Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, at this point, I send the amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin], for himself, Mr. Exon, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Glenn, Mr. Bradley, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Feingold, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Wellstone, Mr. Biden, Mr. Moynihan, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Jeffords, and Mr. Pell, proposes an amendment numbered 2088.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 52, strike out lines 20 through 25.
On page 62, strike out lines 8 through 11.
Beginning on page 63, strike out line 11 and all that follows through page 65, line 24.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the distinguished manager of the bill on the majority side, Senator Thurmond, is anxious to get a time agreement.
I wonder if I might inquire of the distinguished ranking member as to the progress we are making on that. Many Senators are working on their schedules. Many Senators are anxious to engage in the debate on this particular amendment, I think at the convenience of the Senate. And this means to keep this momentum that we have this morning going forward, I wonder if I might inquire as to this.
Mr. NUNN. I say to my friend from Virginia, I think we ought to inquire of the Senator from Michigan as to his intentions.
We talked about a time agreement. The Senator from Michigan informed me he would prefer to come to the floor and determine how many people wanted to speak on this amendment.
I welcome a time agreement. I hope we can reach one. Perhaps the Senator from Michigan could give an indication of his feeling at this point.
Mr. LEVIN. I do not have the final figure yet, but it is approximately--and there are a couple more Senators we must consult with--2 1/2 hours on this side that will be needed so far. We think that is fairly close to the total, but we are not quite there yet.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, that is a period of time considerably longer than I had hoped. That would mean if this side were to require an equal amount, we would be 5 hours.
Credit, perhaps, is being given on the 2 1/2 hours for this time, so we are beginning as of this moment.
Mr. LEVIN. That would be 2 1/2 additional hours, but that is not quite yet the total. There are two other Senators we have yet to hear from that we believe want to speak, and we have not heard how much time.
[Page: S11247]
I hope we can cut that time down. I will work with the Senator from Michigan. This is an important amendment. This is the heart of the bill in terms of the opposition to the bill. This is the heart of it.
While I would like to accelerate this process and will work hard to do that, I do think that once this matter is settled one way or the other on this amendment, and perhaps on another amendment that may follow if this one fails, I think once we do that, we will begin to make a lot more progress on the bill.
So, I say to my friend from Virginia and my friend from South Carolina, I know they want to move this bill, I will continue to work with them to see if we cannot reach some time agreement.
Mr. President, I would like to be recognized.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I might say, I thank my distinguished colleague. It is very reassuring to hear him say we can try to reduce the amount of time. Because the majority leader is very anxious to have this bill completed, as you know, on the timetable this week. I hope we can reduce the amount of time.
I see the Senator from Michigan indicating----
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, if Senator Exon has a question?
Mr. EXON. No, I was going to follow up on some of the remarks that had been made by the other Senators on this matter. The Senator from Georgia probably wishes to do the same.
Mr. NUNN. Has the Senator from Nebraska had a chance to make a statement this morning?
Mr. EXON. Yes, I got that statement made.
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I am going to make some remarks on the Levin amendment and I am going to try to cut my remarks down. I think this is a very important amendment. I support the amendment. I would like to lay out what I consider to be the defects in the bill as it now exists and why I think this amendment is important and why I will support the amendment.
If this amendment fails I anticipate another amendment in this area.
Mr. President, the defects in the majority's Missile Defense Act of 1995 are simple and straightforward. First, the Missile Defense Act constitutes what, in law, I would call--reflecting back years ago on my law school courses--I would call this an anticipatory breach of the ABM Treaty. Only in this case, it is not a contract, as in law school. The bill before us proposes to breach an international treaty, the treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, now succeeded by Russia, on the limitation of the antiballistic missile systems known as the ABM Treaty. Thus the Missile Defense Act if we pass it, if it became law, puts this body on record as directing the United States to knowingly violate an existing international treaty without first seeking amendments to the treaty and without reference to the provisions in the treaty which permit either party to withdraw upon 6 months' notice.
The ABM Treaty was entered into, not as a sacred document to be adhered to forever, but rather as a document that reflected the security interests of both the Soviet Union and the United States at that time. I am not wedded to every word in the ABM Treaty, as I will review in a moment. I do believe amendments are in order. But why not negotiate the amendments? Why act as if there is no treaty? That is what this bill does.
If we cannot negotiate the amendments, if the Russians will not budge after a good-faith effort, why not then consider whether to withdraw from the treaty under the provisions of the treaty? That is the way you get out of a treaty if you do not feel it is in your national security interests.
The second problem with the Missile Defense Act is that this breach is wholly unnecessary to the conducting of the near-term missile defense program run by the ballistic missile defense organization. In other words, we are basically serving notice that the treaty is going to be breached and it is not getting us anything in the next fiscal year--nothing. There is no program in this bill that would violate the ABM Treaty in the next fiscal year.
Enactment of the Missile Defense Act authorizes no activity by the ballistic missile defense office during fiscal year 1996 that would otherwise be proscribed by the ABM Treaty.
So, what we have is we are asked to take a gratuitous poke at the eye of the Russians, while helping to persuade them that the United States Congress is bent on resurrecting what some have called star wars.
In my view the Russians do not have the resources to compete in this arena in the near term. So they will certainly be frustrated, in the sense that they see us moving to breach the ABM Treaty when they do not have the resources to compete. They just simply do not have the finances to compete.
But, what they do have is thousands of missiles. Not a few hundred, but thousands of missiles that they are supposed to dismantle under START I, and they already are doing that under START I, and thousands more missiles they are supposed to dismantle under START II, which has been negotiated, and signed by President Bush but is now pending ratification both in the Duma and here in the Senate.
What they can do very easily is they can simply continue to target those thousands of missiles at the United States. That is likely to be their response to what they see as a breach of the ABM Treaty.
Do we really, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, after going through the Reagan administration, the Bush administration, basically negotiating carefully arms control agreements and trying to carry them out, getting thousands of nuclear warheads dismantled, do we want to turn around and do something in this bill that is going to say to the Russians, in effect: We are going to break out of the ABM Treaty. Now whatever you do is up to you?
I know what they are going to do. I believe I know what they are going to do. They do not have billions of dollars to conduct defenses now. They may in the future. In the future I think it is in their interests also to have some defenses. I think both countries ought to have some limited defenses against accidental launch, against any kind of unauthorized launch or against a Third World country that emerges as a threat. I think we ought to have those kind of defenses. I think the Russians ought to, too.
But if we strike out unilaterally they are going to do what we would do if we were in their circumstances. What is that? We would not dismantle our strategic offensive forces. We would find a way to proliferate the offensive forces because those offensive forces are going to have defenses that they have to contend with. And, what the Russians would fear, as we would fear, is that the combination of going to a lower START level, dismantling warheads, going down to START II, doing that, limiting the number of warheads; then having the United States embarked on a breach of the ABM Treaty, saying we are clearly going to deploy defenses without regard to negotiation, without regard to amendments, without regard to the provisions of the treaty--the combination of those two things says to them: Limited warheads, defenses by the United States, possible preemptive attack. We would never do that. We know that. But they do not know that just like we do not know that about them. That is the basis of our deterrence policy. We do not know that and we are not going to bank on it.
But the combination limiting the number of warheads, defenses in this country that basically breach the ABM Treaty, plus a preemptive attack, means that they would lose the ability to retaliate.
That is paranoia. But the whole equation of deterrence for years has been based on both sides being somewhat paranoid. And not irrationally so, based on the former confrontation all over the globe.
This breach of the ABM Treaty is wholly unnecessary. This poke in the eye to Russia leads to a third problem. That problem is one with serious, perhaps even tragic consequences. While enactment of the Missile Defense Act permits nothing within our own missile defense programs that we cannot already do in the next fiscal year, it may very well persuade the Russians that we have abandoned our obligations under the ABM Treaty.
Perhaps the majority does not really want to do that. If so, we have room to work out wording that would change that impression in this bill. The Russians have repeatedly told us, those in the executive branch as well as those of us in the Senate who have met with them on many occasions, they have told us of the importance they attach to continued compliance with the ABM Treaty by both parties. And they have suggested if they conclude we are abandoning the ABM Treaty unilaterally, this would call into question Russia's continued compliance with their international agreements.
Thus we may be jeopardizing START I and START II, thousands of warheads that would continue to be pointed at the United States, it will take us 10 or 12 years at best to build the defenses, yet we have a chance of dismantling thousands of warheads that are aimed at us.
Which is more cost effective? Embarking on a unilateral course without regard to the people we entered into the treaty with? Or negotiating with them, and determining what we would do if negotiations fail?
Why do we want to get thousands more warheads pointed at the United States? I do not. I do not think anybody in this body does. I do not think the American people do. That is the result of where we are heading, unless this bill is changed.
Mr. President, it is not only the two START agreements, it is also the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. That is the treaty where the Russians dismantled and continue to dismantle literally thousands--they are moving at least thousands and thousands of tanks and other threatening equipment, artillery tubes under the CFE Treaty in Europe.
They already are frustrated by that treaty. They already are making signs that this treaty causes them big problems. It is going to be a problem whether we pass this amendment or not. But, if we pass this amendment, it is going to be a bigger problem very quickly.
The two START treaties, if fully entered into force, will reduce by three-fourths the number of Russian ballistic missile warheads in their arsenal--a far greater reduction of nuclear warheads potentially threatening the United States than any defensive system could possibly offer or that we have any capability of developing and paying for in the next 10 years. Three-fourths of the warheads are coming off under START I and START II.
Do we really want to jeopardize that? The Russians have complained frequently about the enormous cost to them of compliance with these two START treaties and the CFE. But so far they are complying. We may reach a point where they do not. But they are so far complying. How much more will it cost us in our own defense budget if the START treaties go by the boards? Also, many Members are aware the Russians have been seeking relief from the limitations imposed under the CFE Treaty on the level of conventional forces and equipment they are permitted to station on their volatile southern flank. If the full Senate adopts the Missile Defense Act, this will give them a plausible excuse to ignore the CFE limits on stationing forces and equipment. To repeat, Mr. President, all of these serious consequences and costs may be brought upon us by adoption of the Senate Armed Services Committee majority's Missile Defense Act, which itself allows us to do no more than we already planned to do in the short run, unless the bill is changed.
The fourth problem with the Missile Defense Act is that it tries legislatively to have it both ways: the Senate Armed Services Committee majority wants the ABM Treaty to go away, and legislates as though it had already gone away; yet they do not take the straightforward approach of using legal remedy. Mr. President, if the Senate believes adherence to the ABM Treaty is no longer in our national interest, then we should have availed ourselves of a straightforward and honorable resolution. Under article XV, paragraph 2, of the ABM Treaty, the United States can withdraw from the ABM Treaty, after giving 6 months notice to Russia. Is the Senate ready to take that step? Or will we adopt the language of the Missile Defense Act to squeeze past, a direct confrontation with the ABM Treaty, by pretending that it is not there.
It seems to me that is the course we are on, pretending it is not there.
