May 5, 1999
Does the ABM Treaty Still Serve U.S. Strategic and Arms Control
Objectives in A Changed World?
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared
statement...................................................... 149
Habiger, Gen. Eugene E., former Commander in Chief, U.S.
Strategic Command, Omaha, NE................................... 139
Lehman, Hon. Ronald F., former Director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency............................................. 122
Prepared statement of........................................ 127
Remarks entitled ``Changing Realities,'' November 1992,
published 1993......................................... 129
Remarks entitled ``START II, Missile Non-Proliferation,
and Missile Defense--The Offense-Defense Relationship:
Past and Future.'' February 14, 1996, at Carnegie
Endowment Seminar...................................... 132
Payne, Dr. Keith B., president and director of research, National
Institute for Public Policy; and adjunct professor, Georgetown
University, Washington, DC..................................... 141
Prepared statement of........................................ 144
Woolsey, Hon. R. James, former Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency............................................ 116
Prepared statement of........................................ 120
S. Hrg. 106-339
BALLISTIC MISSILES: THREAT AND RESPONSE
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 15 AND 20, MAY 4, 5, 13, 25, 26, AND SEPTEMBER 16, 1999
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
<snowflake>
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
56-777 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
PAUL COVERDELL, Georgia PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
BILL FRIST, Tennessee
Stephen E. Biegun, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
DOES THE ABM TREATY STILL SERVE U.S. STRATEGIC AND ARMS CONTROL
OBJECTIVES IN A CHANGED WORLD?
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1999
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in
room SD-562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Hon. Chuck
Hagel presiding.
Present: Senators Hagel and Biden.
Senator Hagel. On behalf of the Foreign Relations
Committee, I welcome all of you to today's hearing, the fourth
in the Foreign Relations Committee series of hearings that have
focused on the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
This morning's distinguished witnesses are experts in the
fields of arms control and missile defense. They are the
Honorable Jim Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence from
1993 to 1995; Honorable Ronald Lehman, Director for the Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency from 1989 to 1993; Dr. Keith
Payne, a foremost scholar on arms control issues and president
and founding research director at the National Institute for
Public Policy; and my--not old, but long-time friend--Air Force
General Eugene Habiger, former Commander in Chief, United
States Strategic Command.
And we welcome you all here this morning, and we are
grateful that you would spend a little time to make the kind of
contributions that are important to this issue. And we
appreciate your presence because within each of you embodies a
number of insights that are very important to the perspective
on not only this issue, but the long-term issues that we are
dealing with relative to the consequences of what we do next,
and how we go about taking that action.
At the outset, let me say that I personally strongly
believe that the United States must begin the task of
immediately designing, building and deploying a national
missile defense system to protect the American people from the
growing threat of ballistic missile attack.
The Rumsfeld Commission has warned rather clearly that both
North Korea and Iran ``would be able to inflict major
destruction on the U.S. within about 5 years of a decision to
acquire such a capability.''
No one that watched North Korea's flight testing of the
Taepo Dong-I or Iran's launches of the Shahab-3 can reasonably
doubt that the decision has been made to go forward with their
technology. Both of these nations know that America cannot now
defend itself against missile attack, as does all of the world.
And yet this administration continues to stall and delay in
deploying such a defense. It is becoming very clear that over
the course of this committee's investigation that the true
source of the Clinton administration's opposition to ballistic
missile defense seems to be its devotion to what many of us
believe is an antiquated arms control agreement, the 1972 ABM
Treaty.
Like many of my colleagues, I am deeply troubled that this
country is being held hostage to an outdated concept of
strategic deterrence that has outlived its purpose. It is no
longer relevant, and most importantly has placed the United
States in a very dangerous and vulnerable position. Former
Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger put it best when he
recently wrote, and I quote, ``The end of the cold war has made
a strategy of mutually assured destruction largely irrelevant.
Barely plausible when there was only one strategic opponent,
the theory makes no sense in a multi-polar world of
proliferating nuclear powers.''
Gentlemen, again, we are grateful for your testimony, and
the committee looks forward to hearing your insights.
With that, let me now ask each of you to present your
testimony.
I will be joined by colleagues as votes occur and other
committees lighten their load and we would ask that each of you
give your statements and then we will come back with questions.
I would ask Mr. Woolsey to begin. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. R. JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Ambassador Woolsey. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will, if it
is all right, ask for my statement to be inserted in the
record, and I will just speak informally from it for a few
minutes.
Senator Hagel. It will be.
Ambassador Woolsey. What I would like to suggest this
morning, Mr. Chairman, is that in the circumstances of today,
strong support for ballistic missile defense and a willingness
to amend substantially, even to withdraw from, the ABM Treaty
is a reasonable position.
And I want to suggest to the committee that it is a
reasonable position even for those who, like myself, have
historically emphasized the central importance of offensive
strategic systems, have seen some value in certain arms control
agreements, and did not initially welcome President Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative. The circumstances have changed,
and to my mind that calls for a substantial change in our
assumptions and policies.
I will skip the biographical points I made really to just
point out to the committee that I have been involved in this
issue for 30 years in one way or another, in a number of
different capacities.
And I mention that in 1987, immediately after the Reykjavik
summit, Brent Scowcroft and I co-authored an article in the New
York Times Magazine, which included the following statement in
criticism of the proposals to end all ballistic missiles that
President Reagan had made at Reykjavik and to rely,
essentially, completely on SDI.
We wrote, ``The official line has become a sort of a
strategic Manichaeanism: that there exists only the dawn of SDI
and the darkness of mutual assured destruction that went before
it. The concept of careful and stable deterrence, with
modernization of nuclear weapons to improve their
survivability, some militarily useful work on defensive systems
and moderate arms control was abandoned.''
Now, in the circumstances of the time, Mr. Chairman, I
think that that was at least a reasonable and defensible
position which we advanced.
But it is important to realize that for a number of those
of us who held that set of views, it was not desirable that the
world consisted of a strategic situation in which assured
destruction was mutual.
It was very far from being desirable from our point of view
that the Soviet Union was able to destroy the United States.
Quite a few of us never liked the mutual aspect of mutual
assured destruction at all.
But we persuaded ourselves that nonetheless the ABM Treaty
presented the lesser of two evils really for two reasons. First
of all, we were not convinced that the technologies that were
available or even foreseeable in the early seventies, when the
treaty was signed and even through much of the eighties, for
ballistic missile defense were going to spawn deployable
systems that were capable of defending us reliably against our
major concern, which was an all-out Soviet attack.
Threats of lesser magnitude, such as from rogue states,
were not really on the horizon at that point. And as far as
China was concerned, the central strategic reality with respect
to China for most of that period was that we were cooperating
with China in what began in the Nixon administration--I think a
rather clever triangulation effort to work cooperatively with
China against the much larger threat, the Soviet Union.
So for that set of reasons, ballistic missile defense was
not at the forefront of much of--for many of us--our thinking.
The second reason was a sort of belt and suspenders reason.
We felt that the massive Soviet lead in large ICBM's equipped
with MIRV's seriously threatened our own ICBM force,
particularly Minuteman. And that would force us, in a crisis--
particularly a crisis that might arise in Europe where the
Soviets had a huge conventional force, particularly the Group
of Soviet Forces in Germany that threatened Western Europe--in
which if nuclear war should come about, we might be thrown back
on relying very heavily on our own ballistic missile
submarines, the ICBM's and a major share of the bombers being
vulnerable.
In such a situation, Soviet deployment of an ABM system, we
felt, could lead Soviet advisors and the Politbureau to be too
optimistic.
We thus felt it was important to limit Soviet defenses to
the relatively small deployment around Moscow because they had
an extensive infrastructure of sophisticated radars and air
defense interceptors that in some circumstances might be
applicable to dealing with an American retaliatory strike.
And we felt that deterring the Soviets in a crisis depended
very heavily on our being able to clearly and under all
circumstances penetrate their defenses.
We believed that strategic stability required the Soviets
to have that degree of certainty, and we were willing to pay in
the coin of limiting American defensive systems in order that
the Soviets would not have effective defenses.
Now that thinking may seem dated today--and to some it was
not persuasive in 1972, and it came increasingly to be
questioned after President Reagan's famous 1983 SDI speech.
By the end of the cold war and in the nineties the
strategic changes are major: (a) the rise of the possibility of
an accidental or unauthorized launch by the increasingly
chaotic Russian military forces, even including the Strategic
Rocket Forces; (b) persistent work on longer range and more
flexible ballistic missiles and on weapons of mass destruction
by rogue states; and I would add, (c) China's increasingly
intransigent position with respect to Taiwan and its own
ballistic missile threat against the United States. For all of
these reasons, I believe that the ABM Treaty in today's world
really has to be seen in an entirely different light.
First, I would say there is common ground possible between
those of us who have been on different sides of the ABM Treaty
debate in the past. We may have both been somewhat right and
somewhat wrong. It does not matter. Together, we won the cold
war. It is time--indeed, it is past time--to go on to the next
set of problems.
Second, if we focus on the strategic realities of today,
there is, in my judgment, no strategic rationale for the ABM
Treaty. The old rationale of our wanting to limit Soviet
defenses as spelled out above does not apply to today's Russia
or to the Russia of the foreseeable future.
Even if that country turns more hostile to the United
States than it is today, Russia is no longer capable of
threatening Europe with many divisions of conventional forces,
so it would have no advantage in a crisis on that continent.
Moreover, Russian strategic nuclear forces do not threaten
a substantial share of our nuclear deterrent. The deterrent
that we do maintain is no longer heavily reliant on fixed land-
based ICBM's that might be vulnerable to Russian attack.
Hence, we have no particular reason to want to limit
Russian defenses to ensure that our retaliatory forces would be
able to penetrate those defenses.
The only rationale in my judgment for the ABM Treaty today
is one that is rooted in current foreign affairs concerns.
The Russians do not want us to withdraw from it, so doing
so would, presumably, upset them and perhaps lead them to do
other things that we do not want. For example, they may
threaten for the dozenth time or so to refuse to ratify the
START II Treaty.
But it seems to me there is a limit to the degree to which
we should let this sort of thing influence us. In the first
place, numbers of Russian warheads are not the principal threat
to strategic stability now. We are not worried particularly
about their launching an attack on our fixed land-based ICBM's.
It is better for the Russians to have more warheads if
those are controlled by a solid command and control system,
than fewer warheads in a chaotic situation.
Numbers of warheads were the currency back in the seventies
and even into the eighties because of the threat to our fixed
land-based ICBM's.
As far as I am concerned, that is not the currency any
more. That is not the measure, the figure of merit, that one
should focus on when dealing with the strategic balance.
It seems to me that it is worthwhile--because Russia is an
important nation and a country that we need to work with on a
number of matters--and important to propose changes to the
Russians with respect to the ABM Treaty, and to try to work
with them as we did in 1992.
President Yeltsin himself made a remarkable speech in
January 1992 and that led to the Ross-Mamedov talks in 1992-93,
in which the Bush administration tried to bring the Russian
Government around to support for substantial amendments to the
ABM Treaty and a reasonably substantial deployment of ballistic
missile defenses in the United States.
It is worth trying in my judgment to return to the days of
1992. I believe with the current Russian Government, success is
most unlikely, but I think the probability is not zero.
If such an approach proves fruitless, there are ample legal
and strategic grounds, in my view, for withdrawing from the
treaty.
We cannot perpetually let our security versus the likes of
North Korea, Iran, and Iraq be held hostage to Russia's not
wanting us to have defenses.
In the meantime, Mr. Chairman, I do not support, and I
urged the Senate nearly 2 years ago not to approve, the
delineation agreement that the administration has reached with
the Russians, which limits unnecessarily the effectiveness of
our theater defenses, nor the accompanying expansion of the
treaty to encompass Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
That expansion to include those countries is a step for
which, in my judgment, there is not even the tiniest shred of a
strategic rationale. We do not fear an attack from Belarus,
Ukraine or Kazakhstan with intercontinental ballistic missiles,
because they do not have any.
