OMAHA — The U.S. “cannot add additional stress” to the National Nuclear Security Administration to up its strategic capabilities, a former Department of Defense official said at a strategic command symposium in Omaha, Neb. Tuesday.
“We have a nuclear enterprise that is sized for a post Cold War era,” Vipin Narang, former Department of Defense acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said via teleconference at the 2024 U.S. Strategic Command Deterrence Symposium this week in Omaha, Neb.
Narang added that “we can’t break” the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) by requesting it to hit weapons numbers and modernization targets unreachable for it given its workforce and budget, Instead, focus on hitting the current “program of record” numbers, which he deemed “absolutely necessary” for now, he said.
According to Narang, the current “program of record” for the nuclear arsenal “may well be insufficient for the future, but we need to hit the program of record” before expanding the nuclear program for weapons and modernization.
Narang made the comments on a panel on the rules based international system, filled with other current and former government advisors that include Mallory Stewart, the assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability, and Marshall Billingslea, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the former assistant secretary of terrorist financing for the Donald Trump (R) administration.
Narang advocated for the non-nuclear military capabilities the U.S. has, adding that he thinks the U.S. doesn’t need “to outpace our adversaries or have the combined nuclear forces of our adversaries to deter them effectively.”
While saying the U.S. should consider its other capabilities to complement its nuclear weapons, Narang sang a different tune when asked if nuclear weapons were still relevant in the paradigm of artificial intelligence in the military.
“There is no substitute for nuclear weapons,” Narang said. The twenty-first century “act” of the Cold War could be deemed the “nuclear intermission,” Narang said. But that “intermission is over and we are clearly in the next act.”
Editor’s note, 3:37p.m Eastern time. The story was corrected to show that Vipin Narang is the former Department of Defense acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy.