This unwillingness to confront the ABM Treaty head-on, Mr. President, leads to the fifth problem with the Missile Defense Act. By ignoring the ABM Treaty, rather than proposing U.S. withdrawal from it, the Senate Armed Services Committee majority are forced to try to negate its effect by the following legislative device: They restrict the use of appropriated funds to enforce our obligations under the ABM Treaty. In attempting to negate the treaty in this way, Mr. President, the Senate Armed Services Committee majority sets up a direct constitutional conflict between the executive and the legislative branches regarding responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy and the enforcement of this Nation's international obligations.
Mr. President, consider what is at stake here. Should the Missile Defense Act approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee majority be enacted in the next couple of years, we stand to gain nothing, but we stand to lose a great deal: we could lose the agreed drawdowns of nuclear arsenals under START I and II; we could lose the CFE Treaty's constraints on Russian conventional force deployments near troubled areas.
Now, some in the Senate Armed Service Committee majority will argue that the Missile Defense Act does not really breach the ABM Treaty, because only some subsequent testing or deployment action would technically place us in violation of the treaty.
They will argue this by saying that only some subsequent testing or deployment would technically place us in violation of the treaty.
Mr. President, this is too clever by one-half. If the Russian Republic were to announce tomorrow that it no longer intended to meet the timetable for reduction of nuclear systems under the START I Treaty, that it was not going to renegotiate them, that it simply was going to move forward as if START I did not exist, and that there was nothing we could do about it, would the Senate Armed Services Committee come to the Senate floor to calmly inform us that this is not a breach of their obligations under the treaty? Would they argue that the START I Treaty can only be breached once the deadline for implementing reductions is past? Or would they say instead, as I think would be the case, breach is inevitable, and based on what the Russians have told us, we should now move to prepare for this breach and take the necessary security precautions?
I think that the majority--and I would be in that majority--would say let us assume that they are going to do what they say they are going to do; they are going to breach the treaty, and we had better start recognizing that.
To recap, Mr. President, the Senate Armed Services Committee's Missile Defense Act provision has major problems: First, it abandons United States adherence to the ABM Treaty; second, abandoning adherence now is unnecessary--we can conduct an effective missile defense program in the near-term while continuing adherence; third, abandoning adherence now is likely to impose huge costs on us, if Russia declines to carry out some of its legal obligations in response to our breach; fourth, the Senate Armed Services Committee bill abandons adherence by stealth, rather directing the administration to use the legal withdrawal procedures contained in the treaty; and fifth, by failing to use the legal option, the Senate is forced to try to compel the executive branch to abandon adherence by usurping certain powers of the executive branch over the conduct of foreign policy, a move that raises serious constitutional issues, and could lead to this act never becoming law even if it passed as is.
Mr. President, I do not want any Senator to misconstrue my message regarding the ABM Treaty, and I am sure there will be people on this side who will not listen to the latter part of this message. I am not a diehard supporter of the ABM Treaty as some sacred document that cannot be changed. I think that would be a mistake in view of this treaty. Circumstances change. The circumstances surrounding the treaty's establishment have changed significantly since it was entered into in the early 1970's. Therefore, either the treaty itself must be changed to reflect the new realities, or the Congress and the President must at some point make the decision that the treaty's usefulness has ended and exercise our legal right to withdraw from the treaty.
The ABM Treaty condition contains provisions for renegotiation; indeed, that is precisely what the Clinton administration has been trying to do at Geneva, and they really need the backing of Congress to do that. Thus, it is not a foregone conclusion that the treaty cannot be amended by mutual agreement to allow us to deploy the missile defenses we consider necessary to meet our national security requirements. But Russia must understand that these negotiations must make progress and that the time period available for negotiations is not infinite. It is finite.
I think that message needs to go forth to the Russians clearly. It would be useful if it went forth in a united way from both the administration and from the Congress. But we will not have any united message because we are going to be too busy deciding whether there is an anticipatory breach by ignoring any negotiations and by ignoring the treaty itself.
Mr. President, I intend to vote in favor of the amendment by the Senator from Michigan; I hope it is successful. If it fails to pass, I believe the Senate then will face a major dilemma. I believe that, unless the problems I have outlined above are dealt with, this bill faces a bleak future. The administration is already on record that the House version of the Missile Defense Act is unacceptable, as is the provision in this bill as passed by the committee.
Thus, the prospects for an outcome in conference that will become law are indeed bleak unless we make some fundamental changes.
The Senator from Michigan seeks to correct the flaws by striking whole sections. If this approach is shown to be unacceptable to a majority of Senators present and voting, then the only remaining possibility will be to try to modify the language. And I will certainly have an amendment to do that after we decide what happens on this amendment.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
[Page: S11249]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have worked for many years with my distinguished colleague from Georgia, and more often than not we have had a joinder of views and positions. But on this we are strong opponents.
I was the author of a number of provisions in this bill which are the subject of the strike of my good friend, the Senator from Michigan.
I vigorously oppose the Senator's amendment.
Mr. President, it is my understanding the administration is orchestrating a full court press to defeat the Missile Defense Act of 1995 and in particular section 238 of that act which was known as the Warner amendment during our markup.
I was the author of the previous Missile Defense Act, and the Missile Defense Act of 1995 builds on the act that was put in in I believe 1991.
Therefore, it seems to me that it is a logical sequence of legislative steps by the Congress to build on the foundation that we laid in 1991.
I have tried for many years together with a number of my colleagues through many, many legislative initiatives to ensure that the men and women of the Armed Forces are not once again sent into harm's way unless they are provided with the most effective defenses that not only we can buy with the dollars but that we can devise with the brains. I wish to emphasize that--devise with the brains.
My basic premise is that successive administrations have used the ABM Treaty as a means to limit the use of the intellectual capacity of the United States to develop the most efficient, the most cost-effective and the most technically sound and reliable systems for the defense against short-range ballistic missiles.
We failed in many respects during the gulf war. The crude Scud missile was utilized by the Iraqi military forces not only against the coalition of allied military forces but against the innocent people, the defenseless people of Tel Aviv.
Israel was not a combatant in the gulf war, yet Saddam Hussein rained down upon those innocent people the Scud missile, not for military purposes but solely for terrorist purposes.
Here we are some several years later still wrestling with the fundamental question: Are we going to unleash the full magnitude of the brains of this Nation, working with other nations, and in particular Israel, to devise the finest and most technically capable system to defend against the short-range missile?
That is what this is all about--that is that section of the strike that goes to the Missile Defense Act of 1995.
Over 30 nations now have short-range ballistic missiles--30 nations. Talk about the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty is between the United States of America and the former Soviet Union. And at that time in 1972 there was not even on a drawing board, so far as anybody can recall, an idea about a short-range system. Today, there are 30 nations with some measure of capability, and yet we are sitting here dealing with this archaic act, treaty, whatever you wish to call it, saying that it should stand there as a guardian against the ability of this country to devise our best systems.
Seventy-seven nations have cruise missiles, the flat trajectory. Many of the systems that we are looking at now to deter the ballistic missile also have a technical capability of being adapted to defend against the cruise missile.
As the gulf war demonstrated, the threat such missiles pose to the men and women of the Armed Forces is real, immediate, and growing. At this very moment and while we are debating this issue, all across the world are men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces on watch as a means to deter against attack, many of them within the range of the short-range ballistic systems posed as a threat by these 30 nations.
How many recall the incident in the gulf war which resulted in the largest number of American casualties? It was a single Scud missile that landed on a barracks killing and wounding the greatest number of Americans during that war.
Are we to say to the American people, particularly the mothers and fathers, the uncles and aunts, the loved ones of those on duty in places throughout the world today that this could happen once again because the United States will not unleash its full brain power to devise the best system to defend against that type of weapon?
If you look at the balance between the launch pad of a short-range system, that is fairly elementary. You can cobble that together. We know that from the crude Scud missile system. You can put it together. But the defense, the interceptor, the electronics needed to bring that missile into the bore sight of some weapon, that is many times more costly than the launch system. But we are going to stand here, if I listened correctly to the proponents of this amendment and once again go back to a treaty of 1972 and allow it to stand, stand there and block the full resources, mental and dollarwise of this great Nation to prevent another incident like we experienced in the gulf.
In the judgment of this Senator, we must accelerate the development and deployment of highly effective land- and sea-based theater missile systems to protect our troops, defenses that are not artificially or wrongfully limited, constrained by this ABM Treaty.
Therefore, Mr. President, it was in April of this year that I introduced an amendment along with dozens of cosponsors to clearly establish a policy for the United States of America which states that the ABM Treaty does not apply to short-range theater ballistic systems.
In effect, this legislation is intended to prevent the Clinton administration from making the ABM Treaty in effect a TMD treaty. That is what is underway and has been underway for some several years, to take this 1972 treaty and somehow wrap it around the short-range system. Despite administration claims that this provision is unconstitutional, I carefully chose the congressional power of the purse as the vehicle to get congressional views on the issue of ABM -TMD demarcation, to take those into consideration.
Contrary to the assertion of its critics, this provision does not prohibit negotiations with the Russians. I listened to this this morning. I cannot believe it. That is a weak reed to walk out on, I say to the proponents of the Levin amendment, a very weak reed to walk out on.
Instead, the provision would in effect prohibit the implementation of any resulting agreement which would have the effect of making the ABM Treaty a TMD treaty. That was the purpose of my legislation. I have tried in the past, and many others have tried, but to no avail to ensure that the Senate of the United States would be involved in decisions the administration might make in the demarcation negotiations.
Last year, I sponsored legislation requiring that any international agreement entered into by the President that would substantially modify the ABM Treaty be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent pursuant to our constitutional authority on treaties.
Despite that legal requirement, it became clear to me during the administration briefings on the demarcation issue--and I will say to their credit, particularly to a former Senate Armed Services staff assistant, Robert Bell, there has been considerable consultation on this demarcation series of negotiations, but we have not been able to present what I regard as a convincing argument.
I repeat, despite that legal requirement of last year, it became clear to many of us here in the Senate during these briefings on the demarcation that the administration had no intention of submitting any demarcation to the U.S. Senate, no intention, despite the fact that the administration's negotiating position would result in an international agreement that would impose major new limitations on the United States.
Therefore, many of us saw the need to act, and act we did. And as a consequence, we have before us today a bill that will give this country needed protections. Regrettably, one of our colleagues, joined by others, is wishing to strike that provision.
Mr. President, the ABM Treaty was never intended to limit or restrict theater missile defense systems. That is clear. The administration, in a sense, concedes the point. In addition, I had the opportunity to discuss this issue with two individuals who were intimately involved in the ABM Treaty negotiations at that period of time, 1972. I was privileged to be the Secretary of the U.S. Navy and was in Moscow primarily for the purpose of the Incidents of the Sea Agreement with the delegation that signed the ABM Treaty. These were persons that I had worked with for some several years prior thereto in the Department of Defense. The ABM Treaty was not a matter primarily in any respect under the jurisdiction of the military departments. But nevertheless, the military departments, including, of course, the Navy Department, had access to the negotiations, the papers, and were asked from time to time for views on this issue.
