OMAHA (Sputnik) — Nuclear weapons play a vital role in today's world, but arms control deals are necessary for strategic stability, US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) chief Gen. John Hyten said Thursday.
"Some of our nations, some of our citizens have a hard time seeing the critical role that nuclear weapons play in the world today," Hyten stated. "Containing the spread of nuclear weapons and arms control agreements are important to strategic stability."
Hyten spoke at the closing of the seventh annual STRATCOM Deterrence Symposium in Omaha, Nebraska, which took place on July 26-27.
"I challenge every one of you to think about what the world without nuclear weapons really looks like," Hyten said. "It looks the world before 1945, and in the world before 1945 we had two world wars, and in those two world wars tens of millions of people were killed… So just think about sheer brutality of World War I and World War II and think about the role of nuclear weapons."
The STRATCOM commander stated on Wednesday that the United States would like to remain in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, and desired that both nations be in compliance with the agreement.
Two US defense studies, the nuclear posture review and a ballistic missile defense review are currently underway, and the North Korean nuclear threat as well as the hypersonic threats coming out of China and Russia are being incorporated into them, according to Hyten.
Many of the symposium's speakers have accused Russia of destabilizing activities and stressed the need to deter it.
Hyten said on the first day of the meeting that having open communication between the United States, Russia, China was a good thing from a military prospective and that he would continue to advocate for that.
The participants of the event paid special attention to the North Korean nuclear program and called on international cooperation to address the issue.
UK’s Head of Nuclear Operations for the Director General Nuclear Commodore Paul Burke, US Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Bruce Turner, South Korea’s Deputy Director of Strategic Planning Brigadier General Jung Woong Lee, as well as Sugio Takahashi, Senior Analyst on Nuclear Stability at Japan’s Ministry of Defense participated in the panel discussions among others.