We do not need to limit their defenses in order to deter
them from attacking us; therefore, we do not care what kind of
defensive systems Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have. And
there is absolutely no reason for our giving someone such as
Mr. Lukashenko, who speaks for the most unreconstructed parts
of the reds and browns in the former Soviet Union, some sort of
veto over our ability to defend ourselves.
In my judgment, Mr. Chairman, only a very major
modification of or withdrawal from the treaty would meet our
strategic needs.
As interpreted by the administration, the treaty is even
undermining the effectiveness of our theater ballistic missile
defenses at the present time, systems that are not supposed to
be covered by the treaty.
A very limited one- or two-site defense of the United
States of the sort that might be compatible with a treaty that
has only been modestly amended would be essentially worthless
against some perfectly plausible threats such as ship-launched
ballistic missiles. That is one of the threats that we
identified during the deliberations of the Rumsfeld Commission
on which I served.
Indeed against some very plausible threats, such as
ballistic missiles carrying clusters of biological weapons that
might be released early in an ICBM's trajectory, only boost-
phase intercept from space is going to offer a possible
solution.
In short, Mr. Chairman, the world in which the ABM Treaty
was an imperfect but, in my view, a reasonable accommodation to
the strategic circumstances in which we found ourselves is gone
with the wind.
In the new world in which we live, we now require defenses
for our security. And our treaty obligations should be adjusted
to serve our strategic needs, not the other way around.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Woolsey, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Woolsey follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. R. James Woolsey
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, it is an honor to be asked
to testify before you today on the topic of the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty of 1972.
It is my purpose to suggest to you that, in the circumstances of
today, strong support for ballistic missile defense and a willingness
to amend substantially, even to withdraw from, the ABM Treaty is a
reasonable position--even for those who, like myself, have historically
emphasized the central importance of offensive strategic weapons, have
seen some value in certain arms control agreements, and did not
initially welcome President Reagans Strategic Defense Initiative. The
circumstances have changed, and that calls for a substantial change in
our assumptions and our policies.
In order to make this point, I believe it would be informative to
trouble you with a few biographical points. Thirty years ago this fall,
as a Captain in the U.S. Army, I was serving as an analyst of strategic
programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and in that
capacity I was assigned as an advisor on the U.S. delegation to the
first round of the SALT I talks in Helsinki. Thus I was a very junior
participant in the initial negotiations that led, three years later, to
the ABM Treaty. When the treaty was approved by the Senate in 1972 I
was the General Counsel of the Senate Armed Services Committee and
assisted Senator Stennis in the Committee's consideration of the treaty
and the floor debate. Then for three years in the late 1970's, as Under
Secretary of the Navy, I was heavily involved in the Navy's strategic
force planning, especially for the Trident program, some important
aspects of which were influenced by the existence of the treaty.
In 1983, I was a member of President Reagan's Commission on
Strategic Forces, the Scowcroft Commission (and the principal draftsman
of its report); we did not reject SDI when it was announced by the
President during the middle of our deliberations, but it is fair to say
that the Commission assigned SDI a decidedly secondary role to what we
felt to be the nation's central strategic objective: maintaining a
survivable and effective offensive deterrent. Following the Reykjavik
summit of 1986, I was the co-author of an article in the New York Times
Magazine that was highly critical of President Reagan's proposal there
to ban all ballistic missiles and rely principally on SDI for our
strategic protection. We wrote in the article:
``The official line has become a sort of strategic
Manichaeanism: that there exist only the dawn of S.D.I. and the
darkness of mutual assured destruction that went before it. The
concept of careful and stable deterrence, with modernization of
nuclear weapons to improve their survivability, some militarily
useful work on defensive systems and moderate arms control, was
abandoned.''
One aspect of the approach to strategic issues summarized by this
quotation, for many of us in the seventies and eighties, included
adherence to the ABM Treaty. But for an important share of the treaty's
supporters, acceptance of the treaty was not accompanied by any lapse
into revery about the beauty of the concept of mutual assured
destruction. It was very far from desirable, for many of us who
supported the treaty then, that by agreeing not to deploy nationwide
ballistic missile defenses we would thereby guarantee most Soviet
missiles a free ride to American targets--quite a few of us never liked
the mutual aspect of mutual assured destruction. But we persuaded
ourselves then that, nonetheless, the treaty presented the lesser of
two evils, for two reasons.
First, we were not convinced that the technologies foreseeable in
the early seventies, or even through much of the eighties, for
ballistic missile defenses were going to spawn deployable systems
capable of defending reliably against our major concern--an all-out
Soviet attack. Very little else with respect to threats was on anyone's
mind. Thus we felt that the U.S. was not giving up something that was
practically attainable when it signed on to the treaty. Threats of
lesser magnitude, other than the one that came to be posed by Chinese
ICBM's, were not apparent in those years. (And for most of this period
we were working cooperatively with China against the Soviet Union on a
range of issues.)
Second, we felt that the massive Soviet lead in large ICBM's
equipped with MIRV's, together with its reasonably capable ballistic
missile submarine force, put a large share of our own ICBM's and
bombers theoretically at risk if the Soviets should ever contemplate
launching a first strike in the midst of some crisis. This forced us in
our strategic planning to rely heavily on our own ballistic missile
submarines as the only truly survivable part of the American nuclear
deterrent. Soviet deployment of an early ABM system around Moscow,
together with their extensive infrastructure of sophisticated radars
and air defense interceptors throughout the country, led some of us to
join the you-need-both-a-belt-and-suspenders set. We wanted to ensure
that--even if U.S. offensive forces were heavily depleted by a Soviet
attack and Soviet defenses were upgraded--the United States' ability to
retaliate using submarine-launched missiles alone would be clear and
sufficient. We felt that checking Soviet recklessness in a crisis--most
likely one in which the Soviets would be able to count on superiority
of conventional forces in Europe--heavily depended on this clarity and
sufficiency, and that limiting Soviet deployment of even less-than-
perfect ABM defenses was extremely important to this end.
This thinking seems dated now--to some it was not persuasive even
in 1972--and it came to be increasingly questioned after President
Reagan's famous 1983 SDI speech. By the nineties it became outdated in
almost all of its assumptions due to the end of the cold war, the rise
in the possibility of an accidental or unauthorized launch of a
ballistic missile by increasingly chaotic Russian military forces, and
persistent work on both longer-range and more flexible ballistic
missiles and on weapons of mass destruction by rogue states such as
North Korea, Iran, and Iraq.
My point with respect to the ABM Treaty in today's world is really
twofold.
First, there is common ground possible, today, between those who
have been on different sides of the ABM Treaty debate in the past. Both
those who have opposed the treaty for many years (often in company with
early support of the more ambitious forms of SDI) and those, such as
myself, who supported the treaty during the same period and were
skeptical of ambitious SDI, need to realize that what matter, today,
are the decisions that now need to be made, not ancient jousts between
SDI supporters and ABM Treaty supporters during the era before the fall
of the Berlin wall. We may have both been somewhat right and somewhat
wrong. It doesn't matter. Together we won the cold war. It's time,
indeed past time, to go on to the next set of problems.
Second, if one focuses on the strategic realities of today, I would
submit that there is no strategic rationale for the ABM Treaty. The old
rationale for our wanting to limit Soviet defenses, as spelled out
above, does not apply to today's Russia or the Russia of the
foreseeable future, even if that nation turns more hostile to the U.S.
than it is today. Russia is no longer capable of threatening Europe
with many divisions of conventional forces so it would have no
advantage in a crisis on that continent. Consequently we do not need to
rely in any day-to-day sense on our strategic offensive nuclear forces
to protect our NATO allies from Russian conventional attack. Moreover,
Russian strategic nuclear forces do not threaten a substantial share of
our nuclear deterrent: the deterrent that we do maintain is no longer
heavily reliant on fixed land-based ICBM's that might be vulnerable to
Russian attack, and hence we have no reason to want to limit Russian
defenses to ensure that our retaliatory forces would be able to
penetrate Russian defenses.
The only rationale for the ABM Treaty today is one rooted in
current foreign relations concerns: the Russians do not want us to
withdraw from it, so doing so would, presumably, upset them and perhaps
lead them to do other things that we don't want. For example, for the
umpteenth time they may threaten to refuse to ratify the START II
Treaty. But it seems to me there is a limit to the degree to which we
should let this sort of thing influence us. The Russians were willing
in 1992, following President Yeltsin's remarkable speech in January of
that year, to consider substantial revisions to the ABM Treaty and to
discuss mutual work on ballistic missile defenses with us. Perhaps this
or the next Russian government will prove similarly reasonable in the
future. That doesn't look likely today, but it is still worth offering,
in my view, to work with the Russians in the way that we began in 1992
and abandoned in 1993. If that proves fruitless there are ample legal
and strategic grounds for withdrawing from the treaty. We cannot
perpetually let our security vis-a-vis the likes of North Korea, Iran,
and Iraq be held hostage to Russia's not wanting us to have defenses.
In the meantime, in my judgment, the Senate should not approve the
delineation agreement that the Administration has already reached with
the Russians, which limits unnecessarily the effectiveness of our
theater defenses, nor the accompanying expansion of the treaty to
encompass Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan--a step for which there is
not even the most remote strategic rationale. We don't have any reason
to want to limit these countries' ballistic missile defenses. Why
should we let them have a hand in limiting ours?
In my view only a very major modification of, or a withdrawal from,
the treaty would meet our strategic needs. Even if one believes that a
full defense against an all-out Russian attack is not attainable, the
treaty clearly hinders our ability to defend ourselves against a number
of lesser and plausible threats during this post-cold war era: rogue
states, an accidental launch from Russia, or a launch from China
provoked by, e.g., a crisis over Taiwan. As interpreted by,
particularly, this Administration, the treaty is even undermining the
effectiveness of our theater ballistic missile defenses, systems that
are not supposed to be covered by the treaty. A very limited one- or
two-site defense of the U.S. of the sort that might be compatible with
a treaty that has been only modestly amended, would be essentially
worthless against some perfectly plausible threats, such as ship-
launched ballistic missiles, that we identified during the
deliberations of the Rumsfeld Commission. Indeed against some very
plausible threats, such as ballistic missiles carrying clusters of
biological weapons that may be released early in the trajectory, only
boost-phase intercept from space offers a likely response.
In short, Mr. Chairman, the world in which the ABM Treaty was an
imperfect, but in my view reasonable, accommodation to the strategic
circumstances in which we found ourselves is gone with the wind. In the
new world in which we live we now require defenses for our security,
and our treaty obligations must be adjusted to serve our strategic
needs, not the other way around.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Lehman.
STATEMENT OF HON. RONALD F. LEHMAN, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE ARMS
CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY
Secretary Lehman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden. I
am honored that you have asked me to come back and appear
before the committee again.
In particular, I want to thank you and your staff for some
flexibility in accommodating my schedule. And in particular, I
would like to say that I am honored to be appearing with this
particular panel, because I know each of these individuals
personally and hold them in the highest regard.
I also should emphasize up front that I am only speaking
for myself. These are my personal views and are not necessarily
the views of any organizations I have been associated with or
any past or present administration. They are simply my views.
You have asked for my thoughts on the interaction of arms
control and ballistic missile defense including some
elaboration of how we have tried in the past to enhance the
relationship. Today, the importance of this issue is every bit
as significant as it was during the cold war, and a vast
literature on the subject exists.
In general, the public debate for and against ballistic
missile defenses, like that on arms control itself, has
experienced much oversimplification over the years by both
advocates and opponents.