So I do have a contemporary recollection firsthand of this period of time in history. And I went back and talked with my former colleague, Dr. John Foster, who at that time was the head of the research and development section in the Department of Defense, an eminent scholar, mathematician, physicist. And he reassured me that the issue of short-range systems was not a product in any respect of the treaty. I likewise talked to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was the National Security Adviser during that period of time. And he also reaffirmed just a short time ago that theater missiles were never contemplated during the ABM Treaty negotiations.
Specifically, according to Dr. Kissinger, the focus of the negotiation was on defenses against intercontinental ballistic missiles because they were the only systems that were then in existence. Unfortunately, the administration appears intent on concluding an agreement with the Russians that would severely limit the technological development and deployment of United States theater missile defense systems, an agreement that would transform the ABM Treaty, in my judgment, into a TMD treaty.
These are examples of what the administration has been doing, is table proposals; that is, put on the table for discussion with the Russians, proposals that would accept performance limitations on the TMD systems. The ABM Treaty does not even impose performance limitations on the strategic systems.
Second, the administration initially accepted a Russian proposal to prohibit deployment of the Navy upper-tier system, a system that was subsequently deemed to be treaty compliant by the administration. Initially they put that on the table as a proposal.
The negotiations clearly then and indeed now are headed in the wrong direction. In my view, it is time for the Congress to act to pave the way for the development of the most capable, most cost-effective theater missile defense system to protect the lives of the men and women of our Armed Forces. My legislation does just that. It would prohibit the obligation or expenditure of any funds by any official of the Federal Government for the purposes of prescribing, enforcing or implementing any Executive order, regulation or policy that would apply the ABM Treaty or any limitation or obligation under such treaty to research, development, testing or deployment of a theater missile defense system, upgrade or component. The standard which I have used in this legislation to define the demarcation line between antiballistic missile defenses are limited by the ABM Treaty.
Let me repeat that. The standard which was used in this legislation and adopted by the Senate Armed Services Committee to define the demarcation line between antiballistic missile defenses which are limited by the ABM Treaty and theater missile defenses which are not so limited by the treaty, is the one, the very one used by the administration at the beginning of the demarcation negotiations in November 1993. That is, a missile defense system which is covered by the ABM Treaty is defined as a missile defense system that has been field tested against a ballistic missile with, one, a range of more than 3,500 kilometers, or, two, a maximum velocity of more than 5 kilometers per second.
Put simply, if a missile defense system does not have a demonstrated field-tested capability to counter intercontinental ballistic systems, it should not be limited in any way by the ABM Treaty. Without this legislation, Mr. President--I acknowledge that the current occupant of the chair was a most valuable participant in drawing up this legislation--without this legislation, Mr. President, the Senate will have no role to play in an international agreement which will impose major new obligations and restrictions on the military capabilities of the United States. This is an issue which is vital to our national security and which can be ignored no longer.
[Page: S11250]
Mr. WARNER. Yes. Two sentences, and then I will be happy to yield. We will no doubt debate this issue at length, as we are doing right now. And I welcome the debate, and I urge all to support those who seek to defeat the amendment by our distinguished colleague from Michigan.
I yield the floor.
Mr. NUNN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. NUNN. I cannot speak for the Senator from Michigan. Of course, he is on the floor to speak for himself.
What I hear the Senator from Virginia say is his main purpose is to protect the theater missile defense systems and to have a demarcation point of definition between those systems and the strategic systems that would be affected by the ABM Treaty. Assuming that is the Senator's main objective, it seems to me we can reach some agreement on this because that is not the language that gives me the problem. I do not think it is the language that gives the Senator from Michigan the problem. It is all language that basically states we are going to deploy national missile defenses with multiple sites without any negotiation and without any regard to the ABM Treaty, which has nothing to do with theater missiles. That is all strategic and it is all clearly involved with the ABM Treaty.
But if the Senator's main goal is to protect the theater missile defense system and have a demarcation more than a definition, as long as there is some flexibility for the administration so that there is not an absolute ruling out of any administration efforts--because somebody has got to negotiate this demarcation point no matter what we say--if that is the Senator's goal, I agree with him on the demarcation point. I think that is a very sensible point. If that is the Senator's goal, then there is no reason we cannot find a way, whatever happens on the Levin amendment, to deal with this language, because that is not the language we are trying to take out of this bill.
[Page: S11251]
Do I understand that there is some thought about amending the Levin amendment to----
Mr. LEVIN. No.
Mr. NUNN. I think the Senator from Michigan stated----
Mr. LEVIN. I want to go through the language of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair and apologize for jumping in without being recognized.
My amendment strikes the language in the bill which commits us to deploy a system which clearly violates the ABM Treaty. It leaves the language about deploying as soon as possible highly effective theater missile defenses. That is in the bill. It is left in the bill. I was surprised to hear the Senator from Virginia say the issue here is whether we want to deploy theater missile defenses. Boy, that is not the language we are after. We left that language in there.
Section 233 says:
It is the policy of the United States--
(1) deploy as soon as possible highly effective theater missile defenses capable of countering existing and emerging theater ballistic missiles;
We did not touch that. It is the next paragraph we touched. The next paragraph says it is the policy of the United States:
(2) deploy a multiple-site national missile defense system. . .
Which I am absolutely confident my friend from Virginia will agree that a multiple-site national missile defense system is inconsistent with the ABM Treaty, just as I concede that the ABM Treaty does not prohibit theater missile defenses. It does not and we should proceed to deploy those, and we are.
By the way, General Shalikashvili says the ABM Treaty does not constrain our development of theater missile defenses. He said in his letter to me `the progress on these programs'--referring to theater missile defenses--`is not restricted by a lack of a demarcation agreement.'
Just as I would be the first to concede, indeed proclaim, that the ABM Treaty does not restrict theater missile defenses, I hope my friend from Virginia will agree that his language in section 233(2) that it is a policy to deploy a multiple-site national defense system that would violate the treaty unless the treaty were amended. We are seeking to try to amend this treaty. Yes, theater missile defenses are not constrained by the ABM Treaty, nor should they be, nor are they. But it is the language in subparagraph (2) that makes it the policy to deploy a multiple-site national defense system which clearly violates the ABM Treaty, which is the first target of the amendment.
So we leave in the theater defense language in subparagraph (1). We do not touch that.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator address section 238?
Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to.
Mr. WARNER. That is the provision of the Senator from Virginia, and that is subject to the strike.
Mr. LEVIN. It is the bill that I am addressing in three different places. In section 238----
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, that is the subject of the amendment of the Senator from Virginia and the subject I just covered in my floor remarks. Looking at the Senator's amendment at the desk, in section 3, it says `to strike section 238 which establishes a unilateral interpretation of the ABM Treaty and prohibits treaty compliance efforts.'
Mr. LEVIN. Section 238 does establish the dividing line between long-range and short-range missiles. It does it unilaterally, it does it in law. The reason that that is inappropriate is these are the subject of negotiations now, should be the subject of negotiations. If the Duma established a range of 4,000 kilometers for a short-range missile, I think the Senator from Virginia would be on his feet saying, `What, the Russian legislative body is unilaterally determining what is a short-range system and they said 4,000 kilometers? What is going on? We thought this was the subject of negotiations, this is bad faith. You have a Russian legislative body unilaterally saying 4,000 kilometers?'
Yes, we should not be establishing in law--in law--the demarcation line between the two when two things are true: One is the subject of ongoing negotiations and two, and this is critically important, is that General Shalikashvili told us that the absence of a demarcation line, having been agreed to, is not a constraint on the research and development of the theater missiles that we all support. In other words, it is not constraining us. So for us to prematurely, unilaterally have the Congress say this is the demarcation line between long-range and short-range does great mischief in terms of reaching an agreement with the Russians on a bilateral basis and militarily does not achieve anything for us because the absence of a demarcation line is not constraining the research and development of theater missiles.
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a brief question and observation?
Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to.
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I think it is important, and I state this only for my own view and the Senator from Michigan can respond. There is a difference in making a finding and saying that this is where the Congress thinks the demarcation line ought to be and passing a line saying this is the way it is. Passing a law knocks out the executive branch of Government, if they sign the law and if it is constitutional, in any kind of negotiation. So you do not even have the ability under this bill, the way I read it now, for the President to say to the Russians or his Ambassador to say to the Russians, this is what the Senate passed. I believe the bill is so sweeping in its denial of executive authority to have any negotiations on this point that I do not think they would be able to inform the Russian Duma or the Russian leadership, Yeltsin and others, as to what the Senate did.
If the Senator wants to say this is where we think the line ought to be, and this is what we believe the administration ought to negotiate with the Russians, and this is what we think the Russians ought to accept, or these are the sensible findings we make, that would be a totally different matter. It is when you put it in law so it knocks out not only the Russians from having any say whatsoever in it, no negotiations, no say, no response, it knocks out even the President and the executive branch.
First of all, I do not think this will become law, but if it does, you will have almost an absurd situation. In fact, there is some language in here that is so broad that it might be interpreted if this became law to preclude the U.S. Senate from even debating it again. It says no Federal official. We are Federal officials, last time I got my paycheck. We are included in that, too. We cannot even talk about it once it is passed.
I think the Senator's language goes much further than the Senator's intent. That is what I think we need to work on, and if we can make findings on demarcation and urge the President forward and urge him to take this position, then I believe we can reach some consensus. It is the law part of it that bothers me.
[Page: S11252]
Mr. NUNN. I believe I was to ask a question. That is a question mark at the end.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The Chair observes the Senator from Michigan has the floor.
Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to yield to the Senator from Virginia to answer the question without losing my right to the floor.
Mr. WARNER. The three of us who are now engaged in debate and, indeed, the occupant of the chair and others have been in the briefings on the negotiations of this demarcation issue.
As I said in my remarks, it was the fear that the administration would not come back to the U.S. Senate for `advise and consent' that has required this Senator and others to take this action. We cannot sit here knowingly, allowing the administration to go forth with a demarcation which would, in our collective judgment, not be in the best interest of this country, and the only way we would have a means to express that would be through the advice-and-consent procedure.
And the administration, very forthrightly, said they would not bring it back. And that is the reason we acted.
Mr. KYL. Will the Senator yield to me for 1 minute?
Mr. LEVIN. Yes.
Mr. KYL. I want to add to the comments of the Senator from Virginia that at least some of us on this side have sent no fewer than five letters to the President on this subject asking to be consulted and advised, suggesting that the administration, frankly, was going too far in these discussions with the Russians and asked him not to do so.
As the Senator from Virginia just noted, one of the reasons for finally putting the language in the bill is that our entreaties have gone unheeded, the administration has gone forward. This is apparently the only way we can get their attention. We had 50 Senators, all Republicans, urging the administration not to go forward, and they did so anyway. That is the reason for finally acting in a legislative way.
