NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator Frank Rose Remarks at the Joint Civil & DOD CBRN Symposium

Thank you, General, for that kind introduction and for the invitation to speak with you all this afternoon. I would also like to thank Aidan Mihalik and everyone else from the Defense Strategies Institute for their work to make this symposium possible.

It is a real pleasure to be here with you this morning, speaking to practitioners from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the FBI and local first responders, and CBRN stakeholders from industry, nonprofits, and academia.  My first government job was more than twenty years ago, and one thing I’ve learned to appreciate is how events such as this provide an invaluable opportunity to get outside of one’s bubble – for those of us stuck in an office in Washington to hear from those on the frontline of CBRN response and research, and for those out in the field or in the laboratories to be reminded of the “big picture” context of their work. 

With that in mind, this morning I’d like to broadly focus my remarks on three topics: 1) The nuclear challenges we face in an increasingly complex and interconnected global security environment; 2) What the National Nuclear Security Administration is, and how what we do is shaped by this environment; and 3) I’d like to drill down a bit more with regards to NNSA’s global threat reduction efforts, to include a brief discussion of how our work in Ukraine fits into this broader mission.

NNSA and the Emerging Threat Environment

I’d like to begin, however, by quickly surveying the emerging threat conditions that are shaping our decisions about nuclear deterrence and nonproliferation. 

On Monday the Office of the Director for National Intelligence released its Annual Threat Assessment, and concluded upfront that:

"The United States faces an increasingly fragile global order strained by accelerating strategic competition among major powers, more intense and unpredictable transnational challenges, and multiple regional conflicts with far-reaching implications."

Specifically, the DNI warns that “the expansion of nuclear weapons stockpiles and their delivery systems, coupled with increasing regional conflicts involving nuclear weapons states, pose a significant challenge.” 

Of these competitors, Russia maintains the largest and most capable nuclear weapons stockpile, and even prior to its invasion of Ukraine was working to expand and modernize its nuclear weapons capabilities. Moscow continues to develop long-range nuclear-capable missiles and underwater delivery systems meant to penetrate or bypass U.S. missile defenses. Russia is also expanding its large, diverse, and modern set of nonstrategic systems capable of delivering nuclear warheads. These capabilities are particularly ominous given President Putin’s dangerous and irresponsible statements – and those of other Russian officials – hinting at the potential use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has also featured an unprecedented event in the history of warfare: ongoing hostilities around—and the armed seizure of—an operating civil nuclear power plant.  The risks associated with military activities around and against Ukraine’s nuclear facilities cannot be overstated. These activities undercut safety, hinder the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ability to fulfill its safeguards and security mandate, and increase the risk of a nuclear emergency that could affect large numbers of people in Ukraine and neighboring states, with impacts felt around the world.  Russia’s military attacks against and seizures of nuclear facilities in Ukraine severely undermine Moscow’s claim to be – and long-standing effort to promote itself as – a responsible nuclear power, and have been strongly condemned by the international community.

At the same time, China is in the midst of the largest ever nuclear force expansion and arsenal diversification in its history. According to the Department of Defense’s annual report on Chinese Military Power, “The PRC is investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces.”  This includes developing and building fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities that would enable the swift expansion of its warhead manufacturing capability.  Consequently, if it continues the current pace of its nuclear expansion, by 2035 China will likely field a stockpile of about 1,500 warheads.  Together with the hundreds of new ICBM silos constructed in the past three years, China appears to be abandoning its historic minimum deterrence posture.

Moreover, despite repeated attempts by the last several U.S. presidential administrations, Beijing has shown no interest in engaging in either the strategic stability or arms control discussions expected of a responsible nuclear power. This opacity makes determining an effective strategy more difficult, both in terms of maintaining deterrence and in finding a way to integrate China into a future arms control and strategic stability framework.

Looking beyond these peer competitors, North Korea continues to enhance its ability to threaten both our Asian allies and the U.S. homeland, expanding its nuclear weapons stockpile and range of delivery capabilities, and resuming ICBM testing.  Additionally, in stark contrast to the tenets of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, last year Kim Jong Un announced a new “Nuclear Forces Policy Law” that would permit Pyongyang to use nuclear weapons first against non-nuclear states.

And in the past five years Iran has expanded its nuclear program to operate more advanced centrifuges and enrich more uranium, including at levels closer to weapons grade. Consequently, the IAEA warned in December that Iran has enough material to make three nuclear bombs if it decides to cross the 60 percent enrichment threshold.   

