NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby Remarks at National Institute for Deterrence Studies Peace Through Strength Breakfast

Good morning, everyone, it’s a pleasure to be here today at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies “Peace Through Strength” Breakfast.  I want to thank Alex Littlefield, Peter Huessy, and the rest of the NIDS leadership team for the invitation.

This is a unique, unprecedented time in global nuclear security. We face growing nuclear weapon threats from Russia and an expanding nuclear arsenal in China. Russia has stationed nuclear weapons in Belarus, strengthened its partnership with China, and developed new military partnerships with North Korea and Iran. In these seemingly opportune partnerships, nuclear sharing cannot be ruled out. And while Russia continues to prosecute its war in Ukraine including nuclear saber rattling, it is also exploring the use of nuclear weapons in space – an asymmetric threat to the West and other advanced digital societies. In addition to expanding the pace of nuclear weapons production, China has shown an amazing ability to improve its delivery systems, including deploying hypersonic missiles faster than the U.S. Unless this direction changes, China will be a peer nuclear adversary with significant economic power.  Finally, although we don’t discuss it much, other nuclear weapon states have aging nuclear arsenals that will require investment to stay safe and secure.  In this environment, countries under the U.S. nuclear umbrella have more seriously considered the possibility of building their own nuclear deterrent. Collectively, these conditions present a fundamentally different nuclear landscape than the past 80 years. Overall, it is a less predictable and more dangerous time, and our deterrence thinking will need to adjust.

To complicate matters further, nuclear power is at the edge of a renaissance as part of combating climate change. If this renaissance occurs, there will be more nuclear material and nuclear know how in the world than ever before. Further, advanced nuclear reactor technology will likely use high assay low enriched uranium instead of 5% low enriched uranium. Reactor types and reactor fuels will likely expand.  Although this renaissance would bring needed clean electric base power options, it will challenge the current nuclear non-proliferation regime that we rely on to safeguard and secure nuclear materials to limit nuclear weapon proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

The last dimension of nuclear security I will mention is the potential for disruptive technologies that create proliferation risks. Of course, one such disruption is artificial intelligence and large language models as tools that could make nuclear device design easier and faster. NNSA was tasked in the Executive Order on AI to red team models, and we have begun by using the Accenture model on a secure AWS cloud. DOE has also proposed a new initiative called FASST, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security and Technology to enable the infrastructure – computing, data, people – to advance AI for energy, science, and national security. But AI is not the only disruptive technology that could accelerate proliferation of nuclear weapons. Open-source multi-physics models have also significantly advanced allowing easier assessment of design performance. These two technologies coupled with more nuclear material is a particular concern.

I know that working here on Capitol Hill you are familiar with the changing threat landscape.  It is a daunting time, and we must not sit on our hands. We need to make a new level of investment if we want to stay ahead on these issues.

Before I dive into what NNSA is doing in this emergent environment, let me quickly remind everyone of NNSA’s three primary missions: (1) design, build, and sustain a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapon stockpile; (2) advance nuclear nonproliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear technology; and (3) develop nuclear propulsion systems for the U.S. Navy to maintain a military advantage at sea.

The FY25 budget request for these programs is about $25B – about $21B for nuclear weapons, about $2B for nonproliferation, and about $2B for naval reactors.

Let me first talk about our nuclear weapon modernization program.  After a period of not touching our weapons, followed by a period of life extending our weapons without changing their military characteristics, we have now entered a period of weapon modernization that includes complete replacement of all components, and designs with new military objectives.  And because of world conditions and the age of our stockpile, the modernization pace needs to be rapid.  Not since the height of the Cold War has the nuclear security enterprise been so busy. 

As a result of investments made in the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations, NNSA was able to deliver over 200 modernized nuclear weapons to the Department of Defense this past year. That is our largest one-year delivery since the end of the Cold War.  I emphasize this for three reasons. One, because it is a significant change from just a few years ago when we were struggling to produce our first production units for life extension programs. Two, as I will discuss in more detail shortly, NNSA is engaged in simultaneous modernization of our nuclear stockpile and our supporting production and scientific infrastructure, and therefore being able to deliver to the Department of Defense on time and at pace is a major accomplishment.  And three, this accomplishment should help level-set our thinking relative to Russia and China.

Yes, Russia and China are poised to change and expand their nuclear arsenals.  But so are we if we continue to invest and support the program. This means that while we do face a deteriorating global security environment, we don’t need to panic. There is plenty of work to be done, but we also need to prepare well and take the time and think about the future wisely.

