On the recordMay 17, 2012
My amendment would strike language in the bill directing the administration to consider redeploying tactical nuclear weapons to the western Pacific region, and it would replace that language with a finding that such a deployment would not be in the best national security interests of the United States. The irresponsible language in the bill has already provoked a strong negative reaction from the South Korean Government and has forced the State Department to clarify that deploying nuclear weapons in South Korea is not on the table. Tactical nuclear weapons would be extremely destabilizing in the region. It would accelerate North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, and America would lose its moral ground in its diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. It would undermine decades of diplomatic efforts to secure a nuclear- free Korean Peninsula, especially the Joint Declaration on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula which both North and South Korea signed in 1991; and it would dramatically heighten tensions with China, perhaps with Russia, whose leaders would be understandably concerned by American tactical nuclear weapons in their backyards. Mr. Chairman, our forces in the region, including our ballistic missile submarines, our intercontinental ballistic missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, B 52 and B 2 bombers, are fully capable of countering North Korea. I would quote General Walter Sharp, recently retired as commander of U.S.…
