the general kaylor and understand the implications of any revisions in that guidance in terms of what's to be deterred by home as we conduct that work in parallel will be thinking about what types of verification regimes would be appropriate for a negotiation or or a future agreement that really address the full range of nuclear weapons deployed not deployed strategic non strategic the implications for verification are significant and would likely go well beyond what we have in the new start treaty also in parallel we need to be consulting with our allies and part of that discussion will be in the context of the defense i'm sorry deterrence defense policy review of nato that you alluded to and that conversation i think is beginning is under way as you saw when you visited and from our perspective it's essential that we continue to stick by the prince those that have have guided nato for for many decades including russia sharing and burden sharing and our understanding that as long as nuclear weapons exist nato should be a nuclear alliance just as  long as nuclear weapons exist exist the united states will sustain sustain a safe secure and effective nuclear arsenal so these activities will be going on to some degree in parallel but just as was the case with the nuclear posture review where we reach key conclusions on what we needed for a nuclear posture and what in terms of numbers and diversity of the forces and so on and then took those results to give guidance to  we similarly will get the guidance work done the assessments done that i talked about for what's required for effective deterrence including strategic stability and imperiled deal with the other other issues i later to put in verification consultation with allies will take the time to get it right the timeline that was given by the senate as you know sir was a year from ratify from the senate ratification for us to come back with with a proposal for engaging russia tactical nuclear weapons in particular with respect to the to the to the hedge i paid attention in our december here and and and and message was was well received that we had not at that point articulated a sufficiently how the heads will work under what conditions it would be initiated and what specific responses we would have we have done a lot of work on it and i  just have to report today that we're not quite there and i'd like to come back and give a detailed classified briefing i like to commit to do so in the next several weeks some of the potential triggers for invoking the ha involve classified information and so i prefer to do that class i said in any case i can talk about the elements but you're already familiar with those coding missile field to the eight additional silos that are being completed missile field one it's new for this year we're now going to mothball missile field one rather than rather than centrally limited it which gives the opportunity for deployment of six more interceptors in future and i understand that we need to explain in more detail on a detailed timeline that we have the specific role the t b i i can tell you it continues to have a critical role in the heads and i would just ask your indulgence for several more weeks to come back and give details in a classified setting but i'm very concerned that as we begin the deterrence review or as we begin any review to look at further reductions that it be done in context of as i was describing the actual what is being deterred you know we have russia we have china we have iran we have north korea and any concept of you know reducing especially in europe the u s footprint or the particular footprint of nato a deterrence must take into consideration russia and the over five thousand tactical nuclear weapons that they have that are in the area because of course nato is looking to deter russia we are looking to russia and china and iran and north korea and i don't think anybody thinks that the current rash ratio between those technical weapons and russia and what we have is a pretty present with nato is the is an appropriate  ratio they have overwhelming numbers and i think the senate action was addressed those numbers to get russia to make a concession with respect to those the tactical weapons and we certainly don't want to see just unilateral reductions on the on the side united states without addressing what is that important issue of the threat of those tactical nuclear weapons with respect to the hedge of course our continued concern is that with the face depth of approach the coverage of protection to the mainland united states is not to arrive till two thousand and twenty that's in the best case scenario on the evolution of technology it is possible that the threat could evolve as early as this some intelligence reports say as twenty fifteen that would leave a significant gap united states and so that's why i appreciate your continued work on the issue of the head so ok thank you so much for your continued thoughts and of course your leadership one item that we had a discussion on was the on the triad of looking  to the navy and the tube reductions of twenty to sixteen and sixteen discussion and other hearings on the hill today i would like your thoughts on the reduction of the tubes and what you see driving that  how you see it affecting our strategic posture and any as other thoughts you have on that thank you mr chairman first of all sir let me say that the in my mind anyway the discussion of trident  class replacement is really a discussion in the context of the need to modernize the entire triad and so first of all i think that it's important for us to recognize that that is one piece an important piece but a piece of the decision process that we need to go through second that the issue of the number of two is not a simple black and white answer so let me just comment here for a minute first of all the issue in my mind is the overall number of tubes we wind up with at the end not so much the number of tubes per submarine second the issue is of course we have flexibility an options with how many warheads per missile per tube so that's another consideration that enters into this mixture another consideration that that is important to me is the overall number of boats and the operational flexibility that we have with the overall number of boats given that some number will need to be in maintenance some number will need to be in training etc and so those and many other factors to include the  little bit of foresight here in looking ahead to twenty years from now and i submarine warfare environment of the navy will have to operate in all of those bear on the ultimate size weight shape configuration of a follow on to the ohio at this point mr chairman i i am not overly troubled by going to sixteen tubes as i look at this given that we have that kind of flexibility that i just laid out given that this is an element of the triad and given that we have some decision space here as we go forward to decide on the ultimate