I thank the Senator.
Mr. LEVIN. As the Senator from Georgia said, it is very different to give a recommendation to the President, which is one thing. To put into law what we believe the demarcation line is unilaterally, saying that the President cannot deviate from it, and he cannot negotiate even an improvement from our perspective. By the way, this language even goes beyond that. This language literally, when you read it, would prevent an official of the United States from stopping a test which violates this demarcation line by its own terms. In other words, let us assume that we were testing an ABM system against a missile that had a range of 4,000 kilometers. This language says that until it is flight tested, this prohibition is in place. That is what the language says. The Senator from Virginia and I have worked a long time on lots of bills together. But this language violates common sense because you could not even stop a test from occurring, which, by the terms of this bill, violates the ABM Treaty. That is how extreme this language is.
I yield the floor at this point.
Mr. WARNER. I will be very brief. The Senator from Michigan put in a letter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Shalikashvili. I wish to put in the Record at this point in our colloquy my reply to General Shalikashvili and in the spirit of total fairness, again his reply back to my letter. Clearly, we disagree.
I would like to read one paragraph to the Senator. I said to the general:
Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening. Our ongoing TMD efforts--in particular THAAD and Navy Upper Tier--have been artificially limited by ABM Treaty considerations. For example, neither system has been allowed to incorporate space-based sensors because of concerns that the use of such sensors would not be ABM Treaty-compliant. This despite the fact that all of the military experts with whom I have consulted have assured me that we could develop and deploy more cost-effective and technically capable TMD systems if such systems incorporated space-based elements.
Mr. President, that is it, clear and simple. It is right there.
I ask unanimous consent to have those letters printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
-
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment to strike the missile defense provisions in the bill, because, if passed as is, I think this language will greatly complicate the work of our military and of our diplomats in the years ahead. I have been interested to hear that one of the reasons we have this in the bill, apparently, is because we have sent a number of letters, or some Members have sent a number of letters to the President, and did not get a response. They either got no response or one they did not like, so they decided to put it in legislation.
I can only say that I think taking that kind of action, when the leadership, in negotiating treaties and in seeing they are adhered to, is a function of the executive branch, does not ring very strongly with me, because I can remember--I could probably go back to the files and bring out a dozen or more letters I wrote during the Reagan administration, during those 8 years and during the 4 years of the Bush administration, and I may have gotten responses to some of those but certainly not to all of them. That did not mean to me that I took over what the constitutional powers of the President are and put into law things that would have tried to put my view into law, as opposed to what treaty requirements were or what treaties had been negotiated.
I say further that I think we are, obviously, talking a lot here about the demarcation between theater missile defense and national missile defense. That is a legitimate thing to try and work out. But to take over and unilaterally on the part of the Congress define language that would change the ABM Treaty or have that potential, I think, is wrong. I think we have to tread very carefully when we do that.
I think this could possibly harm our efforts to proceed with nuclear arms reduction, not just with Russia, when we try and negotiate these things with China, Britain, and France. It will raise new threats to the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, especially its cornerstone, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, NPT. It could establish an extremely undesirable new method for unilaterally reinterpreting treaties, thus setting up a precedent that will obviously be used against us in the years ahead.
I think it could establish programs that would cost us a fortune. It could divert money from military needs that are, in my opinion, much more vital to the country and ultimately leave America substantially no safer as a result. It tramples on the President's constitutional responsibilities as Commander in Chief and as the individual in charge of American foreign policy. In short, I think this would be a very bad mistake for this country.
I would like to begin with a few comments about the general level of partisanship that we have seen from the proponents of these provisions on the ABM Treaty. I hasten to add that I think missile defense should not be a partisan affair. All Americans understand that (a), the national interest may require the deployment of U.S. forces in unstable areas around the world. This bill contains some very undesirable features, I feel, that, if enacted, could greatly complicate the work of our military and our diplomats in the years ahead.
Let me talk about ballistic missile defense. So
That is something I am sure we can all agree on.
Now, though the committee has approved many of the administration's requested theater missile defense projects, the majority's refusal to yield on several controversial proposals dealing with key missile defense issues gives these proposals the quality of partisan ultimata rather than a sound foundation for policy. In other words, it is either or else.
Similarly, the bill's heavy emphasis on investing in expensive hardware for missile defense detracts from an equally, if not more important, goal: Pursuing means to reduce the numbers and performance characteristics of offensive missiles that may be fired against us in theater conflicts. This goal typically requires significant improvements in export controls, intelligence capabilities, analytic capabilities for the conduct of arms control and nonproliferation verification activities, better coordination between our military and our diplomats and other such means.
The committee, however, is placing inordinate reliance upon technical fixes to counter missile attacks, rather than strengthening efforts to slow our halt of the proliferation of such missiles in the first place. This position is unfortunate, since the latter will ultimately prove to be a better investment of scarce taxpayers' dollars.
With respect to the missile defense provisions the bill does support, many of these would considerably erode the stable consensus that exists to support ballistic missile defense efforts, would jeopardize both antiballistic missile, ABM and START II treaties, usurp the President's constitutional powers with respect to the conduct of foreign relations and the performance of the role of Commander in Chief, or otherwise erode, rather than enhance, U.S. national security.
These conclusions, to me, follow from an examination of the following provisions of the bill: First, the bill mandates, as a statutory policy objective, an action that would violate the ABM Treaty. It establishes a policy of deploying a multiple-site national missile defense network by the year 2003. That is in violation.
Second, the majority places into U.S. law a formal definition of an ABM -permissible ballistic missile defense system. We can justifiably assume, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, has warned, any such statutory definition could jeopardize prospects for early ratification of the START II Treaty in the Russian Parliament and negatively impact our broader security relationship with Russia.
It seems only prudent that before the Congress ventures off with a unilateral interpretation of a major bilateral arms control accord, we should consider very carefully several implications of such an action.
They would include: Is this the type of precedent we wish to establish as a basis for treaty interpretation? Do we want to set an example that can lead the Duma to legislate its own preferred definitions of vital terms of Russia's arms control and disarmament treaties?
In other words, what if the Russian Duma, what if we had word coming through or had pictures on TV this evening on the news that the Russian Duma is unilaterally deciding to put a new interpretation into the ABM Treaty. What would we do? I know what we would do. We would think the whole thing is null and void if they went ahead and legislated preferred definitions of vital terms of Russia's arms control and disarmament treaties.
If Russia deployed enough ballistic missile defense sites containing missiles just falling below the dictated threshold, could they collectively acquire an ability to counter United States strategic nuclear forces? What will be the reactions of China and other powers if the United States moves away from its ballistic missile defense restraints?
I point out that these agreements are hammered out word by word by word over agonizingly long negotiations. The ABM Treaty was no exception to that. To change some of that wording, or to change an interpretation of it unilaterally, means that our word in any other treaty that we might have with any other place around the world--whether China, Russia, wherever--is not going to be looked at as being worth very much.
While the committee majority has raised the specter of structural nuclear disarmament--a term that is supposed to describe our alleged inability to expand our nuclear arsenal in the event of future threats--it ironically ignores completely the effects on our deterrent force of releasing Russia from the treaty obligations that prevent it from acquiring a national missile defense capability.
The Russians are not going to just stand by and see us reinterpret that treaty without feeling free to go their own way. They will no longer be bound by that agreement that was hammered out over a long period of time.
So, if the opponents in the ongoing missile defense debate have their way, and that `fearsome beast,' the ABM Treaty, is finally slain, the credibility of America's strategic missile forces would almost immediately be called into question as Russia begins to deploy its own large-scale national missile defense force.
What would prevent them from doing it? Certainly not the treaty that we would have violated at the time. It seems to me, if the majority is truly interested in avoiding this structural nuclear disarmament, as it is called, it should do all it can to ensure that U.S. nuclear deterrent retains its credibility. This is exactly what the ABM Treaty helps to achieve, by barring Russia from creating its own national strategic missile defense system.
The treaty accomplishes this, moreover, without the need for a diplomatically and financially costly expansion of our offensive nuclear capabilities. So-called deficit hawks in Congress today should, therefore, love the ABM Treaty, not revile it. It works to preserve our deterrent and saves plenty of money at the same time. One of the estimates by CBO has indicated that even a partial national missile defense system would cost about $48 billion, at a time when we really do not need it, as testimony and as the letters from the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have indicated.
I am afraid our colleagues in the majority, however, have turned a collective blind eye to these considerations. They appear to believe that unilateral United States actions to ensure against our own national missile vulnerability will instantly translate into a safer America and not lead Russia to reduce its vulnerability to our own strategic missile attacks.
In its enthusiasm not to miss an opportunity to bash the ABM Treaty, the majority is urging a course of action that can weaken our nuclear deterrent capability, can stimulate an offensive nuclear arms race, and eventually funnel tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into elaborate strategic national missile defense schemes, none of which, of course, will ever free American citizens from risk of nuclear attack.
The bill seems to enshrine into law what is known as the fallacy of the last move, which holds that any increment in our own security will take place without any detrimental side effects. I lose a lot more sleep over the side effects than I do over the slogan of `structural nuclear disarmament.'
The Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings, coupled with the Tokyo gas attacks should serve as a sobering reminder that weapons of mass destruction can be delivered by a variety of means other than missiles. It does not mean we are not concerned about missiles. We are. Furthermore, our intelligence officials have repeatedly testified the United States will not face a new missile threat until sometime in the next century.
The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. James Clapper, testified before the Select Committee on Intelligence last January: `We see no interest in or capability of any new country reaching the continental United States with a long-range missile for at least the next decade.'
We should not permit a fixation with delivery systems to distract our attention from the important goal of halting the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Third, the majority voted down on a straight party vote a proposal by Senator Levin to ensure that America's theater missile defense systems will not be given strategic antiballistic missile capabilities, a proposal that was essentially a restatement of existing law, existing law under the ABM Treaty.
Fourth, the majority insisted on almost doubling the size of the administration's request for national missile defense projects, despite the majority's complete inability to identify any new foreign threat against which such a defense would be directed.
I do not believe that a highly conjectural North Korean missile threat to the Aleutian Islands sometime in the 21st century is sufficient grounds for America to abandon the ABM Treaty. I doubt North Korea will even manage to survive as a country by that time. It may not, anyway.
Furthermore, there is a fundamental contradiction in the majority's willingness to write a blank check on behalf of national missile defense and yet apply the sternest possible accounting standards for the more modest sums that we authorized elsewhere in this bill to such programs as humanitarian assistance and foreign disaster relief.
