[Senate Hearing 105-159] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]S. Hrg. 105-159 THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, PROLIFERATION, AND FEDERAL SERVICES of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ FEBRUARY 12, 1997 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 38-379 cc WASHINGTON : 1997 _______________________________________________________________________ For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee, Chairman WILLIAM V. ROTH, Jr., Delaware JOHN GLENN, Ohio TED STEVENS, Alaska CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey DON NICKLES, Oklahoma MAX CLELAND, Georgia ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania Hannah S. Sistare, Staff Director and Counsel Leonard Weiss, Minority Staff Director Michal Sue Prosser, Chief Clerk ------ SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, PROLIFERATION AND FEDERAL SERVICES THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi, Chairman TED STEVENS, Alaska CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois DON NICKLES, Oklahoma ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania MAX CLELAND, Georgia Mitchel B. Kugler, Staff Director Julie Sander, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Cochran.............................................. 1 Senator Levin................................................ 2 Senator Stevens.............................................. 15 Prepared statement: Senator Glenn................................................ 53 WITNESSES Wednesday, February 12, 1997 Hon. Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Department of Defense.......................................... 3 General Andrew J. Goodpaster, U.S. Army (Retired), Co-Chair, The Atlantic Council of the United States.......................... 25 Richard Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute.... 33 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Goodpaster, Gen. Andrew J. (Ret.): Testimony.................................................... 25 Prepared statement........................................... 29 Perle, Richard: Testimony.................................................... 33 Prepared statement........................................... 39 Slocombe, Hon. Walter B.: Testimony.................................................... 3 Prepared statement........................................... 20 APPENDIX Questions and Answers from Senator Glenn for: Hon. Slocombe................................................ 53 General Goodpaster........................................... 60 Joint Statement on Reduction of Nuclear Weapons by Generals Goodpaster and Butler.......................................... 61 Statement on Nuclear Weapons by International Generals and Admirals....................................................... 62 THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE ---------- WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1997 U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thad Cochran, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. Present: Senators Cochran, Stevens, Levin, and Durbin. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COCHRAN Senator Cochran. The Subcommittee will please come to order. I'd like to welcome everyone to the first hearing of this Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services. The topic of today's hearing is the future of nuclear deterrence. This hearing is held in a security environment that is radically different from the one faced by the United States a few years ago. Perhaps James Woolsey, President Clinton's first Director of Central Intelligence, best summed up this changed environment when he said, ``We have slain a large dragon, but we live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.'' Congress has an obligation to understand this new environment and to examine critically the premises upon which our national security has been based, including issues such as the size and composition of our strategic offense force, proliferation, arms control, and ballistic missile defense. We must decide whether the concepts of the past continue to make sense in this new security environment, require just some fine- tuning, or have outlived their usefulness. The subject of nuclear deterrence is ripe for review. Back on the 4th of December, Generals Andrew Goodpaster and Lee Butler issued a joint statement at the National Press Club that was described in the press advisory as ``an unprecedented statement for the elimination of nuclear weapons.'' This joint statement, coming from two retired senior officers, one the former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, the other the former Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Command, stirred up quite a controversy. The controversy was enlarged the following day by the release of the ``Statement on Nuclear Weapons by International Generals and Admirals,'' which was endorsed by an international group of 60 retired senior military officers.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The Joint Statement on Reduction of Nuclear Weapons by Generals Goodpaster and Butler, and the Statement on Nuclear Weapons by International Generals and Admirals appears in the Appendix on page 61. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's hearing will examine the underlying rationale for their proposals regarding nuclear weapons and deterrence as well as other alternatives. The central question we will explore in this hearing is, ``Do nuclear weapons continue to have an important role in America's national security strategy? '' We are fortunate to have with us today three witnesses who are well qualified to comment on this issue. We will begin with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walt Slocombe, who will lay out the administration's perspective on nuclear deterrence. Secretary Slocombe will be followed by General Goodpaster, whose public service spans seven decades and who is currently the Co-Chair of The Atlantic Council of the United States, and Richard Perle, now a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and formerly a senior defense official during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. We are very grateful for the attendance of the witnesses and for their good assistance to our Subcommittee. Secretary Slocombe, we welcome you to the Committee and we ask you to proceed. We have a copy of your statement for which we thank you very much and for which we are very grateful. Let me first of all call on my distinguished colleague Senator Levin from Michigan for any comments he might have. Senator Levin. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, first, let me congratulate you on not only becoming chair of this Subcommittee but also on the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee. You are a great person to be a chairman. You are a great person, period. But the breadth of the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee means that we are in for really fascinating hearings right at the heart of a whole lot of critical issues, including today's hearing. So I want to just tell you, Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to be the ranking member on your Subcommittee. This Subcommittee, as I mentioned, has unusual breadth of jurisdiction, everything from nuclear delivery vehicles, for instance, which is the subject of today's hearing, to postal delivery vehicles. We have got some wonderful witnesses today, and I want to join our chair in welcoming Secretary Slocombe and General Goodpaster, and I know Richard Perle is due here later. It is a great way to kick off this Subcommittee's history, and I look forward to participating with you in that history. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Cochran. Thank you very much, Senator Levin. Senator Durbin, any opening comments? Senator Durbin. I do not have any. Thank you. Senator Cochran. Mr. Secretary, you may proceed. TESTIMONY OF HON. WALTER B. SLOCOMBE, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Mr. Slocombe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you said, you have my full statement. We noticed a couple of typographical errors overnight, and we have a final version of it, which I will submit. Let me summarize what it says. Nuclear deterrence has been the subject of much debate over the decades, and that debate has been resumed and sharpened after the end of the Cold War. Most recently, the question has been given special prominence by the respected individuals and committees who advocate a radical change, setting as a policy goal the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. And I cannot begin without acknowledging that General Goodpaster and General Butler are very distinguished military officers, and their views are always entitled to great respect, although in this case I disagree at least with an important element of what they are saying. These calls for reexamination of our nuclear deterrent policy underscore the continuing American and world interest in a deliberate process to further reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons. The United States has embraced this commitment for many years, and it is formally reflected in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty signed in 1968, Article VI of which calls on the parties to undertake to ``pursue negotiations in good faith relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on complete and general disarmament under strict and effective international control.'' President Clinton in his speech to the United Nations this past September said he looks forward to a new century in which the roles and risks of nuclear weapons can be further reduced and ultimately eliminated. The United States has made remarkable progress in fulfilling our NPT Article VI commitment. Indeed, in an important sense, the nuclear arms race in the sense we understood it during the Cold War has been halted. The United States and indeed Russia have been reducing nuclear stockpiles, both by unilateral and bilateral initiatives. Over the past 4 years, the Clinton administration has worked hard on this process. We have secured the detargeting of U.S. and Russian strategic missiles, the entry into force of the START I Treaty, the complete denuclearization of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan, the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, United States ratification of the START II Treaty, and work with the Russian government to promote Duma ratification of that treaty, and successful negotiation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. We have also made clear that once START II enters into force, we are prepared to work on further reductions in strategic nuclear arms as well as on limiting and monitoring nuclear warheads and materials. Those are important accomplishments and there is much more to do, but we are not by any means yet at the point where we can eliminate our nuclear weapons. For the foreseeable future, we will continue to need a reliable and flexible nuclear deterrent, survivable against the most aggressive attack, under highly confident constitutional command and control, and assured in its safety against both accident and unauthorized use. We need such a force because nuclear deterrence, far from being made wholly obsolete, remains an essential ultimate assurance against the gravest of threats. A key conclusion of the administration's national security strategy released just a year ago is that ``The United States will retain a triad of strategic nuclear forces sufficient to deter any future hostile foreign leadership with access to strategic nuclear forces from acting against our vital interests and to convince it that seeking a nuclear advantage would be futile. Therefore, we will continue to maintain nuclear forces of sufficient size and capability to hold at risk a broad range of assets valued by such political and military leaders.'' To summarize the argument I will develop in more detail in my statement, we have already made dramatic steps in reducing U.S., Russian and indeed other nuclear arsenals and potentials. We have also taken important steps to ensure the safety, security, and non-diversion of remaining nuclear weapons. Second, we can and should do more on both the reduction and the safety and security fronts. Third, nonetheless, nuclear weapons remain essential to deter against the gravest threats, actual and foreseeable. Fourth, abolition of nuclear weapons, if understood as a near-term goal rather than, as President Clinton has stated, an ultimate aspiration, is not a wise and surely not a feasible focus for current policy efforts. And finally, assuring the reliability of our nuclear forces and the nuclear stockpile, therefore, remains a high national security priority. In my statement, I summarize briefly the Cold War experience with nuclear weapons. Some argued even during the Cold War that the danger of nuclear holocaust, which is unimaginable in its scope, was so great that the risk of possessing these weapons far outweighed their benefits. I do not agree, and I do not think the historical record supports that position. Nuclear deterrence helped us buy time, time for internal forces of upheaval and decay to rend the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and bring about the end of the Cold War. But the Cold War is over, and it is important to recognize the degree to which our nuclear deterrent and indeed that of Russia has been transformed even during the relatively short period of time since the wall came down. The role of nuclear weapons in our defense posture has diminished dramatically. We in the Department of Defense welcome this trend and expect it will continue in the future. In the sincerest of currency, U.S. spending on strategic forces, the emphasis has declined dramatically. In the mid-1960's, we were spending about a quarter of our defense budget on strategic nuclear forces. We now spend something like 3 percent. We have no major procurement programs for next generation systems. We do have programs designed to sustain the effectiveness, safety and reliability of the remaining forces, and to ensure the continued high quality of the people who man them. Russian spending on strategic forces has also declined substantially. The Russian Federation does have some strategic systems under development, for example, a new single warhead ICBM, the SS-X-27, and a new strategic ballistic missile submarine, but these programs are far fewer in number, and their development and deployment pace far slower than during the Cold War period. Stabilizing agreed reductions in nuclear forces have been and continue to be a primary objective of the United States. The United States and Russia have taken great strides in this regard in recent years. START I will reduce each side's deployed strategic weapons from well over 10,000 to 6,000 accountable weapons. Russia, like the U.S., is actually somewhat ahead of schedule in meeting the START I reduction requirements. START II, when it is ratified by the Russian Duma and enters into force, will further reduce to 3,000 to 3,500 each side's weapons. Following START II's entry into force, we are prepared to engage in negotiations further reducing strategic nuclear forces. Meanwhile, the United States has unilaterally reduced its non-strategic nuclear weapons to one-tenth--I say again one- tenth--of Cold War levels. Russia pledged in 1991 to make significant unilateral cuts itself in its non-strategic forces, and it has reduced its operational non-strategic force substantially. It has made far less progress on this score than the United States, and the Russian non-strategic arsenal deployed and stockpiled is probably about 10 times as large as ours. In addition to START reductions, there have been qualitative changes in our nuclear arsenal. There used to be nuclear land-mines, nuclear artillery, nuclear infantry weapons, tactical nuclear surface-to-surface weapons, nuclear surface-to-air weapons, nuclear air-to-air weapons, nuclear depth-charges, and nuclear torpedoes. All these have gone. In 1991 and 1992, the United States unilaterally stopped several nuclear weapons programs like Lance and SRAM-A. We halted a number of planned or ongoing development programs, which had been the focus of passionate controversy during the 1980's, like the Small ICBM, the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison and the Lance Follow-On Theater Missile. We took nuclear bombers off strip alert and removed from alert as well, well ahead of the required schedule, those ICBMs and strategic missile submarines planned for elimination under START II. We made dramatic cuts in our tactical nuclear forces. In 1994, further reflecting the changed international situation, the United States and Russia agreed to no longer target their ballistic missiles against each other on a day-to-day basis. In parallel with this, we have been pressing the proliferation question. Clearly, there are serious problems, but the picture is not all bleak. No nation has openly joined the nuclear club since China in 1964. There are only three unacknowledged nuclear powers. South Africa abandoned its nuclear capability, as Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan did theirs. Argentina and Brazil have renounced the option, as Sweden and Canada did long ago. North Korea's program is effectively frozen. Iraq is under a special and highly intrusive United Nations inspection regime. The vast majority of the countries in the world support a permanent nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which is mostly a benefit which the non-nuclear countries confer upon each other in the world and not a favor they do for the nuclear powers. And we have negotiated an end to nuclear testing. With all this, the question, however, is rightly asked: Granted all these reductions with the end of the Cold War, why do we need to continue to maintain a nuclear deterrent at all? In September 1994, the Clinton administration answered this question in its Nuclear Posture Review, the first comprehensive post-Cold War review of nuclear policy. The NPR recognized that with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and other dramatic changes, the strategic environment had been transformed. Conventional forces, therefore, could and should and would assume a far larger share of the deterrent role. The administration concluded nonetheless that nuclear weapons continue to play a critical role in deterring aggression against the United States, its overseas forces, its allies and friends. That conclusion is entirely consistent with NATO's Strategic Concept, adopted in 1991 after the end of the Cold War, which states that ``The fundamental purpose of NATO's nuclear force is to preserve peace and prevent coercion and any kind of war and that nuclear weapons make a unique contribution in rendering the risks of aggression incalculable and unacceptable.'' Why did we and why did NATO reach these conclusions? Most importantly, because the positive changes in the international environment are far from irreversible, and we can foresee new dangers. There are broadly two classes of threat against which nuclear weapons remain important as a deterrent. First, Russia. Russia has made great progress, and we do not regard it as a potential military threat under its present or indeed any reasonably foreseeable government. The United States wisely invests substantially in the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, in future arms control, and in political efforts to maintain good relations. We share with the current Russian leadership and indeed with most of their opponents a determination not to let our relations ever return to the state of hostility in which the weapons each country possesses would be a threat to the other. All that said, Russia continues to possess substantial strategic nuclear forces and an even larger stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons. And because of deterioration in its conventional military capabilities, Russian spokesmen have indicated that they may place even more reliance on nuclear forces on the future. We cannot be so certain of future Russian politics and policies as to ignore the possibility that we would again need to deter this Russian nuclear force. Accordingly, with