number of submarines nothing troubles me operationally here to the extent that i would oppose a submarine with sixteen tubes i understand the reasons for wanting to have twenty i understand the arguments that were made ahead of me but as i sit here  today given the totality of the discussion i am as i say i'm not overly troubled by sixteen i don't know that the gavel has been pounded on the other side of the river yet with a final decision but at this point i am requirements we're looking at sixteen to sixteen meet the requirements and how was to determine that twenty to sixteen well i can't comment on sort of the acquisition the decisions that went on in the background i don't know what those decisions were but but the difference between twenty and sixteen there was also a different number of votes in play and so the overall difference as i went back and looked at this was not that significant in terms of  to perform and so the defies the ability to upload the weapons because at the end of the day here the question is will we be able to deliver sufficient weapons with the platforms that are available and  mr chairman thank you general thank you dr for being before us to be going to south korea in a few weeks and so i'm sure many be asked a lot of questions a south korean press reports this week indicated that national security council w m d's are doctored more left open the possibility if the u s might introduce tactical nuclear weapons on the korean peninsula if south korea made such a request c spokesman clarified it afterwards to say that our policy remains to support a non nuclear korean peninsula and that there was no plan to change that policy that tactical weapons are what i would like to add and this is this is based on past and i'm going conversations with our south korean allies is that the us nuclear umbrella remains firmly over south korea neither and also with respect to missile defense considering at least in the times that i've been over there in recent years they've been very anxious about our whole issue with respect to missile  what are the positives where do you see us going and what we could do as a congress people who work on the subject to enhance that relationship let me take a cut and see if general keller wants to come in discussions are just getting under way we don't expect them to result in a negotiated agreement but what we do want to engage the russians on is is what it seems look at not just in the twenty towns and so on but twenty twentieth's and forward and what will be the basis of deterrence and in the future they clearly have expressed concerns about the future course of our of our missile defense deployments and we have in all venues come back with a clear statement that we will not accept any limitations quantitatively qualitatively geographically or otherwise and so this is part of a conversation about how to sustain strategic stability over the long term and i think it's an important conversation both with russia  missile defense cooperation as i said in my statement we've made we have made clear that we we don't see moving forward with a joint system but see moving forward with the possibility of cooperation in separate systems and with respect to nato our concept is that nato would defend nato russia would defend russia and we would look for opportunities to cooperate that would be mutually beneficial the bush administration first proposed possible use of radar data from two russian radars one an arm of your one it could bala we've looked at those in a couple of others as well and we and we think that in fact some early warning data from those radars could potentially increase the ability improve the ability of our face adaptive approach to intercept missiles into europe it's also possible that sensors from the united states and from in from our nato allies could improve the ability of russia to engage missile headed towards it from the from iran and so sharing of sensor data i think is the is the most promising initial area in principle it's possible that one side could intercept a missile that's headed for the other there if you look at the geography of the launch from the from iran or elsewhere for that matter in the middle east there are some trajectories that head towards europe that pass over russia and some that would in some conversely that that would pass over europe on its way to russia so we will look to engage with them on those issues and a foundational activity that we've we've proposed is to do a joint analysis that looks at the architectures and how each side's sensors and so forth could assist in the ability of either side to to conduct missile defense  congresswoman sanchez i do i would just add that that over the years since the end of the cold war in particular but even prior to that we have found that there is extraordinary value in having military to military contact with the russians at all levels on lots of issues we find that that those engagements typically lead to better understanding they lead to  said there have been some initiatives you know the sector defenses of china recently and similarly you know we see some value there in military military contact thank you because of the time constraint i'm going to hold mistaken and then coupled with that my concern being i would expect i think the senate's direction would expect that if that were to occur that it be in done in conjunction with  or reduction overall in the russian ticket tactical nuclear weapons joint chairman i would not want to prejudge what the outcome of the review would be we have views obviously within the administration about its future direction and both its focus and desired outcomes but you would not disagree that it could recommend reductions yes and then  to my statement of and i would hope that that would occur within the context of reductions and concessions in tactical to get weapons from russia going with that we're going to adjourn for these two votes and then we'll be returning for the questions from the other members schedule here general kaylor and hopefully this isn't going to become an issue but press reports suggest that some and ministration would like to sign on to the european union's code of conduct concerning space what are the advantages and disadvantages of signing on to such a code what national security considerations should the department take into account as a review such a proposed proposal and with this code of conduct require any changes in u policy or approaches to space and i know you're dealing with this strat com right now but you obviously have an extensive space background when you were in colorado springs and we think thank you for your service in that capacity as well thousand objects spent on the day whether it's twenty or twenty one thousand or twenty two thousand but the number is growing there are objects there beyond what we're able to maintain in our catalog that nasa has estimated probably ten times the number of objects or are there