At Hearing, Senator Warren Highlights Costs of a New Nuclear Arms Race, Need for Crypto Crackdown to Stop Nuclear Proliferation
Warren: “If we want to stop our enemies, then we need to give regulators the tools they need to crack down on how they’re financed.” “It’s a serious failure of this report that it does not reckon with the serious costs and dangers of accelerating a nuclear arms race.”
Washington, D.C. — At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) questioned Madelyn Creedon, Chair of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, about the report’s failure to include cost estimates and recommendations for cuts to pay for new nuclear weapons programs. Senator Warren also spoke to the threat posed by cryptocurrency, noting that half of North Korea’s missile program is paid for through crypto crime.
Senator Warren highlighted her bipartisan Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, which would mitigate the illicit finance risks that crypto poses by closing loopholes and bringing the digital asset ecosystem into greater compliance with the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AMF/CFT) frameworks that govern much of the financial system.
Transcript: Hearings to Examine the Findings of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States
U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Senator Elizabeth Warren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re confronting an incredibly challenging security environment, which requires us to make tough choices and set priorities. One of the elements of our national security that I think we often take for granted is the power we gain from our many alliances around the world.
I appreciate and agree with the part of your report that said that our partnerships “further the ability of free nations of the world to speak and act together in a united front against threats.” But let’s be honest, the main thrust of this report is advocating a nuclear arms race. You recommend we “fund an overhaul and expansion” of our nuclear weapons industrial base to buy more weapons than we’re currently planning, as well as starting risky new programs.
Let me start. Ms. Creedon, did the Commission develop any cost estimates for implementing its recommendations?
Honorable Madelyn R. Creedon, Chair, Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States: We did not, Senator.
Senator Warren: We just don’t have a cost estimate for this because I did not see one in the report. Would it be safe to guess that we are talking about tens of billions of dollars, if not more?
Ms. Creedon: We are certainly talking about more money, but –
Senator Warren: Yeah, I get more money. I’m saying is it like tens of billions more or more than that?
Ms. Creedon: The thing that is important is we are –
Senator Warren: I understand that. What I'm trying to get at is how much it costs. Because if we’re going to prioritize, we need to know how much money we are spending. Is your answer yes, that we can expect it to cost more than tens of billions of dollars?
Ms. Creedon: Of course it could, but it also depends on what those decisions are over the long term.
Senator Warren: And that’s what we’re trying to evaluate it and if we had cost estimates, it might be helpful. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that our current nuclear weapons spending plans will already cost an average – the current plans – $75 billion per year.
I’m willing to spend what it takes to keep America safe, but I’m certainly not comfortable with a blank check for programs that already have a history of gross mismanagement. One of the programs the Commission endorses fully funding is nuclear pit production, which are these radioactive cores for nuclear weapons. The National Nuclear Security Administration doesn’t know how much it’s going to cost and won’t have a reliable plan for the program for at least another year. So here we are spending billions of dollars without even a plan in place.
Did the Commission recommend any areas for spending cuts to help pay for the recommendations that you advanced?
Ms. Creedon: Senator, we took the approach that we have a long-term problem and we laid out recommendations for how to address this long-term problem. We did not pick specific winners or losers but we recommended –
Senator Warren: I’m sorry – the winners are just let’s spend all the money we want to spend and the question I have is did you recommend any areas for spending cuts to help pay for the recommendations you are advancing?
Ms. Creedon: We recommended looking at how we do procurement so it may not be necessarily a cut –
Senator Warren: Did you recommend cuts?
Ms. Creedon: It’s how to do this smarter so we don’t spend as much money – we don’t unnecessarily spend money. That’s where we also need to focus is how we do this better and how we do this smarter.
Senator Warren: Well, but we start this with priorities. Forgive me, we can’t prioritize if we don't know how much or even an estimate of how much things are going to cost. Back in 2018 the National Defense Strategy Commission was at least honest about how they were going to pay for it. They said they would cut the social safety net that American workers paid into and deserve to receive.
It’s no secret that I support the Biden administration’s goal of reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our defense strategy. It’s a serious failure of this report that it does not reckon with the serious costs and dangers of accelerating a nuclear arms race.
As we continue to debate our nuclear posture I think it’s important to understand also how North Korea and other rogue regimes are paying for their nuclear programs. Experts estimate that half of North Korea’s missile program is paid for through crypto crime. Your report rightly flags this problem, noting that North Korea stole about $1.7 billion in 2022 alone and used that to fund more than half of its missile program.
I just note that I have a bill with Senator Marshall, Senator Manchin, Senator Graham, and a dozen more Senators to crack down on the use of crypto in sanctions evasions. If we want to stop our enemies, then we need to give regulators the tools they need to crack down on how they’re financed.
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