That said, I want to be clear that our current program of record is demanding. For several years, we have been implementing five simultaneous modernization programs that cover all three legs of the nuclear triad. The W88 Alt 370 Program and B61-12 Life Extension Program are currently in full rate production. The W80-4 warhead remains aligned with the Air Force schedule for the long-range standoff weapon and on track for a First Production Unit in September 2027. The W87-1 is scheduled to begin production in Fiscal Year 2031 or 2032, although we will work closely with the DoD to track how delays to Sentinel might affect our schedule. Of particular interest to us is whether flight tests for the W87-1 can be done in a manner that allows us to continue at pace. Lastly, the W93, a new warhead program based on existing designs, remains on track for production starting in the mid-2030s. This system is being designed and produced in parallel to the UK replacement warhead. Collectively, these programs represent our effort to sustain the nuclear triad. 

However, this past year, we have added two additional weapons into the existing program of record. These new systems directly respond to emerging deterrence needs and expand nuclear options available to the President.

The B61-13, announced last October, will add a capability for certain hard and large-area military targets. These systems will be produced by modifying some B61-12s at the end of production and will provide an option similar to the B61-7 but with the improved safety, security, and accuracy of the B61-12. The number of B61-12s built will be decreased by the number of B61-13s manufactured, resulting in no change to the number of weapons in the stockpile. We anticipate a First Production Unit of the B61-13 in Fiscal Year 2026. 

Additionally, the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile – Nuclear, or SLCM-N, was authorized in the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and funded in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget.  SLCM-N will provide a low-yield, non-ballistic capability to the Navy. The NDAA requires an initial operating capability by the end of Fiscal Year 2034. NNSA has stood up a program office and coordinating with the Department of Defense on the details of this new program. Because of the timeframe directed along with the other systems in development and production, NNSA is looking for options that satisfy the deterrence need and interface appropriately with Navy delivery systems, while putting the least amount of stress on our busy enterprise.

With these two announced changes, we now have seven systems in the program of record to be designed and in production by the mid-2030s. This program represents not only an overhaul of all three legs of the nuclear triad, but also adds new deterrence capabilities that don’t currently exist.

Next, I’d like to touch on NNSA’s infrastructure. As I noted earlier, we are simultaneously modernizing production and scientific infrastructure and the same time we are modernizing our weapons. The production enterprise is needed to deliver the program of record, and the science infrastructure is needed to design, certify and assess the stockpile without nuclear explosive testing and be prepared for future challenges.

At the end of the Cold War, the nuclear security enterprise envisioned, and took concrete steps to realize, an enterprise that was consolidated and less expensive to operate. We closed some production facilities and idled others, consolidated production activities, and rebuilt parts of our complex for a much smaller capacity. This made sense at a time of relative international stability and significant arms control agreements with Russia that substantially reduced the size of nuclear weapons stockpiles. Today, we’re again reimagining our enterprise with an emphasis on capability, flexibility, safety, and resilience.

Recapitalizing and modernizing infrastructure while delivering modernized weapons is difficult.  Some of the buildings we currently use for key processes date back to the Manhattan Project or rely on manufacturing techniques that are less safe and efficient than modern methods. But we require urgency to have the infrastructure we need to meet the modernization demands.  Therefore, our budget request for the last several years has near equal amounts for stockpile modernization and infrastructure modernization. We appreciate the support we have received, and we have made tangible progress.

We are carefully prioritizing our investments to simultaneously meet stockpile schedules, safety concerns, and advance science in a way the in executable across our distributed enterprise. For the program of record, our highest priority is re-establishing the capability to produce new plutonium pits. NNSA is pursuing a two-site pit production strategy at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. When both sites are fully operational, we expect to have the capacity and resilience needed, with Los Alamos producing 30 pits per year and Savannah River producing at least 50 pits per year. Los Alamos is on track to “diamond stamp” the first fully qualified war reserve pit for the W87-1 this year. We anticipate Los Alamos achieving the capability to produce the 30 pits per year envisioned by the two-site plan in or near 2028, with increased manufacturing rate confidence as we install equipment through 2030. At Savannah River, we are focused on completing construction of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, SRPPF, in 2032. Once SRPPF construction is complete, we will need to introduce nuclear material, establish the manufacturing process, and obtain rate production by about 2035 to have new pits for the latter half of the W93 production schedule. This is a very aggressive schedule, and we are taking actions to enable its success.  Congress has been an excellent partner and appropriated a $500 million uplift in FY 2023 and another $124 million increase from our FY 2024 request.