Given the complexities involved, it should not be
surprising that there have been considerable differences among
thoughtful experts as well. Nevertheless, uncertainty has been
reduced, and trends are becoming ever more clear.
The spread of ballistic missiles has been more rapid than
had been widely understood. In this age of globalization and
increased cooperation among proliferant states, the missile
capabilities of many states, both potential aggressors and
those who feel increasingly threatened, is growing.
Likewise, the technologies which are at the heart of
ballistic missile defense--technologies such as high-
performance computing, micro-electronics and sensors--are also
advancing rapidly, bringing with them the prospect of more
effective defensive systems, especially for advanced post-
industrial states.
Even in the areas of military doctrine, deterrence theory,
and arms control policy, areas in which the residual heat of
past debates most often distorts a clearer vision of the
future, greater convergence can be detected.
Indeed, support for ballistic missile defenses has always
existed in some measure across party lines and left and right
across the ideological spectrum.
The passage of the National Missile Defense Act of 1999
gives hope, but not certainty, that a new consensus may be
possible.
A process of determining afresh the enduring principles and
new realities of arms control and ballistic missile defense is
needed. The hearings being held by this committee are an
important step in that process.
Much has changed, but some of the basics have not changed.
Both arms control and ballistic missile defense must be seen in
the context of broader national goals and national security
strategies.
Even within the realm of countering ballistic missile
threats, arms control and ballistic missile defenses are
themselves additional tools, but not the only tools for
enhancing our security.
These tools must be integrated with our military forces and
doctrine, our technological and industrial prowess, our
diplomacy and other components of a multifaceted effort to
enhance the Nation's security.
Properly integrated, arms control, ballistic missile
defenses and the other tools at our disposal all together
result in a strategy for which the total is greater than the
sum of its parts.
Unfortunately, incomplete, disjointed and unbalanced
approaches can have the opposite result. Bringing all the parts
together effectively is not easy given the complexities among
and within nations.
There is much that can be said about all of this, but in
the interest of providing time for discussion, let me highlight
several key judgments:
One, ballistic missile defenses, both strategic and
theater, can significantly enhance deterrence and crisis
stability, increase our military capabilities, protect allies,
friends and coalitions, strengthen nonproliferation, support
our diplomacy, improve the conditions for peace in troubled
regions, and expand the prospects for effective arms control
and reductions.
The proper balance between offensive and defensive
capabilities shifts over time, but the most significant, near-
term capabilities missing from our current national security
arsenal are defenses against ballistic missiles.
Missile defenses do not substitute for a multifaceted
national security strategy, but neither does even the most
effective multifaceted strategy eliminate the need for
deployment of ballistic missile defenses in today's world.
Ballistic missile defenses do not eliminate the need for a
continuum of military forces, both nuclear and conventional,
but they can enhance global and regional deterrence and support
our military forces in combat.
Deployment of significant ballistic missile defenses is
inevitable, but it is not at all inevitable that they will be
deployed in time to meet the needs of the United States and its
allies and friends.
The key to a timely deployment decision remains the early
demonstration of success, which in turn requires meaningful
program objectives and modern management with dynamic
exploitation of technology and competition.
That deployments will take longer and cost more than is
necessary may result from divisions within the policy community
over the proper role of defenses, but the most immediate
constraints appear to be those which deny technologists the
ability to demonstrate the best that is feasible.
The United States should develop its ballistic missile
programs primarily to address its own requirements and
timeframes, but a better way to proceed is cooperatively with
Russia, Israel, Japan and others, recognizing that specific
needs, urgency and feasibility differ among nations, and that
cooperation on early warning and other theater defenses may be
equally vital to many nations.
Appropriate treaties, agreements and joint efforts on
offensive and/or defensive arms can enhance security and
complement the deployment of missile defenses, but failure to
adjust to the changed realities that necessitate the deployment
of ballistic missile defenses may ultimately prove to be the
greatest threat to existing and future arms control agreements
as well as to our security.
An inability to exploit ballistic missile defenses for a
more cooperative approach to international security may deny
the United States opportunities for leadership and tension
reduction and may perpetuate the corrosive political effects of
international relationships too often rhetorically defined in
terms of mass mutual hostages.
Obviously, not everyone favors the deployment of ballistic
missile defense. A serious discussion of the issues will be
necessary to broaden support, and a more vigorous marketplace
of ideas will help ensure that the gains are maximized and
costs minimized.
Because such a process must adapt to a world in an
uncertain transition, I would be skeptical of any offers of a
single true path. Nevertheless, I believe it would be useful to
remind everyone that windows of opportunity do open, although
sometimes not clearly and not for long.
The situation as it played out in 1992 offers a number of
insights.
With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the cold war began to
wind down, leaving behind many legacy issues with which we are
still dealing. The political changes suggested opportunities
for Russia and the United States to work together to build a
stronger, safer basis for their common security.
Each recognized that the world had changed dramatically,
yet each was uncertain how much cooperation would be possible
and how much of the old relationship would or should remain.
As interactions with Russia improved and as both sides cut
back on their military preoccupation with the other, the United
States modified its planned ballistic missile defenses and,
interestingly, Russian showed greater interest in cooperating
on ballistic missile defense.
At the same time, the two nations continued with the most
comprehensive arms control accomplishments ever achieved.
I should add that Ambassador Woolsey was very helpful in
quite a number of those. We did not always agree on each and
every issue, but I still commend him. It took a bipartisan
effort to pull together that remarkable arms control
revolution.
Senator Biden. Mr. Secretary, it looks like you got him
now, though.
Secretary Lehman. We keep working on him. It is never easy.
In September 1991----
Senator Biden. He has gone over.
Secretary Lehman. In September 1991, soon after the Moscow
coup, President Bush had called for cooperation on defenses. A
month later, Soviet President Gorbachev announced his support
for discussions on such cooperation, a direction given greater
weight when, in January 1992, President Yeltsin proposed joint
United States-Russian cooperation on a ``global protective
system.''
Focusing on the effort to ensure that the dissolution of
the Soviet Union remained peaceful, joint decisions on defense
cooperation awaited the Moscow Summit of June 1992, which
created a group of experts to discuss cooperation on early
warning, cooperation on technologies, nonproliferation and the
legal basis for a Global Protection System, the United States
having adopted the name proposed by the Russians.
During those discussions, I presented the U.S. case for an
amended ABM Treaty, proposals that were subsequently presented
in greater detail in the Standing Consultative Commission.
The U.S. view was that circumstances had changed and that
an opportunity now presented itself for creating a security
relationship more suitable to friends. Central to this new
relationship was exploring cooperation in protecting both of
our populations from attack, rather than collaborating to
maximize their vulnerability to mass destruction.
Cooperation on early warning, missile defense and
nonproliferation seemed preferable to a preoccupation with mass
destruction rhetoric that would inevitably poison our political
relations. This did not involve the abandonment of deterrents
or the abolition of nuclear forces.
Instead, this approach was designed to promote
nonproliferation and enhance security and stability by
defending against small attacks, whatever the source.
In addition to the radical geopolitical changes taking
place, technological advances had blurred distinctions between
ABM systems on the one hand and early warning, command and
control, air defense missiles and theater ballistic missile
defenses on the other hand.
Advances in technology had already vastly complicated the
clarity of categories and confidence in compliance. Yet many of
the systems now in tension with the ABM Treaty were for other
vital missions not ABM related.
In particular, because sensors are so important to early
warning, national technical means of verification, and
conventional forces, we proposed that sensors run free, that we
agree not to make them an issue between our two countries.
The United States also proposed more extensive ABM
deployments than those permitted by the ABM Treaty as
originally signed in 1972.
Russia has 100 interceptors deployed around Moscow, but the
original treaty permitted 200 at two sites and additional
interceptors at several additional test sites.
The United States offered to forego a decision on space-
based interceptors in the context of an agreement to increase
the number of ground-based interceptors to cover the entire
United States to a planned level of effectiveness. Russia could
do the same.
In short, the American position held that the ABM Treaty
was broken, but the United States was prepared to fix it in the
context of changes that would increase the security of both
countries and others.
Given that threats already emerging were beyond the control
of either Russia or the United States, we were not prepared to
let considerations of the ABM Treaty ultimately require us to
sacrifice our security and that of our allies and friends,
including Russia, who might be threatened by ballistic
missiles.
Likewise, we sought the broadest cooperation and were
prepared to negotiate restraints, but we would not permit a
veto over necessary deployments.
Mr. Chairman, admittedly, this is a cursory coverage of
what are very complex issues. I have written on this and spoken
on this many times over the years.
There are two statements that I gave extemporaneously that
were subsequently punished that I might offer for the record,
if you wish, in which you----
Senator Biden. Published?
Secretary Lehman. What is that?
Senator Biden. Did you say punished or published?
Secretary Lehman. Published. Did I say punished?
Senator Biden. Oh, you said punished. Freudian slip.
Secretary Lehman. It is hard to punish.
They were subsequently published and as remarks that took
place in those times, so you can get a little flavor for what
was actually happening at the time. And I offer these for the
record, if you wish.
Senator Hagel. We will include those in the record.
[The material referred to follows Secretary Lehman's
prepared statement.]
Secretary Lehman. Then, Mr. Chairman, I will conclude my
remarks at that point.
Thank you.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Lehman, Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Lehman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ronald F. Lehman
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of the Committee on Foreign
Relations:
I am honored that you have asked me to appear again before this
Committee to exchange ideas. I wish also to thank you for your kindness
in accommodating my schedule. Up front, let me make clear that these
are strictly my own views. I do not speak for any other person or for
any organization, program, or Administration with which I have been or
am now associated.
You have asked for my thoughts on the interaction of arms control
and ballistic missile defense including some elaboration of how we have
tried in the past to enhance the relationship. Today, the importance of
this issue is every bit as significant as it was during the Cold War
and a vast literature on the subject exists. In general, the public
debate for and against ballistic missile defenses, like that on arms
control itself, has experienced much oversimplification over the years
by both advocates and opponents. Given the complexities involved, it
should not be surprising that there have been considerable differences
among thoughtful experts as well. Nevertheless, uncertainty has been
reduced and trends are becoming ever more clear.
The spread of ballistic missiles has been more rapid than had been
widely understood. In this age of globalization and increased
cooperation among proliferant states, the missile capabilities of many
states--both potential aggressors and those who feel increasingly
threatened--is growing. Likewise, the technologies which are at the
heart of ballistic missile defense--technologies such as high
performance computing, microelectronics, and sensors--are also
advancing rapidly, bringing with them the prospect of more effective
defensive systems especially for advanced, post-industrial states.
Even in the areas of military doctrine, deterrence theory, and arms
control policy--areas in which the residual heat of past debates most
often distorts a clearer vision of the future--greater convergence can
be detected. Indeed, support for ballistic missile defenses has always
existed in some measure across party lines and left and right across
the ideological spectrum. The passage of the National Missile Defense
Act of 1999 gives hope, but not certainty, that a new consensus may be
possible.
A process of determining afresh the enduring principles and new
realities of arms control and ballistic missile defense is needed. The
hearings being held by this Committee are an important step in that
process. Much has changed, but some of the basics have not changed.
Both arms control and ballistic missile defense must be seen in the
context of broader national goals and national security strategies.
Even within the realm of countering ballistic missile threats, arms
control and ballistic missile defenses are themselves additional tools,
but not the only tools for enhancing our security. These tools must be
integrated with our military forces and doctrine, our technological and
industrial prowess, our diplomacy, and other components of a
multifaceted effort to enhance the nation's security.
Properly integrated, arms control, ballistic missile defenses, and
the other tools at our disposal all together result in a strategy for
which the total is greater than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately,
incomplete, disjointed, and unbalanced approaches can have the opposite
result. Bringing all of the parts together effectively is not easy
given the complexities among and within nations.