I would add, the systems we are talking about have yet to be invented. We made some progress in setting up systems, or doing some research in years past, but to mandate at this point we will have any of these systems by the year 2003, which is what is in the systems we are proposing here, is wishful thinking. Some of the claims under star wars were made back some years ago. I talked to the people at the Pentagon who were working in these areas, who had some confidence in those systems, or said they did. I thought some of the claims were so preposterous I went out to some of the laboratories where work was going on on the so-called star wars system. The scientists who were working on the systems out there almost laughed about some of the claims being made on star wars at that time. It was not just a matter of having the money to deploy, to cut the hardware and deploy it. We had not yet invented the systems. Yet we are talking about now we can set up a national missile defense system, just a partial one, for $48 billion, with equipment that has yet to be invented and certainly should not be deployed on a timetable between now and the year 2003. Within 8 years, we are supposed to now have this and it has to be deployed. And that is ridiculous.
Star wars before was talking about deformable laser mirrors, 12 feet across, that could take lasers of a power not yet invented, and focus it on a spot out there several hundred miles in space the size of a golf ball. At least the first step would be to focus it on a mirror in space that could be deformed, then focus it in turn on a spot the size of a golf ball several hundred miles away on a missile coming up at a changing rate of speed, and keep it focused on that area. We do not have the computer capacity nor the technology yet developed to enable us to do some of those things that were claimed years ago.
Now we are saying we have some different systems. But those systems are anything but proven and are anything but systems that should be set up on a time schedule that would have to be in place by law by the year 2003.
What do we think the Soviets would be doing all this same time? I know what the Duma would probably do, our counterpart over there in Russia. The Duma probably is going to say, OK, if all bets are off on the ABM Treaty, then the very first thing we are going to do is put all the coordinates back in on American targets we just took out of our missiles in agreement with the Americans, back just a few months ago. To me, that would be very silly if we did anything that might lead them into that kind of activity.
Yet, if the Russians were doing the same thing we are debating here today, I can guarantee the first thing I would be doing on the floor would be demanding we put their coordinates back in our missiles if they were advocating abrogating the ABM Treaty and deploying a missile defense system that neither side thought we needed to deploy.
Much has been written about the dangers of new isolationism as a foreign policy doctrine. Its companion in defense policy I guess would be called a fortress America. Nothing is more reflective of this doctrine than the current bill's fundamentally misguided policy approaches on nuclear testing and the ABM Treaty.
So I am still hopeful a new bipartisanship will emerge in the years ahead, however, behind policies that reflect a greater awareness of the costs of a modern national defense, a greater sensitivity to international reactions to U.S. defense actions, greater appreciation of the unexploited potential that lies in creative international solutions to security problems, and a greater emphasis on preventing proliferation rather than trying to manage it. If we abrogate the ABM Treaty or put language in here, in this legislation, or permit language to stay in that allows the Duma, in its own right, to start reinterpreting the ABM Treaty, then I do not see any option but what we are into an arms race again. Just as we spent probably most of the past decade taking some of those dangers down, reducing our arms, taking the targeting out of our missiles and the Soviets took it out--the Russians took it out of their missiles, I think we are in danger of reversing this whole direction, this trend that has been set in place over the past 10 years, and to cope with a threat that is not out there, by the best testimony we have from the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and spend a lot of money in the whole process, $48 billion for a very limited defense system that will not be a full national missile defense. It would be, basically, a missile defense that covers five States.
So I support the change proposed by the Senator from Michigan. I hope our colleagues will look at this very, very carefully. If we are to put into law something that encourages the ABM Treaty to be questioned and the Soviets to have less confidence in the American willingness to abide by that treaty, I think we will have made a drastic mistake in the Senate of the United States.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
[Page: S11255]
Mr. DOLE. I will just take a minute. I want to see if we cannot get agreement on time here. We have been on this amendment since 11 o'clock. I have been listening to people ask for time agreements. We are not even close to a time agreement.
This bill is dying on the floor. This may be a very important amendment, but we intend to complete action on this bill by tomorrow night or I do not see when it comes up again. Because Friday--Saturday we will do appropriations bills, maybe one or two appropriations bills. Maybe late Saturday afternoon we can start on welfare reform, and then late in the week take up the defense appropriations bill.
If we want to pass the DOD bill we have to have cooperation. If we do not want to pass it, I assume we can take 6 or 7 hours on this amendment. It has been 2 1/2 hours.
Is there any indication, any willingness to enter into a time agreement at this point? The Senator from Michigan----
Mr. LEVIN. If that is addressed to me, we are very willing to enter into a time agreement. Two Senators who wanted to speak have already spoken. There is one now who says he is willing to give up his time. I am adding it up and I will come up with a figure in about 2 minutes, now.
Mr. DOLE. I will just wait until the Senator adds it up. If we do not get it now, it may be another hour.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, when the Senator from Michigan adds the time there, we may want some time on the other side of the amendment. Hopefully not as much. I do not think it would take as much.
Mr. LEVIN. We need 1 hour and 50 minutes on this side.
Mr. DOLE. Say 2 hours on that side, and 1 hour on this side? So we could vote, then, by maybe 4:30, depending on how much time we use? I do not think we need 2 hours on this side. I just want to get the time agreement.
If there is no objection, let me propose this consent agreement.
I ask unanimous consent that there be 3 hours on the Levin amendment prior to a motion to table, to be divided 2 hours for Senator Levin or his designee, 1 hour for Senator Thurmond or his designee, no second-degree amendments or amendments to the language proposed to be stricken be in order prior to a failed motion to table, and any second-degree amendment or amendment to the language proposed to be stricken be relevant to the first-degree amendment, and that following the conclusion or yielding back of time, Senator Thurmond or his designee be recognized to table the Levin amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, did the unanimous consent preclude second-degree amendments?
Mr. DOLE. No, not until after a motion to table, if it is not tabled.
Mr. LEVIN. It would be open to second-degree amendments which are relevant.
Mr. DOLE. That is correct.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. EXON. Reserving the right to object, I would hope we are about to be in a place where we could agree to this. I heard the leader say that there would be no second-degree amendments. Now I understand. I was not clear.
If I understand correctly, the amendment offered under the unanimous consent agreement by the majority leader, if we agree to this time agreement, as he has just spelled out, there would be no allowable second-degree amendment to the Levin amendment until after a tabling motion.
Mr. DOLE. That is correct.
Mr. EXON. After a tabling motion, then a second-degree amendment would be in order.
Mr. DOLE. That is what we have done here the last several times.
Mr. EXON. I have no objection.
Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object for one more moment, in the event that it is not tabled, then in the event more second-degree amendments are offered, there is not in this unanimous consent any time limit on those second-degree amendments.
[Page: S11256]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, under this time agreement I would like to yield myself 20 minutes, and I ask to be notified when that 20 minutes has expired.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, since the Senator from Ohio just spoke in favor of the amendment, I thought I would take some of our time to speak in opposition to the amendment.
It seems to me that the arguments in favor of the amendment boil down to three: First of all, variations of the theme of the ABM Treaty is relatively sacrosanct; second, we have to do everything possible to avoid riling the Russians, doing something they may not like; and, third, that we should not limit the power of the President.
Let me discuss each of those arguments in turn. First of all, regarding the 1972 ABM Treaty, I think it is important to recognize that the ABM Treaty has, since its inception in 1972, been under the process of negotiation. There have been discussions going on between our two countries almost throughout that period of time. So the fact that we may be talking about making changes in it is nothing new, and it has never been interpreted as a breach or an anticipatory breach of treaty for the United States to be stating that we want to change a particular part of the agreement. As a matter of fact, the original ABM Treaty called for two national ballistic missile sites, not one. That was amended to one site. And one of the things that is being called for in the underlying legislation here is multiple sites.
I think almost all of us would agree that it does not make sense for us to deploy an ABM system in this country if we cannot have multiple sites. It just will not be effective. So that is our stated policy in the legislation. That is nothing new. It is nothing that the Russians should get excited about. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure what their position would be. I would not be surprised at all if they would agree that multiple sites are appropriate. So I do not think that is a big problem with the policy stated in the bill for multiple sites.
The second point under this first argument is that demarcation, as called for in legislation here, does not violate the ABM Treaty. As a matter of fact, the administration has already been demarking what is appropriate testing for a theater ballistic missile system, and has already been discussing that with the Russians.
Bob Bell, former staff member of the committee, a prominent specialist at the National Security Council, told the National Defense University that, `We have already reached an agreement with the Russians that you can shoot at a target that goes 5 kilometers per second and not have it captured as an ABM .' The problem here is, of course, that the negotiations that the administration has been engaging in went further than that, and accepted, at least temporarily, Russian demands that the proposed demarcation also include a speed limit on the United States' interceptor of 3 kilometers per second, which would in effect dumb down our system to the point where it would not be as robust as we would want it to be.
The point here is that you cannot argue demarcation per se is a violation of the ABM Treaty. The administration has done it. That has been policy. The question before us is whether or not we will in legislation demark that limit at which we can test our theater ballistic missile system since it has never been a part of the ABM Treaty. I think that is an important point for us to make. Again, the ABM Treaty only limits strategic systems. It does not limit theater systems.
All the demarcation in the Warner language does is to define the level of testing that can be engaged in for theater systems. There should not be anything wrong with that. The administration has already engaged in demarcation. As a matter of fact, in a speech before the National Defense University, again referring to Bob Bell, he ably explained that this question of identifying the demarcation between ABM and TMD has been an issue for as long as the treaty has been around, and, as a matter of fact, it has changed. One of the things he said is, what is a TMD and what is not a TMD goes back to the ratification hearings and the negotiations themselves.
During the Senate hearings on the ABM Treaty in 1972, then-Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Johnny Foster, was asked by Senator Proxmire, `Where is the line? Where is the distinction between the two?' He said, `If you shoot a missile interceptor at a target that goes faster than 2 kilometers per second, that is an ABM.'
Of course we all know that demarcation is unacceptable today. That is the point. Technology changes. It has been 23 years since the ABM Treaty was adopted.
What we are trying to do in this legislation is to keep up with the times. As a matter of fact, our own Defense Department has made the point that the treaty has not kept up with the times, and the gentleman who is now the CIA Director, John Deutch, has made the point that the treaty, the ABM Treaty, constrains us in ways that technology should not anymore. And, as a result, it seems to the committee--and it seems to me--that it is important for the United States to draw this demarcation so that we can test the systems that we could ultimately deploy against theater threats.
Why is it important to have the language in the bill? Because the administration in effect proposes to dumb down our TMD. And that is the problem. In both the Patriot system and the THAAD system earlier, we dumbed them down. The reason the Patriot could not be any more successful in the gulf war was because of decisions made right after the ABM Treaty that in effect preclude the use of certain sensors to enable it to be more robust.
We have done the same thing with the THAAD system in taking out certain software and making certain hardware changes that precluded it from being as robust as it otherwise would be in meeting these threats. We cannot do this anymore. And we should not dumb down our TMD system.
Our demarcation language in the bill merely proscribes tests against strategic missiles, as I said, and that enables us then to continue to test the theater system in a way that would make it effective against future threats.
Let me quote, as a matter of fact, from General Shalikashvili. He has been quoted before. Let me first of all quote a January 3 memo to Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch. Here is what he said General Shalikashvili said:
The United States should make no further concessions and even start thinking about rolling back the U.S. negotiating position.