While this increased competition in the realm of nuclear capabilities portends an era of renewed nation-state conflict and strategic competition with great powers and rising regional powers, the last six months have demonstrated that non-state actors remain an active threat to our national security and to international stability.  Hamas’s attack last October was the deadliest attack against Israel in that nation’s history, and the threat of cross-border incursions and rocket fire by Hezbollah in Lebanon has led to the long-term evacuation of 80,000 Israeli citizens from their homes in northern Israel.  In January, a drone strike by an Iraqi militia against the Tower 22 installation in Jordan killed three U.S. soldiers. And, of course, Yemen-based Houthi rebels have persistently attacked international shipping in the Red Sea with missiles and UAVs, causing the world’s largest shipping lines to suspend transit through the Suez Canal, through which nearly one-third of global container traffic passes. 

Taken together, these developments make for a very complex international environment, one that is dramatically different from that which we faced 25 years ago.  These emerging global threat conditions inform NNSA’s decisions about how to approach our missions and are why NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby told Congress in April, “Not since the Manhattan project has there been a more challenging moment for the NNSA.”

NNSA’s Missions

Although many of you are familiar with NNSA and its predecessor agencies, for those of you who are not, the Congress established NNSA in 2000 with three enduring missions:

1. Ensuring the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile; 

2. Reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism around the world; and

3. Providing military effective nuclear propulsion for the U.S. Navy’s fleet of aircraft carriers and submarines.

To execute these missions, NNSA manages eight government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratories, plants, and sites throughout the country.  These partners – and the nearly 60,000 scientists, engineers, technicians, managers, and support staff who comprise the Nuclear Security Enterprise’s workforce – apply world-class scientific, engineering, and technological capabilities to support nuclear security and global stability.

NNSA has the responsibility to design and build the nation’s nuclear stockpile and to continue to maintain the stockpile without resuming nuclear explosive testing. In order to provide nuclear warheads that meet safety, security, and performance requirements, NNSA is currently executing five warhead modernization programs. These warhead modernizations enhance the margin against failure, increase safety, improve security, replace limited life components, address component obsolescence, and support the U.S. Department of Defense’s delivery platform modernization. Additionally, to respond to global conditions, NNSA announced in October the addition of the B61-13 – a replacement for some of the B61-7s in the stockpile – to the program of record. 

What these modernization programs do not do is equally important.  The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review made clear that the Biden administration will take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.  We are not trying to match Russia’s large arsenal of non-strategic nuclear weapons on a weapon-for-weapon basis.  In fact, we will reduce the number of B61-12s by the number of B61-13s we build, so the number of weapons in the stockpile will not increase.

Instead, we are pursuing a qualitative and comprehensive approach to maintaining a viable deterrent for the future at a time of rising threats.  Indeed, this modernization strategy is not solely aimed towards meeting near-term threats the United States may encounter over the next three to five years, but rather attempts to look forward in terms of decades to hedge against risk and prudently plan for future contingencies. 

Global Threat Reduction

In addition to addressing the resumption of “great power competition,” the Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review noted that “Preventing an act of nuclear terrorism is an enduring national security requirement.”  The large and growing stockpiles of nuclear and radioactive material, technology, and expertise worldwide makes the threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism a significant concern, and the fear that terrorists could acquire and use a nuclear or radiological weapon has motivated a range of efforts to place these materials beyond the reach of non-state actors. Consequently, last year President Biden signed a National Security Memorandum on Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism and Advancing Nuclear and Radioactive Material Security, which directs our efforts to reduce global nuclear and radiological threats domestically and globally. 

NNSA is responsible for several important pieces of this global threat reduction mission. First, we are working to prevent terrorists from getting dangerous materials and weapons through a four-legged strategy: 

• We seek to eliminate the need for – or presence of – weapons usable materials in civilian uses and consolidate the materials that remain to fewer locations;
• We are enhancing security and safeguards for materials and facilities that support legitimate peaceful uses;
• We are augmenting global capabilities to control the spread of weapons, materials, and know-how through counter nuclear smuggling, export controls, treaties and conventions and arms control measures; and
• We are building detection and verification capabilities to support treaty and arms control compliance and provide reassurance that the other measures of our strategy are working.

To achieve this mission, NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, or D-N-N, has partnered with over 100 countries across the globe to enhance nuclear and radiological security and improve counter nuclear smuggling capabilities. We also engage with international organizations such as the IAEA to develop and implement guidance and training and to provide technical assistance to countries to improve nuclear security.   In the last fiscal year, we partnered with countries around the world to remove nearly 50 kilograms of weapons-usable nuclear material, which means we have eliminated over 7,340 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and plutonium from 48 countries and Taiwan in the past two decades.

Moreover, we are leading by example here at home. Through the Cesium Irradiator Replacement Project, we are reducing radiological risk by increasing access to non-radioisotopic alternative technologies beyond Cesium-137 for multiple applications.  In F-Y 23 NNSA removed 82 devices from domestic facilities.  We expect to complete another 70 removals this year and we remain on track to replace all cesium-based blood irradiators in the United States by 2027.  Additionally, in F-Y 23 we initiated shipments of downblended surplus plutonium from K-Area at Savannah River.  These shipments have resulted in the disposition of 111.6 kilograms of downblended NNSA surplus plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.  This is evidence of our continued commitment to reduce excess fissile material wherever it may be found.