that and then what we actually see so this issue of of space becoming more congested is a real issue  there are some rules that exist today but they're very broad and our view at least at strat com is that it is time for us to brace this issue in some way now there are carry out that have to be added to this of course and there are operational considerations that we would have to make sure that that are being taken account of as we go forward but my view is that it is time for us to have this when it is time for us to be on the road of looking at what makes sense in terms of best practices whether we call that a code of conduct or whether we actually embrace the code of conduct is something we're working and making our inputs known in the policy world but but fundamentally our view it's track com is that that we should be on this road looking to put appropriate rules of the road in place that will help us  and will actually help everyone this is consistent with our new national space policy it's consistent with our new national security space strategy and operationally we think it's consistent with with the plans that we have as well ok thank you now for either or both of you when the white house announced the european phased adaptive approach in two thousand and nine it said the new approach is based upon an assumption that the long range threat was quote slower to develop unquote however several defense officials including secretary gates and admiral mullen have recently expressed concern about the pace of iran's i c b m and nuclear developments so my question is this are you concerned that iran's missile and nuclear programs are developing faster than the intelligence community previously assessed and i believe what i testified here in december we talked through the on his intelligence assessment portions of which had been made public that talked about the possibility of of an through the space launch system to suffer and others we've seen advances in that program and we have seen them continue to pursue their their nuclear program and at least providing the option to go to a nuclear weapons capability and not foreclosing that so i would say if anything since the time of that decision concerns have been have been reinforced and in some to some degree heightened and it that is one of the reasons that we continue to look in detail at what the appropriate head should be with respect to with respect to missile defense i would add that that in the thirty days that i've been in command the first set of questions that i started ask about this was do we have the flexibility to pursue the had strategy and the answer is yes we are making progress in sensors we have made progress and sensors in fact the modifications that have been made to some of our early warning radars are now complete there are others now in progress too to  be in a better position sensor wise to understand a characterize a threat if if it were to emerge there of course we are continuing to build g b i's and so there is flexibility ts and so i think i am comfortable from a military perspective that the pieces are in place that give the decision makers an ability to hedge if in fact this threat emerges sooner threats are among the most serious clearly the n s a and cyber collar both very capable and today's for our intelligence and military issues but many of the threats that we face today as a nation are to civilian  critical infrastructure such as our electric power grid or our financial system my question is if we were undergoing a cyber nine eleven attack what is the capacity of department sir let me begin by saying there has been a lot of progress made over the last couple of years to bring focus inside the department for sure regarding cyber the stand up of cyber  com by combining other pieces from throughout the department has been a big step forward getting it to full operational capability although they're certainly much more to be done was a significant step forward positioning at fort meade which is a center of gravity center of excellence for the country really for for cyber related activities was a positive step and so there is progress being made i believe that the memorandum of agreement that was signed between the department of defense and department homeland security that begins to outline the relationship between the to departments in just such a scenario has been particularly significant there is more work to be done and  if you're asking on any given day what is the capacity of the department to be helpful there are capabilities the department has how those the capabilities are wielded in terms of relationships elsewhere in the government and sort of defense support to civil authorities and all of the relationships that we have carved out elsewhere in our military those steps are still many of them in progress and so those are high on our to do list to continue to work our way  there is much more to do i agree and i might my concern is that we're there a sovereign i don't know of an attack on the way that we haven't worked these things out yet and although we might have the sir i would just add that my view of this is that some of those are now in place the m o a certainly helps us a great deal but they're not all in place i think i would describe this is still very much a work in progress let me go to another question from my time runs out but but we have some interest in what's residual in that activity regarding hypersonics course we also have development efforts underway for what we are calling conventional prompt global strike and there is some promising work that has gone on and more to do that would perhaps give us a real advantage here in small numbers for specific targets to give to the president some options to go after some kinds of targets conventionally that we do not have that option today and so both of those are very promising to us from those two standpoints so if i could just add very briefly the policy operation perspective with respect to lasers with the with the with the conclusion that the airborne laser didn't have real operational utility given given its its limitations and other activities went together  into a laser on the program that is one hundred million dollars a year plus and there are a number of promising technologies across a range of applications including missile defense and others if i could add just very quickly on the earlier question and apologize for doing this but it's want to add to joe keller's answer on cyber that in addition to having the authority to protect its own networks that defense department assigned responsibility for working with the defense industrial base one of eighteen critical infrastructure categories and we're working closely with the h s now to look at how the capabilities of the department can be brought to bear to support v h s in protection of other critical infrastructure and as you know just it's what i have on the record the president does have emergency authority