The reason that General Shalikashvili, I believe, made that statement is because he understood that the position that Bob Bell had negotiated with the Russians that I referred to earlier was as far as this country should go; that if we went any further, we would arbitrarily be putting limits on our theater systems in ways that we should not do. That would make them less capable of meeting future threats. That is why he said at that time that we should make no further concessions and even start thinking about rolling back the U.S. negotiating position.
That is the real position of General Shalikashvili. That is the position which is embodied in this legislation, to make no further concessions with regard to this demarcation.
Finally, with respect to this argument that the ABM Treaty is sort of sacrosanct, I want to make this point. There is no anticipatory breach in the bill at all because, of course, there are two specific conditions. No. 1, there can be amendments to the ABM Treaty. That is all we are suggesting should eventually occur here. But it is suggested that maybe the Russians will not agree with the policies stated in the bill, and they will not agree to those negotiations or to our position.
The United States can always withdraw from the ABM Treaty after having given 6 months' notice if that is deemed to be in the interest of the United States. So should we deem it to be in the interest of the United States to act in ways that the Russians would deem inimical to continuation with the ABM Treaty, they can either negotiate or the United States can step out of the treaty. The bill itself does not violate the treaty.
I want to make that point crystal clear.
There is some notion that has been seeping into this debate that somehow there is still a cold war going on here.
The cold war is over. The Soviet Union, with whom we negotiated the ABM Treaty, is no longer even in existence. The threats that the theater ballistic missiles are designed to thwart are not necessarily threats emanating from the Soviet Union or now Russia but, rather, are threats coming from countries like North Korea and Iraq and Iran, and countries of that sort.
Therefore, we cannot be proscribed from acting against those threats because of an ABM Treaty with the Russians. We need to proceed to develop theater missiles that can protect the United States, protect our forces deployed abroad, and protect our allies against these theater threats, whether they come from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, or whatever. So the ABM Treaty really ought not to stop us from doing it.
The second point is that it would cause the Russians to react negatively. It would not be a reason for the United States to forego actions which are clearly in our national interest. The argument that is being made here is the same argument that was used against the Reagan initiatives that in fact today are credited with ending the cold war. Maybe the Russians will react badly to this. Well, as it turned out, by taking bold action, we were able to win peace through strength. The cold war is over because of the initiatives we took and because we did not listen to those who said the Russians might react badly to this if we do it. So I do not necessarily think that is a good argument.
I again refer to the now CIA Director, John Deutch, on the ABM Treaty. In some respects, the technology has exceeded the limits of the ABM Treaty, and we have to go forward with the technology to protect ourselves not just from Russian threats but from threats around the rest of the world. And the problem of waiting for the Russians to agree is that this is no longer a bipolar world and we have these other threats to be concerned about.
It is also, I think, an important point to make that the Russian Duma is not likely to ratify the START II Treaty in any event, and this is clear from a variety of things that come out of Russia. So to suggest that the action we take here is going to prevent Russia from ratifying the START II Treaty is not relevant.
[Page: S11257]
We need big money to carry out these reductions [in START II], and we don't have it. We do not want to ratify this treaty and then not be able to comply with its terms. We will have to wait until we see how to pay for our promises.
That is the reason--or at least that is one of the reasons--nothing to do with what we are talking about today.
Others suggest that ratification should be tied to other international issues.
The Speaker of the Federation Council, their upper chamber, Vladimir Shumeyko, said:
We closely link [START II] ratification with the overall situation existing between Russia and NATO. . . We consider the perseverance of NATO as a stumbling block to our cooperation in the era of disarmament and advancement on the road to peace.
And still others see START II as inimical to Russian interests. Viktor Ilyukhin, chairman of the State Duma Security Committee, said:
If this treaty [START II] is fully implemented, the United States will almost double its superiority, while the damage to Russia's national security will be unrecoverable.
There are many more quotations that I could cite.
The point is there are a lot of reasons why a lot of Russians do not want to ratify the START II Treaty. It is not because of what we are doing in this legislation here today.
Finally, let me just refer to this notion of anticipatory breach. If we are going to use that legal doctrine here, we also ought to refer to the equitable doctrine of clean hands.
I will not take the time here to recite the numerous instances of Soviet and Russian violations of treaties that we have negotiated, but they are numerous. And in some respects we have chosen to ignore those violations because we believe that it is important to continue the dialog and to keep the process moving. But the fact is it would be anomalous for the Russians to consider that a policy we state today that in no way involves a violation of the treaty is some kind of a big deal when they are in violation of a variety of treaties, and should my colleagues desire we can put that information in the Record.
The final argument that is given as a reason to support the amendment of the Senator from Michigan is that the language of the bill ties the President's hands. What we do here is two things. We call for a study to determine what the administration should negotiate relative to the ABM Treaty. We are not saying what the administration has to negotiate. We are saying let us have a study and pick those areas where we want to make a change. One of them I think is going to be clear. We should not go forward in this country to deploy a national defense missile system at one site. That would not make sense. So one of the items clearly is going to be let us ask the Russians to negotiate this multiple site. That is the only way we should deploy a national system. And I do not see what the problem with that is.
In the meantime, we are saying let us not use defense funds to continue, the administration should not use the 050 account to continue to make concessions to the Russians on matters that ought to be either the subject of further negotiation or at least the administration ought to come to the Senate to discuss them with us.
That is the final point I wish to make here. We have been trying for months to get the administration to work with us. That is what advice and consent is all about. And it is true that there are prerogatives of the administration that are important to be protected, and I do not want to step on those. But it is also true that the Senate has prerogatives. We have the right of advice and consent, and thus far the administration has generally ignored the position that at least those of us on this side have taken. What we are asking in this legislation is that you not go any further--in fact, we are demanding that the administration go no further in the direction of making further concessions to the Russians in ways that would limit our ability to develop our theater systems which can be used not just against Russians but against other potential threats; that they do not do that; that they not use defense funds for that purpose. That is why we are saying it is important for us to be talking to the administration.
If the administration wants to get together with us and talk about what they can do, if they want to submit the changes to the Senate, then well and good. So far that has not been the administration's position.
So with regard to the argument that we are stepping on the administration's prerogative, I would just note that the administration has been ignoring the Senate and its advice and consent prerogatives, and it is time for us to be giving a little advice and asking for the ability to consent to what the administration is doing.
Mr. President, the bottom line here is that the Armed Services Committee came up with a very good bill, and I wish to commend the chairman of the committee, Senator Thurmond, who is here; Senator Lott is a member of the committee; Senator Warner made an excellent statement here this morning in opposition to the amendment of the Senator from Michigan, and I believe that it would be in the best interests of the United States for this body to agree with the Armed Services Committee to vote down the amendment of the Senator from Michigan.
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
[Page: S11258]
Notwithstanding the desire to move on briskly, I simply say that I hope, regardless of political affiliation, we will all take a very close look at what we may be about to do unless the Levin, et al, amendment, of which I am proud to be an original cosponsor, is passed.
I have been listening to the Senator from Arizona and his rather interesting remarks, and during those remarks the Senator from Arizona mentioned the names of several very prominent administration officials, including Bob Bell at the White House, National Security Council. He mentioned the present CIA Director, the former second man at the Department of Defense. He mentioned the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili.
I simply want to say that I am not indicating the Senator from Arizona has misrepresented any of the statements that those individuals have made, but I have checked, while the Senator from Arizona was addressing the Senate, with Bob Bell at the White House. Bob Bell tells me that, notwithstanding the name dropping, all of the individuals mentioned by the Senator from Arizona to substantiate his position of being against the Levin amendment is not shared by anyone in the administration including each and every one of the officials mentioned in support of his argument by the Senator from Arizona.
This is a tremendously important matter. My judgment is that this should not come down to a party-line vote.
I am afraid it is going to be a party-line vote. Maybe if we can just reach a few Republicans. I would guess at this time that we would not lose more than one or two Democratic votes, two at the most, on this side of the aisle, maybe none, which means that we Democrats are talking to five, six or seven of our Republican friends asking that they look very closely at this before they vote against the Levin amendment.
I thought it was rather ironic a couple hours ago while I was on the floor at that particular time there were four Senators on the floor. There was Senator Nunn, for whom I have great respect and with whom I have worked closely for 17 years; there was the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, my dear friend, and no one has more respect in this body, in the view of this Senator, than my friend Strom Thurmond from South Carolina; there was John Warner, who came to the Senate the same time as this Senator. And the four of us happened to be here on the floor.
There have been many very important statements made and, I thought, well thought out by Members on both sides of this issue. It is an issue that may not be clear-cut in some people's minds. For 17 years, I believe, on national defense matters I have stood hand in hand with the Senator from South Carolina, the Senator from Virginia and others. I do not know that we have been very far apart, if far at all, on many issues. I can include Senator Lott, a Member of the Senate that I work very closely with; Senator Levin; and others.
I simply say that we are at a point where I do not feel it is fair to indicate people are in bad faith on that side of the aisle on the matter. I just hope they will listen to the pleas that we are making on this side. Maybe a good way to put it is, I think they know not what they do. They are not badly intentioned. I think they know not what they do.
To put this in perspective, I would like to ask a question of the Senator from Michigan on this matter that may put this in some kind of perspective as far as this Senator sees it. Notwithstanding the protestations to the contrary, if the Levin amendment is not adopted, I feel that we have gone a long way down the road to disrupt some of the advances that have taken place over the last few years with regard to downplaying the role of dependence on nuclear devices. It is this Senator's feeling--and I am wondering to what degree this is shared by my friend and colleague from the State of Michigan. Senator Levin and I came here at the same time. We have sat side by side on the Armed Services Committee. We have generally agreed. And I would generally include him in that group of bipartisan Senators, Democrats and Republicans, that have worked hand in hand on critical defense matters.
Without losing my right to the floor, I want to ask Senator Levin this question: If your amendment striking basically the references to the ABM Treaty fails, it is the opinion of this Senator that such action, if your amendment fails, will probably end any chance of finally completing in a successful fashion the implementation of the START I treaty. In all likelihood, further, it will scuttle any chances of cooperation to obtain ratification of the START II treaty and then further eliminations of the number of nuclear warheads that were planned to follow on beyond that. I think it drives a stake through the heart of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. I think it certainly would do great harm to any chances that we have with regard to the nonproliferation treaties that we are interested in. And last and certainly not least, I would think this action very likely would go a long way to maintain a conventional forces understanding in Europe meaningful from the standpoint of seeking some form of stability in the world. All of these things, I think, have a very grave threat of extinction if we proceed in the fashion that the ABM Treaty language that the Senator from Michigan is trying to strike as it came out of the committee remains.
Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is right. In my view and, even more important by far, in General Shalikashvili's view when he says in his letter to Senator Warner, the following:
With regard to broader security issues, the linkage between the ABM Treaty and the START II has been stressed repeatedly by the Russians and U.S. military representatives in many forums, including discussions with many Members of the Duma. While there are, of course, other factors that play in the Duma consideration, one must assume that unilateral U.S. legislation could harm prospects for START II ratification and probably impact our broader security relationship as well.
And it is that broader security relationship that I think my good friend from Nebraska is referring to. And I do agree with his assessment of the impact. But again, our top military officer agrees, our Secretary of Defense agrees, our Secretary of State agrees with that assessment.
Mr. EXON. I thank my friend from Michigan. Let me summarize, if I can, some of the overall problems that I see with this measure that I partially addressed in remarks this morning.
The way this came out of the committee it attacks the limits of the Nunn-Lugar proposal that has been responsible for the safe and accountable disarming of over 2,500 former Soviet Union warheads. It cuts the Energy Department nonproliferation arms control and verification funding. It recommends reconstituting our nuclear weapons manufacturing complex at untold billions of dollars, while at the same time advocating the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons testing. This last committee initiative is contrary to U.S. policy, and it is designed to scuttle ongoing comprehensive test ban negotiations and any prospect of reaching a treaty agreement.
I will have some more to say about this later on as we go into other particular issues under consideration in this bill. Let me simply say, though, I am concerned with the tone and the substance of the bill and the level of micromanagement placed on the Pentagon and the Department of Energy is unprecedented and harmful to our Nation's standing in the international community. Many of the committee initiatives are driven by a desire to defend against a superpower threat to U.S. security that simply does not exist. At the same time, when one-time enemies are now allies and the world community is committed more than ever before to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the committee bill is at odds with the reality and the strong need of amendment before it can properly serve our Nation's security interests. At a time when American leadership in the world community is strongly needed, we cannot be viewed as a nation living in the past, jousting with our imaginary dragons in order to lay claim to the mantle of being strong on defense. We are a strong country, the preeminent military power of the world by far. But we must also be forward looking and recognize that it is in our national interest as well as the interest of other nations to encourage arms control and alliances based on collective security. It is unfortunate that some feel more comfortable in an adversarial environment than in one based on cooperation and lowering of superpower antagonism.
Like a beehive, the world in 1995 has the capacity to be both dangerous and peaceful. And handled properly, the hive can be benign and capable of producing sweet honey. If agitated, however, it can become hostile and threatening. The defense authorization bill in its present form is a sharp stick ready to be jabbed into the hive. The design and intent of the bill is to agitate the world community to the ultimate detriment of ourselves. This is not the time in history to rekindle the rhetoric of the cold war. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment that will correct these and other self-defeating elements of this flawed legislation.
[Page: S11259]
Our military leaders and our intelligence services have properly identified the threats our Nation faces.
They have come before us and told us what threats we face.
We have ignored much of their counsel and drafted a bill addressed to the realities of yesterday and a dark view of a possible future tens of years away.
This provision if enacted will take a step toward abrogating the antiballistic missile treaty, scuttling the START II Treaty, and launching us back into the arms race of the cold war.
This bill includes many weapons systems designed to match a missile threat from the Soviet Union that does not exist. Due to the diligent efforts of former President Bush, President Clinton, our diplomats and Senators like Mr. Nunn and Mr. Lugar, we have been able to substantially curtail that threat, to destroy hundreds of the missiles that used to be aimed at our nations, and to divert the targeting of the others that still remain.
Since 1991, the Nunn-Lugar program has helped the states of the former Soviet Union to destroy their weapons of mass destruction and reduce the threat posed by proliferation of these weapons. This program remains an example of concise policy designed to meet an identified threat and has significantly improved our national security.
We cannot stress to the appropriate degree how important arms control efforts have been to our national security. Today, as a result of bipartisan efforts from different administrations, Russia is planning to eliminate 6,000 nuclear warheads that formerly were directed toward our Nation. That is far more than any national missile defense could hope to destroy.
It would be a shame if the other provisions of this bill caused this progress to be in vain.
Therefore, I reject the provisions in this bill that if enacted will most likely resurrect an arms race between the United States and Russia.
By unilaterally deciding what the ABM standard is in regard to missile interceptors, the Senate would disrupt the negotiating process currently underway. Not only is this an unwarranted intrusion into the normal working of foreign policy, this provision dangerously increases the risk that the ABM and other weapons treaties will be abrogated completely by the Russians.
Later this year the Russian Duma was to vote on the ratification of START II. After they see the provisions in this bill regarding the ABM treaty, and realize how we plan to have a missile defense system that could theoretically counter an attack on the United States, the incentive to destroy the thousands of weapons called for in START II will be greatly diminished.
Regardless of what we tell them, the Russians will logically be thinking, why destroy our missiles when we may need them to get through a U.S. missile defense system?
Though its proponents claim this measure will protect us from a change in Russian policy, this measure will only further destabilize our relations and cause the hardliners in Russia to question our commitment to START II.
We would be throwing away a chance to destroy literally thousands of nuclear weapons on the faint hope that we can build an impenetrable missile defense system.
To justify the national missile defense system now when the Soviet threat is gone, the supporters of this bill are countering the views of our professional military and intelligence personnel and telling the American people a threat exists elsewhere when in fact it does not.
The supporters of this bill say that North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or Libya now have or will have shortly the ability to launch a missile that can reach our shores. That is simply not the case.
The report to this bill specifically notes the possible threat from the North Korean Taepo Dong II missile, which the report claims may have the range to hit Alaska. Since this weapon is in development, we do not in fact know that this missile will be capable of that range. But with North Korea in such dire straits economically and the growing possibility of its opening, with reunification with the south increasingly likely, should we spend billions on a missile defense system that probably won't work to counter a threat that may never exist?
Our professional military and intelligence personnel, the people who have the training, the knowledge, and the access to the most sensitive of information to judge these threats, say there is no threat from any indigenously developed missile for the next 10 years. Yet the supporters of these provisions do not believe those who know the most about this subject.
This presumed threat does not justify spending the tax money of American citizens on unproven and untested antiballistic missile defense.
This bill adds $300 million this year toward a national missile defense system. In 1993, the GAO reported that the cost of such a system would total $35 billion and a CBO estimate from earlier this year pegged the cost at $48 billion. As we know from past estimates, these estimates would probably be low.
The bill calls for the deployment of this system even though it is unproven and untested.
Under the most likely of scenarios, the nuclear umbrella this would create would be a leaky one that fails to completely protect our Nation if the nonexistent threat were to become real. With nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, anything less than 100 percent certainty will not suffice.
One clear lesson from history is that in military affairs, those who concentrate their efforts on defense are bound to fail. In the 1930's and 1940's France felt secure behind the Maginot Line. Their defensive posture was outwitted and decimated by a German Army dedicated to the offensive. When it comes to threats to the United States today, the means chosen to deliver a weapon of mass destruction would very likely be something other than a missile. It may be a cliche that the best defense is a good offense, but it is also true. We should look to counter any incipient threat from rogue nations through a robust offensive capability.
If someone is intent on attacking the United States, they need not be rocket scientists to figure out our Nation's vulnerabilities. Why spend millions of dollars on missiles whose launch we can instantly trace and respond to with enough devastating force to destroy an entire civilization? No, our potential adversaries would most likely seek the path of least resistance. The delivery system posing the greatest threat is the rental truck, not a ballistic missile. We face that real threat through offensive actions against rogue nations and terrorist groups.
We can support and focus our offensive capability through intense intelligence activities, so our policymakers and military commanders know most about what countries or groups are developing weapons of mass destruction, delivery systems, and the characteristics and locations of these systems. Next, the full diplomatic and economic powers of our Nation can be used to counter the threat that may develop. Then, if the developers cannot be dissuaded in peacetime, the weapons themselves can be destroyed either preemptively or in war.
I have heard other Senators state that the United States is vulnerable to an accidental ballistic missile attack. The truth is, the situation today is the same as it has been for 30 years. We have managed to survive this long because governments have stressed proper security and operating procedures for these terrible weapons. Nations understand the gravity of a mistake when nuclear weapons are involved. That is why the launching of one of these missiles involves so many intricate, redundant steps with multiple built-in safeguards.
Yes, Murphy's law is true. Accidents can happen. But to have an accidental ballistic missile launch, several accidents must occur. Several redundant safeguard systems would have to fail all in the proper sequence at the precise moment, not just multiple failures of equipment but also multiple failures of human judgment, communication, and authority.
I am no statistician, but I bet the likelihood of all that occurring simultaneously is far more remote than other Senators have led the public to believe. It would be far more likely that an interceptor missile in the national missile defense aimed at a moving target would miss its mark. The threat of an accidental ballistic missile launch toward our shores does not meet even the lowest threshold to qualify as a legitimate threat.
Again, I say to my colleagues, we need to have a rational assessment of the threats our Nation faces. And the threat we face from a Russia with several thousand more nuclear weapons is far greater than the threat from a Russia that abides by the START II agreement.
[Page: S11260]
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Snowe). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. EXON. I ask the Chair how much time is remaining of the time assigned to the Senator from Nebraska?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six and a half minutes.
Mr. EXON. I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at this time, I be allowed to yield in this order: 8 minutes to Senator Simon; 15 minutes to Senator Kerry; 8 minutes to Senator Bingaman, and that they be recognized in that order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. SIMON. Madam President, it was just a few days ago when Senator Byrd, in the middle of a series of votes, was acknowledged for his 14,000th vote in a row. He got up and, among other things, he said there is a growing and excessive partisanship in this body.
I was on the subway this morning with Senator Lugar, and some young eager student asked me what was different from when I came here. I said, `The body, the Congress as a whole, is more partisan than it used to be.'
I mention that because if we end up with a straight party vote on something as vital to the future of our Nation as this is, we have not done our two parties a favor. I think the Levin amendment is extremely important to the security of our country.
If we just decide we are going to abrogate the ABM Treaty on our own, we are going to interpret it the way we want to, and that is what this amendment calls for, we are going to raise fears all over the world. We are going to be playing into the hands of the Russian hardliners. No one should misunderstand that for a moment. If we pass this bill without the Levin amendment, the Russian hardliners are going to say, `We're going to have to stop this elimination of nuclear warheads. We're going to have to move in the other direction.'
Unilaterally to say this is what the ABM Treaty is going to be--and among other things in this bill it says, no U.S. official, presumably the Department of Defense, can discuss with any other country what the ABM Treaty means. That is a restriction on freedom of speech, among other things, that is unwise.
What we have is the present course where we are gradually reducing the nuclear threat, the arms threat in the world where we have moved from the great threat being nuclear annihilation, to the great threat being instability around the world, and we are going to move to a world where the threat is both instability and a nuclear threat.
Our present course reduces the nuclear danger. I happen to think we are spending way too much on arms. We are spending more than the next eight countries combined. If you take a look at the 1973 defense appropriations and add the inflation factor to it, we are spending more today than we were in 1973. That is when the Berlin wall was up, that is when we were in Vietnam, that is when we had almost twice as many troops in Europe.
