Jon Kyl

Our responsibility is to be straightforward with you all. You're the ones that appointed us, you're the ones that we answer to.

It makes our planning much more difficult.

The answer to your question is yes.

One of our recommendations concerns ways that we could potentially mitigate the risk of a deterrence gap.

Mr. Chairman, Representative Jacobs, the fact is that our current system has deteriorated and aged to the point that we wouldn't be confident in the deterrent value of it on out into the future.

The answer is yes, it's inadequate today.

The first thing we've got to do is have a conventional capability which is so dominant that no party would ever consider a nuclear attack against the United States.

We have to make decisions now to make sure that we have the capacity to build whatever we're going to need to build.

That's why we say that has to be decided now.

It's enough that it's opportunistic. In other words, we're in a conflict with one, and the other sees that this is an opportunity.

The threat briefings that we received leave no question that both China and Russia, but particularly China see space as a war fighting domain.

We conclude that the strategic deterrent is not just a nuclear deterrent, it is a combination of conventional and nuclear.

We're behind both countries with regard to the hypersonic issue.

Mr. Chairman, Representative Jacobs, we took into account the fact that our military leaders have said routinely that this strategic deterrent is the number one priority for them.

I don't think it would have changed any of our recommendations.

The best way to deter a nuclear conflict is to deter a conventional conflict with the nuclear powers.

We're obviously not starting anything, we're playing catch up, and it's going to be a pretty tough job to catch up

The United States allowed our nuclear enterprise to atrophy, both the weapons and the delivery systems

We would not be recommending that the United States start a new arms race, that is not something this commission would do

What it shows first of all, that it's kind of the microcosm for the macrocosm.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, Representative Jacobs, the whole point is if the adversary believes that our system no longer functions, then they don't need to try to wipe it out at the beginning of a conflict.

SLCM-N would achieve the objective that we set out.

The possibility of an attack coming from one of these hypersonic weapons would be a preemptive, or out of the blue kind of attack, it could be decapitating.

There is no question that in the next conflict, if there be one, space will be a critical aspect of that conflict.