US nuclear arsenal currently safe, reliable: STRATCOM nominee

WASHINGTON — Vice Adm. Richard Correll, the Trump administration’s nominee to head US Strategic Command, today told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he is “absolutely confident” in the reliability of the nation’s nuclear arsenal — a fact that STRATCOM last certified in January.

His remarks come in the wake of a surprise announcement by President Donald Trump Wednesday night just prior to his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, that he has ordered the Defense Department to resume nuclear weapons testing.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Correll, however, cautioned that the announcement may not actually refer to a test involving detonating a nuclear warhead.

“[I] wouldn’t presume that the president’s words meant nuclear testing,” he said in response to questions from Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, as well as a number of other Democrats, about the possibility of a tit-for-tat response from other nuclear armed countries, especially Russia and China.

“I believe the quote was, ‘start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis’. Neither China or Russia has conducted a nuclear explosive test, so I’m not reading anything into it or reading anything out,” he said.

Correll added that, with the exception of North Korea, no nation has conducted explosive nuclear testing this century.

“To my knowledge, the last explosive nuclear testing was by North Korea, or DPRK, and that was in 2017,” he said. “But Russia and China have not … done an explosion that we know of. For China, the last publicly acknowledged test was in 1996.”

Similarly, he noted, the US has not blown up a nuclear warhead above ground since its ratification of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits explosive testing above ground, underwater and in space.

The last US underground test, at the Nevada National Security Sites formerly the Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas, was in 1992, when the first Bush administration declared a moratorium on explosive testing that the US has abided by since.

Pressed by several Republicans, including Sen. Tom Cotten, R-Ark., and freshman Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., who spoke in support of resumed nuke testing, Correll maintained that the current US testing program is robust and confirmed his faith in the readiness of the nuclear arsenal.

Nuclear weapons testing is led by the Energy Department’s semi-independent National Nuclear Security Administration under the “Stockpile Stewardship” program, and includes component testing, modeling and simulation as well as subcritical testing of nuclear materials at the Nevada site.

Further, as Correll pointed out, the directors of the DoE’s three nuclear weapons laboratories — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Sandia National Laboratories with facilities in both states — as well as STRATCOM each year provide a classified report to the president to certify the safety and reliability of the nations nuclear stockpile. The last such report was sent to Trump in January.

DoD, by contrast, does not have jurisdiction over testing or development of nuclear warheads. Instead, it is responsible for only developing and maintaining the capabilities of nuclear delivery systems; i.e. ICBMs, submarines and aircraft.

Noting the widespread confusion engendered by Trump’s announcement, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, speculated that Trump may have been referring to testing of nuclear delivery systems rather than explosive tests — give the fact that it came only days after Russia announced a successful test of the nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile Burevestnik, also known as Skyfall in the US after the eponymous James Bond movie.

“I feel like we’re doing Talmudic analysis here,” King said dryly.

Correll, in response, was quick to answer that he has no “insight into the president’s intent,” but agreed “that that could be an interpretation.”

Jon Wolfsthal, a former special assistant on nuclear issues to President Barack Obama who is now director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, noted that there “have been allegations for many years that Russia is conducting secret, very low level testing, but it’s never been proven” nor even acknowledged by the US government.

Further, he explained that Russia’s tests of Skyfall, as well as of the Poseidon nuclear-armed torpedo, did not include active warheads — rather, were something comparable to the kind of Minuteman ICBM tests the US does regularly.

“So if what Trump wants to do is ‘match’ what the Russians and Chinese are doing with nuclear testing, he’s already doing that. That’s why it’s so confusing,” he said. “My guess is there’s a lot of people inside the administration scratching their head and trying to figure out what he meant.”

For his part, Correll was quick to stress that if confirmed he of course would support Trump’s policy mandate — whatever it includes.

“If confirmed as the STRATCOM Commander, I would continue to look to support the President’s directives and work with this committee in a very transparent way on on the way ahead,” he said.

Aaron Mehta contributed to this report.