ICYMI: Fischer Calls for Urgency on Modernizing America’s Nuclear Deterrent

"If we invest now in our future safety, the United States can face the threats of Russia, China, and North Korea with confidence. If we do not, the United States will stumble, unprepared and unguarded, into an uncertain future."

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, delivered a keynote address on America's nuclear posture at The Heritage Foundation.

In her remarks, Senator Fischer underscored the urgency of modernizing our nuclear deterrent in light of threats posed by China and Russia. Senator Fischer highlighted provisions included in the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act from her bipartisan Restoring American Deterrence Act, which would overhaul America's nuclear preparedness.

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Following is a transcript of Senator Fischer's remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you for inviting me to speak today.

Our aging nuclear deterrent may be the most important issue today that no one is talking about-present company excluded, of course. It's an existential issue, one that calls into question America's safety and prosperity in the coming years. But for decades, our political leaders have allowed the backbone of our national defense to atrophy. Lulled into complacency since the end of the Cold War, our nation has fallen asleep, ignoring the changing world around us.

In 1967, our nuclear stockpile was at its peak: 31,255 warheads. That number has decreased almost tenfold since then. And yet, the situation we find ourselves in now is not safer than it was in 1967.

That year, the world was in a tense state.

The Cambodian and Nigerian Civil Wars began. Social unrest was increasing. Israel was at war in the Middle East. And China detonated its first hydrogen bomb. Underneath all this lay the simmering conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Those conditions forced the United States to stay awake, to remain vigilant as we faced the possibility of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis had occurred a short five years before.

The American public and our leaders knew the only way to ensure America's safety was to maintain a modern, diverse, and credible nuclear arsenal-a posture that served as the bedrock of U.S. foreign policy.

What lulled our nation to sleep was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the threat of nuclear war passed from the public consciousness, modernizing our nuclear weapons and delivery systems fell in priority for America's leaders.

Today, global conflicts are simmering and erupting yet again-in Europe, in the Middle East, and in East Asia. And today, we face not only the Bear, but the Dragon as well.

While we've slept, the Chinese Communist Party has been wide awake. Within the last several years, China has achieved a strategic breakout, rapidly increasing its nuclear arsenal and seeking parity with our own. China is accomplishing this task with relentless speed and efficiency-it's now on track to at least double its nuclear warheads by 2030.

This is not a shift we can afford to ignore. China's saber-rattling is backed by their massive-and growing-defense budgets. This underhanded foreign policy betrays the nation's true intentions.

We should've woken up to those intentions and the Chinese nuclear program ten years ago. But at very least, now that we yet again face a Great Power Competition, we must not allow ourselves to drift back to sleep and into complacency. There's plenty of blame to go around. Presidential administrations and Congresses both Red and Blue failed to prioritize our nuclear deterrent.

We've seen this with painful clarity in the Biden administration. This administration has failed to fully capitalize on the progress of the Trump administration's 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.

Last year, the Strategic Posture Commission produced an authoritative, bipartisan assessment of our current nuclear posture, as well as recommendations for our arsenal's modernization. As you know, these recommendations were comprehensive, covering the United States' nuclear strategy and posture, conventional capabilities, and defense industrial base.

Earlier this year, I introduced the bipartisan Restoring American Deterrence Act to address some of the shortcomings highlighted in the report. The Restoring American Deterrence Act would require the Department to reassess our nuclear force posture, including a requirement to plan for the deployment of additional ICBMs. The bill would also restructure how the Department oversees and coordinates on nuclear matters and improve NNSA management processes.

Further, it seeks to build back our atrophied workforce. We cannot execute the programs of record, much less build and maintain a proper nuclear deterrent, without a skilled workforce. This is why the bill requires the Secretary of Defense to work with the Departments of Energy, Labor, and Education to develop a strategy to promote a skilled nuclear manufacturing and vocational trade workforce. The Senate version of this year's NDAA includes several key provisions from my Restoring American Deterrence Act.

As you know, the NDAA is a product of bipartisan collaboration and debate. My colleagues and I overwhelmingly agreed that effective deterrence demands change. This includes the changes outlined in the Restoring American Deterrence Act. It also includes the development of new weapons that fill known capability gaps-like the nuclear-armed submarine-launched cruise missile, commonly known as SLCM.

Congress has, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, supported the development of this system-despite the strong objections of the Biden administration-because the need for SLCM is clear. I will work to ensure that these provisions are included in the final, reconciled Fiscal Year 2025 NDAA, and to see the President sign these into law. But this effort must continue long after this year's NDAA has passed. Legislating alone won't solve our problem.

The new presidential administration must implement these changes and prioritize the continued modernization and expansion of our nuclear deterrent. It's not something we can delay for another five years, or 10 years-it's something we must prioritize now and never again forget, for the sake of America's security and prosperity. America's security is a bipartisan concern that requires bipartisan commitment.

Unfortunately, some are still asleep. They dream of the day when China, Russia, and North Korea decide they want world peace-the day our enemies voluntarily dismantle their nuclear programs because America has done the same. We must be clear on this: that's a fantasy, a utopian dreamworld.

We've seen this worldview most recently manifest in calls to terminate the Sentinel program, which will replace the rapidly-aging Minuteman III. Some even argue that, based on its cost and danger to Americans, we should abandon that entire leg of the nuclear triad. Sentinel has its challenges, to be sure. But the Department determined-correctly-that Sentinel remains essential to our national security and that "there are no alternatives to the program which will provide acceptable capability to meet the joint requirements at less cost."

We will address Sentinel's challenges, identify the best path forward, and do everything possible to emplace Sentinel as soon as we can. The threat environment demands nothing less. We need robust nuclear capabilities not for the world we wish for, but the world that actually exists-and that world is an increasingly perilous place. At all costs, we must stay alert, not make decisions based on a dream of a world that ignores these realities.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it well in 1987, "A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream, but you cannot base a sure defense on dreams…A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us."

As the new axis of Russia and China emerges, let's heed her wisdom-and encourage others to heed it as well. If we invest now in our future safety, the United States can face the threats of Russia, China, and North Korea with confidence.

If we do not, the United States will stumble, unprepared and unguarded, into an uncertain future.

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