Our highest priority infrastructure project for safety is the Uranium Processing Facility, or UPF, at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. UPF construction is scheduled to be complete in 2027 with full operations by 2031. UPF is necessary to replace an aging building that suffers from legacy contamination, facility degradation, and outdated technology. UPF will be an important test case for transitioning from new construction to manufacturing with nuclear material as we modernize other facilities around the enterprise.

Other essential infrastructure projects for production include the on-going High Explosive Science and Engineering project at Pantex, Lithium Processing Facility at Y-12, and the Kansas City Expansion project. 

And because a safe, secure, and reliable deterrent without underground testing relies on exquisite science, we must also continue to advance both computational modeling and highly specialized experimental capability. The quality of the science done in the NNSA is paramount to our ability to design, certify, and assess the stockpile and sends a clear message to the world about the quality of our nuclear enterprise. Critical science infrastructure investments include new underground diagnostics for subcritical testing at the Nevada National Security Site and upgrades to our above ground test facilities including the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore, the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, and the Combined Radiation Environments for Survivability Tests at Sandia. 

Because our infrastructure needs are so large, we are finalizing an effort we are calling the Enterprise Blueprint. The Blueprint will identify the high priority facilities needed for science, production, safety, security, and people across the enterprise between now and about 2050, with ties to mission needs. Doing this will help reinforce NNSA’s underlying philosophy of responsiveness, flexibility, and resiliency required to meet dynamic demands. The Enterprise Blueprint will be rolled out this Fall.

Now that I’ve covered what we’re doing for the nuclear deterrent today, I want to briefly touch on the future of the nuclear deterrent. Even with the expanded program of record I described earlier, our current weapon modernization that started in the 2010s will be in full rate production by the mid-2030s. It is now time to define the needs beyond 2030s so we can create the infrastructure for them.  The Nuclear Weapons Council with its membership including the Joint Chiefs, STRATCOM, Defense Policy, OSD Acquisition and Sustainment, and NNSA must come together as a community to prioritize future systems. At the same time, we must resist introducing new systems into the already busy next decade to avoid catastrophic failure of our fragile enterprise. 

Our deterrence thinking will need to be challenged to create an effective deterrent for two peer adversaries. Although we all recognize that Russia and China are innovating their deterrent capabilities, we have not yet fundamentally changed our thinking. But we know we need to outsmart our adversaries.  It is time to begin this effort in earnest, not in panic.

While a lot of the conversation about nuclear deterrence is understandably focused on our weapons programs, I want to take a moment to talk about some of our nonproliferation work – what I consider the other half of nuclear deterrence. Our work in nonproliferation demonstrates that the United States takes our responsibilities as a nuclear weapons state seriously - that we consider arms control, monitoring and verification, and transparency important. That we support peaceful nuclear uses. And importantly, that we work with international partners and the International Atomic Energy Agency to secure and safeguard nuclear materials, to detect nuclear material covert movement, and to eliminate as much weapons-usable nuclear material as possible.

Our nonproliferation activities have also been changing with the new global dynamic.

In the absence of cooperation and physical inspections provided by treaties and agreements, we are investing in advanced detection technologies and capabilities for less permissive environments. The challenges range from detecting proliferation early by monitoring nuclear imports and exports, by advancing the ability to detect lower limits of seismic activity indicative of a clandestine nuclear test, and by improving detection from space.

NNSA recently delivered the first newly completed next-generation Global Burst Detector payload to the U.S. Space Force. This new sensor represents the culmination of almost a decade of research and development with Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories and will provide an order of magnitude increase in capabilities at reduced size, weight, and power. The Space Force will integrate the sensor with a GPS satellite where it will join a constellation of space-based sensors known as the U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System that continuously monitors the globe for worldwide compliance with nuclear test-ban treaties.

Last year, NNSA successfully conducting a chemical explosive test in P-tunnel at the Nevada National Security Site. This experiment is part of a planned series to advance our ability to detect low-yield underground nuclear explosive tests around the world, a capability needed for small supercritical testing or clandestine testing of nuclear explosive tests. 