respect to Russia, our nuclear policy is what Secretary Perry called ``lead and hedge,'' leading toward further reductions and increased weapons safety and improved relations and hedging against the possibility of reversal of reform in Russia. We do not believe that reversal is likely, but we are working to manage the risk. Nonetheless, we feel it is prudent to provide a hedge against its happening. Second, even if we could ignore the Russian nuclear arsenal entirely, there are unfortunately a range of other potential threats to which nuclear weapons are needed as a deterrent. One cannot survey the list of rogue states with potential WMD programs and conclude otherwise. Indeed, the knowledge that the United States has a powerful and ready nuclear capability is, I believe, a significant deterrent to proliferators who even contemplate the use of weapons of mass destruction. That this is so, I think, will be clear if one thinks about the proliferation incentives that would be presented to the Kaddafis and Kim-Chong-Ils of the world if the United States did not have a reliable and flexible nuclear capability. Of course, nuclear weapons are only a part of the broad range of capabilities by which we seek to prevent, deter and if necessary defend against threats from weapons of mass destruction. Passive defenses, improved intelligence, diplomatic efforts, active air, cruise missile and ballistic missile defense, and powerful and precise conventional capabilities, each have key roles to play, but nuclear weapons also play a part. In view of this, it is our conclusion that it would be irresponsible to dismantle the well-established and much- reduced system of nuclear deterrence before new and reliable systems or substitute systems for preserving stability are in place. What about the argument that our weapons promote proliferation? The more compelling case seems to me that proliferant states acquire nuclear weapons not because we have them but for reasons of their own: to counter regional adversaries, to further regional ambitions, and to enhance their status among their neighbors and in the world. And insofar as our nuclear capability is an issue, if a successful proliferator knew he would not face the nuclear potential of the United States, that would scarcely reduce incentives to acquire a WMD capability. The incentives to proliferate would increase dramatically if a rogue state would through a successful nuclear weapons program acquire a nuclear monopoly and not just a token capability facing far stronger forces possessed by the United States and other world powers. Some people claim that once proliferation does occur, U.S. nuclear forces lack any utility in deterring rogue leaders from using those weapons because those leaders would not regard the costs even of nuclear retaliation as sufficiently great. Of course, their calculations of risk and rewards undoubtedly differ from our own, and we must take that into account. But experience suggests that few dictators are, in fact, indifferent to the preservation of key instruments of their State control or to the survival of their own regimes or indeed their own persons and associates. Thus, I believe the reverse is true. Our nuclear capabilities are more likely to give pause to potential rogue proliferants than to encourage them. Another important role of U.S. nuclear capability in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons should not go unnoticed. The extension of a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent to allies and friends has been an important nonproliferation tool. It has removed incentives for key allies in a still dangerous world to develop and deploy their own nuclear forces, as many are quite capable of doing from a technical point of view. Indeed, our strong security relationships have probably played as great a role in nonproliferation over the past 40 years as the NPT or any other single factor. Let me address the argument that nuclear weapons should be eliminated because they are dangerous and unsafe. Of course, nuclear weapons are dangerous. Quite apart from their potential to cause incalculable destruction if they are used, they contain high explosives and fissile material. But they are not unsafe in the sense that they are susceptible to accidental detonation or unauthorized use. Our nuclear weapons meet the highest standards of safety, security, and responsible custodianship. Moreover, we place high priority on maintaining and improving stockpile safety as well as reliability. Our nuclear safety record is extraordinary. Although a few accidents involving nuclear weapons have occurred, no such accident has ever resulted in a nuclear detonation or a nuclear yield, and the last accident of any kind was almost 20 years ago. We believe the likelihood of accidents has been dramatically reduced since the end of the Cold War, and I detail the statements which we have made to that end in the statement. In addition, nuclear weapons security in Russia has been a key element of the Department of Defense's Cooperative Threat Reduction program with Russia, better known as the Nunn- Lugar program, from the beginning. It is clear that Russian's military and civilian leaders themselves, and for their own reasons, place a high priority on preserving effective control over their nuclear arsenal. It is every bit in our interest that they should do so. $100 million in CTR assistance has been made available for projects to enhance security of nuclear weapons under Ministry of Defense control in Russia. On balance, the safety risks of maintaining a smaller nuclear arsenal are far outweighed by the security and non- proliferation benefits that we continue to derive from nuclear deterrence. With respect to the general argument for abolition, I would summarize the case for retaining nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future as follows. First, whatever would be desirable, there is, in fact, no reasonable prospect that all the declared and de facto nuclear powers will agree in the near term to give up all their nuclear weapons. But as long as one such State refuses to do so, it will be necessary for us to retain a nuclear force of our own. Second, if the nuclear powers were somehow to agree to accept abolition, that acceptance would require Congress, the public--the U.S. Government would rightly demand--a verification regime of extraordinary rigor and intrusiveness. This would have to go far beyond any currently in existence or even under contemplation, and it would have to include not merely a system of verification, but what the International Generals Statement calls, ``an agreed procedure for forcible international intervention and interruption of covert efforts in a certain and timely fashion.'' The difficulties with setting up such a system under current world conditions are obvious. Such a regime would have to continue to be effective in the midst of prolonged and grave crisis between potentially nuclear-capable powers even during a war between such powers, for in such a crisis, in an abolition regime, the first question for all involved would be that of whether or when to start a clandestine nuclear program so as to avoid another beating them to the goal, for the knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons cannot be abolished. Finally, we who are charged with responsibility for national security and national defense, both in the executive branch and in Congress, must recall that we are not only seeking to avert a nuclear war. We are seeking to avert major conventional war as well. As I indicated earlier, during the Cold War, nuclear weapons played a stabilizing role in that they made the resort to military force less likely. The world is still heavily armed with advanced conventional weapons and will increasingly be so armed with weapons of mass destruction. The existence of nuclear weapons continues to serve as a damper on resort to the use of force. Because nuclear deterrence is to remain a part of our national security policy for the foreseeable future, the United States nuclear deterrent has to remain credible. Weapon systems must be effective and their warheads safe and reliable. Quality, reliability and effectiveness of the forces themselves, including the communication and command systems which are essential to their functioning, and the people who operate them, are among our top priorities in the Department of Defense. With respect to the nuclear devices themselves, DOE, which has the responsibility, has an aggressive, well-funded program designed to ensure that our weapons remain safe and reliable in the absence of nuclear testing. The Department of Defense fully supports this program. We also strongly support the principle that if for some reason the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy could not certify the reliability of a critical element of our deterrent without nuclear testing, the United States would have to give the most serious consideration to exercising its right under the Test Ban Treaty to withdraw from the treaty under the supreme national interest clause for the purpose of conducting necessary tests. We regard that possibility as very remote given a properly supported and executed stewardship program. In short, today and for the future, assuming that program is carried out, we have high confidence in the safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent force. The Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program is designed to provide the tools to assure this in the future. Our objective is a safe, stable world. We must develop our national security policy with the understanding that nuclear weapons and the underlying technical knowledge cannot be disinvented. In this connection, the United States will continue to lead the way to a safer world through deep reductions in nuclear forces undertaken in START and through the Cooperative Threat Reduction program and other actions. At the same time, we will maintain a smaller nuclear force as a hedge against a future that is uncertain and in a world which substantial nuclear arsenals remain. Successive U.S. administrations have embraced the objective of nuclear disarmament as our ultimate goal. What is clear is that this ultimate goal can be reached, if at all, only through realistic moves forward as genuine security permits, with each step building on those before it. We will continue to strive to make the world a safer place for our children and grandchildren and successor generations. In this regard, we are committed to the ultimate objective of elimination of nuclear weapons in the context of complete and general disarmament. Until these conditions are realized, however, I believe that nuclear weapons will continue to fulfil an essential role in meeting our deterrence requirements and assuring our non-proliferation objectives. I thank you for the Subcommittee's attention. Senator Cochran. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Let me first commend you for the excellent effort to pull together all of the arguments in support of a policy of deterrence in this new environment. I am impressed with the effort that has obviously gone into the preparation of this statement. Mr. Slocombe. Thank you. Senator Cochran. And we appreciate that kind of effort for this hearing. Mr. Slocombe. Thank you, sir. Senator Cochran. My impression of this statement is that it is consistent in terms of policy with the President's 1996 National Security Strategy of Engagement Enlargement Report, which he submitted to Congress last February. In that report to Congress, the President said, ``The United States will retain a triad of strategic nuclear forces sufficient to deter any future hostile foreign leadership with access to strategic nuclear forces from acting against our vital interests and to convince it that seeking a nuclear advantage would be futile. We will continue to maintain nuclear forces of such sufficient size and capability to hold at risk a broad range of assets valued by such political and military leaders.'' Is your conclusion the same as mine that your statement is consistent with that statement of policy reflected in the President's February 1996 report to Congress? Mr. Slocombe. Yes, Senator Cochran, and indeed it incorporates that statement. Senator Cochran. There is a suggestion throughout the policy that while it may be unrealistic to have as a goal the elimination of nuclear weapons in the U.S. defense arsenal in the foreseeable future, it is not unrealistic to expect that we could get to low numbers of nuclear weapons and still have the same kind of deterrent impact. Is that a fair statement? That there is a difference between low numbers of nuclear weapons and no nuclear weapons as a matter of deterrence policy? Mr. Slocombe. Yes, indeed. Senator Cochran. There is some suggestion by some who say that if we were to have such low numbers that rogue States or other nations who think about developing a nuclear arsenal of their own could expect to match our arsenal or have enough power in their nuclear arsenal that they would risk the development of nuclear weapons, whereas if we had an overwhelming superiority, that because of expense, technical expertise or access to the ingredients for nuclear weapons production or maybe other reasons as well, that they would probably abandon any kind of notion. What is your reaction to that suggestion? Mr. Slocombe. As I said in the statement, it is our objective to reach the lowest prudent level of force for nuclear deterrence. What that low level is, of course, is a matter for analysis and study and not simply for assertion. Sometimes people talk about numbers in the couple of hundred range. For a variety of reasons, under current and foreseeable conditions, I believe that such low numbers would have a number of risks and disadvantages. One is the one you identify, that although very few proliferant countries would be able to get even to those numbers, it still is not totally out of the question with a massive program to match those numbers. Perhaps even more important, in an important sense what continues to be essential for a proper nuclear force is that it should be survivable, that it should not be susceptible to easy attack, and one inevitably worries, with forces of even a couple of hundred, whether you could meet that condition. It is our policy now that even the sharply reduced force should have a high level of survivability, and extremely low numbers have to be looked at very closely from that point of view. Thirdly, there are issues about the targeting doctrine that would have to be associated with such low forces. Those are difficult issues to go into in public session, but they tend to the conclusion that, unless you are content with the kind of strictly city-busting strategy, which has never been U.S. policy, there are powerful arguments not to have such small forces. Senator Cochran. In testimony in 1995, General Goodpaster mentioned that a 100 to 200 nuclear weapons should be sufficient for the United States, and President Clinton's current National Security Strategy calls ``for maintaining nuclear forces of sufficient size and capability to hold at risk a broad range of assets valued by such political and military leaders.'' I wonder if General Goodpaster's number 100 to 200 would be ``of such sufficient size and capability? '' Mr. Slocombe. Well, it is obviously not our current policy and for the reasons stated I would have great difficulty in expecting to go to that low a level in the foreseeable future. Senator Cochran. In my opening statement, I mentioned that after the December 4 news conference at the National Press Club there was a follow-on statement by admirals and generals calling for a number of ``prerequisites'' that had to be fulfilled prior to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, and in their statement they say, ``The exact circumstances and conditions that will make it possible to proceed finally to abolition cannot now be foreseen or prescribed.'' And then they go on to set out certain prerequisites that are ``obvious and essential.'' One of those is ``a worldwide program of surveillance and inspection including measures to account for and control inventories of nuclear weapons materials.'' Is such an international monitoring system feasible, and if so do we have the capacity or any indication that we could reach an international agreement for such monitoring? Mr. Slocombe. Well, I suppose it is hard to say that such a system is infeasible. It does not violate the laws of physics. It would obviously be extremely difficult to set up. That said, one of the things which I think we will want to look at in successive rounds of arms control efforts with Russia are our efforts to get control of nuclear weapons themselves as well as of the delivery systems for them. As the Subcommittee will be aware, the existing agreements all focus entirely on the launchers, the missiles, the bombers, and so on, rather than on the nuclear warheads themselves. I think an issue to which we should give very careful attention as we think about future rounds in this effort to reduce the level of danger and the level of risk is whether we can move to a system of control on the nuclear materials and the warheads themselves, and that will require very different and more intrusive system of inspection and verification in an area that even the United States, much less other countries, has always regarded as extraordinarily sensitive. That is an issue we are looking at now. But the contrast between doing that in an effort to control and limit the size of arsenals and then trying to go to a system where you would have absolute assurance that nowhere in the world were people working on the development of nuclear weapons obviously would be a several orders of magnitude further step. Senator Cochran. There were several other prerequisites, as I mentioned, in this statement by international general and admirals. Another was that an international system could be supplanted by one in which regional systems for collective security including practical measures for cooperation, partnership, interaction and communication, would help protect us all from a nuclear threat. Would that permit the complete elimination of the need for nuclear weapons? Is that prerequisite plausible? Mr. Slocombe. As I understand it, one of the arguments which is made in behalf of abolition is that the kinds of security which is now assured by weapons including by nuclear weapons should in time be replaced by regional and international systems of what, in effect, would be a world government. That has been an aspiration of mankind for a very long time, and I think remains a legitimate aspiration. For a variety of reasons, I have some skepticism about whether it is going to happen terribly soon. I also should mention, as I mention in the statement, and I give credit to the generals and admirals statement for at least accepting the need to address these issues, which is not always done by people who advocate that position, they also talk about an agreed procedure for forcible international intervention and interruption of covert efforts in a certain and timely fashion. That is some kind of an enforcement mechanism. I think it is absolutely correct that if you are going to talk seriously about abolition as an objective, you have to address that part of the problem, and the difficulties with having such a system which would work and be acceptable are also, I think, quite formidable. Senator Cochran. Thank you very much. Senator Levin. Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Slocombe, I would like to start by asking you about the Nonproliferation Treaty, Article VI, and how the administration interprets that article. I think in your testimony, you indicated that that article means to us that we would seek the elimination of nuclear weapons and pursue negotiations toward that ultimate goal, but only in the context of an agreement on general and complete disarmament, presumably meaning conventional as well as nuclear disarmament. Is that correct? Mr. Slocombe. And chemical and biological and informational and other kinds, I suppose. Senator Levin. But is it the interpretation of that article that our obligation to pursue negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons is contingent on an agreement on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control? Mr. Slocombe. As I understand the treaty, it has two elements in terms of what Article VI promises. The first is negotiations in good faith relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race, and we regard that as an obligation independent of the goal of elimination of nuclear weapons. And I would assert that we have, in fact, fully--we need to do more--but we have fully satisfied that element of the Article VI requirement. Second, that the treaty, the NPT, reflects an ultimate goal of the elimination of force as an instrument in international relations, both nuclear and conventional and other kinds, and that it sets out, and I think wisely reflects, that for many of the reasons that were developed in the Chairman's line of questioning, to have a system in which nuclear weapons are eliminated implies transformations in the international environment. You are not simply talking about a technical problem of eliminating nuclear weapons, but the conditions to make that possible require transformations in the international environment and, in particular, on the role of force in international affairs. So that I think the short answer to your question is, yes, we do regard the goals of complete nuclear disarmament, nuclear abolition, if you will, and the goal of a treaty on general and complete disarmament as closely linked. Senator Levin. When you read the language, it does not make one contingent on the other. Mr. Slocombe. It does not, I suppose, but I believe that is our sense of what the realities of attaining either goal entail. If it turned out somehow that one could make significant progress toward nuclear abolition, I do not suppose it is, strictly speaking, contingent. It is just difficult for me to see how you could meet the kinds of requirements. This is not a question of the United States and Russia monitoring each other and having a mutual interest in restraint. It is a system which works equally well for Libya or the drug cartels or whoever, so that it is a very tall order. Senator Levin. I think with all the difficulty of understanding that, nonetheless, it seems pretty clear that Article VI makes one obligation non-contingent on the other obligation. Would you comment? Mr. Slocombe. Senator, may I suggest that we get a formal legal judgment from the Office of Legal Adviser at State who will have the responsibility for interpreting treaties? Senator Levin. Yes. Do you know whether or not the other parties to this treaty consider one obligation contingent on the other? Are you familiar with it? Mr. Slocombe. I understand that the proper interpretation of Article VI is a matter of very substantial dispute. Senator Levin. Would you agree with Secretary Cohen that there would have to be significant nuclear reductions in the future? He is referring to numbers of nuclear weapons below the START II levels. Mr. Slocombe. Oh, yes, I think that that is a very high priority. It is one of the reasons it is important to get START II ratified in Russia so we can move on to lower levels. Senator Levin. Is one of the problems with START II ratification by the Russian Duma that it tends to drive them toward the production of a single warhead ICBM which they cannot afford? Mr. Slocombe. That argument is sometimes made, yes. Senator Levin. Do you think there is reason behind that feeling? Mr. Slocombe. At least the argument coheres. You can understand what they are talking about, and I think the solution to that, and we are working on that, is to make clear that we are prepared after START II comes into effect to move forward immediately to agree on lower levels for START III, which, whatever the virtue, the rights and wrongs of that argument, will make it unnecessary for them to build up the kind of levels that they are talking about. This has to do with a substitute--as I understand it, the argument is they have to get rid of the MIRVed ICBMs, and yet to fill up their quota they would have to build a single RV system. Senator Levin. Well, that was one of our goals in START II, to get away from the multi-warheaded land-based missiles, correct? Mr. Slocombe. Oh, yes, and it is indeed one of the important accomplishments of the treaty, probably the central accomplishment rather than---- Senator Levin. We did not like the multiple-warheaded missiles. Mr. Slocombe. Exactly. Senator Levin. So in START II, we got away from them in terms of ICBMs. That was a goal of ours. Now the Russians face the situation where, to have the limit allowed to them, they need to build single warhead ICBMs, and they say they do not have the money to do it. So they say let us agree to a START III agreement so they do not have to lay out money, they do not have to build the single warhead ICBMs. Is that basically what they are arguing? Mr. Slocombe. That is one of many arguments they make. Senator Levin. Is that one of many arguments that they are making? Mr. Slocombe. Yes. Senator Levin. And you think it is not an unreasonable argument? Mr. Slocombe. It is not only not an unreasonable argument, it is an argument that we are prepared to meet by commitment to go forward immediately after the treaty comes into effect to agree on lower levels---- Senator Levin. Right. Mr. Slocombe [continuing]. Under which they would not have to build up to the levels that give them the problem. I personally have some difficulty with their purported calculations of why this is infeasible and so on, but I understand what the argument is. Senator Levin. Do you mean financially infeasible? Mr. Slocombe. Yes. Senator Levin. If we are willing to negotiate to a lower level to avoid that problem for them, are we willing to negotiate some kind of a framework for that level now so they would know when they ratify START II that there is an agreed upon framework of some kind? Mr. Slocombe. That is certainly one of the options we have been talking about, yes. It has been done in a variety of other contexts with nuclear arms limitation treaties, and it is a model which may well be applicable in this context. Senator Levin. OK. In your statement, you say that we have made clear that once START II enters into force, we are prepared to work on further reductions, and so, as I understand your answer to my question, we are prepared to work on further reductions at least in terms of a framework for further reductions before START II enters into effect; is that correct? Mr. Slocombe. That is at least one of the options we are talking about with them as well as internally. One of the reasons that I say that their point about having to build up single RV ICBMs is only one of many arguments as relates to this question of why it is important to get the START II limitations in place as a legally binding agreement because we do not want to reopen a lot of other contentious issues where I think if we say, well, now, let us renegotiate the number, there would be very heavy pressures to do that, and as you know, Senator, these are difficult agreements to reach. There have, in fact, been four of them. It is important to go step by step. Each one then can be followed by a better agreement, but if you do not take the agreements which have been entered into and get them nailed down, various pressures arise, indeed, to some degree in both countries, to go back and renegotiate a lot of other issues. Senator Levin. Do you agree we want to negotiate lower limits to START II? Mr. Slocombe. I do not agree we want to negotiate lower limits. I do not want to change the limits. Senator Levin. I did not say in START II. You want to negotiate lower limits than exist in START II? Mr. Slocombe. Yes, as a next step. Senator Levin. So do they. Mr. Slocombe. That is correct. Senator Levin. It is important to them, before they ratify START II, that there be some awareness of those lower limits so they do not then need--from their perspective--to start building a single warhead ICBM that would then be prohibited in any follow-on agreement. And I am trying to find out from you why you seem to be reluctant to say what I have read 20 times in 20 different newspapers. Mr. Slocombe. No, I am not reluctant at all. This is an eminently solvable problem and one of the good ways to solve it is this framework agreement approach that you are talking about. Senator Levin. And if we are able to achieve that framework approach, then, in fact, we are prepared to work on further reductions, at least in terms of a framework even before START II enters into effect; is that correct? Mr. Slocombe. The short answer is yes. Senator Levin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Cochran. Senator Stevens. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS Senator Stevens. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry to come in late, Mr. Secretary. I have gone over your statement quickly. I had it last night also. Tell me where do you think our ballistic missile defense system fits into this picture. Mr. Slocombe. It is certainly an important element of our overall defense policy. I see it as having two roles. One has to do with theater missile defense, and these both relate to the proliferation issue. We face an immediate ballistic missile threat, a short-term ballistic missile threat from not a lot but a number of rogue States, North Korea, Iran, potentially Iraq, to the degree we do not keep them under the sanctions regime. So we have an immediate priority for tactical theater missile defense. That is where the focus of our effort goes. Second, I and the administration are quite willing to acknowledge that if we saw a rogue State, a potential proliferant, beginning to develop a long-range ICBM capable of reaching the United States, we would have to give very, very serious attention to deploying a limited national missile defense so as to be able to protect against that threat, and that is the thrust of our policy. So I agree. Ballistic missile defense both at the theater and the national missile defense level are a part of the policy. At the moment, we do not see that, we do not see the threat at the national missile defense level, but in any event, we are embarked on what now I guess one should call the two plus three program. That is to have now within 2 years developed limited national missile defense system capable of being deployed within a 3-year period but without a commitment at this point to deploy it because at this point we do not see the threat emerging. Senator Stevens. Well, I and the senator from Hawaii noted with interest that national intelligence estimate said the continental United States, the 48 States, do not face a threat within 15 years. But we happen to come from states that are outside the continental limits, and we see a threat within 15 years. Mr. Slocombe. I understand that aspect of the problem. Senator Stevens. Does not the nuclear deterrence have something to do with reining in that threat? Mr. Slocombe. Nuclear deterrence has an important element in reining in the threat worldwide including against U.S. forces who are deployed. Senator Stevens. Well, until we have a capable national missile defense, would you recommend that we pursue a policy of not having a nuclear deterrence? Mr. Slocombe. No. Senator Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Slocombe. No, I believe that for the foreseeable future, we are going to need a deterrent capability to deal with a wide range of threats including proliferants. But that is not the only thing on which we rely, and there is a role for missile defense as well. Senator Stevens. Well, Mr. Chairman, let me reengage a little bit here. You said there is no reasonable prospect that all declared de facto nuclear powers will agree in the near term to give up all their nuclear weapons. As long as one such State refused to do so, it would be necessary for us to retain nuclear force on our own. But I am asking you is that the only requirement for us to have a nuclear deterrence? Mr. Slocombe. No. Senator Stevens. If we have one State that retains nuclear force? Mr. Slocombe. I believe that as long as one State that is known to have nuclear weapons does not agree to give them up, the notion of other countries unilaterally, at least of the United States--other countries can decide for themselves--the notion of the United States unilaterally giving up nuclear weapons would not be in our national interest. I am not sure I am---- Senator Stevens. I am trying to understand whether you are saying if we have an agreement from those who have nuclear power now that they would give up all their nuclear weapons, as far as you are concerned, we would have no use for deterrence? Mr. Slocombe. No, that is not my view, and I think it is not what the statement says. Senator Stevens. That is what I understood, and I thank you very much. I agree with you. Senator Cochran. Mr. Secretary, I understand the administration supports a production complex that could help ensure the continued safety, reliability, and effectiveness of nuclear weapons that you have talked about our needing for future deterrent purposes. My question is about the testing of these weapons. You mentioned the negotiation, the successful negotiation, I think was your word, of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. There is a proposal to have a Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship and Management program. I think it would be managed by the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense under a joint arrangement. Do you expect this stewardship program is going to fulfil the need to ensure the continued safety, reliability, and effectiveness of the nuclear weapons that the administration proposes that we maintain? How are we going to know that these weapons are reliable if we do not test them? Mr. Slocombe. First of all, yes, I do anticipate that it will meet that objective. That is certainly the purpose of the program. As it goes forward, there will be a system in which annually the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense based on the advice of military and technical experts will have to certify that the stockpile is safe and reliable as indeed they do today. I believe that the Stockpile Stewardship program and things which can be done without testing will enable those certifications to be made. The certifications, of course, are made on a detailed analysis of the condition of the weapons and the expected behavior under various conditions and so on. As you know, the President has said that if--and let me just read the statement--``In the event that I were informed by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy advised by the Nuclear Weapons Council, the directors of DOE's nuclear weapons laboratories, and the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, that a high level of confidence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear weapon type, which the two secretaries consider to be critical to our nuclear deterrent, could no longer be certified, I would be prepared in consultation with Congress to exercise our supreme national interest rights under the CTBT in order to conduct whatever testing might be required.'' Senator Cochran. The Department of Energy under the Nuclear Posture Review is required ``to maintain capability to design, fabricate and certify new warheads.'' Some weapons experts have stated that any new nuclear weapons design would require testing prior to production and deployment. Under that circumstance, would you also expect that we would exercise our supreme national interest and permit such testing of newly designed nuclear warheads? Mr. Slocombe. First of all, it is not absolutely clear that a newly developed nuclear weapon would require testing. If it were the judgment that it was impossible or that we could not maintain an adequately reliable stockpile because we had to design a new weapon, for example, because of concerns about an old one, then the procedure that I outlined would apply. To be clear, we maintain the capacity to design new weapons. We do some design of potential backups and replacements. Under current circumstances, we do not foresee a requirement to design new weapons from the ground up, but we will retain that capacity, the capacity to do so. Senator Cochran. You mentioned Secretary Perry's admonition that we should lead and hedge. And I wonder if one of the ways that we should follow up Senator Stevens' question, is by developing and deploying a national missile defense system? Mr. Slocombe. We are developing both a national missile defense capability and a variety of theater missile defense capabilities, and as I have explained in answer to Senator Stevens' question, it is certainly our policy that we will go forward with deployment of the theater systems as they become available, and that if we believe that we see a threat to which the national missile defense is an appropriate response, we would be in a position to do that. Senator Cochran. Would you agree that ballistic missile defense systems could help deter rogue regimes, some of whom have limited financial resources, from pursuing a policy of ballistic missile development? Mr. Slocombe. Yes. It is not the only factor in deterrent. Nuclear weapons can be delivered by a variety of devices other than ballistic missiles, and indeed to some degree it seems to me that a country which has somehow kluged together a limited ballistic missile capability and had only a few missiles of uncertain reliability might be reluctant to commit what would also be a rather limited nuclear arsenal to deliver it that way. But I concede that the sign of the effect is certainly the way you put it. It is not a perfect deterrent. I also just for the record should make clear that what we are talking about, what I think everybody is talking about now in terms of a national missile defense system, is a missile defense against the kind of threat you are describing. That is a very limited attack from a rogue State, not a fully developed missile attack from a first-class power. Senator Cochran. But you did say that you were in favor, and the administration was, pursuing the development of a national defense system. Mr. Slocombe. Oh, yes. Senator Cochran. A national ballistic missile defense system? Mr. Slocombe. Yes, but I think in the whole controversy, the whole argument on all sides, has been about developing a system which is aimed very much at a limited attack. Senator Cochran. OK. Senator Levin, do you have any other questions? Senator Levin. Well, there are a lot of issues involved in the national missile defense debate. Mr. Slocombe. Oh yes. Senator Levin. One of them, would you not agree, is whether or not to make a commitment to deploy that system before the technology is developed and before there is an assessment of the threat? Mr. Slocombe. Absolutely. It is certainly a core part of our policy that we will develop a system, we will have something which could be developed and therefore we could make a decision to move to deployment within a couple of years for exactly the reasons you State. We think it would be imprudent to go forward to that deployment unless we had much, much better evidence than we have now that we faced an actual as opposed to a potential threat. And one reason for that is once you commit to deployment, you have to commit to a specific system. If you can continue development, you can improve the technology and have a better system. Also, to the degree you know something about the threat you are defending against, you are able to design the system more adequately to meet the particular threat. Senator Levin. And is it also not true that, since one of our goals is nuclear reductions, a commitment to deploy a system which violates the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty might, in fact, end the possibility of significant reductions because the Russians have indicated that those reductions are dependent on not having to face defenses which are in violation of that ABM treaty? Mr. Slocombe. This is another argument they make. We believe that, first of all, the development program will be consistent with the ABM Treaty. Senator Levin. Is this a statement that they have made? Forget the argument. But have they not made the statement? Mr. Slocombe. Oh, yes. My point is that they have a whole long list of arguments they make for why they have not ratified the treaty. Senator Levin. Excuse me one second, but is it not true that they have said specifically that one of the reasons that they may not ratify START II is the possibility that we would violate an agreement relative to defenses--the ABM Treaty--is that not true? Mr. Slocombe. Yes, that is true. That is one of many arguments that they have made. Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Seantor Cochran. Senator Stevens, any further questions of this witness? Secretary Slocombe, thank you very much for being here and for assisting our Committee in the way that you have. Mr. Slocombe. Senator, before I leave, having looked at Richard Perle's statement, I am reminded that Dorothy Fosdick worked for this Committee for many years. Senator Cochran. Yes. Mr. Slocombe. And I did not always agree with Dorothy Fosdick, but she was a distinguished public servant, and I and her many friends in the Department of Defense mourn her loss. Senator Cochran. Thank you very much for your thoughtful statement. Senator Stevens. I might say that having traveled with Dickie Lincoln for many times, on many occasions--I know Richard Perle has got a comment in there in his statement also--she was a wonderful person and worked very closely with Senator Jackson when he was Chairman and went on to other things with Senator Jackson. I had not known that she had passed away, but I agree with you, she was a wonderful asset to this Committee. Senator Cochran. Thank you, Senator. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Slocombe. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Slocombe follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF SECRETARY SLOCOMBE Introduction Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to meet with this subcommittee today to discuss a topic of great importance to the American people and to our security and that of the world as a whole: nuclear weapons and deterrence. Nuclear deterrence has been the subject of much debate over the decades, and, appropriately, this debate has been resumed after the end of the Cold War. Most recently, the nuclear question has been given prominence by respected individuals and committees who advocate a radical change--setting as a policy goal the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Indeed, such calls underscore the continuing American and global interest in a deliberate process to further reduce--and ultimately eliminate--nuclear weapons. The U.S. has embraced this commitment for many years. When the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed in 1968, we signed on to Article VI of the NPT, which calls for the parties to undertake ``to pursue negotiations in good faith relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.'' In 1995, when the NPT was indefinitely extended, we reiterated this pledge to work toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons in the context of general and complete disarmament. President Clinton, in a speech to the United Nations this past September, said he looks forward to a new century ``in which the roles and risks of nuclear weapons can be further reduced, and ultimately eliminated.'' The United States has made remarkable progress in fulfilling our NPT Article VI commitment. The nuclear arms race has, in fact, been halted. The United States has been reducing its nuclear stockpile in a consistent fashion through both its unilateral and bilateral initiatives. For example, the 1987 Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces eliminated an entire category of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons. In 1991 we and our NATO allies decided to retire all nuclear artillery shells, all nuclear warheads for short-range ballistic missiles, and all naval nuclear anti-submarine warfare weapons. None of these weapons is deployed today, and the majority of them have been destroyed. Over the past four years, the Clinton Administration has worked hard to secure detargeting of U.S. and Russian strategic missiles; the entry into force of the START I Treaty; the complete denuclearization of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan; the indefinite extension of the NPT; Senate ratification of START II; and negotiation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. And we have made clear that, once START II enters into force, we are prepared to work on further reductions in strategic nuclear arms as well as limiting and monitoring nuclear warheads and materials. Thus, lifting the threat of nuclear weapons destruction and limiting their spread has been and remains at the top of President Clinton's foreign policy agenda. However, we are not yet at the point where we can eliminate our nuclear weapons. For the foreseeable future, we will continue to need a reliable and flexible nuclear deterrent--survivable against the most aggressive attack, under highly confident constitutional command and control, and assured in its safety against both accident and unauthorized use. We will need such a force because nuclear deterrence--far from being made wholly obsolete--remains an essential ultimate assurance against the gravest of threats. A key conclusion of the Administration's National Security Strategy is that the United States will retain strategic nuclear forces sufficient to deter any future hostile foreign leadership with access to strategic nuclear forces from acting against our vital interests and to convince it that seeking a nuclear advantage would be futile. To summarize the argument I will develop in more detail: We have already made dramatic steps in reducing U.S., Russian, and other, nuclear arsenals and potentials. We have also taken important steps to ensure safety, security--and non-diversion. We can and should do more on both the reduction and safety/security fronts. Nonetheless, nuclear weapons remain essential to deter against the gravest threats, actual and foreseeable. Abolition, if understood as a near-term policy, rather than, as President Clinton has stated, an ultimate goal, is not a wise and surely not a feasible focus of policy. Therefore, assuring the reliability of our nuclear forces and the nuclear stockpile remains a high national security priority. Let me turn to the rationale behind our nuclear forces, how and why we have been able to reduce our dependence on them in recent years, and then address why abolition in the near future is not a good idea. I should note that while there is a good deal that cannot be said in an unclassified session, the broad outlines of our nuclear policies have been available for years. Nuclear Deterrence: The Cold War Experience Because the past has lessons for the future, let me review briefly how our nuclear forces have strengthened our security. First, they provided a principal means by which the United States deterred conventional and nuclear aggression by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact against itself and its allies. Second, the extension of the U.S. nuclear umbrella allowed many of our allies to forego their own nuclear weapons, even though they had the technological know-how to develop them. Third, although the East-West competition spilled over into numerous regional conflicts during the Cold War, the nuclear capabilities possessed by the superpowers instilled caution, lest the United States and the Soviet Union be brought into direct, and possibly nuclear, confrontation. It is a remarkable fact that for almost half a century, the U.S. and its allies faced the USSR and its coerced auxiliaries in a division over ideology, power, culture, and the very definition of man, the state, and the world, and did so armed to the greatest extent huge sacrifice would afford, and yet did not fight a large-scale war. No one can say for sure why that success was achieved for long enough for Communism to collapse of its own internal weakness. But can anyone really doubt that nuclear weapons had a role? Some argued, even in the Cold War, that the danger of a nuclear holocaust was so great that the risk of possessing these weapons far outweighed their benefits. I do not agree. Nuclear deterrence helped buy us time, time for internal forces of upheaval and decay to rend the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and bring about the end of the Cold War. The U.S. nuclear deterrent has been transformed in the post Cold War period But the Cold War is over, and it is important to recognize the great degree to which our nuclear deterrent and indeed that of Russia has been transformed from that period. The role of nuclear weapons in our defense posture has diminished--we welcome this trend and expect it will continue in the future. U.S. spending on strategic forces has declined dramatically from Cold War levels--from 24 percent of the total DoD budget in the mid-1960s, to 7 percent in 1991, to less than 3 percent today. Moreover, we currently have no procurement programs for a next generation bomber, ICBM, SLBM or strategic submarine. The programs we do have are designed to sustain the effectiveness, safety and reliability of remaining forces, and to ensure the continued high quality of our people. Russian spending on strategic forces has also declined substantially. The Russian Federation has some strategic systems under development--for example, a new single warhead ICBM (the SS-X-27) and a new strategic ballistic missile submarine but these programs are fewer in number (and their development pace slower) than at the height of the Cold War. These systems will replace deployed systems that will reach the end of their service lives over the next decade; or that would be eliminated under START II. Stabilizing agreed reductions in nuclear forces have been, and continue to be, a primary objective of the United States. The U.S. and Russia have taken great strides in this regard in recent years. START I will reduce each side's deployed strategic weapons from well over 10,000 to 6,000 accountable weapons. Russia, like the U.S., is actually somewhat ahead of schedule in meeting the START I reduction requirements. START II, when it is ratified by the Russian Duma and enters into force, will further reduce to 3,000-3,500 each side's weapons. Following START II's entry into force, we are prepared to engage in negotiations further reducing strategic nuclear forces. Meanwhile, the U.S. has unilaterally reduced its non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNF) to one-tenth of Cold War levels. While Russia pledged in 1991 to make significant cuts in its non-strategic nuclear forces and has reduced its operational NSNF substantially, it has made far less progress thus far than the U.S., and the Russian non-strategic arsenal (deployed and stockpiled) is probably about ten times as large as ours. In addition to START reductions, there have been qualitative changes in our nuclear arsenal. There used to be nuclear land-mines, artillery, infantry weapons, surface-to-surface missiles, surface-to- air weapons, air-to-air weapons, depth-charges, and torpedoes; all these have gone. In 1991 and 1992, the U.S. unilaterally eliminated several nuclear weapons systems (e.g., Lance, FB-111, SRAM-A), halted a number of planned or on-going development programs (e.g., Small ICBM, Peacekeeper Rail Garrison, Lance Follow-on), took nuclear bombers off alert, and removed from alert, well ahead of the required schedule, those ICBMs and strategic missile submarines planned for elimination under START I. In 1994, further reflecting the changed international situation, the U.S. and Russia agreed to no longer target their ballistic missiles against each other on a day-to-day basis. Nor is the non-proliferation picture all bleak. No nation has openly joined the nuclear club since China in 1964. There are only three unacknowledged nuclear powers. South Africa has abandoned its capability, as Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan have theirs. Argentina and Brazil have renounced the option, as Sweden and Canada did long ago. North Korea's program is frozen. Iraq is under a special and highly intrusive UNSCOM regime. The vast majority of countries support a permanent Non-Proliferation Treaty--mostly a benefit which non- nuclear countries confer on one another, not a favor they do for the nuclear powers. We have negotiated an end to nuclear testing. Why nuclear deterrence? The question, however, is rightly asked: Granted all these reductions, with the end of the Cold War, why do we continue to maintain a nuclear deterrent at all? In September 1994, the Clinton Administration answered this question in its Nuclear Posture Review, the first comprehensive post- Cold War review of U.S. nuclear policy. The NPR recognized that, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the demise of the Soviet Union, and the embarkation of Russia on the road to democracy and a free market economy, the strategic environment has been transformed. Conventional forces, therefore, could and should assume a larger share of the deterrent role. We concluded, nonetheless, that nuclear weapons continue to play a critical role in deterring aggression against the U.S., its overseas forces, its allies and friends. This conclusion is entirely consistent with NATO's Strategic Concept, adopted in 1991 after the end of the Cold War, which states that the fundamental purpose of NATO's nuclear forces is to preserve peace and prevent coercion and any kind of war. Why did we reach this conclusion? Most importantly, because the positive changes in the international environment are far from irreversible. There are broadly, two classes of threats to which nuclear weapons remain important as deterrents. First, Russia has made great progress and we do not regard it as a potential military threat under its present, or any reasonably foreseeable government. We wisely invest substantially in the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, in future arms control--and we share with the current Russian leadership (and most of their opponents) a determination not to let our relations return to a state of hostility in which these weapons would be a threat. All that said, Russia continues to possess substantial strategic forces and an even larger stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons. And because of deterioration in its conventional military capabilities, Russia may be placing even more importance and reliance on its nuclear forces. We cannot be so certain of future Russian politics as to ignore the possibility that we would need again to deter the Russian nuclear force. Second, even if we could ignore the Russian nuclear arsenal entirely, there are unfortunately a range of other potential threats to which nuclear weapons are a deterrent. One cannot survey the list of rogue states with potential WMD programs and conclude otherwise. I do not, by the way, regard such states as undeterrable, either in the long-run sense of the incentives to acquire WMD capability, or the short-run sense of incentives to use such a capability. Indeed, the knowledge that the U.S. has a powerful and ready nuclear capability is, I believe, a significant deterrent to proliferators to even contemplate the use of WMD. That this is so will, I think, be clear if one thinks about the proliferation incentives that would be presented to the Kaddafis and Kim-Chong-Ils of the world if the U.S. did not have a reliable and flexible nuclear capability. In view of this, it would be irresponsible to dismantle the well- established--and much reduced--system of deterrence before new and reliable systems for preserving stability are in place. Argument: Our weapons cause others to seek their own. What about the argument that our weapons promote proliferation, that states seek to acquire nuclear weapons in response to possession by nuclear weapons states? A more compelling case to me is that proliferant states acquire nuclear weapons not because we have them but for reasons of their own--to counter regional adversaries, to further regional ambitions, and to enhance their status among their neighbors. And, insofar as our nuclear capability is an issue, if a successful proliferator knew he would not face a nuclear response by the U.S., it would scarcely reduce his incentives to acquire a WMD capability. The incentives to proliferate would hardly be reduced if a rogue state would, through a successful nuclear weapons program, acquire a nuclear monopoly, not a token capability facing far stronger forces possessed by the U.S. and other world powers. Some people claim that once proliferation does occur, U.S. nuclear forces lack any utility in deterring rogue leaders from using nuclear weapons because those leaders will not regard the costs, even of nuclear retaliation, as sufficiently great. But experience suggests that few dictators are indifferent to the preservation of key instruments of state control, or to the survival of their own regimes (or, indeed, their own persons). Thus, I believe the reverse is true-- our nuclear capabilities are more likely to give pause to potential rogue proliferants than encourage them. The important role of U.S. nuclear capability in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons often goes unnoticed. The extension of a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent to allies has been an important nonproliferation tool. It has removed incentives for key allies, in a still dangerous world, to develop and deploy their own nuclear forces, as many are technically capable of doing. Indeed, our strong security relationships have probably played as great a role in nonproliferation over the past 40 years as has the NPT. Argument: Nuclear weapons should be eliminated because they are dangerous and unsafe. Of course, nuclear weapons are dangerous; they contain high explosives and fissile material. But they are not unsafe in the sense that they are susceptible to accidental or unauthorized use. Our nuclear weapons meet the highest standards of safety, security, and responsible custodianship. Moreover, we place high priority on maintaining and improving stockpile safety. Our nuclear safety record is extraordinary. Although a few accidents involving nuclear weapons have occurred, no accident has ever resulted in a nuclear detonation and the last accident of any kind was almost twenty years ago. We believe the likelihood of accidents has been dramatically reduced since the end of the Cold War. Our strategic bombers are no longer on alert; our surface ships and attack submarines no longer carry nuclear weapons. The Army and Marines have eliminated their nuclear weapons. Older weapons with less modern safety features have been removed from the stockpile. Technical safety mechanisms have been improved. Detargetting means that the missiles, even if somehow launched in error, would no longer be aimed at targets in Russia. The number of nuclear weapon storage sites have been decreased by 75 percent and weapons consolidated. As a result of all these changes our weapons are much less exposed to accident environments. In addition, nuclear weapons security has been a key element of DoD's Cooperative Threat Reduction Program with Russia from the beginning. A total of up to $101 million in CTR assistance has been made available under these CTR agreements for projects to enhance security of nuclear weapons under MoD control. In addition to agreements already signed on armored blankets and security upgrades to nuclear weapons railcars, other nuclear weapons transportation and storage security projects are underway or being developed. On balance, the safety risks of maintaining a smaller nuclear arsenal are far outweighed by the security--and non-proliferation-- benefits that we continue to derive from nuclear deterrence. The Bottom Line on Abolition I would summarize the case for retaining nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future as follows: There is no reasonable prospect that all the declared and de facto nuclear powers will agree in the near term to give up all their nuclear weapons. And as long as one such state refuses to do so, it will be necessary for us to retain a nuclear force of our own. If the nuclear powers were, nevertheless, to accept abolition, then we would require--and the Congress would rightly demand--a verification regime of extraordinary rigor and intrusiveness. This would have to go far beyond any currently in existence or even under contemplation. It would have to include