to direct the o t to defend the nation as part of the defense support civil authorities against a cyber any other attack we are in internal conversations the administration now about how to do politics but i guess what is shocking to me is that a white house official both believes that we would reintroduce and encourages such requests of tactical nuclear weapons to the peninsula so my question is what was he thinking obviously i can answer that first person i did have a chance to talk to gary seymour i can tell you that he is fully on board with the clarification that was issued and he was fully on board with with the fact that i come out and intended to also say and make absolutely clear that the us nuclear umbrella continues to extend to to south korea and that neither side believes that that requires a deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the peninsula hundred fifty million and obviously this increase was for funding reflects the administration's success and screen promises from former soviet bloc countries that to remove the return of highly enriched uranium by twelve but countries and her ability to follow through on these two thousand and twelve commitments and help them fall to in these two thousand and twelve commitments if in fact we ended up with something less and let the administration requested for for  mr larson we would have to make some very very difficult choices what i would like to do is i can take this for the record and come back and give you specific answers given that we are partway through the year in execution at a lower level than we had we had hoped and i can like to describe what has been the effect so far and then what would be the consequences if it continued for the duration of the year i can i can give some general comments but i think i'd be preferable to give details and be happy to do so in a country by country basis in a very swiftly be great and be very helpful and i think it's because it's not so much that this is this administration's policy it's just a generally good idea to get to these countries and get our hands on this h e we move forward in the in the appropriations process john taylor again congratulations it's been an exciting thirty days for you i'm sure but something that we've on this committee is considered over the last several years and m chairman and i was the next ranking member to whom i wanted to do a hearing or do something in a different setting on space situational awareness we've been tracking that and pressing that for the last several years for a lot of reasons but of the most important steps given given that given what's in the budget for zero twelve what's most one of the most important steps that you can tell us about here that you're taking with regards to space situational awareness congressman there are two critical components that are continued in this budget that's before you today that that will contribute to space situational awareness one is a way to better fuse the existing data from the existing sensors make better use of the sensors that we have and bring that information together out at vandenberg in what is our joint space operations center at the same time as we go down that road i think we have a great opportunity here to to look very carefully with our allies and commercial partners and others to see how they can continue to contribute to that pool of data and our our overall understanding of what's  there over the last year or almost two now strap com has been pursuing a program that was actually recommended by congress that was originally called the commercial and foreign entities program what that has resulted in now is a much better way to share situational information with other entities to include commercial partners that have now signed up and are much more freely providing information about their platforms so that that frees up our sensors and our computing power to go after things that maybe we don't know as much about so that's very helpful so it's how the data how the data is exposed how we make use of it and how we include partners in all of that i think is something that is critically important and and something that we will need to to continue to push and some of that is contained in this budget the other thing is sensors even with sharing other information and even with the better use of the sensors we have we will need some sensors positioned in other places and that is contained the preliminaries are contained in the budget as well so those two things are in the budget  they're important both of those to us and overall as i think you're right the issue of situational awareness for space is very high on our priority list and by the way it is for cyberspace as well and it is not unlike the same issues that we are working for space so cyber situational awareness i think if general alexander was here from cyber com he would he would leap up at this point and say same cyberspace because that is a high priority for us in both of these places and just thank you appreciate your comment on space situational awareness and fact this committee subcommittee has been working on issues of having one on one sessions if you will briefings that are not in the context of  committee hearings for the purposes of really just straight education and subject matter information for the members and mr larsen i'm very proud to say you get a gold star i think you've been the best attendance of anybody and i appreciate that we have a anything that you'd like to say in closing or and to clarify in the discussion i want to give the opportunity to add anything to your comments say three things very quickly first i want to thank you for the effort to testify today and to your one on one sessions and look forward to having arst our people continue those and want to be available to answer any additional questions that you in the subcommittee or larger committee have as well second i look for you coming back specifically  for a classified discussion hedge and what i think is in that regard we had the by chance bumped into the combat commander for northern command in the ante room and i think we're well lined i move on having the conversations internal conversations closed down that we need to move forward there and third i want to thank want to thank you in the in the subcommittee committee for support of both sides of president obama's vision including the arms control side but also including the investments and against say that it's it's critical to this administration that we get the funding necessary to support our nuclear delivery systems and again d o d speaking for a deal know that the subcommittee has a lot of issues on its plate and we're pledged to come back at any time that you want to to continue these discussions further and typically combat commanders don't say much about investment and needs to support budgets but i must add my my voice to dr miller here in the first thirty days i have told my staff that what i wanted to do