There is much that can be said about all of this, but in the
interest of providing time for discussion let me highlight several key
judgments:
(1) Ballistic missile defenses--both strategic and theater--
can significantly enhance deterrence and crisis stability,
increase our military capabilities, protect allies, friends,
and coalitions, strengthen nonproliferation, support our
diplomacy, improve the conditions for peace in troubled
regions, and expand the prospects for effective arms control
and reductions.
(2) The proper balance between offensive and defensive
capabilities shifts over time, but the most significant, near
term capabilities missing from our current national security
arsenal are defenses against ballistic missiles.
(3) Missile defenses do not substitute for a multifaceted
national security strategy, but, neither does even the most
effective multifaceted strategy eliminate the need for
deployment of missile defenses in today's world.
(4) Ballistic missile defenses do not eliminate the need for
a continuum of military forces, both nuclear and conventional,
but they can enhance global and regional deterrence and support
our military forces in combat.
(5) Deployment of significant ballistic missile defenses is
inevitable; but it is not at all inevitable that they will be
deployed in time to meet the needs of the United States and its
allies and friends.
(6) The key to a timely deployment decision remains the early
demonstration of success, which in turn requires meaningful
program objectives and modern management with dynamic
exploitation of technology and competition.
(7) That deployments will take longer and cost more than is
necessary may result from divisions within the policy community
over the proper role of missile defenses, but the most
immediate constraints appear to be those which deny
technologists the ability to demonstrate the best that is
feasible.
(8) The U.S. should develop its ballistic missile programs
primarily to address its own requirements and time frames, but
a better way to proceed is cooperatively with Russia, Israel,
Japan, and others, recognizing that specific needs, urgency,
and feasibility differ among nations and that cooperation on
early warning and other theater defenses may be equally vital
to many nations.
(9) Appropriate treaties, agreements, and joint efforts on
offensive and/or defensive arms can enhance security and
complement the deployment of missile defenses, but failure to
adjust to the changed realities that necessitate the deployment
of ballistic missile defenses may ultimately prove to be the
greatest threat to existing and future arms control agreements
as well as to our security.
(10) An inability to exploit ballistic missile defenses for a
more cooperative approach to international security may deny
the United States opportunities for leadership and tension
reduction and may perpetuate the corrosive political effects of
international relationships too often rhetorically defined in
terms of mass mutual hostages.
Obviously, not everyone favors the deployment of ballistic missile
defenses. A serious discussion of the issues will be necessary to
broaden support, and a more vigorous marketplace of ideas will help
insure that the gains are maximized and costs minimized. Because such a
process must adapt to a world in uncertain transition, I would be
skeptical of any offers of a single, true path. Nevertheless, I believe
it would be useful to remind everyone that windows of opportunity do
open, although sometimes not clearly and not for long. The situation as
it played out in 1992 offers a number of insights.
With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Cold War began to wind
down leaving behind many legacy issues with which we are still dealing.
The political changes suggested opportunities for Russia and the United
States to work together to build a stronger, safer basis for their
common security. Each recognized that the world had changed
dramatically, yet each was uncertain how much cooperation would be
possible and how much of the old relationship would or should remain.
As interactions with Russia improved, and as both sides cut back on
their military preoccupation with the other, the United States modified
its planned ballistic missile defenses and, interestingly, Russia
showed greater interest in cooperating on ballistic missile defense. At
the same time, the two nations continued with the most comprehensive
arms control accomplishments ever achieved.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ During the period in which the Cold War was waning and the
United States was moving toward deployment of ballistic missile
defenses, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and Protocol (START I),
the U.S./Russian Joint Understanding and START II Treaty eliminating
multiple-warhead land-based missiles were signed. Agreements with the
Soviet Union were concluded on the Prevention of Dangerous Military
Activities; on a Bilateral Verification Experiment and Data Exchange
Related to the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; on Destruction and Non-
production of Chemical Weapons; and on Implementing Trial Verification
and Stability Measures of the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of
Strategic Offensive Arms. The verification Protocols to the Threshold
Test Ban Treaty and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty were also
signed and the Treaties ratified during this period. Multilateral
agreements completed include the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in
Europe (CFE); the 1991 and 1992 Vienna Agreements on Confidence- and
Security-Building Measures (CSBMs); the Treaty on the Final Settlement
with Respect to Germany; the Open Skies Treaty, and Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In September of 1991, soon after the Moscow Coup, President Bush
had called for cooperation on defenses. A month later, Soviet President
Gorbachev announced his support for discussions on such cooperation, a
direction given greater weight when, in January of 1992, President
Yeltsin proposed joint U.S.-Russian cooperation on a ``global
protective system.''
Focusing on the effort to ensure that the dissolution of the Soviet
Union remained peaceful, joint decisions on defense cooperation awaited
the Moscow Summit of June, 1992, which created a group of experts to
discuss cooperation on early warning, cooperation on technologies,
nonproliferation, and the legal basis for a Global Protection System,
the U.S. having adopted the name proposed by the Russians. During those
discussions, I presented the U.S. case for an amended ABM Treaty,
proposals that were subsequently presented in greater detail in the
Standing Consultative Commission.
The U.S. view was that circumstances had changed and that an
opportunity now presented itself for creating a security relationship
more suitable to friends. Central to this new relationship was
exploring cooperation in protecting both of our populations from
attack, rather than collaborating to maximize their vulnerability to
mass destruction. Cooperation on early warning, missile defense, and
nonproliferation seemed preferable to a preoccupation with mass
destruction rhetoric that would inevitably poison our political
relations. This did not involve the abandonment of deterrence or the
abolition of nuclear forces. Instead, this approach was designed to
promote nonproliferation and enhance security and stability by
defending against small attacks, whatever the source.
In addition to the radical geopolitical changes taking place,
technological advances had blurred distinctions between ABM systems on
the one hand and early warning, command and control, air defense
missiles, and theater ballistic missile defenses on the other hand.
Advances in technology had already vastly complicated the clarity of
categories and confidence in compliance. Yet many of the systems now in
tension with the ABM Treaty were for other vital missions not ABM
related. In particular, because sensors are so important to early
warning, national technical means of verification, and conventional
forces, we proposed that sensors run free--that we agree not to make
them an issue between our two countries.
The United States also proposed more extensive ABM deployments than
those permitted by the ABM Treaty as originally signed in 1972. Russia
has 100 interceptors deployed around Moscow, but the original treaty
permitted 200 at two sites and additional interceptors at several
additional test sites. The United States offered to forego a decision
on space based interceptors in the context of an agreement to increase
the number of ground based interceptors to cover the entire United
States to a planned level of effectiveness. Russia could do the same.
In short, the American position held that the ABM Treaty was
broken, but the U.S. was prepared to fix it in the context of changes
that would increase the security of both countries and others. Given
that threats already emerging were beyond the control of either Russia
or the United States, we were not prepared to let considerations of the
ABM Treaty ultimately require us to sacrifice our security and that of
allies and friends, including Russia, who might be threatened by
ballistic missiles. Likewise, we sought the broadest cooperation and
were prepared to negotiate restraints, but we would not permit a veto
over necessary deployments.
Mr. Chairman, admittedly, this is a very cursory discussion of a
complex subject, and I have had time to address briefly only one
historic example of how the United States has proposed to harmonize
arms control and ballistic missile defenses in the interest of
international security. Elsewhere, I have discussed these issues in
greater detail. If you wish, I would be prepared to submit for the
record two publications that contain statements I made in 1992 and 1996
elaborating on exactly the questions you have asked me to address
today.
Again, I welcome this opportunity to explore with the Committee in
greater detail exactly why deployment of ballistic missile defenses has
become necessary to:
Enhance deterrence and crisis stability,
Increase our military capabilities,
Protect allies, friends, and coalitions,
Strengthen nonproliferation,
Support U.S. diplomacy,
Improve the conditions for peace in troubled regions, and
Expand the prospects for effective arms control and reductions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
______
[Remarks, November 1992, published 1993]
Changing Realities
(Ronald F. Lehman II)
The development of a consensus for a strategic defense initiative
(SDI) is at the cutting edge of national security, foreign policy, and
arms control strategy. This is a time when we need to be probing and
engaging some of the difficult issues that we have faced over the
years. This article highlights where we have been going and discusses
specific events that have been taking place with respect to developing
a concept for defenses against ballistic missile attack.
Truly, the world is in transition. We are entering the post-cold
war era. Increasingly we have seen not only our foreign policy and
national security strategy move away from preoccupation with the East-
West military balance, but also we have seen this occur in arms
control. The coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991 in many ways
encapsulated and symbolized those trends. The coup's failure was
another sign that the cold war was over and the traditional military
threat to NATO in Western Europe was diminishing rapidly. And now, we
have the possibility of entering into a new world in which we may be
cooperating with the countries of Eastern Europe, and subsequently with
the countries that have emerged out of the Soviet Union, to enhance our
security, prosperity, and freedom together.
This has had a tremendous impact on how we think about arms
control. Before the August 1991 coup attempt, we looked at Soviet
military forces in terms of the traditional threat, and we had just
completed what some call a ``traditional arms control treaty''--START
(Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). At that time, there was intense
concern over the question of accidental or unauthorized launch of
ballistic missiles, and a preoccupation with the question of the
nonproliferation implications of the turmoil in Eurasia.
soviet dissolution raises security concerns
When the Soviet Union began to break up, we were faced with a
serious nonproliferation question: what happens when a nuclear weapons
state breaks up? Does that portend the emergence of additional nuclear
weapons states and, if so, what are the implications for our security?
We also saw another aspect of the problem. In the turmoil caused by
the Soviet breakup, we were increasingly concerned over the control of
nuclear weapons, technologies, and material, including fissile
material. We were concerned about the future of scientists, engineers,
and technicians, who might find, in the economic and political
difficulties they were experiencing in their own countries, an
opportunity to go abroad and become involved in the development of
nuclear, biological, chemical, or ballistic missile programs in other
countries that posed a proliferation threat. We quickly began to
address these issues with the former republics of the Soviet Union,
particularly with Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. We made
significant efforts to prevent proliferation overall, both through
export control and political policy.
Another effort dealt with the question of the traditional arms
control agreements as we had known them. For example, we all think of
START as dealing with offensive force reductions, but we took that
agreement and turned it into an important tool for nonproliferation. In
the context of the Lisbon Protocol, we were able to get agreement from
the three former republics, other than Russia, which have nuclear
weapons on their territory, to become non-nuclear weapon states under
the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Treaty on Conventional Armed
Forces in Europe (CFE), likewise, was turned from a treaty to deal with
offensive ground threats to NATO in the NATO/Warsaw Pact context into a
regional security structure. The treaty helped bring stability through
the reallocation of conventional forces within the former Soviet Union.
One area of cooperation that has not received much attention, but
which has important arms control dimensions, is U.S.-Russian
cooperation in ballistic missile defenses. President Mikhail Gorbachev
first talked about the possibility of cooperating in the area of early
warning in 1991. The United States had clearly stated for a number of
years, in the defense and space negotiations, in the Standing
Consultative Commission, and in all of our bilateral dealings with the
Soviet Union, that we saw an increased need for strategic ballistic
missile defenses. We saw the possibility of moving to a better, safer
world with greater reliance on defenses. We said we intended to do that
when the programs were available that would provide for that enhanced
security. However, we also always said we were prepared to consider a
cooperative approach, a cooperative transition.
From the outset of our negotiations with the Soviet Union in the
mid-1980s on strategic defenses, it was very difficult to find common
ground between our two countries. Now, in the post-cold war period, we
have the tremendous potential for developing common ground. In January
1992, President Boris Yeltsin talked about U.S.-Russian cooperation in
a global protection system. We viewed that as a very important step,
and we have sought to engage Russia to develop this concept, one that
deals not only with our two countries, but also with our NATO allies
and other allies and friends around the world.
