could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home."

By failing to destroy nuclear warheads, the Nuclear Posture Review would increase the threat of proliferation at the very time when the al Qaeda terrorist network is known to be pursuing nuclear weapons. In addition to compounding the proliferation threat, this new approach to nuclear weapons appears to compound the military threat to our Nation. One of the significant achievements of START II was that it would have eliminated Russia's land-based multiwarhead (MIRVed) missiles. By essentially abandoning efforts to bring START II into force, the administration leaves open the possibility that Russia may retain these missiles that it was prepared just recently to destroy.

Secretary Rumsfeld says that the new approach "increases our security." My fear is that the opposite may be true, and that over time, America would be less secure with this approach.

Senator Allard.

Senator ALLARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The ranking Republican member, Senator Warner, will be here later, so he has asked me to fill in for him until he arrives. I looked over his statement, and instead of simply putting it into the record, I would like to go ahead and read it on his behalf. I will put my statement in the record, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank all of you for being here this morning. I think this is a very important hearing. We do want to hear from you, and on behalf of Senator Warner, I want to offer his welcome to the distinguished witnesses that we have here today.

The Nuclear Posture Review on which we will receive testimony today relates to the most destructive weapons ever devised by mankind. I applaud the chairman for focusing the committee's attention on this important issue.

I think the NPR represents a breakthrough in how we think of our strategic forces and how we respond to strategic challenges, and we all look forward to hearing our witnesses describe the new strategy in more detail.

The Nuclear Posture Review, which was required by this committee in the Fiscal Year 2001 National Defense Authorization Act and forwarded by the Department of Defense to Congress early last month, is an extraordinarily timely document. The last such review was completed in 1994, in the early years of a previous administration. At that time, the world was a vastly different place. The mutual hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States that had characterized the Cold War and had shaped our thinking about nuclear forces as strategic deterrents had faded, but not vanished. We were still trying to understand the implications of the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new threats.

Today, our relationship with Russia has dramatically improved. Presidents Bush and Putin continue to work on a new strategic framework based on common responsibilities and common interests. But new challenges continue to emerge. More nations now have nuclear weapons, still more seek nuclear, biological, and chemical capabilities, and the means to deliver these powerful weapons. More nations now possess ballistic missiles, and still more seek such capabilities. Proliferation of these weapons of mass

destruction and associated delivery systems is one of the greatest threats to our national security and indeed to global security.

The Nuclear Posture Review provides an innovative way to address these new security challenges by proposing dramatic reductions in deployed nuclear weapons combined with a new triad, which includes defensive systems and a robust infrastructure. The NPR provides our Nation a much more complete set of tools to deal with the wide range of threats and contingencies we will face in the future. Indeed, new defenses, precision conventional munition capabilities, and improved intelligence will help improve our picture of threats beyond those considered strategic. These improved capabilities, combined with our improved relationship with Russia, will allow us to move forward with dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons.

I believe that this document represents a fundamental, some might even say radical, departure from how we thought about strategic forces in the past and how we should respond to strategic challenges in the future. As was noted earlier, this Nuclear Posture Review relates to the most powerful weapons on the face of the Earth. We in Congress are obligated to carefully study the issues raised in this review. This hearing is the beginning of a debate and a forum in which we can gain a clearer understanding of the policy and programmatic implications embodied in the Nuclear Posture Review.

In May of last year, President Bush laid out his vision of the future. Cold War deterrence is no longer enough to maintain peace. To protect our citizens, allies, and friends, we must seek security based on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us. This is an important opportunity to rethink the unthinkable and find new ways to keep the peace.

Clearly, Cold War deterrence is no longer enough in this new, less certain world. As we debate our nuclear posture and nuclear security needs in the months and years ahead, we must be forward-thinking. This review is a welcome step in the right direction, and we all look forward to hearing your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Senator Allard follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT BY SENATOR WAYNE ALLARD

Mr. Chairman and Senator Warner, thank you for holding this important hearing on the Nuclear Posture Review.