was get all the way around the nuclear weapons complex i didn't make it i got about half of the way through but i'll get through the rest of it within the next couple of weeks and i must say that my assessment is that the investment that is play and for them is definitely needed and it underpins all of our other deterrence activities if the weapons are not safe and reliable safe and effective and secure i think we don't have a leg to stand on so i would encourage support for that part of the investment as well even though that's not directly gentlemen while you're getting situated let me begin my welcome to you i want to provide you would walk welcome to dr perry and dr payne i mentioned earlier i believe that the committee's oversight is further enhanced through additional perspectives outside of the traditional greatly appreciate your also just patients we didn't mention prior in our one on one sessions where the committee is doing an overview of the subject matter dr perry i greatly appreciate you being here and and all of your service and insight we look forward to your statement and i recognize you know dr perry they're going to turn your microphone on here i believe and that two thousand and nine the congress appointed bipartisan commission we met for a year and we end up with a report we have reported about a year ago to the t i reviewed the statement i made to congress last year and i stand by that statement and my written testimony reflects that fact with a few updates and the updates primarily reflect the  changed since the cold war with a much greater much less risk of a nuclear exchange but a greater risk of nuclear terrorism therefore to take our security we must continue to support the military programs and maintain an adequate deterrence force at the same time we need to support those programs that guard us against nuclear terrorism they fall into two categories basically military programs i went to the b m d program as that is the primary example and nonmilitary programs which are international in nature which prevent considering those two different kinds of programs when i was a secretary of defense i refer to those as the need to lead but hedge lead and the international programs of event of deliberation but hedging by maintaining an adequate deterren and case that deliberation stopping profession fail on the leading has been supported really by the last five administrations through treaties the and most recently the new start treaty report that in my judgment the nuclear plus you're largely accepted the recommendations that we made in our report we argued that we should policy that as a matter of policy we should clarify how we're going to use nuclear weapons the nuclear powers you use some might develop language in a year but nevertheless did have an important clarification and it also as we recommended made strong assurance as to our allies  secondly we argued strongly that we could maintain a safety security reliable in fact on this of our deterrence force do that through maintaining a robust three laboratories to maintaining our stockpile stewardship program and life expect those are in the nuclear posture review and all of them have been funded so i'm quite pleased with that with the how the follow up on a treaty there in terms of the leading we have reckoned we recommended strongly actions to reverse deliberation and north korea and iran i'm sorry but nothing useful has happened in either of those cases they still maintain that i would take greater threats then to time that we go to our report  follow on two years which dealt specifically with the danger of tactical nuclear weapons we recommended a strong two d d dialogue with russia and other nuclear powers that has gotten underway  we recommended continuing to maintain the strength of the threat reduction program on the cap and then nature the comprehensive test ban treaty we had a split split report on that half of us recommending  doing it half as recommending against it but all of us recommending steps that dissented should take to reconsider the treaty and finally we recommended the strengthening of the international atomic energy a and see and adding to the nuclear additional protocol to strengthen them i mean to jam that summarizes briefly what i thought were the highlights of the report and how it compared to the nuclear posture review my bottom line is i am very pleased that the nuclear posture review was very i think quite compatible with recommendations that we made with only a few minor exceptions submit the article in which i drew those remarks for the record i'll take just a moment to identify a few of the commission's basic recommendations and then identify the potential challenges to the u s strategic nuclear force posture that as i see them the bipartisan congressional strategic posture commission offered numerous recommendations to reduce what we called the nuclear danger for example to reduce the nuclear danger the commission recommended a conscious effort to balance diplomatic measures to reduce the number of nuclear weapons with the necessary measures to deter attacks and to assure allies of their security despite the occasional friction between us diplomatic and deterrence efforts republican and democratic administrations for five decades have just such a balance the commission also emphasize that the united states must maintain a viable nuclear arsenal for the indefinite future to support the national goals of deterrence and assurance the commission did not try to identify the minimum number of nuclear weapons necessary for deterrence and assurance this mission was not a mistake it was in recognition of the fact that these force requirements can change rapidly because they are driven by many fluid factors rather than selecting an inherently transient right number of nuclear weapons the commission highlighted the need for a flexible and resilient force posture to support terance and assurance across a shifting landscape of threats and cont s we noted in particular that the importance of flexibility and resilience in the force posture will increase as u s forces decline in numbers this emphasis on the need for flexibility and resilience in our force structure is the primary reason the commission recommended that the administration maintain the strategic triad of bombers i c b m s and sea based missiles finally in recognition of the fact that deterrence may prove unreliable the commission also concluded that the united states must design its strategic forces not only for deterrence but also to help defend against an attack if deterrence fails this defensive goal includes a requirement for missile defense against regional aggressors and limited long range missile threats we specifically urge that us defenses against long range missiles become capable against more complex limited threats as they mature in light of these commission recommendations my foremost concern is that u s nuclear policy appears to be departing from a