On the recordMay 14, 2015
As we are dealing with the defense authorization legislation, we should step back and look at the big picture. Are we taking tough stands dealing with escalating personnel costs, procurement issues, excess facilities? Are we honoring the responsibility of the military to clean up after itself? One of the best examples is a failure to deal with the rightsizing of our military facilities. It is no secret that our nuclear triad, which includes our land-based missiles, nuclear submarines, and bombers, are wildly in excess of anything we need for deterrence. The Pentagon's 2013 report on nuclear employment strategy declared that ``we can ensure the security of the United States and our allies and maintain a strong and credible strategic deterrence while safely pursuing up to a one-third reduction in deployed nuclear weapons from the level established in the New START Treaty.'' Other experts, including a commission chaired by former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright, suggest we could go even lower without jeopardizing security. Yet we are on a trajectory to spend over a trillion dollars in the decades to come on weapons that are largely irrelevant to the challenges of today: ISIS, 9/11-type attacks, military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russian aggression in the Ukraine. We should be addressing what is an appropriate level for the nuclear deterrence.…