not merely a system of verification, but what the ``international generals statement'' calls ``an agreed procedure for forcible international intervention and interruption of current efforts in a certain and timely fashion.'' The difficulties with setting up such a system under current world conditions are obvious. Such a regime would have to continue to be effective in the midst of a prolonged and grave crisis--even during a war--between potentially nuclear-capable powers. For in such a crisis, the first question for all involved would be that of whether--or when-- to start a clandestine nuclear program. For the knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons cannot be abolished. Finally, we who are charged with responsibility for national security and national defense must recall that we are not only seeking to avert nuclear war--we are seeking to avert major conventional war as well. As I indicated earlier, during the Cold War nuclear weapons played a stabilizing role in that they made the resort to military force less likely. The world is still heavily armed with advanced conventional weapons and will increasingly be so armed with weapons of mass destruction. The existence of nuclear weapons continues to serve as a damper on the resort to the use of force. Need to Maintain Safe and Reliable Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Because nuclear deterrence is to remain part of our national security policy for the foreseeable future, the U.S. nuclear deterrent must remain credible--weapon systems must be effective and their warheads safe and reliable. The quality, reliability, and effectiveness of the forces themselves (including their communication and command systems) and the people who operate them, is one of our top priorities in DoD. With respect to the nuclear devices themselves, DoE has an aggressive, well-funded, program designed to ensure our weapons remain safe and reliable in the absence of nuclear testing. The Department of Defense fully supports this program. Today, we have high confidence in the safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent force; the stockpile stewardship and management program is designed to provide the tools to assure this in the future. Summary Our objective is a safe, stable world. But we must develop our national security policy with the understanding that nuclear weapons and the underlying technical knowledge cannot be disinvented whether or not the U.S. retains its weapons. In this connection, the U.S. will continue to lead the way to a safer world through the deep reductions in nuclear forces undertaken in START and through Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction and other actions. At the same time, we will maintain a smaller nuclear force as a ``hedge'' against a future that is uncertain and in a world in which substantial nuclear arsenals remain. Successive U.S. administrations have embraced the objective of nuclear disarmament as our ultimate goal. Two years ago at the NPT Review and Extension Conference, the U.S. reaffirmed its commitment to this goal in the Conference's statement of principles and objectives. In an uncertain world, however, the path to this goal is not clearly marked. What is clear is that the ultimate goal will be reached only through realistic moves forward, as genuine security permits, with each step building on those before it. We will continue to strive to make the world a safer place for our children and grandchildren. In this regard, the United States is committed to Article VI of the NPT which calls for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons in the context of general and complete disarmament. Until these conditions are realized, however, I believe that nuclear weapons will continue to fulfill an essential role in meeting our deterrence requirements and assuring our nonproliferation objectives. A further problem is that among some military colleagues, there is a deeply-felt concern that by urging nuclear arsenal reduction we are somehow denigrating the important--indeed vitally important--role that these nuclear-armed military forces successfully served during the Cold War. It would be a regrettable mistake to be drawn into such a view. During that time our very survival was at stake. Our nuclear weapons served their Cold War purpose, and served successfully. Security was successfully preserved, and war with the Soviets was successfully avoided. I at least, and many others who served in the military forces--including notably our highly-trained, highly-skilled nuclear forces--have no doubt that our nuclear forces played a central, crucial, indispensable role in that process. I myself was drawn into the argument ``Better Red than dead.'' My response was always ``Better neither than either,'' and that in fact was the outcome, thanks in crucial part to our highly capable nuclear weapons and forces. But the Cold War is gone. And now it is time to look at the new possibilities and new era. Senator Cochran. Let me invite our other witnesses to come forward now, General Goodpaster and Richard Perle. I mentioned in my opening statement something about the background and qualifications of our distinguished witnesses who will make up our concluding panel for today's hearing. We are very pleased and honored that both of these gentlemen would be able to come today and present their views and comments to the Subcommittee on the subject that we have under review. General Andrew Goodpaster's public service is well known and has spanned 7 decades. We congratulate you on your distinguished service to the United States, and we welcome you to the hearing. You may proceed. TESTIMONY OF GENERAL ANDREW J. GOODPASTER, U.S. ARMY (RETIRED), CO-CHAIR, THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES General Goodpaster. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin, I might say that in addition to my service before I retired from the military, I still have some connection with nuclear affairs in that I serve as a member of the President's Council of the University of California which has oversight over the two weapons laboratories, Los Alamos and Livermore, in addition to Berkeley Laboratory. My statement today is a personal statement and in no way reflects views that may be held by any of those organizations. But I welcome the opportunity to present these views. I think the issue is timely with regard to shaping future programs, and it is very important to future security. I proceed from two fundamental propositions. First, that American security should be the basis for our nuclear weapons policies and actions, and, second, that the central role for nuclear weapons should be to limit and reduce the nuclear danger to American security. What I would like to do, Mr. Chairman, is make my full statement available to the Committee and just give highlights in the interest of time. Senator Cochran. We appreciate that, General, and your full statement will be made a part of the record without objection. General Goodpaster. On the basis I just stated, I think that the future of nuclear deterrence should be seen as one of three components of a coordinated three-pronged effort. The first, cooperative nuclear threat reduction, most importantly between Russia and the United States. The second, sustained comprehensive nonproliferation and counter-proliferation efforts. And the third, nuclear deterrence focused on preventing use or threat of use of nuclear weapons by others against us or our allies. This must be a sustained and coordinated effort, and American leadership will be essential if this is to be moved forward. Now the motivation for such an effort is clear, in my opinion. And I quote from President Eisenhower, who had a talent for getting to the heart of issues of this kind, that nuclear weapons are the only thing that can destroy the United States. And second, as many have said, the Cold War is indeed over, and we have an opportunity to realign military policy and posture to consolidate a major enhancement of American security, which has now become possible. Secretary Perry said that fewer weapons of mass destruction in fewer hands makes the United States and the world safer, and I very much agree. I would like to insert both in my full statement and to read at this time a concern that has been expressed by some of my senior military colleagues, that by urging nuclear arsenal reduction, we are somehow denigrating the important, vitally important role that these nuclear-armed military forces successfully served during the Cold War. It would be a regrettable mistake, in my view, to be drawn into such a view. During that time, our very survival was at stake. Our nuclear weapons served their Cold War purpose and served it well. I might say, as NATO's Commander-in-Chief, I had some 7,000 nuclear weapons under my responsibility, and they played a vital part, in my opinion, in maintaining the peace in Europe that we have enjoyed since World War II. Security was successfully preserved. War with the Soviets was successfully avoided. I at least and many others who served in the military forces, including notably our highly trained, highly skilled nuclear forces, have no doubt that our nuclear forces played a central, crucial, indispensable role in that process. I might say I myself was drawn on many occasions into the argument ``better Red than dead.'' My rejoinder was always ``Better neither than either,'' and that, in fact, was the outcome thanks in crucial part to our highly capable nuclear weapons and nuclear forces. But the Cold War is gone, and now it is time to look at the new possibilities and the new opportunities of this new era. I think we must make a very clear distinction between eliminating most nuclear weapons and eliminating all of them. No one now knows whether, when, how to eliminate all in a prudent way. This can be, as our country has stated, our ultimate goal, but it can only be an ultimate goal at this time. On the other hand, it should be the beacon toward which we work. At the same time, we do know how to eliminate most nuclear weapons, and it will be in our interest to do so, and that really is my proposal. That effort is realistic. It will be beneficial to American security, and it will be worth the time, the hard work, that it will demand for a long time to come in order to make a prudent course of action. It will take 10 years or more to get down to the START II level of nuclear weapons. We could eliminate nuclear weapons at the rate of about 2,000 a year, which was the rate at which they were built. And during that time, we can see how well the Nonproliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty succeed, and how the world security environment develops, and how far we can get with the Cooperative Nuclear Threat Reduction programs. And at the end of that time or as that time goes along, we should be in much better position to assess the practical possibility and the prudence of attempts to eliminate all. I myself regard the argument over complete abolition at this time as diversionary and to a degree counterproductive. As I say, no one knows whether, when, how to eliminate all nuclear weapons in a prudent way. What we can do now is proceed with cooperative nuclear threat reduction and that requires in the first instance the safeguarded mutual downsizing of American and Russian nuclear arsenals, and that should be our top priority. We should move the START II ratification by the Duma along, and already discussed has been the idea of developing a statement of principles for START III to come into effect, and the negotiation for START III to begin when START II has been ratified. That should provide impetus to the Duma ratification of START II. And there could be an agreement that there would be no adverse change in deployments of nuclear weapons during that process of negotiation, and that would meet another of the concerns expressed by the Russians concerning the enlargement of NATO nuclear deployments. Along with this, we should continue reductions on a five-nation basis as the American and Russian reductions proceed to what I term the lowest verifiable level consistent with stable security to which agreed commitment can be reached. I myself have proposed for consideration a level of 100 to 200 weapons. That sounds like a small number against the thousands and tens of thousands that we have had, but it is not a small number when you think of Hiroshima or Nagasaki or the damage at Chernobyl. I have found that the Russians are very conscious now of what damage a single weapon can do, and that some of the discussion about exchanges of very large numbers of weapons is, as Eisenhower used to say, it is just a form of insanity. I mention that much hard work has to be done. It needs to be done step by step in setting policy, in formulating proposals, in carrying out negotiation, in restructuring our forces, in new targeting plans and doctrines, in stockpile management, in verification procedures. The Nunn-Lugar initiative, the Cooperative Threat Reduction initiative, has been tremendously valuable and should be sustained and extended. The second of the three-prongs that I mentioned is nonproliferation and counter-proliferation. I spell that out in a bit of detail in my full remarks. We start from the Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely extended in 1995. That is the cornerstone, and it is reinforced by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. There is a well-defined array of measures, both national and international, by which nonproliferation and counter-proliferation can be supported and extended. They include detection, use of our intelligence means to know at an early time what anyone else is doing, particularly what they may be doing to acquire the weapons materials out of which the weapons are made. That is the most demanding requirement that a proliferant will have to meet either through developing the materials himself or acquiring them from some other source, and that remains extremely important. That is the second element, which is to deny his access to materials of that kind and the equipment and the manufacturing capabilities that would enable him to build these weapons, to do that so far as possible. To dissuade through incentives and disincentives is next, and there we can draw upon the experience of Brazil and Argentina and South Africa among others in deciding not to go that route. But then if nevertheless he develops the weapons, to deter him from their use, and you deter through the capability to punish him quickly and in devastating fashion and to defeat and destroy, destroy his capability, decisively and devastatingly. No single one of these would be sufficient. Together they are a powerful contribution to American security. And those two prongs of policy now, I think, tell us what our nuclear deterrence policy should be. The basis for it is that so long as nuclear weapons exist or could be produced, the United States must maintain its own nuclear weapons arsenal that is safe, reliable, operationally effective, and adequate in types and numbers. Two roles for those weapons are involved. The first is to assure that no use or threatened use of nuclear weapons against us or our allies would occur by anybody that has those weapons, and the second, as I mentioned earlier, is to deter nations that are now non-nuclear from building or otherwise acquiring them. I myself reject giving primary status in the overall role of our nuclear deterrent to other roles such as against chemical and biological weapons use or threat. Our primary reliance there should be on our conventional capability, but we will, in fact, have nuclear weapons for many, many years, and there will be what some have called an existential deterrent that they provide against people using or threatening chemical and biological attack against us if indeed we ever had to make use of those nuclear weapons. More important in my mind is that we should not through reliance on nuclear weapons use that as an excuse for failing to provide the kind of conventional capability that we ought to have to respond to chemical or biological threat. Other uses have also been argued, for example that if you remove the nuclear weapons or reduce to a low level, you will be making the world safe for conventional war. It is sometimes said that our nuclear weapons should have the broad role of war prevention. That, I think, is an issue that requires the judgment of our political leaders. Does the added contribution of going beyond preventing the use of nuclear weapons to preventing all forms of conflict justify a continuing reliance on nuclear weapons that can destroy the United States? It is a hard issue, but that is an issue that will need to be considered and decided. A third argument is that this could cause Germany and Japan to go nuclear. I think that all of these if they are closely examined will be found to be unpersuasive. The constraints against Germany and Japan going nuclear are very great. First of all, there is no need for them, no foreseeable need for them to do it, and, second, if that were ever to become a serious possibility, it would be destabilizing in terms of the security that they both now enjoy. Out of this comes the requirement for Stockpile Stewardship and Management, which involves, as earlier stated, responsibilities of both the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. The Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship program is of very great importance in that regard. As our weapons age, there will not now be the capability of testing and this will be very demanding of our nuclear laboratories. A second point, our laboratories are called upon to maintain the capability, the capacity, for producing new weapons. The designers, those with experience, are like many of the rest of us, beginning to age a bit, like the weapons themselves, and this confronts the laboratories with another problem. So the importance of maintaining that Science-Based Stewardship program can hardly be overemphasized. On the military side, there are comparable needs. As our nuclear posture changes with continuing weapons reductions of the kinds contemplated, there will be a need, as I mentioned, few new targeting doctrines, new alert provisions, new operational plans. All will need to be developed and supported at proper levels of effectiveness through training, through force modernization, through intelligence activities, particularly concerning potential proliferants, as well as tight coupling to the higher decision-making and the policy echelons of our government. These are some of the principal prerequisites to maintaining our nuclear deterrent at the effectiveness required, providing assurance that the weapons we possess are at all times safe, reliable, and adequate to deter or respond to breakout or clandestine violations of agreements that other nations may have made with us on the levels and types of weapons to be retained, or to take account of an adverse turn in the major nations' relationships. Those are capabilities that we should have. I would like to conclude simply by commenting that this poses a special challenge. It is the challenge of doing two things at once: downsizing while maintaining effectiveness, but that is simply comparable to the challenge that we face for our armed forces as a whole at this time, and that is being met I think very satisfactorily. The real point is that when you apply this in the nuclear area, you have to realize that this area has a special impact on American security so it becomes all the more important that we carry out the downsizing and maintain the effectiveness at the same time in this area. Thank you for the opportunity to present these views, Mr. Chairman. Senator Cochran. Thank you, General Goodpaster. I hope it will not embarrass you for me to wish you a happy birthday. I know that February 12 is your birthday, and we congratulate you. General Goodpaster. Thank you very much. Senator Cochran. And wish you many more. General Goodpaster. I share it with two men for whom I have the highest regard: President Lincoln and General Omar Bradley. Senator Cochran. That is pretty good company. General Goodpaster. I think so. [The prepared statement of General Goodpaster follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF GENERAL ANDREW