balance between diplomatic and deterrence measures to reduce the nuclear danger specifically the goal of nuclear reductions appears to have been given precedence and the resulting imbalance could undermine our future capabilities to deter to assure and to defend what's the basis for my concern the two thousand and ten nuclear posture review a highly commendable report in many respects for the first time places atop the u s nuclear agenda and are now national nonproliferation efforts as a critical element of our effort to move toward a new a world free of nuclear weapons and that's quoting from the n station appear self consciously to depart from the carefully balanced dual tracks of the past fifty years the ministration assurances that the u s will maintain an effective nuclear deterrent certainly are welcome but at the end of the day if the top u s policy priority is international nonproliferation efforts and movement toward nuclear zero there will be unavoidable tradeoffs made at the expense of the u s forces important for deterrence assurance and defense this is not an academic concern over a few policy words the administration links qualitative limits and numeric reductions in u s nuclear forces to progress  movement toward nuclear is zero qualitative limitations and further reductions in our forces however can reduce their flexibility and their resilience undermining our national goals of deterrence and assurance this is the  tradeoff that continues to need careful balance and the commission specifically cautioned against pursuing nuclear reductions at the expense of the resilience of our forces in part because policies that undermine credible deterrents and assurance could actually provoke nuclear proliferation not prevent it us defensive programs may also be undermined by the administration's self described nuclear policy agenda russian officials and some american commentators now claim that qualitative and quantitative restraints on u s strategic defenses are necessary for any further negotiated nuclear reductions with international nonproliferation efforts and movement toward nuclear zero at the top of the u nuclear agenda as defined in the nuclear posture review the pursuit of nuclear inductions at the hence u s missile defenses could ultimately be deemed an acceptable tradeoff that certainly is the russian demand my final related concern is the possibility that new policy guidance could attempt to drive deep deep reductions in u s forces by redefining deterrence in minimalist terms thereby lowering the force requirements deemed adequate for deterrence for five decades republican and democratic administrations have consistently rejected minimum deterrence as inadequate and dangerous yet many proponents of nuclear is zero now again advocate new presidential guidance that adopts a minimum deterrence as a way to justify deep productions in u s nuclear forces adopting a minimum definition deterrence may help to justify the elimination of the triad and us nuclear reduction is down to five hundred weapons but it would do so at the expense of the flexibility and resilience and thus the effectiveness of our forces for deterrence and assurance again the commission specifically cautioned against such nuclear inductions and emphasized that new presidential guidance should and i quote be informed by assessments of what is needed for deterrence and assurance any new guidance that adopts a minimum deterrence could easily increase the nuclear danger by  undermining credible u s deterrence and by pushing friends and allies toward nuclear proliferation in summary i'm concerned about the apparent imbalance in the administration's announced nuclear agenda and the possibility that new policy guidance may adopt long rejected minimum deterrence standards as a route to deep nuclear inductions the commission's unanimous recommendations for one a balance and priorities to the maintenance of a flexible and resilient strategic force posture and three improving u s strategic defensive capabilities indeed against missile threats of all ranges those recommendations i believe remain useful and pertinent thank you thank you for your comments and for your input this is very helpful as we take in consideration the prior testimony to get your perspective dr perry i want to again commend you for the strategic posture commission everyone looks to the report from that commission as a great perspective on both the policy issues that we need to look for in decision making but also some of the substantive guidance i think that you're absolutely correct when into the m p r and been further in the start i think it's a great perspective for us to continue to to look to i have basically two questions that have a couple multiple parts i'm going to ask you the first one with a couple  questions couple parts to it but the first is about overall general cuts the second is on the tactical nuclear weapons in europe so the first question is could you please describe in more detail but guidance that would have to be rewritten to warrant deeper cuts in our nuclear arsenal what are some of the consequences or dangers associated with downgrading our deterrence requirements does this mean downgrading from a counter force to a counter to a countervailing strategy could such a move hurt the credibility and flexibility of our deterrent and that would be the first question and i'll give you both an up to the answer and then i'd like to discuss the technical weapons in  my present view mr chairman is that caught for the foreseeable future should be aligned with the cuts made by russia and if that they are willing to go to  you according to official unclassified and declassified reports there are different general categories of opponents targets that the us tries to hold at risk for deterrence purposes  categories our nuclear forces leadership other military capabilities and war supporting industrial and economic facilities according to the unclassified official government statements to that  effect over time as a commission noted presidential guidance has adjusted u s emphasis on these categories which can then change the numbers and types of weapons the military requires to fulfill that guidance  in theory to get to low force requirements and new guidance could lower the four standards deemed adequate for deterrence a new guidance could simply eliminate nuclear requirements to hold one or more of those categories of targets that identified at risk for deterrence purposes we've seen something like this in the past in the one nine hundred sixty secretary since mcnamara declared that us deterrent requirements could be met by threatening twenty five percent of the soviet population and fifty percent of the soviet industrial base that was the assured destruction capability that was deemed adequate for deterrence and secretary mcnamara that that's not a large number of nuclear weapons necessary to hold those kind of targets at risk population and industry so some of now