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The secretary spoke at a hangar on the flightline of the base. He
thanked the airmen at the base, and by extension, thanked the
thousands of other technicians who man, maintain, guard and operate
the bombers, ICBMs, ballistic missile submarines and the
command-and-control systems around the world.
“As you know,
everyone has their role to play,” he said, “and while each physical
piece is important, it's really the people who make the whole
greater than the sum of the parts.”
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September 26, 2016 - Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks to troops at Minot Air Force Base, ND. Carter is traveling to North Dakota and New Mexico to highlight the nation's nuclear enterprise, an area of critical importance to the long-term security of the United States.
(DoD photo by Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brigitte N. Brantley)
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Bedrock of U.S. Security
The secretary emphasized throughout his talk with the airmen that
America's nuclear deterrence is the bedrock of U.S. security and the
highest priority mission in the Defense Department.
“Because
while it is a remarkable achievement that in the more than seven
decades since 1945, nuclear weapons have not again been used in war,
that's not something we can ever take for granted,” he said. “And
that's why today, I want to talk about how we're innovating and
investing to sustain that bedrock.”
Carter has a long history
with the nuclear mission, working in the 1980s on basing for the MX
missile system. He speaks from experience when he says the
deterrence mission has both remained the same and changed.
“At a strategic level, of course, you deter large-scale nuclear
attack against the United States and our allies,” he said. “You help
convince potential adversaries that they can't escalate their way
out of failed conventional aggression. You assure allies that our
extended deterrence guarantees are credible -- enabling many of them
to forgo developing nuclear weapons themselves, despite the tough
strategic environment they find themselves in and the technological
ease with which they could develop such weapons. And, if deterrence
fails, you provide the president with options to achieve U.S. and
allied objectives -- a responsibility that I know President Obama
takes with the utmost seriousness, as you do -- all to reduce the
risk of nuclear weapons being used in first place.”
The
nuclear deterrent also provides an umbrella under which service
members accomplish conventional missions around the world, the
secretary said.
Changed Nuclear
Landscape
But the nuclear landscape has changed and it
will continue to pose challenges, Carter said.
“One way the
nuclear landscape has changed: we didn't build new types of nuclear
weapons or delivery systems for the last 25 years, but others did,
at the same time that our allies in Asia, the Middle East, and NATO
did not,” the secretary said, -- “so we must continue to sustain our
deterrence.”
Russia has modernized its nuclear arsenal, and there is some
doubt about Russian leaders' strategies for the weapons.
“Meanwhile, North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations
underscore that a diverse and dynamic spectrum of nuclear threats
still exists,” Carter said. “So our deterrence must be credible, and
extended to our allies in the region.”
North Korea is
building nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them, the
secretary said. The North Korean threat spurs spending on missile
defense in the United States and the deployment of systems to South
Korea, he added.
“We back all of that up with the commitment
that any attack on America or our allies will be not only defeated,
but that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with an overwhelming
and effective response,” Carter said.
India and China are
behaving responsibly with their nuclear enterprises, the secretary
said.
“In Iran, their nuclear aspirations have been
constrained and transparency over their activities increased by last
year's nuclear accord, which, as long as it continues to be
implemented, will verifiably prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear
weapon,” Carter said. “The last example I'll cite is Pakistan, where
nuclear weapons are entangled in a history of tension, and while
they are not a threat to the United States directly, we work with
Pakistan to ensure stability.”
Nature of Deterrence Remains the Same
Despite the
changes since the end of the Cold War, the nature of deterrence has
not changed, the secretary said. “Even in 2016, deterrence still
depends on perception -- what potential adversaries see, and
therefore believe -- about our will and ability to act,” he said.
“This means that as their perceptions shift, so must our strategy
and actions.”
A large-scale nuclear attack
is not likely, the secretary said. The most likely scenario is “the
unwise resort to smaller but still unprecedentedly terrible attacks,
for example by Russia or North Korea, to try to coerce a
conventionally superior opponent to back off or abandon an ally
during a crisis,” Carter said. “We cannot allow that to happen,
which is why we're working with our allies in both regions to
innovate and operate in new ways that sustain deterrence and
continue to preserve strategic stability.”
NATO is
reexamining the nuclear strategy to integrate conventional and
nuclear deterrence to deter Russia, he said.
Meanwhile,
across the Pacific, the United States engages in formal deterrence
dialogues with its allies Japan and South Korea, Carter said, “to
ensure we're poised to address nuclear deterrence challenges in
Asia.”
Carter said the U.S. is taking steps to ensure that
its nuclear triad -- bombers, ICBMS and ballistic missile submarines
-- do not become obsolete.
“We're now beginning the process
of correcting decades of under-investment in nuclear deterrence,”
the secretary said.
Nuclear
Underfunding
DoD has underfunded its nuclear
deterrence enterprise since the end of the Cold War, Carter said.
“Over the last 25 years since then, we only made modest
investments in basic sustainment and operations, about $15 billion a
year,” he said. “And it turned out that wasn't enough.”
The fiscal year 2017 budget request invests a total
of $19 billion in the nuclear enterprise, Carter said. Over the next
five years, he said, plans call for the department to spend $108
billion to sustain and recapitalize the nuclear force and associated
strategic command, control, communications, and intelligence
systems.
The budget also looks to modernization, the
secretary said. Plans call for replacing old ICBMs with new ones
that will be less expensive to maintain, keeping strategic bombers
effective in the face of more advanced air defense systems, and
building replacements for the Ohio-class ballistic missile
submarines, the secretary said.
“If we don't replace these
systems, quite simply they will age even more, and become unsafe,
unreliable, and ineffective,” Carter said. “The fact is, most of our
nuclear weapon delivery systems have already been extended decades
beyond their original expected service lives. So it's not a choice
between replacing these platforms or keeping them. It's really a
choice between replacing them or losing them. That would mean losing
confidence in our ability to deter, which we can't afford in today's
volatile security environment.”
While these plans are
expensive, they are only a small percentage of total defense
spending, the secretary said.
“In the end, though, this is
about maintaining the bedrock of our security,” Carter said. “And
after too many years of not investing enough, it's an investment
that we as a nation have to make, because it's critical to
sustaining nuclear deterrence in the 21st century.”
By Jim Garamone
DOD News
Copyright 2016
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