As we have elaborated our own system for limited defenses--known as
``Global Protection Against Limited Strikes'' (GPALS) and consisting of
a number of approaches to interceptors, both anti-tactical ballistic
missiles (ATBMs), ground-based anti-ballistic missile (ABM)
interceptors and eventually space-based interceptors (SBIs), and a wide
variety of sensors, we have seen that there are increased areas where
we could cooperate. For example, we could cooperate in national
ballistic missile defense programs, and in the end many nations of the
world would gain the benefit of this technology for enhancing their
security as well as ours.
security talks underway
We have begun to engage Russia on this issue. The instrumental step
was taken at the June 1992 Summit in Washington when Presidents George
Bush and Boris Yeltsin agreed to begin a process through high-level
discussions to develop a cooperative approach to a Global Protection
System (GPS), highlighting not only early warning and cooperation in
the development of the technologies, but also establishing the legal
basis for GPS. This means that the question of the legal basis for such
a system has to take into account the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty.
The U.S.-Russian high-level group established by the two presidents
met in July and September 1992. That group is known informally as the
Ross-Mamedov Group. The two delegations established working groups to
deal with the overall GPS concept, with technical cooperation, and with
nonproliferation. The United States and Russia are also discussing the
legal basis for GPS.
The relationship between the ABM Treaty and the legal basis for GPS
has to be viewed in light of changing circumstances, particularly since
the ABM Treaty was negotiated in 1972. The great debates over offense/
defense relationships have been transformed by those developments.
Whereas, in earlier periods we spent much time debating overall
strategic stability and the question of the offense/defense
relationship, in today's cooperative world we are looking at limited
ballistic missile defense systems to deal with limited threats.
The U.S. concept for its GPALS system, which would contribute to an
overall GPS, is a limited system. What are the implications of the ABM
Treaty for a limited system? Over the years, largely because the United
States deactivated its own ABM system, which was deployed for only a
very short period, the impression has been left that the ABM Treaty
bans ABM interceptors and ABM systems. In fact, it permits them. The
ABM Treaty, as signed in 1972, actually permitted 200 interceptors in
addition to test and training launchers. As a result of the 1974
Protocol to the ABM Treaty, that number of permitted interceptors was
reduced to 100 at one deployed site, with a number of additional
launchers at test ranges. Russia has ABM interceptors deployed around
the Moscow area. Therefore, the treaty, as originally concluded in
1972, provided for additional numbers of ABM interceptors, exceeding
the number presently deployed by Russia and well above those of the
United States, because we have none.
The ABM Treaty approached defenses from the point of view of
managing limited systems. It also had a broader philosophical basis,
dealing with the question of area defenses, protecting retaliatory
capability. There was a fear that ABM systems might deny the
retaliatory capability of either of the two sides, which could be
destabilizing. However, in the new cooperative era of today, we believe
the time has come to look at the ABM Treaty from the point of view of
cooperating in the protection of our citizens, rather than
collaborating to maximize their vulnerability. The ABM Treaty has to
reflect this new political reality.
That is not to say that only the political reality is changing. The
technical reality has been changing as well. Increasingly it has become
more difficult to distinguish between surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)
against aircraft and anti-tactical ballistic missiles (ATBMs) and ABM
systems. Many of the SAM systems deployed today have certain
characteristics that would have thrilled ABM designers in the 1960s.
Technology is making it more difficult to distinguish between
interceptors' roles that once were believed to be clear cut. The same
is true for sensors. Modern electronics, communications, and sensor
technology make it more difficult to say what does and what does not
have an ABM capability.
A related issue illustrates how difficult this has become: the
controversy over the Krasnoyarsk large phased-array radar. We were
dealing with large phased-array radars in the ABM Treaty, saying they
should be on the periphery of national territory and oriented outward
to minimize their utility as ABM radars. The existence of the
Krasnoyarsk radar complicated the consideration of this issue, but it
was simple compared to the kinds of issues that will emerge when you
have modern data links of the type that exist today, which have already
begun to raise questions of compliance.
multilateral world increases threats
In addition to changes in technologies, and changes and
distinctions between interceptors and sensors, there are changes that
result from the political upheavals taking place. For example, in the
republics of the former Soviet Union, one finds that the former Soviet
ABM system is now spread among a number of independent sovereign
countries. The interceptors are in Russia, but not all the testing
sites, nor all development facilities, nor all the sensors. Indeed, not
all ABM facilities are even in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Thus, we have been talking about the ABM Treaty as a bilateral treaty
existing in what is increasingly becoming a multilateral world. This
introduces additional complications. On the other hand, when you look
at the Global Protection System, which will ultimately develop in a
multilateral way, there are certain realities that can be seen
unfolding in the context of the ABM Treaty.
The bottom line really is that the ABM Treaty has to evolve to take
into account technical and political changes if it is to continue to be
of use to the United States, Russia, and the rest of the world. It has
to take into account the need, with the new proliferation threats, to
protect our citizens. How can it do that? From our point of view, it
has to permit the deployment of our GPALS system. That means it would
have to address a number of issues:
First is the question of deployments. The United States does not
have any deployed ABMs, but the ABM Treaty as originally signed would
have permitted 200 interceptors as well as 15 additional launchers at
test sites. Our GPALS would be several times that size in ground-based
interceptors, and we envisage space-based interceptors in the future.
We have to address those issues. However, to get there, we would have
to develop the systems and test them, and right now we have difficulty
with the ABM Treaty because it puts constraints on our testing program.
We need relief from the treaty so that we and others can, as part of
our efforts to move ahead and provide protection to our citizens, do
the testing required.
ABM Treaty relief involves the question of sensors. Many of the
compliance issues of the ABM Treaty have to do with the very difficult
issue of knowing what is or is not an ABM sensor. The time has come to
address this question in light of the newly cooperative world. We also
need to ensure that there are no doubts that the ABM Treaty does not
cover ATBM systems. And we need to ensure that ATBM systems are not
constrained or delayed because of debates over whether they are or are
not ABM systems. Finally, we also need to deal with the question of
technology transfer, because the ABM Treaty is a bilateral treaty and
it prohibits the transfer of ABM technology to other states. This
creates a fundamental tension with the concept of a cooperative global
protection system that involves a number of countries.
In summary, the time has come to cooperate in protecting our
citizens rather than collaborating in maximizing their vulnerability.
This is the reality of the new world. The technologies exist that would
permit us to do this, but under the ABM Treaty those technologies are
constrained and the process can be delayed. We need relief from those
constraints. Like our other arms control agreements, the ABM Treaty
needs to evolve to reflect new realities if it is to continue.
We must always remember that arms control is an important policy
tool, indeed a tool we must use in our interests and the interests of
our friends around the world, including our new friends. However, we
have to use arms control effectively, and that means it has to be
flexible enough to accommodate the realities of the new world.
______
[Proceedings, Carnegie Endowment, Seminar--February 14, 1996]
START II, Missile Non-Proliferation, and Missile Defense--The Offense-
Defense Relationship: Past and Future
(Remarks by the Honorable Ronald F. Lehman II)
As one who participated in the START negotiating process from
beginning to end. I am pleased to join with so many of you, both from
the United States and Russia, who helped make these historic agreements
possible. I see many familiar faces, but it is perhaps just as
important that I see so many new faces.
The negotiation of the START treaties took place not so many years
ago, but most of the original cast of these dramas has moved on to new
roles and others have taken their place. Unlike the quick action taken
on the INF Treaty, the entry into force of the START treaties was not
immediate. During many months of rapid change, this delay has
introduced to the contemporary stage a significant number of new
players. For that reason, I would like to concentrate my remarks less
on the debates in their current style than on the ideas which inspired
us in the past and the visions we had then of the future. My assigned
task of looking at the relationship of strategic offensive and
defensive weapons systems in the context both of further arms
reductions and of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is
actually facilitated by this distance from the current debate.
the early history of offense and defense
Just as arms control is inseparable from national security, so
offense and defense are inseparable in the consideration of military
strategy. This has always been so. Throughout the history of warfare,
one can see periods in which tactics or technology favored the offense
or favored the defense, but some optimal mix evolved in each era.
Offensive action could apply force for political gain, but it could
also be used for defense or for retribution against aggression.
Defenses could blunt an attack, but adopting defensive positions on
part of the battle front was also a means for both aggressor and victim
to concentrate their forces elsewhere. Along with this economy of force
role, defenses also provided early warning and attack assessment as
each sought to stage decisive action on its own terms.
Even in the age of great fortifications, when the defense was said
to be dominant, defensive operations served primarily to delay,
dissipate, and channel an attack to a time and location where the
advancing forces would be at a disadvantage. The successful defenders
of great castles may have, on a few occasions, actually engaged in
little combat from behind the protection of their ramparts before a
siege was lifted. Ultimately, however, they had to sally forth to
reclaim their land after exhaustion, attrition, or fear of diminished
prospects for victory had caused the attacker to fall back on its own
defenses. Indeed, aggression abroad was not often risked without secure
fortifications at home.
This is not to say that the balance between offense and defense has
no bearing on the likelihood and intensity of war. It does. During the
age of the great fortified cities in Europe warfare was still frequent,
but usually limited and highly ritualized with rules of engagement
which minimized casualties. As trench warfare demonstrated in World War
I, however, increased use of defensive tactics did not always mean that
the loss of life was minimized. Likewise, in the world's military
histories, bold offensive action is as much associated with limited
casualties as it is with massive slaughter and long periods of peace
were associated with powerful empires which tolerated no resistance.
In short, strong defenses could be both stabilizing and essential
to sound military doctrine, but the price of war was determined more by
the causes of conflict, the character of man, and the correlation of
forces than by the mere preference of offense or defense dominance.
And, finally, although defensive action always played some role, the
offense or threat of it brought hostilities to an end. This ``spirit of
the offense'' came to dominate military thinking in the age of
Clausewitz. As technology has made weapons more and more destructive,
this concept of war as an extension of rational political competition
was frequently combined with a more pacific notion that weapons had
become so horrible that rational war could not be contemplated. Nobel's
dynamite, artillery, the machine gun, the submarine, the Zeppelin, the
airplane, poison gas, however, all proved insufficiently horrible to
guarantee peace.
This reflection of the extension of violence as the heart of
warfare rather than as the basis for peace has inspired many
commentators to prefer defense dominance, indeed, to advocate worlds in
which all states would have a minimum of offensive force relative to
the defenses of their neighbors. In some cases, this distinction
between offensive and defensive force has been carried over into
distinctions among weapons. One can read of armies that went to war
with only swords. One does not read of armies going to war with only
shields. One can understand a logic for peace in which the former would
be banned and the latter become a safeguard against aggression.
The necessary distinction, however, has not stood the test of time
for a number of reasons. Certainly, few defensive weapons have no
offensive capability. The soldier with only a shield may sling it at
his enemy or use it as a bludgeon. Infantrymen even distinguish between
offensive and defensive hand grenades (actually, the offensive grenade
has less shrapnel because it is used by troops moving in the open
against troops confined in bunkers and foxholes). Second, defensive
arms like defense itself serve to complement the offense. Thus,
traditional military strategy has also required a mix of weapons which
were either predominantly offensive or defensive.
The coming of the thermonuclear age reopened this debate once more.
