The Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee will hold a hearing next week on recent revisions to the nation’s nuclear employment strategy, but it will be closed to the public. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs Madelyn Creedon and Strategic Command chief Gen. Robert Kehler will testify during the July 17 hearing in Room SVC-217 of the Capitol Visitor Center. The hearing will focus on President Obama’s recent announcement that the U.S. would seek to reduce the size of its deployed strategic stockpile by a third, to about 1,000 nuclear warheads. Obama’s announcement came shortly after he signed new classified nuclear employment guidance reflecting policies laid out in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which according to a White House fact sheet outlined that the U.S. would only use nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances” and “narrows U.S. nuclear strategy to focus on only those objectives and missions that are necessary for deterrence in the 21st century.” It also outlined the new “3+2” strategy for warhead replacement, suggesting that “an alternative approach to hedging against technical or geopolitical risk … will lead to more effective management of the nuclear weapons stockpile.”
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