suggested going back to mcnamara type assured destruction  threat turned threat with an emphasis on only a few industrial type targets as a way to get numbers of force requirements of the number of forces on the requirements down the for five decades i should note that no republican or democratic administration has accepted that kind of minimum deterrence standard for u s forces and for very good reasons the primary reason is because revising u s definition of vising the us definition of requirements down for deterrence doesn't mean that the actual requirements for deterrents go down the actual deterrence requirements are driven by what our opponents think not by our goal to reduce numbers i think harold brown i think put it best when he said for deterrence to prevent war effectively as possible it's critical that the united states can threaten what the opponents value wherever that leads us so with that i'd note that there are at least a handful of fundamental reasons for rejecting any efforts to go back to a minimum deterrence definition of force requirements and each of these reasons follows because those kind of force requirements minimum deterrence force requirements create an inflexible straitjacket for the president but one going down to very low numbers that threat may not be suitable to address what the opponent actually values on other occasions violating harold brown's dictum you know either case minimum deterrence will fail to prevent war to minimum deterren standards will undercut our ability to assure our allies and friends and it will lead some of them to seek their own independent nuclear capabilities i e is likely to promote nuclear proliferation three of these types of minimum force standards associated with minimum deterrence will also ease the problems for opponents who seek to counter or get around our deterrence strategies they're actually likely to encourage challenges to deterrence for a minimum deterrence that focuses on population and civilians so they and centers are both illegal and immoral as a targeting policy we cannot intentionally threaten civilian populations and targets for deterrence purposes and lastly minimum deterrence standards that offer little flexibility or resilience so that when the future unfolds in a threatening fashion we don't have the flexibility or the resilience to respond as necessary to deter war to assure us it's basically those reasons that i've just identified as handful of reasons why no democratic or republican administration for five decades has accepted and minimum deterrence approach to force sizing i missed it you know and if i may comment on that russia i would argue the answer is russia because all other cases are lesser included cases at this time at present numbers and foreseeable numbers the future of russia is that only one has enough nuclear weapons to be an issue here and the next question is deterring what russia does not have a conventional capability they capable of threatening i the united states or europe so all we can be talking about is deterring russia's nuclear weapons therefore that's why my answer assuming those points my answer talked about making the reductions in terms of by allowed or and actions with russia and that was the point that was the point is that the background for that  point turning into my second question dr perry that's a great transition to my second question and what we have learned today in our discussion is that nato is currently undertaking a deterrence review and in that deterrence review they'll be looking at all components of nato's presence both the our nuclear capability our missile defense capability and conventional it is a concern that the deterrence review proceed with in nuclear force presence in europe without achieving concessions from russia of the number of tactical nuclear weapons that it currently has for purposes of discussion we we know that they have in excess of thirty eight hundred  perhaps they have as many as five thousand the u s has a very minimal number in conjunction with our nato commitment do you think it would be wrong for us to do that because it would seem to me that that if there is going to be corresponding reductions that we should be seeking reductions from the russians and i think that certainly the guidance that the senate has given in adopting new start i'd like both of your thoughts in october and i to give you a two prong answer to that question first of all i do not think we need nuclear weapons in europe to deter russia from an attack or any other country from an attack on europe the nuclear weapons we have on our submarines for example perfectly adequate providing that deterrence but there is a substantial political issue involved in the political way surely the reason we have nuclear weapons in new york in the first place is not because the rest of our weapons are not capable of deterrence that because during the cold war at least our allies in europe felt more assured when we had nuclear weapons in europe that's why they were deployed there in the first place today the issue is a little different this you is the russian the meantime have built a large number of nuclear weapons and we keep our nuclear weapons the somewhat of a political leverage for dealing where they are to maturity and which we may get russia and unites ace to eliminate tactical nuclear weapons my own view is it would be desirable of both the united states and russia  eliminate tactical nuclear weapons but i see it very difficult to arrive attack inclusion if we were simply to limit all of a tactical nuclear weapons unilaterally thank you dr payne thank you to the russian position certainly is that all u s tactical nuclear weapons must be returned to the united states before they will engage in negotiation on tactical nuclear weapons i see some real real problems with that because if they're withdrawn now back to us territory hard to imagine them ever going back and even if us tactical nuclear weapons aren't necessary to deter russia now we don't know that the future is going to be so friendly and so i'm very concerned about the idea of deciding that our tactical nuclear weapons serve no deterrence role now therefore we can bring them back because the future has a way of turning out in some ways darker than we anticipated on many occasions and i think we need that flexibility to be able to be prepared for future events and may be less happy than we would otherwise expect the second point is that in addition to we need them in for deterrence purposes in the future  is that our that many of our allies see our nuclear weapons there as important for their assurance it's what in some cases helps to keep them from deciding they will pursue an alternative to extended nuclear deterrence and therefore this isn't just in the turn to shew i don't in fact i think it's primarily at the present time an issue of how do you assure allies so they themselves remain comfortable within the lions and in a non nuclear status