Early on, fear of the society-destroying capability of nuclear weapons
led to great investments in air defenses to defeat aircraft armed with
nuclear weapons. Defensive interceptors themselves were even armed with
nuclear weapons. Early declaratory nuclear policies stressed damage
limitation, but defenses against ballistic missiles fell well behind
the accumulation of huge arsenals of nuclear warheads on the
intercontinental ballistic missiles of the superpowers although perhaps
not behind those of lesser nuclear powers such as China. The absence of
large-scale defenses in the face of overwhelming offensive nuclear
capability highlighted the ultimate vulnerability of both sides. The
expense of nation-wide defenses to counter such large threats and the
certainty that they would not be leak proof increased pressures to
limit offensive arms. In this content, the United States and the Soviet
Union began their negotiations on strategic arms limitations (SALT).
The centerpiece of the SALT I package in 1972, however, was the
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a treaty which itself limited
defensive not offensive arms. The ABM Treaty was justified through
argumentation that mutual vulnerability was stabilizing. Although the
original goal of a treaty capping the growth of offensive arms was not
achieved, an Interim Agreement on offensive arms did limit numbers of
silo launchers, submarine launch tubes, and even ballistic missile
submarines. It did not limit warheads, however, but the existence of
the new ABM Treaty was said to reduce incentives to deploy more
warheads. This incentive was sweetened when the 1974 Protocol to the
ABM Treaty halved the number of permitted defensive interceptors and
deployment sites and also when the United States closed its only ABM
site a few months after it had finally become operational.
Interestingly, during the initial SALT negotiations, it was the
Soviet Union, far more than the United States, that questioned why one
would want to limit defenses. And it was the United States which
stressed linkage between the future of the ABM Treaty and further
reductions in nuclear arms, albeit, in the opposite direction from that
Moscow has proposed in resent years. Yet, the consequent SALT II, like
SALT I, permitted and codified a massive increase in strategic warheads
despite the scarcity of ABM systems and despite the emergence of large
numbers of gray area theater nuclear weapons such as the Soviet SS-20
Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile and the Backfire bomber.
As NATO prepared to respond to the SS-20 with its own INF missiles,
the West became polarized over nuclear modernization. At the risk of
some oversimplification, one could say that one school believed that
enough was enough whatever the Soviet Union had. The other school
sought to redress the imbalance it perceived. The first school became
supportive of a freeze on modernization. The second group proposed a
dual track of modernization and the negotiations of reductions to
enhance stability. The debate was over offensive arms. Both sides
advocated fewer, although they disagreed on how to achieve their goal.
At the height of the nuclear freeze movement, I participated in a
debate in a church in San Antonio, Texas. The Speaker of the U.S. House
of Representatives at that time, himself a Texan, had just appeared and
announced his support for a nuclear freeze. I was a junior U.S.
government official defending the NATO deployments against the freeze
when my debate opponent, a retired U.S. Army major general, changed the
subject briefly. What the world really needed, he said, was defenses
against missiles. The audience, clearly in favor of the freeze, roared
in approval of strategic defenses. This was some weeks before President
Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative in March, 1983. The
freeze debate faded away as the United States revisited the question of
the role of defenses. Political polarization did not disappear, but new
constellations of vociferous advocates and opponents did appear
including hawks together with doves on each side of the issue--Edward
Teller and Freeman Dyson favoring defenses, while mainstream thinkers
and even the uniformed military seemed split on the issue.
the debates in the 1980's
The debates of the 1980s were fascinating, although initially there
was confussion, misinformation, and rhetoric on both sides of the
question. Sometimes there was not much clear thinking even on the
theoretical level. Let me give you just one example, the debate over
Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) versus Mutual Assured Survival (MAS),
again at the risk of oversimplification. If you took the people who
thought they favored each of those positions, set them down, and asked
what nuclear targeting doctrine was associated with their concept of
defenses, the most common answer for both sides was countervalue
targeting, or as some would say, city-busting. Absent absolutely leak
proof defenses, both sides were still talking about populations being
targeted with tremendous loss of life and destruction. Those who
favored defenses were arguing, in essence, that defenses might save
millions of lives. Those opposed to defenses favored greater certainty
of the most massive destruction to enhance deterrence. The bottomline
for both sides was an emphasis on the targeting of population per se.
For much of the national security community, however, the focus was
different. That community recognized the ultimate countervalue effects
of a strategic nuclear exchange, but this community focused more on its
own differences, differences concerning the impact of strategic
defenses on the military balance and thus stability. Here most experts
also fell into two schools. One school basically believed defenses
favor the aggressor. Here's why: He who launches his missiles first
will overwhelm an opponent's defense with numbers. If an aggressor
conducts a disarming first strike against an adversary's retaliatory
force, and the remnant of that retaliatory force then faces the alerted
defenses of the aggressor, the aggressor has gained leverage in both
offense and defense. Hundreds of computer runs were made based upon
this assumption. Thus, they often concluded that even if the offense
and defense were equal and symmetrical on both sides, defenses would be
destabilizing.
On the other side of this issue, experts were doing their computer
runs. And their approach was different: ``He who shoots first in order
to disarm has a harder targeting requirement than he who simply must
retaliate in order to inflict unacceptable pain.'' If the initiator of
the war must have high confidence of counterforce success in detail to
avoid unacceptable retribution, defenses can so complicate the
disarming first strike that under almost all calculations, they are
stabilizing.
In summary, the nuclear policy debate in the 1980s seemed bogged
down in debates over perfection. The primary public debate concerned
whether anything less than perfect defense was sufficient--that is,
whether to defend anyone if everyone could not be defended, and against
every threat. The primary debate among defense intellectuals was
whether even the most imperfect defenses might encourage too much
nuclear self confidence to be stabilizing.
compromise conceptualized
In the middle of this debate, the United States was confronted by
the Soviet Union in bilateral negotiations even as research and
development programs were going forward. When the nuclear arms talks
resumed in Geneva in 1985, the Soviet Union sought linkage between the
INF issue, the START issue, and the co-called Defense and Space issue.
The United States recognized that there were interrelationships, but
did not want any one negotiation held hostage to another. The United
States and the Soviet Union agreed to a format that covered both sides'
interpretations of what the proper relationship should be. This
resulted in odd shaped tables and strange protocols. The gist of the
Soviet Union's position was that there could be no START Treaty unless
the United States solved Soviet problems with INF and Defense and
Space. Early on, we were able to agree to proceed with the lNF Treaty,
and later we were able to work out a form of delinkage on START.
I want to remind everyone in the room, however, that the U.S.
position was always that everything was interrelated. The U.S. did not
think there ought to be any formal linkage of agreements, but in fact,
in the context of those negotiations, the Reagan Administration at
various times had conceptualized a number of compromises across
agreements. The U.S. position usually stressed delinkage of most
issues, but the U.S. position sometimes included variations of the so-
called ``grand compromise''--``you give us something on offense, and
we'll give you something on defense.'' Sometimes, the U.S. position
also had certain aspects of what I call the ``green light'' compromise,
according to which the United States would not accept certain
provisions in an offensive agreement unless is were given something
favoring defenses. One finds examples of all of these approaches in the
U.S. negotiating position, sometimes all at the same time.
gpals initiative in 1991
New political circumstances, geopolitical agreements, and strategic
calculations appeared rapidly at the end of the 1980s. In January 1991,
in the context of improved relations between the United States and the
Soviet Union, President Bush proposed a different, much more limited
approach to strategic defenses. This lead people to rethink what would
be needed in the post Cold War era to enhance security and still have a
stable relationship with the then Soviet Union. President Bush proposed
the so-called GPALS system (Global Protection Against Limited Strikes)
which was downscaled tremendously from the Phase I Joint Chiefs of
Staff requirements for the original Strategic Defense Initiative. Those
requirements, at least in their original absolute numbers, had already
been achieved by START I.
cooperation on defenses; abm revision talks--1992
The initiation of the GPALS program was followed by a series of
rapid and major international developments. The completion of START I
and a few weeks later the failed coup in Moscow suggested that
cooperation between Washington and Moscow should be enhanced. In
September 1991, President Bush called for cooperation on defenses. The
United States also announced that it would be eliminating all of its
tactical nuclear artillery and many other tactical nuclear weapons. ln
October of 1991, President Gorbachev announced that he too believed
cooperation on defenses should be discussed. By January of the next
year, President Yeltsin of Russia made a bold proposal that the United
States and Russia work together to bring about a cooperative, global
protective system. In that same positive environment, the United States
agreed to talk also about START II, a step Washington had believed was
premature prior to the recent political changes. START II began to
weigh very heavily upon everything we were doing. START II was seen as
a way of strenthening the foundation for a cooperative future both in
limiting offensive arms and cooperative defenses. Obviously some form
of interrelationship would emerge, given the history of the
negotiations and also the new opportunities for cooperation.
In the final statement of the June 1992 Summit, Russia and the
United States agreed that a group of experts, the so-called Ross-
Mamedov group, would discuss cooperation on early warning, cooperation
on technologies for defense, nonproliferation, and the legal basis for
a Global Protection System (GPS), including any changes which might be
necessary to retain the existing treaties, including the ABM Treaty.
(Note that the United States had decided to adopt the Russian name, or
GPS).
The most important Ross-Mamedov session was probably that of
September 1992. At that meeting, on behalf of the United States, I
presented the case to the Russian delegation for amending the ABM
Treaty. Ambassador Robert Joseph subsequently presented this proposal
in its detail at the Standing Consultative Commission. The U.S. view
was that circumstances have changed, politically and technologically,
and that we now have an opportunity for a new relationship. An
important part of this relationship is rethinking the question of
whether we should begin cooperating In defending both of our
populations, rather than collaborating to maximize their vulnerability.
We talked about what we thought needed to be done about early warning,
technology cooperation, and nonproliferation. We accepted and
emphasized a multifaceted approach to the problem.
We made clear that defenses would play an important role in thc
future, and we made specific proposals to amend the ABM Treaty. We
proposed that it permit more than the 200 interceptors that were
permitted by the original ABM Treaty. As I highlighted in my remarks at
the time, the ABM Treaty does not ban defenses. In fact, it explicitly
provides, as signed in 1972, for 200 interceptors, plus additional test
sites. Thus, in its original form it already envisioned as many as
perhaps four or more places where a country might have interceptors,
although only two of those were to be operational deployment sites.
We talked about the changes in technology which made it
increasingly difficult to maintain distinctions between early warning,
command and control, surface-to-air missiles and theater ATBMs on the
one hand and similar ABM systems on the other hand. We stressed the
need to look at the whole--at what a BMD system really is. The
inevitable increase in the capabilities of non-ABM systems was feeding
ever more contentious debates over distinctions that were also very
difficult to verify. The electronics revolution is radically altering
the meaning of many of the boundaries sought by the ABM Treaty. This
led the United States to propose that sensors run free--that we would
agree that with respect to sensors, since they're so important for so
may vital functions such as early warning, national technical means of
verification, and conventional forces, not to make them an issue
between us.
With respect to numbers, of course we had a position proposing
several hundred ground based interceptors. I should note that Russia
has 100 interceptors already while the United States has none. The
United States was willing to forego a decision on the question of
space-based interceptors, if we achieved an agreement for near term
ground-based systems along our line of several hundred--maybe six,
seven, eight hundred--not that far from the Russian number which was
100 and not far from the 200 permitted by the ABM Treaty in 1972. So in
a sense, we were haggling about the numbers, although we had in mind a
certain level of effectiveness that we wanted to achieve by the
technologies that we had available. That level of effectiveness seemed
compatible also with the Russian concept of a Global Protective System.
