James Mattis Reveals Just How Terrifying Our Nuclear Program Has Become

In this Majority Report clip, we watch Defense Secretary James Mattis talking about low yield nuclear weapons.

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---As recently as 2015, Mattis urged Congress to reassess the need for the triad, the long-standing practice of placing nuclear weapons on three types of platforms—land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and long-range aircraft. He even advocated dismantling the land-based missiles. He argued that their hair-trigger posture increased the chance of nuclear war.

His views at the time reflected his status as a just-retired Marine four-star general—the Marines being the only branch of the U.S. military that has never possessed nuclear weapons—and his friendship, as a fellow at Stanford University, with prominent arms-control advocates on campus, notably former secretary of defense William Perry.

If Mattis ever finds himself staring down the abyss of a nuclear war, he’s likely to find the books he’s consumed nearly useless.

But now Mattis himself has been secretary of defense for a year, and, as he acknowledged at a House hearing Tuesday morning, his views have evolved. He came in to the Pentagon, he testified, “wanting to challenge just about everything,” but after speaking with experts of all stripes, he realized that the land-based ICBMs are “a stabilizing element” and that other weapons he once looked at askance also have their merits.---