and we know because before the commission the number of allies we had a chance to speak with said these weapons in europe are important to us for the extent for the demonstration of extended terms so i'd be very reluctant to  you talk about the governor tokyo arguing at some point that japan may look to its own independent pre determined i was in japan a few years ago on a codel and having lunch with some folks from the diet  and and this was at least three years ago and they were arguing then that they should have an independent nuclear deterrent as i just there are some folks in japan who believe that i haven't been a nuclear deterrent regardless of how the administration is r that you know you all looked at and i'd like to get your views both on the n p r s negative surance policy where the administration didn't make a slight edge you know an adjustment on the negative we're not used to short answer and i'm sorry  the i think it's important much the changes in the n p r with regard to the negative insurance policies are i think minor and fact when secretary clinton later amplified it by saying if b w was ever used against united states all bets are on the table i thought that was a useful elaboration and so with that type of understanding i thought the changes changes were minimal and i thought that was a good thing yeah ok and with regards to a duck finish to see your point  perhaps one of your points in your testimony oral and written is that the president stated the role of nuclear weapons will be reduced and u s national security policy and to that end n p r declares a non nuclear elemental take  posture you said exactly the same thing so this wasn't this wasn't a great departure from what had been set up before and now there was no departure in that case there was no departure sir and i agree with that at the time so i did again didn't have any any whatsoever to that kind of statement in the past where durant where deterrence can be serviced by conventional forces we should certainly have the conventional forces available to do just that so so then out how does that square with i guess i gathered from your your written and oral testimony that this turning down the temperature or moving away from a nuclear deterrence was a bad thing and it might be a bad thing i'm just trying to square that with your testimony fair enough sir the point i was making isn't that moving towards conventional forces for deterrence when possible is the wrong way to go i think that's the right way to go the point that i was making with regard to the democratic and republican administrations has balanced those priorities so wasn't my i don't have a concern that we move towards conventional terms when that fits and when that's suitable and when we can get appropriate deterrent effect from conventional forces my concern is that the trade offs will have to be made if the top priority is in fact toward nuclear international obligations moving towards nuclear is zero because there will be tradeoffs made with regard to our assurance our deterrence our defensive capabilities if that's the operative top priority that's my concern and dr perry obviously you've been chewing on this question longer than than i have certainly you have give a response and dr paine's comments  agreed it should be a balance we just how to weigh that balance and some member david wain the deliberation is you know more strongly than the current issues and vice versa and that had to do with whether they thought which they thought was it was a more chairman i'm going to end with one question that is really asking both of you for a commercial the commission made recommendations about the investment in to our nuclear infrastructure and in n s a some of that investment is at risk in this discussion that we're having on budget cuts nationally as we look to the continuing resolution process where we have not yet funded the government for this year there are many productions that are hitting areas that they should not for example our national security and national defense since we've had deferred maintenance a long period of time where we did not put the money in that we should have more now in a situation where we have to put more money in and some are seeing that money is huge increases that perhaps we could find savings and i'd love just if each of you could pause for a moment and give us some guidance to give congress some guidance as to how important that funding is for in an essay what you saw dr perry in the commission of our disinvestment and dr payne what you extremely important to maintain a robust program at all three latin nuclear laboratories the hiring and retaining of key people in the supporting of the stock and supporting of the life extension program beyond that we believe that the plutonium facilities at los alamos ought to be renewed and that the iranian facilities at oakridge ought to be renewed and the report of my memory is right we said that those could be done sequence uli and which case of plutonium should have the first priority and the range undone after payne this again is another area where the commission was unanimous in the support for essentially fixing the problems that the n s a confronts you mention the commercial chairman turner it's like the old commercial you pay me now or pay me more later i think our recommendation was to do it now as opposed to having to pay more later i was encouraged to see the letter from the three lab directors who said that they thought the budgets that came out of the twelve fifty one report and the administration's commitment  were quite acceptable to fill to fulfill those goals and to fix the problem so i would hate to see and i'm sure secretary perry would hate to see movement away from that solution that we seems like we almost have in hand for that problem the only other point i would add in the commission report noted this a bit as well as we also have industrial infrastructure challenges in front of us just making sure the united states for example can produce large solid rocket motors i think is a very important goal and it's something that's going to need attention in the near future so they're there in an essay challenges but there are also industrial challenges that need to be do i believe that this administration pursues a minimum turns policy and i said no i don't believe this administration pursues a minimum deterrence policy the concern that i reflected in my remarks is my fear is that given the priorities identified r we could see that coming and i would hope that we would pay great attention to avoid that as every past republican and democratic administration has avoided it to pain dr perry thank you so much thank you for all your contribution and dr perry i must tell you that curbing in our staff member had just come in and that that you could listen to for hours and i know we all could and we would we would learn so much so thank you for coming in participating and thank you for your record very