Discussion of amending the ABM Treaty was complicated also by the
changes in the political circumstances of that time. One signatory to
the bilateral treaty, the Soviet Union was gone, and the existing ABM
system of the former Soviet Union no longer was solely within the
sovereign bounds of a single country. There were a series of basic
fixes to the ABM Treaty that we thought would be necessary to make it
viable and effective, and our position was that we were prepared to do
this, in the context of getting an agreement on defenses that was in
the interest of both sides. This history demonstrates that the United
States did engage very specifically on how to work together with Russia
in the context of the ABM Treaty. Circumstances had changed. The ABM
Treaty was broken, but the United States was prepared to agree to fix
it if in the context of cooperation on defenses.
defenses and further offensive reductions: the legacy of reykjavik
Permit me now to jump to the future. Increasingly, as we approach
the millennium, in the context of the NFI extension, we are hearing
more and more about attempting to go to zero nuclear warheads, or to
very low numbers. And emerging again and again in the debate, and not
on a partisan or ideological basis, is the view that you cannot go to
deep reductions without defenses. This was actually one of the key
issues at Reykjavik, and what the debate over what was proposed at
Reykjavik was really all about.
We have already given much thought about the offense-defense
relationship, but we need to get beyond frozen positions. I have tried
to give you a sense of some of the key initiatives from the past which
were designed to get us beyond stalemate. Today, as we try to go beyond
linear thinking about how you safely move towards further reductions,
traditional patterns of partisan politics and ideological splits are
starting to fragment. So, perhaps it would be a good idea if everyone
engaged on the issue of the offense-defense relationship revisit the
question through a fresh process. We should revisit our assumptions,
determine the real constants and variables for our age, and think anew.
To do that, we will have to put aside our current mindsets, our current
coalitions, and our current interest groups to determine if there isn't
a path which brings us together.
current trends: four assertions
With this discussion of past and future as a foundation, let me
turn to the question of the present just briefly. It isn't my primary
focus, but I want to make four assertions about the present in reaction
to what I have heard here and in Moscow recently. These are four
assertions you can accept or reject.
First, if it were left to the U.S. and Russian military, START II
would have entered into force already.
Second, if available material resources, i.e., budgets, were
comparable on both sides, the ABM Treaty would not be as big an issue
as it is today. There is actually a strong latent view within Russia
that it ought to have defenses against ballistic missiles. In fact,
they do. They have 100 ABM interceptors.
Third, unfortunately--and I hope not increasingly, many of the
issues that are being raised about START II and the ABM Treaty are
really being used as vehicles for expressing uncertainty about the geo-
strategic future, uncertainty about where we, the United States and
Russia, are in our relationship to each other. This includes also
uncertainty about where we think we ought to be. We need to answer the
question of what it means to say the Cold War is over.
Fourth, the substantive uncertainties about the ABM Treaty or START
II are really being greatly amplified by contextual uncertainties, most
of them of a domestic political nature. We have important new or
reinvented players in Washington and Moscow. Some of them know these
issues well, but many do not. There is a tendency to see many decisions
made on the basis of a simple interrogation: ``If my domestic opponent
is in favor of it, I must be against it,'' or vice versa. We have a
similar problem on the international front to which I alluded earlier;
namely, that whatever you think of the arguments on their merits, the
legacy of the ABM Treaty and the legacy of Cold War deterrence debate
are giving us vocabulary that is not always helpful, as we try to
discuss a proper U.S.-Soviet relationship. In a way, our very words,
including words I've used today such as a ``mutual hostage
relationship,'' poison the water. We need fresh language reflecting our
real objectives, language which doesn't carry so much baggage.
We're experiencing manifestations of the ``Ifft rule.'' Ed Ifft is
famous for saying, ``it's not that our positions are different, its
that they're the same at different times.'' Some believe that this is a
description of a fickle or frivolous basis for negotiations. I don't
interpret the rule that way. Rather, it reflects the reality that as
circumstances change, what we should do can change.
If you go back to the mid-1980s, for example, the Soviet Union put
out many feelers to see if we would be willing to settle the ABM
dispute by agreeing to 200 ground based interceptors--or 300, or 400.
And it was in the United States that voices said, ``Wait a minute,
we'll never get an environmental impact statement through. Our future
is in space. This is a Soviet trap to get us to try to deploy some
missiles that we can't deploy politically while they build a large
ground based system. We will lose.'' Our positions have been the same
at different times, but there remains in the domestic debate today in
Russia and the United States, the Cold War remnant of, ``if it's good
for the other side, it must be bad for us.'' Again, we need to find a
way to break out of that mindset.
start ii compromises
When I first became active in arms control negotiations, the one
fundamental rule about domestic politics was that you never took a
treaty to Capitol Hill in election year. But in 1987, we broke the
rule. It wasn't all that easy, but it wasn't all that hard. We got the
INF Treaty ratified. Here we are again, in a much more difficult world,
in the middle of an election year in Russia as well as in the United
States. And friends of mine in Russia say to me, ``Well the problem is
that START II was negotiated from weakness, and our side gave too much
to you.'' I remember it a little differently, however. In fact, I
remember how much we gave to the Russian side that would have been
unthinkable in previous years. I think about the separate SLBM limit
that we'd never agreed to before, the bomber counting rules which
reversed a fundamental U.S. approach to stability. I think of the
intrusive inspection of bomber bases and special limits on bombers, and
how, again and again, on issues like the SS-19, silos dismantlement,
and simplified verification we allowed issues to be reopened in order
to address Russian concerns.
We used to say there could not be further reductions until after
START I had entered into force and after vast new improvements in
verification were achieved. Instead, at Russian insistence, we agreed
to act almost instantaneously on START II and, basically, to use the
START I verification rules. It was in the interests of both countries
for us to exhibit this flexibility, but these concessions, or
compromises, or flexibility by the United States, would not have taken
place in fact, if the situation had not changed in Russia. If the
previous regime had been in power in Moscow, we probably never would
have shown that flexibility. There probably would not have been a START
II Treaty.
So, when you think about the START II Treaty, remember that the
United States was actually very forthcming. We thought it was important
to a new, better relationship. And if we were wrong, that's going to
have tremendous impact at home and abroad. Yes, Russia is having an
electon, but so is the United States. In this election year, both sides
need to be very, very careful. To our Russia colleagues, I would say
don't ask our president to go to the Congress and to look as if he's
cutting deals with a foreign government blocking the aspirations of the
elected officials of the United States. The Congress expects the
president to come to them and to work out a united U.S. position. The
Congress expects him to work together during negotiation of that
position. Neither Russia nor the United States will gain from an end
run of their own political processes. At a minimum, there must be a
very close consultative process.
recommendations
What is my recommendation? I think we need to do some rethinking in
a less polarized way that brings all the player, including some new
players, to this process. There are certain things that our countries
have agreed already to do. Let's do them. START II is, I think,
essential. If we want to keep our relationship on track, moving in the
right direction, START II must enter into force. We can and should,
however, commit to a fresh look at the questions related to offenses
and defenses. This probably ought to be done after both countries'
elections.
This new process probably ought not be a negotiation initially, or
a formal government-to-government process by itself. It may require a
Track II process, and it should have a certain number of legislators
from the United States and Russia. An informal process--perhaps
initially off the record and anonymous--is necessary. Opinion leaders
with diverse views must rethink these questions of what we mean by
``the end of the Cold War'' and what we should do about offense and
defense after the Cold War. How do we think about balancing weapons if
the Cold War is really over, and how do we get beyond that? If we can't
do that, we're in for trouble.
a prediction
Now, let me make one prediction about the future. My own view is
that further defenses will be deployed. They're already deployed in
Russia. They will be deployed in the United States. Putting together
the coalition necessary will take longer than advocates recommend, and
this will continue to result in greater development costs. The
operational system itself, however, will inevitably cost less, not more
than has long been assumed. National missile defense will cost less
than what many people think because smaller threats are of increasing
urgency and because dual-use technologies which leverage defense are
advancing. The world of electronics is going in a direction that drives
many defense associated costs down.
The decision to deploy nationwide defenses, however, will not be
made in Moscow or Washington based upon an accountant's estimate of
affordability. It will be made when citizens demand that they be
defended. The event that will probably cause this to happen may not
even have anything to do with Russia, and it may not be based on an
initial threat against the United States. It may well be that theater
ballistic missiles, armed with a weapon of mass destruction, strikes
someone else's forces or cities. The world will suddenly change the way
it evaluates this equation. Much of the current debate will be washed
aside by the force of events.
Defenses are not an alternative to a multifaceted approach
including reductions, nonproliferation, and controlling smuggling, but
my own assessment is that we will be living for some time in a world in
which a multifaceted approach is not a substitute for defenses against
ballistic missiles. I believe that a new look undertaken without the
blinders of past political divisions will reveal that cooperating in
defending the people of Russia and the United States against ballistic
missiles will be seen as necessary for the security of both and a
powerful foundation upon which to build a more viably arms control and
non-proliferation regime.
Senator Hagel. General Habiger.
STATEMENT OF GENERAL EUGENE E. HABIGER, FORMER COMMANDER IN
CHIEF, U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND, OMAHA, NE
General Habiger. Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, thank you
very much for the opportunity to come to speak before this
committee.
First, let me tell you that in the 10 months that it has
been since I furled my flag and put on this civilian suit, my
views have not changed materially in this area.
The most significant change in my views has to do with the
deployment of the missile defense system.
I was always under the inclination that we needed the
system. It was not a matter of if we needed it but when we
needed it. But based upon the publication of the Rumsfeld
report since I retired, it has turned up certainly the wick in
my view that we ought to deploy that system sooner rather than
later.
I would like to make two points, if I could, sir. First,
regarding the cold war and the series of situations that we
have got ourselves into now as a result of that cold war and
how it ended: The cold war was a unique war. It lasted over 40
years. We had never experienced a conflict that lasted nearly
that long.
And the loser really did not lose. If you look at what we
did to the Germans after World War I, what we did to the
Germans and Japanese after World War II, we essentially
demilitarized them.
After the cold war ended, we essentially let the Russians
stay at their current--at then current nuclear levels of about
12,000 nuclear weapons.
So what we had at the end of the cold war was essentially
two eight-foot-tall boxers fully primed to beat the living
daylights out of each other, and they agreed to stand down.
Now, we have been on a very stable glide path with arms
control agreements to get down to new levels of nuclear
weapons, which is the right thing to do.
Hopefully, the Russians will, at some point in the not-too-
distant future, ratify START II, and we can get on with START
III. And I will tell you the Russians are very interested in
getting down to START IV levels.
The Russians have done the math, and they understand that
when you get to the START IV levels, whatever those levels are
going to be, it then must become a multilateral effort rather
than a bilateral effort, and that is going to be a much more
difficult situation.
With my experience with the Russians and the confidence
building over the past several years. I began my contacts with
the Russians back in 1992 when the chief of staff of the
Russian Air Force, came to Texas where I was stationed. I got
to know him very well.
The Russian military folks at the senior levels are very
professional. They are very serious about what they are doing.
They are also very paranoid about both our military
capabilities, and our technological capabilities. And if we
were to go out and walk away from the ABM Treaty, we would do
great harm in my view.
I agree with what Secretary Lehman said about pursuing
initiatives with the Russians. I think there is great potential
in this area.
The next point I would make, and my final point, is that we
will in fact need a ballistic missile defense system. But it
appears to me that we are myopic in our thinking if we assume
that it has to be a national system.
If you look back at how we have treated our allies, the
English, the Germans, the Japanese, I think we ought to--as
Secretary Lehman just described, be looking at more of a global
defensive system.
I have every confidence the Russians would step up to that
kind of an approach, and would also position us to not only
look at the three or four rogue nations that we see on the
horizon today, but the potential for other nations in the
future.
For example--I am not saying that India is a rogue nation,
but they are rapidly pursuing a capability. Pakistanis are
producing the capability. And--and who is to say that 50 years
from now that we might have to look to--to the south against
potential nations with these kinds of capabilities?
So, sir, it is with that that I make my opening statement.
I look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
Senator Hagel. General, thank you.
Dr. Payne.
STATEMENT OF DR. KEITH PAYNE, PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF
RESEARCH, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY; AND ADJUNCT
PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Payne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure and a
great honor to be here, particularly serving with these
esteemed colleagues at the table.