I think some sensible reduction in arms expenditure is desirable and, frankly, I think even the high number requested by the administration would not be there but for the sensitivity of the President, because he was not part of the military, he does not want to look like he is antimilitary. But this $7 billion increase is just unwarranted.
On top of that, to say we are going to just unilaterally decide what the ABM Treaty means, on top of that to escalate the nuclear threat, I think, just does not make any sense at all, and it is going to waste billions and billions and billions of dollars in addition to increasing the threat to our country.
If this bill passes in substantially the present condition, then I think the President of the United States has no option but to veto it, and I will strongly urge the President to veto it.
We have to move away from an arms race. This bill, without the Levin amendment, increases the probability of an arms race.
Madam President, I yield whatever time I may have left to Senator Levin.
Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized for 15 minutes.
Mr. KERRY. Thank you, Madam President.
Madam President, I want to congratulate the Senator from Michigan and also thank the Senator from Illinois for his comments with respect to this amendment. It seems that some of our colleagues in this body, in the wake of losing the former Soviet empire and the monolith of communism as targets of their opposition, now have lost their compass. They seem unsure of where to direct their energies and our taxpayers' money, and so are struggling to find another opponent at which to throw this Nation's treasure--regardless of the costs or risks entailed.
The Soviet Union has ceased to exist, and we are well into implementation of the START I Treaty limiting nuclear weapons and on our way to a START II Treaty to dismantle strategic delivery systems and further limit nuclear weapons.
So we are on a course where the compass clearly points toward reduction in the number of nuclear weapons present in our world, toward the reduction of risk to our citizens and our society itself from an aggressor's attack, toward the control and reduction of weapons, and, indeed, toward the creation of stability in our world's political equation.
As all of us who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's understand, nuclear deterrence is built on the concept of mutually assured destruction. `They' can destroy `us,' `we' can destroy `them,' so neither chooses to destroy the other because nobody knows what would be left.
In effect, that has maintained a state of rough peace--even if an uneasy peace--since the end of World War II. Certainly there have been surrogate wars and smaller skirmishes and client-state struggles around the globe, but the great nuclear powers have never seen fit to attack each other because of the belief that the damage that would be returned would be unacceptably great.
Now, in 1995, we are no longer faced with Soviet expansionism, a Soviet desire to exploit every conceivable Western weakness, and, in every way short of initiating an all-out conflict, a Soviet desire to achieve and maintain the advantage in every competitive situation. We no longer stare across the North Pole at thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads targeted on America's cities, its industrial and military facilities, and its governmental and social lifelines. Yet in the bill that is before the Senate today, we have a provision that unilaterally abandons--and, I would argue, effectively nullifies--one of the critical ingredients that has brought us to the point where the compass is pointing in the right direction.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile--or ABM --Treaty is a keystone to this arms control progress--which already has made huge contributions to the security and safety of our Nation and its people, and offers the promise of even greater safety and security in the foreseeable future.
The bill brought before the Senate by the Republican-controlled Armed Services Committee establishes as our national policy that we will have a national missile defense system at `multiple locations,' which violates the ABM Treaty. It says that we will develop defense systems against theater ballistic missiles without regard to the ABM Treaty restrictions. It prohibits our President from even negotiating on this subject. It prohibits any interference with TMD missile testing that is self-apparently illegal under the ABM Treaty which our Nation signed and this very body ratified.
The bill before us unilaterally obliterates the ABM Treaty, Madam President.
Anyone who understands the history and psyche of the Russian people knows that they adamantly insist on realistic means of defending their nation. Fundamental to their willingness to enter into arms control agreements, and to continue to abide by them, is a requirement that their strategic weapons systems be effective in order to serve as a real deterrent to aggression against their nation, and an effective means of retaliation if that deterrence fails.
If the United States moves ahead unilaterally to build a system that can defend successfully against their strategic forces, we undo a delicate balance, and in the process almost surely destroy the willingness of the Russian nation to continue to honor arms control agreements that further damage their side of the balance-of-power equation.
Madam President, nuclear deterrence is already tricky enough. But it really has always rested on each nation's perceptions of the others' forces and of the threat that is poised against it. We hold the upper hand with respect to that today, relative to every country on the face of this planet.
Today, to break out of the ABM Treaty, or signal our intention to do so, is to invite a return to the days of suspicion and countersuspicion, and far more dangerously, to invite a diminishment of the stability of our current world order. It is not perfect, of course, but I think few would argue with the assertion that it is better than it was for the 40 years between 1949 and 1989.
We do not attack each other, because we know to do so would be to beg the ultimate destruction. But if we develop a capacity to knock down anything that could be sent at us, we have changed the threat perception--the perception of whether a balance exists--changed it in our own mind, and changed it for those who are our adversaries.
Changing the threat perception or the perception of whether a balance exists initiates the very hopscotching process that is the simple history of the entire cold war. We detonated the first atom bombs; the Soviets followed. We detonated the hydrogen bomb; they followed. We put long-range bombers in the air with nuclear weapons; they followed. We developed intercontinental ballistic missiles; they followed. We developed long-range submarines with ballistic missile capability; they followed. We developed multiple independently-targeted reentry vehicle or MIRVed nuclear warheads; they followed. Every single major episode of the cold war consisted of a first effort by the United States to develop technology that would give us an advantage. In every case, the Soviets responded by countering that advantage. After the Berlin wall fell, finally it became evident that this was an insane and vicious circle, consuming precious resources in our Nation and bankrupting the Soviet Union--in more than one respect.
But now, at long last, that threat has receded. The Soviet Union is no more. And the threat of ballistic missile attack of the United States is virtually nil--and will be virtually nil for many years.
Only Russia and China today can reach the United States with a nuclear warhead carried on an ICBM. All our intelligence agencies agree that there is no significant threat of such a missile attack today from either of those nations. Russia, while one must respect the military power still at its disposal, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, is not in any wise prepared to engage our Nation in an armed conflict. China has some strategic ballistic missile capability, but not anywhere close to enough to initiate a war with the United States. We are the only remaining superpower.
And our intelligence community further agrees that no other nation will be able to develop the ability to hit the United States with ballistic-missile-conveyed weapons of mass destruction for a minimum of 10 years.
[Page: S11261]
We see no interest in or capability of any new country reaching the continental United States with a long-range missile for at least the next decade.
Then-Acting Director of Central Intelligence Adm. William Studeman, in response to questions asked at that same hearing, replied that
No new countries have emerged with the motivation to develop a missile to target CONUS and the four that we previously identified--North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Libya--are at least a decade away.
The administration, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of State are all opposed to the missile defense and ABM provisions of this bill. Let me share the Secretary of State's letter with the Senate. In a letter to the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he says:
I am writing to you to express my deep concern over certain provisions in S. 1026. Specifically, it contains missile defense and ABM Treaty-related provisions that raise serious constitutional foreign policy and national security concerns. Unless these provisions are removed or modified, I will oppose this bill.
If enacted into law, the provisions related to missile defenses and the ABM Treaty would put the U.S. on a path to violate the ABM Treaty by developing for deployment a non-compliant, multi-site, National Missile Defense by the year 2003. Such a program is unnecessary and would place the START I and START II treaties at risk.
I know that the Secretary of Defense also has opposed these provisions.
Successive administrations, this one included, have supported the continued viability of the ABM Treaty as the best way to preserve and enhance our national security.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have the entire letter printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
[Page: S11262]
I might add, respectfully, that there are other ways to respond to a perceived threat that do not require building $40 billion systems that we do not even know will work when they are completed. We could use permissive action links; we could be negotiating harder with the Russians, and others, to take steps to prevent any kind of accidental launch; we could pursue the activities supported by Nunn-Lugar program funding, including strengthening Russian government controls over their nuclear weapons, safely and surely dismantling surplus nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and preventing technicians from transferring dangerous technologies to rogue states; we can provide for integral systems that literally destroy a missile before it is launched if someone tries to fire it without authorization.
Indeed, under the terms of the ABM Treaty, we already are allowed to develop an antiballistic missile defense system in one location, and we started to do some years ago in Grand Forks and then we decided it was too expensive and we gave it up.
But that is not the course this bill takes, Madam President. The missile defense and ABM provisions of this bill are an exercise in sheer lunacy. This is an attempt to create from thin air a reason to continue the numbingly expensive defense systems that the demise of the cold war has made superfluous--while simultaneously threatening the tremendous progress we have made in reducing the threat to our people from nuclear weapons.
The effect of this bill is to jettison the current, real, demonstrable protections of the START I and START II Treaties in exchange for spending a minimum of $40 billion to develop a system to attempt to defend our Nation against ballistic missiles--an entirely theoretical system that may or may not function as designed.
There are some Senators who have argued that we must be prepared, even if the risk is small and distant, for the possible threat of a potential aggressor nation developing and choosing to use against the United States a ballistic missile carrying a weapon of mass destruction. Others have said that the biggest risk is that some rogue nations may purchase such systems from either Russia or China. Mr. President, the fact is that if such nations wish us ill, and choose to act on those wishes, there are far less expensive, far faster, far easier, and far less technically complicated and failure-prone ways to wreak ill on the United States--ways against which a national missile defense system would be powerless to defend.
Should a rogue nation, for whatever reason, choose to pursue development and fielding of a ballistic missile system capable of reaching our Nation, that capacity is so far down the road, so prone to detection, and so capable of being preemptively neutralized if necessary, that the world should not shudder at the notion that we are somehow defenseless.
The main threats to our Nation today are from terrorists rolling bombs, nuclear or conventional, into our cities in cars or trucks, or carrying them in suitcases. Or cruise missiles launched from offshore. These are threats that the $40 billion-plus national missile defense system either cannot defend against at all, or against which the system could defend only incompletely.
The biggest threat of all, Madam President, is one right before our faces. It is the very same threat with which we have lived for the duration of the cold war, and which we finally reduced dramatically and are reducing further by the arms control treaties which are constructed on the bedrock foundation of the ABM Treaty. Trashing the ABM Treaty will rekindle the strategic/nuclear arms race with Russia, because even in its current condition of economic distress, Russia will do whatever is necessary to ensure it has an effective deterrent and retaliatory capability. Russia, at a minimum, will retarget its ICBM's and SLBM's on American cities, industries, and military installations. It will stop retiring and disassembling nuclear warheads and delivery systems. The progress toward a safer world that was so painstakingly and painfully achieved over two decades by Presidents of both parties would be demolished. Surely, in a world that lacks the Soviet empire, in a world where we do not have the same kind of threat we have lived with for the last 50 years, we do not have to turn around and create a new arms race.
Let us review the effects of this provision of the bill: In one sweeping movement, we are effectively demolishing--unilaterally--a treaty to which our Nation is a party and which this Chamber ratified. This action simply ignores procedures to withdraw legally from a treaty we determine no longer is in our best interests.
We are countenancing in law the known, deliberate violation of U.S. law.
We are pushing Russia to cease abiding by