Norman D. Dicks: “The New START Treaty limits the total number of weapon delivery vehicles by 2017. According to the Air Force, they are…”

“The New START Treaty limits the total number of weapon delivery vehicles by 2017. According to the Air Force, they are funded for New START implementation, but are awaiting final force structure decisions to determine numbers of weapon delivery vehicles to be reduced in FY 13. We should carry out our obligation under the New START Treaty and not restrict the Department's obligation to implement it. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I want to make it clear to my colleagues just what we're talking about. Under the New START we will have 520 ICBMs with 420 warheads. We will have 60 bombers, 42 B-52s and 18 B-2s that are nuclear capable, and they have many warheads. We have 240 sub-launched missiles. The number of subs are not restricted, but we have 14 Trident submarines. I would, with all due respect, just say this, this is one area where we can, if we can come down on a mutual agreement with the Russians to a lower level, we can save ourselves the money of not having to replace all of these weapons systems. A lot of very thoughtful people have looked at this issue, and they believe that the two most survivable legs of the triad are the ballistic missile submarines and the bombers. The land-based missiles are vulnerable. Now, we had great debates over the MX missile. We got into how many RVs coming in to take out an existing missile, usually it's two, so the enemy would be using up weapons.…”