WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), U.S. Senator Angus King, Chair of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, questioned former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl — the Vice Chair, Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States — about the increasing need to bolster the United States’ nuclear deterrence capacity while working to secure additional non-nuclear tactical options.

Earlier this week, Senator King and Senator Fischer, the Ranking Member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee released a statement commending the Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States on the release of its final unclassified report.

“It seems to me that the threat of the Russians using tactical weapons in Ukraine has sort of woken us up, that you talk about the President having options. Our deterrent fails if our only option is massive retaliation and the adversary doesn't believe we'll go to that option based upon the use of a tactical nuclear weapon,” Senator King said. “That brings us back to SLCM-N [Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles] need further options on the tactical level, which we sort of abandoned for 50 years. Senator Kyle, isn't that something that we — I realize you discussed this with Senator Fisher but I hope you'll emphasize that point — we need more options for the President in a case of a limited use of nuclear weapons?”

“That's absolutely right. Our report considers a lot of different elements. And without trying to go into a lot of detail, the tactical options are really important, because the way you get into this is probably not a bolt out of the blue, but rather an escalatory system that starts with conventional and then ends up with a small nuclear yield and then something bigger and perhaps a coercive attack,” replied Kyl.

“If our only deterrent capacity is a massive retaliation, that's not credible, and therefore deterrence fails at that lower level. Is that correct,” asked Senator King.

“In my personal opinion, that's correct. I'm not sure I speak for everyone, and all I can tell you with respect to the consensus of the Commission is that we all agreed that the President needs more options, and not just with regard to the kind of weapons and the yield on those weapons and so on. We talked a lot about our space capabilities. We talked about missile defense, including missile defense of the homeland against these coercive attacks. As Madeline [Chair of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States] said, one of the things that we're concerned about is a Chinese or Russian coercive attack, somewhat limited, maybe against industrial infrastructure, maybe military infrastructure, but the kind of attack that would tell us if you don't buckle under to what we demand, there's a lot more where this came from,” responded Kyl.

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator King is recognized as an authoritative voice on national security and foreign policy issues. As the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces – which oversees the United States’ nuclear arsenal and posture – Senator King has been a steady voice on the need to address the growing nuclear capacity of our adversaries. Senator King recently expressed concern about the emerging threats of Russia and China’s development of “nightmare weapon” hypersonic missiles, which he has described as “strategic game-changers.”

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