I would like to summarize my opening statement and submit
the full statement for the record.
Senator Hagel. It will be included.
Dr. Payne. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I have spent several years closely examining
the Senate record to identify the rationale for the ABM Treaty
as it was presented to the Senate in 1972.
And it is on the basis of that study that one can conclude
that the treaty was built on particular arms control and
deterrence theories circa 1972.
Now, 27 years later it is clear that those theories were
thoroughly mistaken. Many are reluctant to acknowledge these
mistakes, perhaps because so much political and intellectual
capital has been invested in the ABM Treaty. Some are not
reluctant. But we should cease being influenced by theories
that have so little validity.
The ABM Treaty, for example, was ratified on the premise
that strictly limiting national missile defense would lead to
stabilizing offensive force reductions.
Arms control theory at the time posited that if national
missile defense was limited, reductions in Soviet ICBM's would
be forthcoming because the Soviet Union would not need to
penetrate U.S. defenses and, therefore, could agree to
reductions.
In short, the theory was: No ABM Treaty, no offensive force
reductions. But with the ABM Treaty, stabilizing offensive
force reductions.
While seeking the Senate's advice and consent on the ABM
Treaty, Nixon administration officials were specific about this
expected benefit of limiting national missile defense. Indeed,
it became the primary justification for the treaty.
For example, in 1972, Henry Kissinger testified before the
Senate that, and I quote, ``As long as the ABM Treaty lasts,
offensive missile forces have, in effect, a free ride to their
targets.''
That free ride for Soviet missiles was considered useful as
a necessary basis for negotiating offensive arms reductions.
Unfortunately, the expected benefit never was realized. In
fact, history unfolded in the opposite direction. For two
decades following the ABM Treaty, the Soviet Union pursued a
massive buildup of destabilizing ICBM's capable of threatening
U.S. strategic deterrent forces.
To be specific, the number of such deployed Soviet ICBM's
increased from 308 in 1972 to over 650 16 years later, with a
related increase in the number of Soviet countersilo warheads
from--from roughly 300 to well over 5,000. As a result, U.S.
ICBM's became vulnerable to a Soviet preemptive strike.
The Scowcroft Commission, on which Ambassador Woolsey
served, for example, judged U.S. ICBM silos to be vulnerable in
1983 as a result of this Soviet offensive buildup.
This Soviet buildup was precisely what arms control theory
predicted the ABM Treaty would preclude. It was entirely
contrary to the confident expectations that justified the
treaty. Such a confounding of expectations was predicted at the
time by very few prescient critics of the ABM Treaty.
Other related arms control claims for the ABM Treaty
similarly went unrealized. For example, during the Senate
hearings in 1972, senior officials claimed that the treaty
reflected Soviet acceptance of the U.S. concept of mutual
deterrence through mutual vulnerability.
The validity of that claim for the ABM Treaty was important
because it meant that neither side would seek to upset the
supposed deterrence balance established by the treaty.
Now, however, former senior Soviet officials have explained
repeatedly and at length that the ABM Treaty did not reflect
Soviet acceptance of our notions of deterrence through mutual
vulnerability. Far from it.
For the Soviet Union, the ABM Treaty represented a tactical
move to derail U.S. superiority in missile defense technology
and to permit the Soviet Union to concentrate its resources on
its strategic offensive buildup.
That is not my interpretation. That is the testimony of
senior Soviet officials.
In complete contradiction to arms control theory, the ABM
Treaty appears actually to have facilitated the Soviet
offensive missile buildup of the seventies and the eighties
that led to the vulnerability of our retaliatory forces.
The optimistic expectations used to justify the ABM Treaty
went unmet. I believe because the U.S. arms control theory
ultimately was based on ``mirror-imaging,'' it mistakenly
attributed U.S. goals and hopes to the Soviet Union.
Ironically, when Boris Yeltsin finally endorsed START
offensive reductions in 1992, he simultaneously proposed U.S.-
Russian cooperation on a global ballistic missile defense
system. That is, President Yeltsin proposed that offensive
reductions and missile defense move forward together.
And even now, key members of the Russian Duma publicly and
privately advocate cooperating with Washington on limited NMD
deployment as the route necessary to preserve the START
process.
In short, with 27 years of hindsight, it is now possible to
conclude, based on abundant empirical evidence, that the arms
control theory underlying the ABM Treaty was mistaken at its
foundation.
The deterrence theory underlying the ABM Treaty was
similarly mistaken. The deterrence argument justifying the
treaty in 1972 was that mutual deterrence would provide
reliable protection against missile attack, while missile
defense would undermine deterrence and not protect adequately.
Therefore, so the argument concluded, the United States should
focus on mutual deterrence as the preferred alternative to
national missile defense.
This line of reasoning was prevalent during the original
Senate ABM Treaty hearings and remains a commonly expressed
view.
It was plausible in 1972. To repeat it now reflects a
complete lack of familiarity with almost two decades of
scholarly research concerning deterrence.
I can summarize those findings in one sentence: Deterrence
is inherently unreliable for reasons that cannot humanly be
fixed.
Many U.S. officials and commentators continue to assert
otherwise. They typically express confidence that the absence
of a third world war proves that deterrence can be made
reliable.
Perhaps, it is enough to note in response to such hubris
that similar confidence in deterrence became popular during the
decades of peace following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
Unfortunately, such confidence came to a quick end with the
outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914.
I have closely examined actual historical cases of
deterrence and coercion over the course of many years--in fact,
going back 2,000 years.
My findings and those of similar empirical studies are that
deterrence fails with some frequency because flesh and blood
leaders do not consistently behave in the manner required by
deterrence theory.
Unlike the leaders typically assumed in theory, real
leaders can be uninformed and misinformed, isolated and out-of-
touch. They can make terrible mistakes. They can behave
willfully, foolishly, emotionally, unpredictably, unreasonably
and even irrationally.
They may not prefer a conflict, but they may see no
acceptable alternative; or they may have goals for which they
are willing to lead their societies into great sacrifice and
great risk.
Unfortunately, there are no earthly developments that can
reliably prevent these very real and very human factors from
undermining deterrence. And we should recognize this danger.
We were, for example, very fortunate to have made it
through the cold war, a conclusion now shared by former U.S.
officials who were involved in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis
and have had the opportunity to compare notes with their Cuban
and Russian counterparts.
The finding that a strategy of deterrence is inherently
unreliable does not mean that deterrence is useless. Far from
it.
But it does suggest strongly that to choose to remain
vulnerable to countries such as North Korea, on the basis of
confidence in deterrence, would be to thoroughly misunderstand
what deterrence can and cannot accomplish.
In conclusion, the ABM Treaty was built on arms control and
deterrence theories that now can be demonstrated empirically to
be mistaken.
The ABM Treaty did not facilitate the promised offensive
force reductions. And contrary to all comforting assurances,
deterrence is inherently unreliable. Its functioning cannot be
ensured or even predicted with any confidence. Serious
empirical research on the subject allows no other conclusion.
I believe that this fact alone, in light of the pace of
proliferation, argues strongly for NMD deployment if the
necessary technology is available.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Hagel. Dr. Payne, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Payne follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Keith B. Payne
introduction
It is a great honor to address here two questions crucial to
consideration of national missile defense (NMD): First, how valid is
the arms control theory underlying the 1972 ABM Treaty?; and, second,
is the mutual vulnerability approach to deterrence in the U.S. national
interest?
The ABM Treaty was built on particular arms control and deterrence
theories. It now is clear that those theories were thoroughly mistaken.
Many are reluctant to acknowledge these flaws, perhaps because so much
political and intellectual capital has been invested in the ABM Treaty.
But we should cease being influenced by theories that have so little
validity.
the abm treaty and arms control theory
The ABM Treaty, for example, was ratified on the premise that
strictly limiting NMD would lead to ``stabilizing'' offensive force
reductions. Arms control theory at the time posited that if NMD was
limited, reductions in Soviet ICBMs would be forthcoming because the
Soviet Union would not need to penetrate U.S. defenses and therefore
could agree to reductions. In short, the theory was: no ABM Treaty, no
offensive force limitations; with the ABM Treaty, ``stabilizing''
offensive force reductions.
While seeking the Senate's advice and consent for the ABM Treaty.
Nixon administration officials were specific about this expected
benefit of limiting NMD; indeed, it became the primary justification
for the treaty. For example, in 1972 Henry Kissinger testified before
the Senate that, ``As long as [the ABM Treaty] lasts, offensive missile
forces have, in effect, a free ride to their targets.'' \1\ This ``free
ride'' for Soviet missiles was considered useful as the necessary basis
for negotiating offensive arms reductions. Unfortunately, the expected
benefit never was realized; in fact, history unfolded in the opposite
direction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Military Implication of the Treaty on the Limitations of Anti-
Ballistic Missile Systems and the Interim Agreement on Limitation of
Strategic Offensive Arms, Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Forces,
United States Senate, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. GPO, 1972), P. 121.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the two decades following the ABM Treaty, the Soviet Union
pursued a massive buildup of ``destabilizing'' ICBMs capable of
threatening U.S. strategic deterrent forces. To be specific, the number
of such deployed Soviet ICBMs increased from 308 in 1972 to over 650
sixteen years later, with a related increase in the number of Soviet
countersilo warheads from roughly 300 to well over 5,000. \2\ As a
result, U.S. ICBMs became vulnerable to a Soviet pre-emptive strike.
The ``Scowcroft Commission,'' for example, judged U.S. ICBM silos to be
vulnerable by 1983 as a result of this Soviet offensive buildup: ``The
Soviets nevertheless now probably possess the necessary combination of
ICBM numbers, reliability, accuracy, and warhead yield to destroy
almost all of the 1,047 U.S. ICBM silos, using only a portion of their
own ICBM force.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ These statistics concerning Soviet strategic weapons are found
in John Collins and Bernard Victory, U.S/Soviet Military Balance,
Statistical Trends, 1980-1987, Report No. 88-425 S (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Research Service, April 15, 1988); and John Collins and
Patrick Cronin, U.S./Soviet Military Balance, Assessments and
Statistic, Report No. 85-89 S (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research
Service, Spring 1985).
\3\ See Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces
(the Scowcroft Report) (Washington, D.C.: April 6, 1983), p. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Soviet buildup was precisely what arms control theory
predicted the ABM Treaty would preclude; it was entirely contrary to
the confident expectations that justified the treaty. Such a
confounding of expectations was predicted at the time by very few
prescient critics of the ABM Treaty.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Several participants in the SALT I process were accurate in
their relatively pessimistic estimates of what would occur over the
next fifteen years. See, for example, William Van Cleave's testimony in
Military Implications, pp. 569-92. See also, Don Brennan, ``When the
SALT Hit the Fan,'' National Review, June 1972, pp. 685-92; and Mark
Schneider, ``Problems of SALT: 1972,'' Survive, July/August 1972, pp.
2-6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other related arms control claims for the ABM Treaty similarly went
unrealized. For example, during Senate hearings in 1972 senior
officials claimed that the treaty reflected Soviet acceptance of the
U.S. concept of mutual deterrence through mutual vulnerability. As
Secretary of State William Rogers stated before the Senate: ``This [ABM
Treaty] is a general undertaking of utmost significance. Without a
nationwide ABM defense, there can be no shield against retaliation.
Both nuclear powers have recognized, and in effect agreed to maintain
nuclear deterrence.'' \5\ The validity of this claim was critical for
the ABM Treaty because it meant that neither side would seek to upset
the supposed deterrence balance established by the treaty.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Secretary of State William Rogers, Statement to Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, June 19, 1972, quoted in, SALT I Reconsidered
(Washington, D.C.: Institute of American Relations, 1979), p. 99.
----------------------------------------------------