I truly believe that this document is a step forward to show that the United States is committed to reducing our nuclear arsenal. I do not believe there will be any debate about whether we should reduce our nuclear arsenal, but whether this is the right approach to doing that. I believe it is.

I agree with many here today that this is far different from the classic arms-control approach. However, we are in a different arms-control environment.

While negotiating START III, the Clinton administration and Russia agreed on a framework in 1997 that stated that the two countries would work towards the irreversibility of weapons reductions. However, there were no definitive decisions regarding dismantlement, plus START III was never finished. Today, we have new leadership in Russia and in the United States. Our relationship also no longer reflects 50 years of conflict, but more than a decade of efforts aimed at cooperation. Presidents Bush and Putin have pledged themselves toward a new cooperative framework. This new framework can help to strengthen U.S.-Russian relations even further. It will show that the United States and Russia can make national security decisions based on trust, not on the mistrust that treaties can imply.

I also believe that this new framework can show the world that the United States is moving away from a specified threat environment to a new capabilities-based approach that allows the United States flexibility to address new threats and contingencies as they arise. This new framework also moves the United States away from an offensive triad based on mutually-assured destruction to a more stable triad based on offensive and defensive capabilities.

To conclude, I want to thank the witnesses for joining us here today. I look forward to hearing their comments and appreciate their willingness to take questions. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you. Do any of our colleagues have opening statements?

Senator Reed.

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome the witnesses. We all recognize that there are new strategic realities, and the question is whether this Nuclear Posture Review adequately reflects those realities. This will be the beginning of several discussions about the Nuclear Posture Review and our policy going forward. Another way to express this is to question whether or not we are simply rearranging the furniture with this Nuclear Posture Review, or have we taken a new look and come up with a strategy which fits this new reality.

The test of the Nuclear Posture Review is not simply what's contained within the pages of the report, but whether those pages translate into the budget, not just this year, but going forward through the next several years, and whether it complements the diplomatic initiatives which the President has announced, which would mean significant reductions in nuclear warheads. This is something that seems to be on the minds of the Russians as well. We had 8,000 warheads going into the Nuclear Posture Review, and we still have 8,000 warheads after it. They are just in different categories.

So I think as we go forward, we have to again question whether or not this is really a new look at a new strategic situation, whether this report will affect budgets in a meaningful way, and not just the high profile items, but the mundane items like the status of our laboratories, the status of our efforts to ensure the safety and security of the stockpile, and also to complement the expressed desire by President Bush and by others to reduce significantly our reliance upon nuclear weapons. That dialogue will go over many days. I thank the Chairman.

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you very much.

Senator Akaka has an opening statement. We will then hear from Senator Sessions followed by Senator Ben Nelson.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to add my welcome to the witnesses this morning. The future of our nuclear forces is one of the most important subjects before this committee. There are two critical points that need to be emphasized and then re-emphasized about the administration's Nuclear Posture Review. First, no substantial reductions in nuclear weapons are being proposed in this review.

Second, it is not clear why we insist on maintaining such large stockpiles of available weapons given the threat against which our military is prepared to defend us.

To begin with the number of nuclear weapons, the administration sets up two categories of nuclear warheads. The first category is for 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear warheads that will be operationally de

ployed by 2012. By operationally deployed, does the administration mean warheads actually mounted on platforms? I hope that can be clarified today.

The administration sets up a second category of warheads that is part of a responsive capability. These weapons, as Secretary Crouch stated in his press briefing on January 9, 2002, would be maintained with their critical components. It appears as if the only difference between operationally-deployed warheads and responsive warheads is that the responsive warheads would not be mounted on platforms. This is a distinction without much of a difference. The number of warheads in this responsive capability might number in the thousands according to present estimates, with the total number between 3,500 and 4,000 warheads.

What would our Nuclear Posture Review have looked like before this if arms control agreements had entered into force? START II would have brought the number of warheads down to 3,500 by 2003.

