“The More Nuclear States, the More Nuclear Materials” Senator King Warns as U.S. Stance Moves Towards Burden Sharing

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME), Co-Chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, emphasized the global potential of nuclear proliferation as the United States defense posture pivots to prioritize cost-sharing among allies, and with it the likelihood of nuclear weapons development by allies. More specifically, in a hearing of the wider Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Senator King spoke with former Deputy Secretary General of NATO, the Honorable Rose Gottemoeller, about the risks of the American "withdrawal of extended deterrence" and how it would lead to more countries with nuclear capabilities.

Senator King began, "There is a tremendous emphasis in the national security strategy on burden sharing, appropriately, to have our allies meet their responsibilities. The problem is when burden sharing sort of moves over into undermining our allies' confidence in our nuclear umbrella. The result is going to be as I think you said Admiral, our allies particularly in Asia, Japan, South Korea, are thinking about their own development of a nuclear deterrent. Ambassador, this strikes me as a very serious issue at this moment. That burden sharing is fine, percentage of GDP is fine, but when it intimates a withdrawal of extended deterrence of the nuclear umbrella so called, it invites proliferation to currently non-nuclear states.

"Senator, it has been my concern that thus far the administration has emphasized with our allies that they will be responsible for their conventional defense. In Europe, particularly, the U.S. paying more attention to the Indo-Pacific now but, at the same time the secretary of war has stated that the U.S. will continue to extend the nuclear deterrent to our allies. But the fact that we are not seeing the administration really articulate this policy at a high level. Neither the national security strategy nor the national defense strategy addresses it. So it is, in my view, it is raising a lot of questions among our allies. Do they need to think about extending nuclear deterrent's themselves and how would they go about that? Is it the U.K. And France, as the other nuclear weapon states, under the NPT? The other weapon states in NATO who would play that role? How exactly would they go about it? That is where the questions arise. You're right, Admiral Richard is right. There is no active announcement yet from any NATO ally. But there are many, I would say, debates and discussions that have surprised us among our NATO allies," Gottemoeller responded.

"And part of the essence of deterrent, whether its ordinary deterrence or extended deterrence, is communication. The adversary, and in this case, the allies have to understand that this is our policy that we will abide by. Here is the next step that really worries me. The more nuclear states there are, the more nuclear materials there are, the more nuclear technology there is," Senator King finished.

As Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces - which oversees the United States' nuclear arsenal and posture - Senator King has been an outspoken voice on the need to address the growing nuclear capacity of our adversaries. Senator King recently expressed concern about the emerging threats of Russia and China's development of "nightmare weapon" hypersonic missiles, which he has described as "strategic game-changers."

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