N-N-S-A’s global threat reduction mission includes the Office of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation’s emergency preparedness and response mission. C-T-C-P is responsible for preparing for and responding to nuclear and radiological emergencies, whether malicious or accidental. The principal vehicle for executing this responsibility is the Nuclear Emergency Support Team – or NEST – which is comprised of scientists, technical experts, and other specialists from the national laboratories.  In supporting U.S. Government responses to a wide variety of nuclear and radiological incidents and accidents worldwide, NEST enjoys close working relationships with a variety of interagency partners.

In particular, the NEST maintains a close relationship with the FBI on the domestic WMD defeat mission – what might be considered the last line of defense against nuclear and radiological terrorism. Over the past several years, NNSA and FBI have collaborated on a revolutionary initiative known as “Capability Forward” to speed the response to a nuclear or radiological threat in the United States. Under this initiative, NNSA provides enhanced training and equipment to FBI counter-WMD teams in more than a dozen major U.S. cities.  With real-time technical support from nuclear experts at the national labs, these teams can rapidly diagnose and defeat a wide range of WMD devices.  As a result of this enhanced posture, the response to a nuclear or radiological threat in the United States has been significantly accelerated, with the potential to save large numbers of American lives during an incident.

NNSA also enjoys close working relationships with the Department of Defense and National Guard WMD Civil Support Teams on nuclear and radiological incident response, helping to maintain their readiness and interoperability to respond to domestic nuclear incidents and accidents. 

Our partnerships with DOD are also critical to global ground-level efforts in nuclear counterterrorism, nuclear incident response, and nuclear counterproliferation. For example, NNSA assigns a Liaison Officer to many DOD geographic and functional commands to ensure their policies and operations are informed by NNSA’s unsurpassed knowledge of nuclear threats.  These liaisons facilitate cooperation and coordination; support DOD planning, training, exercises, and partner-capacity building efforts.  NNSA also provides specialized radiological and nuclear emergency preparedness and response training and exercises to NATO and partner nations to counter the WMD threat. 

NNSA has also closely coordinated with U.S. EUCOM and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency – or “DTRA” – as a critical part of U.S. efforts to reduce nuclear risks in Ukraine.

NNSA and Nuclear Security in Ukraine

NNSA has taken unprecedented actions to reduce nuclear risks in Ukraine stemming from Russia’s aggression.  Since the conflict began the United States has worked in partnership with Ukraine to enhance its ability to characterize nuclear incidents in Eastern Europe, deploying a variety of sensors to Ukraine and neighboring countries. Capabilities are also in place in the region to collect debris from a nuclear or radiological detonation. If such an event were to occur, U.S. scientists at the DOE/NNSA national laboratories would analyze sensor data and debris samples to characterize the size, location, and effects of the explosion. These tools could help enable our experts to discern design characteristics of the weapon and potentially determine the origin of the material used. U.S. forensic capabilities would therefore deny the Kremlin the ability to obfuscate the nature of a nuclear or radiological event, including attempts to deflect responsibility for its occurrence to Ukraine or any other party. 

Over the past two years, enhancing forensic and attribution capabilities has occurred alongside a wide range of NNSA activities to reduce nuclear and radiological risks in Ukraine, including:

• Modeling of potential scenarios involving Ukraine’s nuclear facilities to assist in emergency preparedness and response;
• Enhancing the resilience of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants by providing physical protection and cybersecurity support; equipment for response personnel; and emergency diesel generators, fuel, and other consumables;
• Providing training for Ukrainian personnel on nuclear and radiological safety and security at nuclear power plants; medical treatment in case of radiation exposure; radioactive source recovery; and consequence management; and
• Reinforcing and amplifying Ukraine’s radiation sensor network to allow for independent monitoring of nuclear power plants, nuclear waste storage facilities, and population centers. 

While these examples only scratch the surface of NNSA’s threat reduction efforts in Ukraine, I think it is important to highlight this important work that is being done every day on the ground to reduce nuclear risks. 

Conclusion

In the end, the United States and our allies and partners not only require a strong deterrent capability, but also an equally strong commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and arms control.  Or as I like to say, deterrence and NNSA’s threat reduction missions are “two halves of the same walnut.”

Yet should deterrence and our global threat reduction fail, we must be able to detect, protect, and recover from any potential CBRN incidents. 

As the United States and its allies face the most complex geopolitical and security environment we have ever faced, your work is more vital to our national security than ever. 

Thank you for your commitment to countering and defending the nation from CBRN events, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you today.

 I look forward to your questions.