Why do we need a substantial number of nuclear warheads when we are reducing our force structure to cope with only one major war at a time and restructuring our forces to deal with the new threat of global terrorism and homeland defense? The administration argues that we need to go back to the nuclear weapons reductions envisioned in the first Bush administration, and early in the Clinton administration, because we need to deal with multiple contingencies and new threats. It is unclear which new threat requires maintaining such a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.

For example, the Russians, who for so long were the justification for us maintaining a large retaliatory capability, are no longer our enemy, and they are reducing more substantially than we their nuclear weapons. The Chinese are building up their warhead inventory, but will still be far below the thousands that we have. I hope, Mr. Chairman, the administration will clarify these issues in today's hearing.

Our Nation's resources are being strained as we work to improve homeland security, fight the war against terrorism, and maintain programs which ensure our country's continued economic prosperity. The burden is on the administration to justify maintaining a large and costly nuclear weapons arsenal, an arsenal which is not commensurate with the threats our military faces and the mission they are designed to perform. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair

man.

Chairman LEVIN. Senator Sessions, then Senator Ben Nelson. Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an interesting and important issue that we are dealing with here today. The United States remains the world's preeminent military power, and I hope that we will be able to maintain that. All of us would like to see reductions in our nuclear weaponry, and it will be accomplished under the President's plan. But I think we have to realize that we are not testing nuclear weapons now. We have no manufacturing capability in this country to make new nuclear weapons, whereas other countries in the world do. To freeze ourselves into a situation in which we could, by such low numbers, encourage other nations to believe they can reach parity with us in nuclear weaponry would be a mistake. I think we ought not to agree to lim

its that would provide a goal for competitors around the world who believe they could reach it and therefore be at parity with the United States, militarily.

I am concerned that if we totally destroy these weapons instead of just decommissioning them, we could end up in a situation without a manufacturing capability; a situation in which we could not properly defend ourselves and would not have a clear superiority that deters war. We have that, we are able to maintain that, and why we would give it away unilaterally I do not know. So my questions will deal with the subject of whether or not we are sure that we are not going too fast and if we are sure that we have a longterm vision to maintain superiority for the United States. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Sessions.

Senator Nelson.

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today. General Gordon and Secretary Feith, we appreciate and are anxious to follow your statements, and it is good to welcome Admiral Ellis, fresh from Nebraska, back to our Nation's capital. I appreciated your kind treatment of my staff when they were there visiting STRATCOM headquarters and our office visit a week ago. I appreciate very much the opportunity to exchange ideas with you here today.

I have two comments I would like to make. One is about the new direction that we are concerned about, about whether or not the NPR is a step in the right direction. My colleague, Senator Sessions, questions whether we should go to the next step of destruction of the weapons. Others feel that perhaps what we are doing is a step in the right direction, but maybe not a giant step because of the capacity to reactivate those weapons we are withdrawing from the active stockpile.

The concern I have about decommissioning and recommissioning, is that as I understand it the Russians have the capacity to recommission maybe three times faster than we do, and so the question is really whether we are achieving parity by that interim step, if it is an interim step. The second important concern I have is the nuclear club, other countries, those that are about to make nuclear weapons, those who have already done so, and the security of the stockpiles not in the United States, but in the former Soviet Union, and whether those can be secure enough, or whether that represents targets for other individuals.

I appreciate and look forward to your written comments as well as the oral testimony that I can hear today.

Chairman LEVIN. Senator Inhofe.

Senator INHOFE. I have observed a head-in-the-sand mentality for quite a long period of time now about where the threats are in the world, and as we proceed today, I am primarily talking about Russia and the United States, and yet my concern has always been not so much Russia, but these countries that are trading technologies and systems with countries like China, Russia, and North Korea. The threat is there, and I hope that during your opening statements you might address the fact that as recently as August 1998 when we asked General Shelton, as I did in a letter, to give us in writing when he felt that North Korea could be a threat to