Robert Scher, the Obama Administration’s nominee for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, signaled support for nuclear modernization and fixing the problems found in recent reviews of the nuclear enterprise in testimony yesterday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “[W]e have spent a lot of time working to ensure we understand the needs of the defense nuclear enterprise and actually are funding it at a rate that is that we think will make sure that we can preserve the modernization of it and fix some of the problems that were found in the multiple reviews,” Scher said, responding to a question by SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.). Scher, who currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans, would slide into a position whose responsibilities include formulating nuclear weapons policy. Asked in advance policy questions what he anticipated would be the “most serious problems” he would undertake in his nominated position, Scher stated that he was “concerned” about implementing the necessary policies and strategies in a “cost-efficient manner.”
Responding to a question posed by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and echoing notions voiced by many Defense Department officials, Scher pointed to the small proportion of the overall defense budget that nuclear weapons occupy, and highlighted the need to invest in the previously neglected nuclear enterprise. “It is an expensive undertaking; in the broad scheme of the Department of Defense budget it is not a huge percentage,” Scher said. “And importantly, and the [defense] secretary and the deputy [defense] secretary have been very clear, this is a No. 1 priority for them. The nuclear enterprise, as we have seen with the reviews that were conducted, both the internal and the external review, we clearly see that we have underperformed in the nuclear enterprise. It remains safe, secure and effective, but in order to continue that we need to make sure that we invest in the DoD nuclear enterprise as well as the modernization.”