Over the last year, we have demonstrated our willingness to be transparent about our stockpile and experimental programs. For the second time in this Administration, we released the number of weapons in our stockpile, both deployed and in reserve. We also have taken two groups of people to visit the Nevada National Security Site and observe what we do there. One group was composed of non-governmental nonproliferation and arms control experts in the United States and the other was a group of international visitors interested in nuclear nonproliferation issues.

We also continue to advance U.S. global nuclear threat reduction leadership, working with the IAEA and others. This work includes cooperation on countering malign state and non-state actor capabilities, advancing the peaceful uses of civil nuclear energy and nuclear technology without increasing proliferation or security risks, minimizing global stocks of excess weapons-usable nuclear material, and reducing nuclear risks in Ukraine. 

Of course, in our nuclear deterrence efforts, the United Kingdom is our closest ally, and the partnership is as strong as ever. A newly approved Mutual Defense Agreement is in the waiting period in Congress; we are closely aligned with our W93 program and their replacement warhead program Astraea; we are working together to create a new development and training center for IAEA safeguards; and we are discussing a mutual resilience strategy for our nuclear deterrent.  And importantly, together, we are working to provide Australia with a nuclear-powered, conventionally-armed submarine capability under the AUKUS agreement.

Speaking of the AUKUS agreement, after a lengthy consultation process it is now in the implementation phase. A milestone was reached this year as the first Australians graduated from the U.S. naval nuclear reactor training program. NNSA is closely collaborating with the Department of State and Department of Defense to advance the goals of the agreement while adhering to our obligations as a responsible nuclear power.

In addition to our defense partnerships, we are expanding our national security science and technology engagements. During the tri-lateral leaders summit last year, President Biden, President Yoon of South Korea, and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida announced a tri-lateral Science & Technology program that NNSA is leading for the United States. I traveled to Japan and South Korea just a few months ago to sign a Memorandum of Cooperation to implement this commitment, along with visiting Japanese and South Korean officials, universities, and research laboratories.

On nonproliferation issues, NNSA works in more than 120 countries and with international organizations to counter nuclear terrorism, detect nuclear material transfer, and support nonproliferation efforts. For example, earlier this year we cut the ribbon for the Mobile Melt-Consolidate system, a flexible tool that can be deployed to downblend and treat a variety of HEU materials safely and reliably, capitalizing on more than two decades of materials science, engineering, and research and development.  We’ll be putting this new system to work quickly, assisting Norway in downblending its entire inventory of HEU.  When downblending in Norway is complete in a few years, it will be the 49^th country plus Taiwan that NNSA has helped eliminate weapons-usable nuclear material.  This is a remarkable nonproliferation accomplishment. 

I am proud of all we are accomplishing in NNSA, and I truly believe the next few decades will be both challenging and rewarding. Arguably, this is the most important time for global peace in decades and potentially in our lifetimes. It will take a strong partnership with Congress to be successful, so I’d like to take a few minutes before I conclude to share my thoughts on priorities, and hopefully hear your thoughts as we transition to Q&A.

NNSA primarily works with four congressional committees, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, and the House and Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Committees.  We have been fortunate to receive consistent, bipartisan support from these committees.

Here are the priority asks from NNSA going forward:

1. Expect and demand that NNSA delivers the stockpile, infrastructure, science, and advanced technology and provide the budget needed to do so. You will get your money’s worth. I expect we will need budgets significantly above the administration’s request.
2. We can go faster with as much accountability if you encourage and allow portfolio management in both stockpile modernization and infrastructure. We can pool our contingencies and increase our buying power and efficiencies. 
3. With all the demands on stockpile, don’t forget the dynamic landscape in nonproliferation account. We need to rise to the challenge of the new environments in space, sustain expertise in arms control, prepare for the expansion and evolution of nuclear energy, keep pace with technological change in AI, and help Ukraine restore nuclear security.  Supplemental budget requests have been useful for Ukraine and a similar approach may be needed to kickstart AI. 
4. Work with us to embrace innovative ideas in infrastructure. We will need a combination of procurement approaches to get everything done including green field builds, upgrades to current facilities, new types of leases, new types of purchases, and new project management approaches.
5. NNSA’s labs must be included in science initiatives. Time and time again we have provided the breakthroughs. It is this model that allows us to attract and retain the best people.  Don’t narrow the scope even when it is tempting. NNSA must be involved in bio and AI now – they are within the scope of the NNSA Act and what we can offer is unique.

Thank you.