J. GOODPASTER Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to present my views on the subject ``The Future of Nuclear Deterrence.'' It is an issue that ranks in the highest order of importance for American security (and that of others) in the coming century. This hearing seems to me most timely. In that regard, I myself have recently joined in a public statement bearing on this matter with Gen. Lee Butler, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Air Command and the U.S. Strategic Command, in an initiative with which some sixty or more retired senior military officers around the world are also associated. My approach with regard to the whole nuclear weapons issue is quite simple: It is that U.S. security, viewed in its fundamentals, should be the governing priority that guides U.S. policy and action in this field. On this basis, the future of nuclear deterrence should be seen as one key element in a coordinated three-fold U.S. effort serving this objective, consisting of these main components: Cooperative nuclear threat reduction, most importantly between Russia and the U.S.; Non-proliferation efforts aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to additional nations or other sources of violence; Nuclear deterrence focussed on preventing the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons by others against the U.S. or U.S. allies. A great many specific actions have been taken, and more are underway to carry these efforts forward. They should be sustained, focussed and reinforced. But before discussing each of them in turn, I would like to offer a few preliminary observations. To do what needs to be done means giving high priority to the issue and sustained commitment to the effort, amidst a vast number of other demands. This will not be easy. Nor can such action be taken for granted, despite the merits of the case, when matters that seem urgent at any moment are in an inherent battle for priority with those that are often more fundamentally important. It will take firm top-level decision and determined follow-up leadership over many years to move the needed nuclear policies and action forward. But this can and must be done. Two considerations fundamental to security interests and possibilities should now shape the nuclear future: First, as so often emphasized by President Eisenhower (who had a talent for getting to the heart of such questions) nuclear weapons are the only thing that can destroy the United States of America. Second, the Cold War is over and unlikely to return; there is opportunity if we act on it to re-orient our policies accordingly. We therefore stand at a time that offers us a real possibility of dealing with the nuclear weapons issue in a way that will greatly reduce the risks they pose to U.S. security. To that end, and because of the enormous, unique power of destruction that is concentrated in nuclear weapons, it is my strong recommendation that we set as our over-riding goal the reduction of this danger to U.S. security. To the extent the existence of these weapons supports other purposes, those consequences should be treated as secondary, and not allowed to interfere with that primary aim. To be specific, nuclear weapons should not be drawn into a game of balance-of-power politics. They should not be used for political purposes to further inter-state interests beyond reducing the nuclear danger. As stated, these weapons are different from others in the dangers to U.S. national security they represent. The view I am presenting today is that it is in our security interest (and that of others, including our allies) to go as far and as fast as we prudently can toward elimination of these weapons. I share the view recently expressed by former Secretary of Defense William Perry that ``fewer weapons of mass destruction in fewer hands makes America and the world safer.'' The elimination of most is realistic, beneficial in terms of enhanced security and well worth the time, attention and best efforts it will demand from us for a long time to come. The elimination of all, is for the present still well beyond our grasp; no one today knows whether, when or how it can prudently be done. But in practical terms the United States is far from needing to make that decision. Ten years or more will be required to dismantle the weapons already marked for elimination--at 2,000 or so a year, roughly the same rate at which we and the Soviets were each able to build them during the Cold War. During the time it will take we can see how well the Non-Proliferation Treaty succeeds, what is done with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and how the world security environment develops, particularly as among the major nations. During that time we should make sure that the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal is safe, reliable and adequate to our needs. Cooperative Nuclear Threat Reduction The safeguarded mutual downsizing of Russian and U.S. nuclear weapons arsenals should be pursued at high priority in the coming years. To this end, both on its own merits and for its contribution to nuclear threat reduction, the building of a positive security relationship with Russia should take its place in the very top rank of our foreign policy and security policy efforts. Only the parallel efforts to build a positive security relationship with China, and to keep healthy and strong our security relationships with our allies are of comparable importance. These are the ``blue chips'', as I view them, of U.S. national interests. The vast range and on-going stream of other U.S. foreign interests, while significant, should be kept subordinate to these over-riding concerns. For the U.S. and Russia, the simple proposition is that in order to reduce to a minimum the number of nuclear weapons held by the other party, it is well worth reducing to the same level ourselves. START II ratification, still stalled in the Russian Duma, should be moved off dead center, bringing the numbers of strategic weapons in Russia and the United States down to the 3,000-3,500 the treaty prescribes. A specific proposal with which I myself have been associated and which is beginning to attract wider interest and support, is to join with the Russians in preparing a ``Statement of Principles'' for START III negotiations (as was done for START II) to come into effect when the Duma ratifies START II. This action can respond to Russian interest in going on down from the START II level of 3,000-3,500 weapons to a new level of 2,000--a step beneficial to both Russia and the United States, and a useful step en route to further reductions. Present weapons deployments in Europe could be maintained without change as negotiations proceed, thus removing this issue as a source of concern with regard to NATO nuclear expansion. The verification provisions contained in START II could be readily applied to START III. Beyond START II and START III, what is needed is what can be termed a Minimum Nuclear Forces Plan, the key component efforts of which would include: Further U.S. and Russian reductions down to a level at which the other nuclear weapons nations--Britain, China and France-- should join in, thus opening the way to multilateral reductions; Bringing all nuclear arsenals step by step to the lowest verifiable level consistent with stable security, as rapidly as world conditions permit (for consideration, a possible level of 100-200 for each nation has been proposed); Removing nuclear weapons from alert status, placing the warheads in secure storage; Applying these arrangements to all nuclear weapons, discarding the distinction between tactical and strategic weapons, limiting nuclear warheads rather than launchers, and subjecting all weapons to inspection and verification procedures; and Adopting as a common ultimate goal--the elimination of all nuclear weapons, to be accomplished when determined to be feasible, verifiable and consistent with the needs of stable security. For cooperative nuclear threat reduction along these lines, there is a great deal of work to be done--in policy-setting and negotiations, in force restructuring, stockpile safety and reliability, verification operations and the like. These are the places where effort and attention need to be focussed and sustained. The Nunn-Lugar initiative has been of tremendous value to U.S. security, and should be sustained and augmented. Many challenging tasks and prerequisite steps for the nations involved are embedded in the proposals I suggest. None appear to be unmanageable. Consultations in depth and negotiations with Russia and other nuclear weapons states, as well as with allies such as Germany and Japan in particular, will be needed, along with development of verification procedures for levels of weapons below START II, assessments of stability against potential breakout, cheating, clandestine or terrorist challenges and the like. All will need to be carefully evaluated and subjected to bilateral and multilateral consideration and consultation. If we are to be serious and responsible about reducing the nuclear danger to U.S. security, attention and effort should now be concentrated on these practical issues. When and if the practical issues such as those are ultimately successfully resolved, and only then, we will have created an option, suitable for consideration and decision at that time, of going for total elimination. Non-Proliferation The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), indefinitely extended in 1995, is the cornerstone of world efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional nations. It is reinforced by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) signed by the United States, the other declared nuclear weapons nations and many others (although excluding India). The principal component measures of a comprehensive non-proliferation effort by the world's major nations, acting collectively and individually, are by now well recognized Among the major means of carrying out these efforts are: Detection of actions by potential proliferants leading to the production of nuclear weapons even if limited in numbers and crude in design. Access to nuclear weapons materials--plutonium and/or highly enriched uranium--is assessed to be the most critical and demanding step such proliferants face. Denial of weapons components, materials or means of manufacture; this involves the sustained participation of the nations with highest technological capabilities, as well as firm control over existing weapons arsenals and weapons materials and components to guard against theft, illicit sale or diversion. Such denial also involves efforts to forestall the movement of trained weapons scientists and technicians to the countries of potential proliferants. Dissuasion of such potential proliferants from pursuing a nuclear weapons course. Diplomatic and economic actions--incentive and disincentive--are included. The examples of negative decisions-- including those of South Africa, Argentina and Brazil--provide valuable practical support. Deterrence from use or threat of use of these weapons, should nations nevertheless develop them, is the next stage; it must have as its basis, the unquestioned capabilities for massive and quickly decisive attack, including the use of our nuclear weapons if required. Defeat of a nation using or threatening the use of these weapons against us or our allies, accompanied by swift and complete destruction of its nuclear weapons infrastructure and, so far as possible, its delivery forces and weapons. Theater ballistic missile defense and at least a limited national missile defense would reinforce our attacks against the elements of such weapons capability. It is readily evident that none of these measures can be expected to be completely effective. Nevertheless, they warrant continued attention and high-priority effort. Taken together, they are a powerful contribution to reducing the nuclear danger to U.S. security. Nuclear Deterrence So long as nuclear weapons exist elsewhere in the world, along with the possibility of their production, it will be essential for the United States to maintain an arsenal of nuclear weapons of our own, safe, reliable and secure, as well as effective and adequate in numbers. As stated earlier, such weapons will surely exist for ten or more years, and as far as anyone can now foresee, probably much longer. The weapons we maintain will have to continue to fulfill two essential roles. The first is to provide continuing high assurance that there will be no use or threatened use of nuclear weapons against us or our allies. The second is thereby to help deter the nations now without nuclear weapons from building or otherwise acquiring them, by making clear the added level of risks they would run by doing so. An argument for a further role that is often advanced is that nuclear weapons are also needed as a final response if other means fail to prevent chemical or biological weapons attack against our military forces or our public at large. Others argue to the contrary--that our high-capability conventional forces, if properly sustained and supported, can in combination with defensive protective measures do all that may be required. It is an issue that perhaps cannot be finally resolved in advance, at least in peacetime. But it need not be, since large stocks of nuclear weapons, as previously stated, will in any case exist for ten years or more. A much more important issue here is a possible mistaken plan to rely on nuclear weapons as an excuse to do less than to prepare all that is practically possible in conventional military capability for quick and decisive action to deal with these threats. There will always be questions, up to the moment of decision, as to whether nuclear weapons would in fact ever be used for this purpose. Other arguments are also sometimes heard, in Europe for example-- that reduced arsenals would make the world safe for conventional war, that mutual nuclear deterrence between Russia and the United States is in the interest of stable security for the countries of Central and Western Europe, that lowered U.S. levels might cause Germany or Japan to take the nuclear weapons route--but these when examined closely in terms of security for the U.S. (and for the others as well) are far from persuasive. More to the point is an intensified effort to build and strengthen the positive security relationship with Russia earlier mentioned, which the end of the Cold War has offered as an opportunity of historic importance. To maintain the nuclear deterrent of the effectiveness required, the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program that is being conducted jointly by the Departments of Energy and of Defense plays an essential role. The Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program of the Department of Energy presents particular challenges in this regard. The end of nuclear testing, dictated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty calls for fundamentally deeper scientific understanding of weapons phenomena than existed, or was needed,when assurance could be provided through testing. The effects of aging will have to be carefully assessed, without the confirmation provided by nuclear tests. As the generation of weapons designers decreases in number, the depth of understanding they embodied will decrease as well. All this means that sustained support for the stewardship effort will be imperative. On the military side, comparable needs exist as the U.S. nuclear weapons posture changes with continuing weapons reductions of the kinds contemplated. New targeting doctrines, new alert provisions, new operational plans all require to be developed and supported at proper levels of effectiveness, through training, force modernization, and intelligence activities (particularly concerning potential proliferants)--as well as tight coupling to higher decision-making and policy echelons. These are some of the principal prerequisites to maintaining our nuclear deterrent at the effectiveness required providing assurance that the weapons we possess are at all times safe, reliable and adequate to deter (or respond to) breakout or clandestine violations of agreements with other nations on levels and types of weapons to be retained in stockpiles, or to take account of an adverse turn in major nations' relations. I would like to conclude by anticipating the difficulties likely to be encountered in maintaining the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent while carrying out the sustained process of downsizing that also lies ahead. To do so will require support at the same time for two lines of policy and action which some may claim to be in conflict. This is, however, no more than our country is now supporting in the whole matter of defense, that is, keeping the force effective at reduced total levels. It will be a test of governmental and public steadfastness to meet the challenge successfully in this crucially important security area of nuclear weapons policy. Senator Cochran. Our next member of the panel is Richard Perle, who is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was formerly senior defense adviser during the administration of President Reagan, and he was a staff member of this Committee for a number of years working closely with former Senator ``Scoop'' Jackson. Mr. Perle, we welcome you to the Committee. You may proceed. TESTIMONY OF RICHARD PERLE, RESIDENT FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE Mr. Perle. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I am particularly glad to be here for those very reasons. Scoop had a particular affection for this Subcommittee. He believed it had perhaps a unique contribution to make to international security, and that it could do this best by exploring the intellectual underpinnings of our national security policy. He was a lot less interested in legislating than in educating in this Subcommittee, and I hope, although it has been mentioned, Mr. Chairman, I can digress long enough to join in remembering a former staff director of this Subcommittee, Dorothy Fosdick. Dorothy died last week at the age of 83. She directed the Subcommittee staff for nearly 20 years, I think, and was its guiding force through hundreds of hearings like this one today. She was, as senators who knew her know, a tremendously energetic, intelligent and conscientious public servant, who fought with skill and tenacity for American strength of purpose and of arms throughout the Cold War, and happily Dickie lived to see that titanic struggle end with the Western victory to which she so abundantly contributed. One of the issues on which Dickie, as she was known throughout the Senate, worked long and hard was the subject of today's hearing, nuclear weapons, and I have little doubt that she would have organized a hearing on today's subject out of a deep concern, which I share, that the United States not embrace even as a long-term goal the objective of eliminating all nuclear weapons. Mr. Chairman, I have read the joint statement by my friend General Goodpaster and General Lee Butler. I have known General Goodpaster for many years and hold him in the highest regard, and Dickie was a friend of his as well, an admirer. And while I know General Butler less well, I certainly credit his intelligence and experience. So it is despite my personal respect for these men that I disagree sharply with their advice as to the desirability of eliminating all nuclear weapons, and I must say that as I listened to General Goodpaster I began to wonder whether he might disagree in some sense with that advice, too. He made such a persuasive case for the utility of nuclear weapons in the world we are now living in, but more of that later. They have made the judgment that our security would be enhanced by the elimination all nuclear weapons. I believe on the contrary, that our security would be profoundly undermined by the elimination of all nuclear weapons, even if agreements providing for this could be negotiated and universally ratified. In the real world, there is no serious possibility of an agreement eliminating all nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future, and we all agree on that. Generals Goodpaster and Butler seem to recognize this even in their prepared statement when they say, ``The phased withdrawal and destruction of nuclear weapons from all countries' arsenals would take many years, probably decades, to accomplish.'' And General Goodpaster reiterated that this morning. Elsewhere in their joint statement, however, the generals acknowledge that, ``No one can say today whether or when this final goal will prove feasible.'' Nevertheless, despite the uncertainty about whether the course they recommend will prove feasible, they urge now to undertake a serious commitment to it. I should have thought that embarking on a policy, the feasibility of which cannot be shown, is a most doubtful and risky way to shape our future security. If you cannot be sure it is feasible, maybe you should wait until you are sure it is feasible before embracing it. Before outlining why I think it would be dangerous and unwise to embrace a goal of admitted uncertain feasibility but certain grave risks, let me say two things about a second statement with the same theme issued by a long list of flag officers from several countries the day after the Goodpaster- Butler joint statement, and I trust these statements were worked in coordination with one another. This second statement is longer but no sounder. And unlike the Goodpaster-Butler statement, which is unquestionably sincere but debatable, the second statement is tinged with hypocrisy reminiscent of the Cold War. The ``Statement on Nuclear Weapons by International Generals and Admirals,'' the title to the statement to which I refer, which advocates immediate reductions in nuclear weapons stockpiles on the way to the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons, has been signed among others by a number of very senior retired Russian officers, including the vice- chairman of the Duma International Affairs Committee and the chairman of the Duma Defense Committee. Now, unless I am mistaken, and it was confirmed in earlier testimony, the Duma has thus far refused to ratify the START II Treaty which calls for significant reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, reductions that would still leave in place numbers of weapons that the signers of the statement consider exceedingly large. I would suggest that General Boris Gromov's time and that of his colleague General Lev Rokhlin might be profitably used to line up the votes in their Duma committees necessary to ratify START II rather than propagating high-sounding declarations about a nuclear-weapons free world. And let me just in passing remind the Subcommittee that it was one of the persistent themes of Soviet propaganda through the whole of the Cold War that complete and total disarmament was the highly desirable objective, while they built a massive nuclear force. There is tremendous room for hypocrisy in conjunction with utopian statements. Second, while the statement is signed by generals and admirals from several countries and appears to derive its authority from the military credentials of the signers, it is like the statement from Generals Goodpaster and Butler a political rather than a military utterance reflecting political rather than military judgments. There is nothing wrong with political judgments, and some military men make them intelligently and effectively. But in an effort to inflate the authority with which the many signers of this statement make their political judgments, the signers refer to their ``intimate and perhaps unique knowledge of the present security and insecurity of our countries and peoples.'' This is followed immediately by a flood of political judgments about the Cuban missile crisis, various treaties and U.N. actions, the efficacy and credibility of deterrence and arms control, the likely behavior of rogue States and terrorists and the like. Now, I go out of my way to mention this, Mr. Chairman, because officials responsible for nuclear weapons policy, in my judgment, should not accord undue weight to the opinions of military men when they address topics that are quintessentially political in nature. This is true in general. It is doubly true when the stars are not on their uniforms but in their eyes. Mr. Chairman, there are at least five important reasons why we should categorically reject and unapologetically reject the argument that the elimination of all nuclear weapons is a wise goal or would be a wise goal for the United States. First, there is no way to verify compliance with a treaty banning all nuclear weapons, not now, not tomorrow, not ever. The weapons are too small and the space in which they can be hidden too vast to allow for confident monitoring. Walt Slocombe earlier answering a question from Senator Levin said, well, it is not against the laws of physics. The idea that we could detect a hidden nuclear weapon on territory the size say of Russia is against the laws of physics, if I can put it that way. So this is not a problem we will eventually solve. Second, the elimination of our last remaining nuclear weapon in light of the near certainty that others would cheat and hold some weapons back would be an act of supreme folly. For what possible benefit would we be wise to take such a huge risk? If one or more nations did cheat, we would by a single wildly imprudent act place this country in grave peril. No president, no prime minister, and certainly no dictator would ever do such a thing. Every State able to do so would cheat, but we perhaps alone would not. The United States would not undertake solemn treaty obligations equal in force to the supreme law of our land while secretly carrying out violations. The actual real world result would be the unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United States. General Butler in a speech to the Stimson Center expressed indignation that his views might have been unfairly characterized as implying unilateral disarmament, but I do not see how at the end of the day giving up the last American weapon could be regarded as anything other than an act of unilateral disarmament. Ask yourself would the 18 general officers from Russia, who have signed the statement, accept that the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Israel, and whoever else has nuclear weapons at the time, would all turn over their last remaining weapon? These skeptical Russian generals, the last Chinese weapon? And if they would not, how would they seek to hedge against one or more of the others hiding some of their own nuclear weapons? Why they would hold back some of their own, of course. Fear of the actions of others would be quite sufficient to cause cheating on a grand scale. Third, even if the impossible happened, and everyone turned in his last weapon, how long would it be before the continuing technical and scientific know-how and industrial capacity in the former nuclear weapons statements was mobilized to reestablish one or more nuclear powers? If one assumes a future serene world in which sovereign States with nuclear weapons give them up in confidence that their potential adversaries have done the same, how dangerous would the weapons be in the first place? And if the world was still a dangerous place, how could one safely assume that the weapons would be given up? The point is you cannot separate the meaning and implications of the weapons from the international political context. It is a common error, especially on the part of military and arms control professionals, to attribute to weapons themselves the properties that, in fact, derive from the political situation in which they are fielded. That, Mr. Chairman, is what strikes me as profoundly wrong about Secretary Perry's statement, quoted approvingly by General Goodpaster this morning. ``Fewer weapons in fewer hands makes the world safer.'' Now, does that mean fewer weapons in American hands makes the world safer or fewer weapons in all hands combined makes the world safer? I think the world would be safer if there were fewer weapons, and they were all in American hands frankly. So the point is not that there is a relationship between safety and the number of weapons. There is a relationship between safety and a great many other factors, and the political context and who has the weapons and what their political purpose is and what their strategy and doctrine is goes to the heart of the issue. And silly formulations that the fewer the number of weapons or that zero is the ideal State and anything above zero is worse than the ideal State only confuses us about all the many issues we have to resolve about the appropriate size and structure and doctrine and tactics concerning our nuclear forces. Setting aside the concern that Russian nuclear weapons could fall into unauthorized hands, and that is a very real problem, are we anything like as concerned today about thousands of Russian nuclear weapons as we were during the Cold War? Of course not. Just as Canadians and Mexicans never feared America's vast arsenal of nuclear weapons because the political context among us was benign, our concern about Russia's weapons and presumably their concern about ours is sharply and appropriately diminished with the end of the Cold War. It is ironic, Mr. Chairman, that just when things are looking up with the end of the Cold War, along comes an international group of retired flag officers prepared to say that nuclear weapons, ``represent a clear and present danger to the very existence of humanity.'' I think they are far less dangerous today obviously than they were during the Cold War, and that would be true even if there were more of them. In fact, there are fewer. General Goodpaster referred to the 7,000 nuclear weapons under his command. It is ironic that we should be testifying under these circumstances since I worked long and hard as chairman of the NATO Committee to reduce the number of nuclear weapons I inherited from General Goodpaster and his successes, and we succeeded in doing that. Fourth, the elimination of nuclear weapons or even a commitment to eliminate them in the future would be a major encouragement to potential proliferators. Consider the daunting challenge faced by a non-nuclear State that today wishes to acquire nuclear weapons. They must mobilize very substantial financial and technical resources behind a clandestine program. If caught, as the Israelis caught the Iraqis in 1981, they may be attacked and their facilities destroyed. If they succeed, they may wind up with a handful of weapons. These would pose a serious threat to us and to others, to be sure, but the United States possesses many thousands of such weapons and other nuclear weapon States have hundreds or thousands. Surely, a State with a handful of nuclear weapons would take seriously the substantial nuclear arsenals of the major nuclear powers. Now imagine that we and others are about to give up our last remaining nuclear weapons or that we have committed to do so in the future. The mere handful that a successful proliferator might manage to acquire suddenly looks like an arsenal bestowing great power status. Is that a situation we wish to create or encourage? I know it is popular to argue that the disarmament of the main nuclear powers is essential to discourage proliferation, and Senator Levin had some important questions about that. I think the truth is just the opposite. Does anyone seriously believe the Indians would not have developed nuclear weapons if the United States had committed to total nuclear disarmament? Or that the Pakistanis would forebear if we with or without the Indians promise to eliminate all nuclear weapons or actually did so? Our possession of nuclear weapons does far more to discourage proliferation than to encourage it since it reassures our friends and allies that the protection we afford them is ultimately backed up by nuclear weapons, and I was delighted to see that Walt Slocombe and I are in agreement on this point. Fifth, the elimination of all nuclear weapons would end our possession of our deterrent force that has contributed significantly to the peace among nuclear powers that has prevailed since World War II, and General Goodpaster reaffirmed that in his remarks. It is certainly true that the Cold War gave rise to tensions and disputes that might well have led to war between East and West. That no such war occurred is a result of the delicate balance of power that prevailed among nuclear weapon States. At crucial periods during the Cold War, our nuclear deterrent served to balance Soviet superiority of conventional forces in a divided Europe, and there is good reason why General Goodpaster was happy to have those 7,000 weapons. He knew what he faced in the way of a conventional threat from the Warsaw Pact. And while conventional weapons have improved dramatically, and we are less dependent on nuclear weapons than at any time since their invention, they still exert a sobering influence that cannot be achieved by other means. Mr. Chairman, I happen to believe that the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons is larger than is necessary for deterrence and could be safely reduced, and in this I agree with Walt Slocombe and in spirit anyway with General Goodpaster. I would urge that we decommission those nuclear weapons no longer necessary for deterrence as we develop further the precision systems capable of military efficacy equal to nuclear weapons. This seems to me just prudent defense planning, especially since the credibility of the use of nuclear weapons in situations that can be handled without them is close to zero. Even here, though, I would not wish to be understood as endorsing the admirals and generals when they too call for cutting back on present and planned stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and the reason for distancing my view from theirs is the underlying logic of our respective positions. I want a minimum nuclear force, not because nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous and should be eliminated, but because they can serve our security interests if they are deployed in numbers and according to a doctrine that is realistic and carefully conceived. That is a very different standard than the standard that zero is best and anything other than zero is less desirable. As General Butler knows, that is certainly not what we had when he headed the Strategic Air Command. In place of a deliberate strategy combining nuclear and non-nuclear weapons in a way that took account of the credibility and effectiveness of their use, we had a strategic war plan that called for massive retaliation, mutual assured destruction, in response to a variety of contingencies, many of which would in the real world never have been authorized. Even the major war scenarios entailed the use of nuclear weapons on a scale that was wholly incredible. I believe that what we now hear from General Butler is a distressed reaction to the ludicrous strategy he was sent to Omaha to superintend, and I hope thoughtful observers will conclude that further reductions in nuclear arsenals need not be accompanied by an apocalyptic utopian vision for their total elimination. Mr. Chairman, I have tried to suggest three things this morning: that nuclear weapons cannot be safely eliminated now; that they have served and can continue to serve our security interests if managed properly; and that the goal of eliminating them entirely in some distant hazy utopia is a dangerous and unwise goal. If I might add a last point, it is to endorse the urgent need to proceed with the development of a defense against ballistic missiles, an idea that arises directly out of the concerns expressed in the statement of admirals and generals, but is, curiously, wholly absent from their considerations. I once had occasion privately to discuss the idea of eliminating all nuclear weapons with President Reagan. I said I thought the Soviets would cheat and probably others as well. So do I, he said. That is why it could be done only after we had a fully effective SDI in place. And I think Senator Stevens captured that logic in the question he put to Walt Slocombe. Until then, Mr. Chairman, let us not rush to embrace goals that would make sense only in a world that does not exist. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Perle follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD PERLE Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to appear before the Subcommittee to comment on the future of nuclear deterrence. I spent more than a decade as a member of the staff of this Subcommittee and its predecessors under the chairmanship of Senator Henry M. Jackson. It was Scoop's view that this Subcommittee had an important contribution to make to international security and that it could do this best by exploring the intellectual underpinnings of our national security policy. I hope, Mr. Chairman, I may be permitted to digress long enough to remember a distinguished former staff director of this Subcommittee, Dorothy Fosdick, who died last week at the age of 83. Dorothy directed the Subcommittee staff for nearly 20 years and was its guiding force through hundreds of hearings like this one today. She was a tremendously energetic, intelligent and conscientious public servant who fought with skill and tenacity for American strength of purpose and of arms throughout the Cold War. Happily, she lived to see that titanic struggle end with the western victory to which she so abundantly contributed. One of the issues on which Dorothy--or Dickie as she was known throughout the Senate--worked long and hard was the subject of today's hearing, nuclear weapons. I have little doubt that she would have organized a hearing on today's subject out of a deep concern, which I share, that the United States not embrace, even as a long term goal, the objective of eliminating all nuclear weapons. Mr. Chairman, I have read the joint statement by my friend General Goodpaster and General Lee Butler. I've known General Goodpaster for many years and hold him in the highest regard. And while I know General Butler less well, I certainly credit his intelligence and experience. So it is despite my personal respect for these men that I disagree sharply with their advice as to the desirability of eliminating all nuclear weapons. They have made the judgment that our security would be enhanced by the elimination of all nuclear weapons. I believe, on the contrary, that our security would be profoundly undermined by the elimination of all nuclear weapons, even if agreements providing for this could be negotiated and universally ratified. In the real world there is no serious possibility of an agreement eliminating all nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. Generals Goodpaster and Butler seem to recognize this when they say ``. . . the phased withdrawal and destruction of nuclear weapons from all countries' arsenals would take many years, probably decades, to accomplish.'' But elsewhere in their joint statement, the generals acknowledge that ``No one can say today whether or when this final goal will prove feasible . . .'' Nevertheless, despite uncertainty about whether the course they recommend will prove feasible, they urge us to undertake now a serious commitment to it. I should have thought that embarking on a policy the feasibility of which cannot be shown is a most doubtful and risky way to shape our future security. Before outlining why I think it would be dangerous and unwise to embrace a goal of admitted uncertain feasibility but certain grave risks, let me say two things about a second statement with the same theme, issued by a long list of flag officers from several countries a day after the Goodpaster-Butler joint statement. This second statement is longer but no sounder. And unlike the Goodpaster-Butler statement, which is sincere but debatable, the second statement is tinged with hypocrisy reminiscent of the statements emanating from the ``peace'' movement of the Cold War. The ``Statement on Nuclear Weapons by International Generals and Admirals,'' which advocates immediate reductions in nuclear weapon stockpiles on the way to the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons, has been signed, among others, by a number of very senior retired Russian officers, including the vice-chairman of the Duma International Affairs Committee and the chairman of the Duma Defense Committee. Now, unless I am mistaken, the Duma has thus far refused to ratify the START II Treaty which calls for significant reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals--reductions that would leave in place numbers of weapons the signers of the statement consider ``exceedingly large.'' I would suggest that General Boris Gromov's time and that of his colleague General Lev Rokhlin might be profitably used to line up the votes in their Duma committees necessary to ratify START II rather than propagating high-sounding declarations about a nuclear-weapons free world. Second, while the statement is signed by generals and admirals from several countries, and appears to derive its authority from the military credentials of the signers, it is, like the statement from Generals Goodpaster and Butler, a political rather than a military utterance reflecting political rather than military judgments. In an effort to inflate the authority with which their political judgment will be received, the signers refer to their ``intimate and perhaps unique knowledge of the present security and insecurity of our countries and peoples.'' This is followed immediately by a flood of political judgments about the Cuban missile crisis, various treaties and U.N. actions, the efficacy and credibility of deterrence, the likely behavior of rogue states and terrorists, and the like. I go out of my way to mention this, Mr. Chairman, because officials responsible for nuclear weapons policy should not accord undue weight to the opinions of military men when they address topics that are quintessentially political in nature. This is true in general. It is doubly true when the stars are not on their uniforms, but in their eyes. Mr. Chairman, there are at least five important reasons why we should reject categorically and unapologetically the argument that the elimination of all nuclear weapons would be a wise goal for the United States. First, there is no way to verify compliance with a treaty banning all nuclear weapons. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. The weapons are too small and the space in which they can be hidden too vast to allow for confident monitoring. Second, the elimination of our last remaining nuclear weapon, in light of the near certainty that others would cheat and hold some weapons back, would be an act of supreme folly. For what possible benefit would we be wise to take such a huge risk? If one or more nations did cheat we would, by a single wildly imprudent act, place this country in grave peril. No President, no prime minister, and certainly no dictator would ever do such a thing. Every state able to do so would cheat. But we--perhaps alone--would not. The United States would not undertake solemn treaty obligations, equal in force to the supreme law of our land, while secretly carrying out violations. The actual, real world result would be the unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United States. Ask yourself, would the eighteen general officers from Russia who have signed the statement accept that the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Israel and whoever else has nuclear weapons at the time would all turn over their last remaining weapon? And if they would not, how would they seek to hedge against one or more of the others hiding some of their nuclear weapons? Why, they would hold back some of their own, of course. Fear of the actions of others would be quite sufficient to cause cheating on a grand scale. Third, even if the impossible happened and everyone turned in his last weapon, how long would it be before the continuing technical and scientific know-how and industrial capacity in the former nuclear- weapon states was mobilized to re-establish one or more nuclear powers? If one assumes a future serene world in which sovereign states with nuclear weapons give them up in confidence that their potential adversaries have done the same, how dangerous would the weapons be in the first place? And if the world was still a dangerous place, how could one safely assume that the weapons would be given up? The point is you can't separate the meaning and implications of the weapons from the international political context. It is a common error, especially on the part of military and arms control professionals, to attribute to weapons themselves the properties that in fact derive from the political situation in which they are fielded. Setting aside the concern that Russian nuclear weapons could fall into unauthorized hands, are we anything like as concerned today about thousands of Russian nuclear weapons as we were during the Cold War? Of course not. Just as Canadians and Mexicans never feared America's vast arsenal of nuclear weapons because the political context among us was benign, our concern about Russia's weapons--and presumably their concern about ours--is sharply, and appropriately, diminished. It is ironic, Mr. Chairman, that just when things are looking up with the end of the Cold War, along comes an international group of retired flag officers prepared to say that nuclear weapons ``represent a clear and present danger to the very existence of humanity.'' Fourth, the elimination of nuclear weapons, or even a commitment to eliminate them in the future, would be a major encouragement to potential proliferators. Consider the daunting challenge faced by a non-nuclear state today that wishes to acquire nuclear weapons. They must mobilize very substantial financial and technical resources behind a clandestine program. If caught--as the Israelis caught the Iraqis in 1981--they may be attacked and their facilities destroyed. If they succeed, they may wind up with a handful of weapons. These would pose a serious threat to us and to others, to be sure. But the United States possesses many thousands of such weapons and other nuclear weapon states have thousands or hundreds. Surely a state with a handful of nuclear weapons would take seriously the substantial nuclear arsenals of the major nuclear powers. Now imagine that we and others are about to give up our last remaining nuclear weapons, or that we have committed to do so in the future. The mere handful that a successful proliferator might manage to acquire suddenly looks like an arsenal bestowing Great Power status. Is that a situation we would wish to create? I know it is popular to argue that the disarmament of the main nuclear powers is essential to discourage proliferation. I think the truth is just the opposite. Does anyone seriously believe the Indians would not have developed nuclear weapons if the United States had been committed to total nuclear disarmament? Or that the Pakistanis would forebear if we, with or without the Indians, promised to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Our possession of nuclear weapons does far more to discourage proliferation than to encourage it since it reassures our friends and allies that the protection we afford them is ultimately backed up by nuclear weapons. Fifth, the elimination of all nuclear weapons would end our possession of a deterrent force that has contributed significantly to the peace among nuclear powers that has prevailed since World War II. It is certainly true that the Cold War gave rise to tensions and disputes that might well have led to war between East and West. That no such war occurred is a result of the delicate balance of power that prevailed among nuclear weapon states. At crucial periods during the Cold War our nuclear deterrent served to balance Soviet superiority of conventional forces in a divided Europe. And while conventional weapons have improved dramatically, and we are less dependent on nuclear weapons than at any time since their invention, they still exert a sobering influence that cannot be achieved by any other means. Mr. Chairman, I happen to believe that the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons is larger than is necessary for deterrence and could be safely reduced. I would urge that we decommission those nuclear weapons no longer necessary for deterrence as we develop further the precision systems capable of military efficacy equal to nuclear weapons. This seems to me just prudent defense planning, especially since the credibility of the use of nuclear weapons in situations that can be handled without them is close to zero. Even here, though, I would not wish to be understood as endorsing the admirals and generals when they too call for cutting back on present and planned stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The reason for distancing my view from theirs' is the underlying logic of our respective positions: I want a minimum nuclear force not because nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous and should be eliminated, but because they can serve our security interests if they are deployed in numbers and according to a doctrine that is realistic and carefully conceived. As General Butler knows, that is certainly not what we had when he headed the Strategic Air Command. In place of a deliberate strategy combining nuclear and non-nuclear weapons in a way that took account of the credibility and effectiveness of their use, we had a strategic plan that called for massive retaliation--mutual assured destruction--in response to a variety of contingencies, many of which would, in the real world, never have been authorized. Even the major war scenarios entailed the use of nuclear weapons on a scale that was wholly incredible. I believe that what we now hear from General is a distressed reaction to the ludicrous strategy he was sent to Omaha to superintend. And I hope thoughtful observers will conclude that further reductions in nuclear arsenals need not be accompanied by an apocalyptic utopian vision for their total elimination. Mr. Chairman, I have tried to suggest three things this morning: That nuclear weapons cannot be safely eliminated now; that they have served and can continue to serve our security interests if managed properly; and that the goal of eliminating them entirely in some distant hazy utopia is dangerous and unwise. If I might add a fourth it is to endorse the urgent need to proceed with the development of a defense against ballistic missiles, an idea that arises directly out of the concerns expressed in the statement of admirals and generals, but is, curiously, wholly absent from their considerations. I once had occasion privately to discuss the idea of eliminating all nuclear weapons with President Reagan. I said I thought the Soviets would cheat, and probably others as well. ``So do I,'' he said. ``That's why it could be done only after we had a fully effective SDI in place.'' Until then, Mr. Chairman, let's not rush to embrace goals that would make sense in a world that does not exist. Senator Cochran. Thank you very much, Mr. Perle, and thank you both for the comments and the remarks that you have provided to the Committee today. I must say that this is truly educational, and reading the statements in preparing for this hearing has given me a greater depth of understanding and appreciation of the issues involved in this subject than I had before, and I know that other senators have had similar experiences. I hope that this Subcommittee can continue a series of hearings on this and similar subjects so we can explore the underpinnings of our policies in this regard. We all want to do what we can to contribute toward the security interests of the United States and also the safety and security of mankind. I do not think that is too lofty a goal to undertake to accomplish, and the United States at this particular moment in its history is uniquely situated to do more than anyone, do more than any other country, in the furtherance of that goal. So I do not see anything wrong with having goals like world peace or agreements to deal more sanely with weapons and the potential for mass destruction. Verification is, of course, essential in all of this. President Reagan's admonition about trusting but verifying is all too important for us to forget, and so in the real world there are essential factors that we must take into account that have a limiting effect on what our ambitions may be at the moment. As Senator Levin pointed out and others have mentioned, Secretary Slocombe when he testified, I think mankind generally shares in the goal and the hope that is reflected in the provisions of some of these agreements like the NPT. But the real question, it seems to me, is what is happening here in the real world today, and whether or not we may have seen some news accounts getting maybe carried away with the hype of stories. I notice, for example, in the Christian Science Monitor, General Goodpaster wrote an essay, and he talked along the lines that he has commented today on this subject, but yet if you look at the headline of the essay in the Christian Science Monitor, the article from December 16, ``Nuclear Weapons: Time to Phase Them Out? Yes. Utility is Low and Risks High.'' But in the lead sentence, what General Goodpaster says is there are compelling reasons for major new initiatives to reduce the world's nuclear weapons arsenals. Well, that is a lot less than what is in the headline, and that is the lead, and the rest of it goes on from there. I am not suggesting that people write headlines to capture attention and sell newspapers--heaven forbid--but we know that happens. I think we have seen here today some that have been referred to where the hype has prevailed over the content. So I think to some extent the media hype that has become almost overwhelming in this discussion and in this debate. Having said that, let me just ask a couple questions of General Goodpaster. Senator Stevens. Mr. Chairman, would you yield just a second? Senator Cochran. Senator Stevens. I would be happy to yield. Senator Stevens. I have to leave, but I just wanted to thank General Goodpaster and Richard Perle for coming and tell you, Mr. Chairman, that I congratulate you for starting this series of hearings, and I hope that we will keep up this inquiry because I too was taken with the statement of the generals, but I understand a lot better after reading General Goodpaster's statement today, and, General, being as I think the last Eisenhower appointee to serve in the Congress, I welcome you here. I remember distinctly as a young man walking into the White House and seeing you there. You are a great encouragement to all of us, your vitality and your interests and the things you are involved in. So I join in saying happy birthday to you and welcome you here. General Goodpaster. Thank you, sir. Nothing like durability. [Laughter.] Senator Cochran. Thank you, Senator Stevens. There is a question about whether or not nuclear deterrence would have an effect in diminishing the ambition of others to use weapons that are non-nuclear, such as biological and chemical weapons. I must inquire as to whether or not you think, and I'll ask this of both our distinguished witnesses, the recent experience of the Gulf War is informative on that score. There have been a couple of statements that have come out of discussions with those who were involved with the Iraqi military. An Iraqi intelligence official, General Samurai, has openly discussed the fact that the decision about whether to use chemical weapons or biological weapons against the troops on our side in that conflict was affected by our nuclear arms capability. I am going to read his quote. It says, ``I do not think Saddam was capable of taking a decision to use chemical weapons or biological weapons against the allied troops because the warning was quite severe and quite effective. The allied troops were certain to use nuclear arms, and the price will be too dear and too high.'' There was another statement attributed to Tariq Aziz, the foreign minister of Iraq, in a conversation with Secretary of State James Baker. He talked about the overwhelming conventional power that would be brought to bear against Iraq, but also a suggestion that ``Iraq could survive and this leadership will decide the future of Iraq.'' Some think that there is utility in the nuclear capability in terms of deterrence against the development of other weapons systems besides nuclear weapons and the threat or use of them. That seems to be either not taken into account or discounted in the statement that General Goodpaster and Butler issued. Am I reading that correctly, General? General Goodpaster. I think the question of the adequacy of our conventional forces for that role, that question is open. I do not believe it can be fully resolved today. I take refuge in the fact that it does not have to be resolved today because of the continued existence of our nuclear weapons, and I would hope that by the time we get to what I call the lowest verifiable level where we could consider the possibility of complete elimination, by that time it can be resolved and would be resolved in favor of sole reliance on conventional arms alone, but in practical terms in the world that we live in, the continued existence of our nuclear capability has significant weight, I believe, as a deterrent to other countries, rogue countries, developing and threatening the use or actually using these weapons. Senator Cochran. Mr. Perle, any reaction to the idea of the utility of nuclear weapons in terms of deterrence against the development of weapons of mass destruction development and threats of use of those weapons? Mr. Perle. I think it was almost certainly in Saddam Hussein's mind that if he went beyond a certain point, we might well respond with a nuclear weapon, and it will always be in the mind of a non-nuclear State that has to contemplate that. So there is a deterrent shadow even against the use of other weapons of mass destruction or for that matter against particularly egregious actions. We would be foolish to give that up, and I do not think anyone is suggesting that we give that up now, and it is not clear to me why we would want to give it up in the future either. Senator Cochran. In addition to the statement about bringing down the numbers of nuclear weapons dramatically on our side and working toward agreements with others to do likewise, there is a suggestion that reducing the alert status of nuclear weapons may also contribute to further stability and less risky relationship with other countries. What is your reaction to that, Mr. Perle? I know that is in the Christian Science Monitor essay by General Goodpaster, where he advocates reducing the alert status of nuclear weapons. Mr. Perle. I think it is important to do everything we can to diminish the likelihood that a nuclear weapon might ever be used in circumstances where we did not intend to use it. And the so-called hair trigger has been a problem from the beginning. A great many systems have been developed to try to control that, and I think we have a very good system of control in place. I would not dismiss out of hand changes in alert status that might reduce still further the possibility of an accidental or unintended use of nuclear weapons. Senator Cochran. I think General Goodpaster pointed out correctly that there already has been a lot of change in terms of targeting and other doctrines and policies on the part of Russia and the United States with respect to the nuclear weapons arsenals. And I suppose the changes in alert status have already taken place in many instances, and there have been descriptions by Secretary Slocombe about the numbers of weapon systems that have been set aside and are not available for use anymore by the United States. Have there been changes that maybe the general public does not know that you could tell us about that would give us some evidence of how this works or how it is a part of the new emerging nuclear doctrine of the United States? General Goodpaster. There have been changes that bear on the State of alert and the risks that that represents. First of all, the complete elimination of the SS-20 on their side and the Pershings and cruise missiles on our side was a very important step, and one of the drivers behind that step was to eliminate this hair trigger situation that existed with respect to those weapons. On the matter of changing the alerts, of course, there have been the agreements to detarget the weapons that we have. Those agreements are significant but limited in that the weapons could be retargeted quite quickly. Further steps in reducing the alert status will require very, very careful consideration, and in that consideration I would hope that great attention would be given to the importance of reducing, finding ways to assure that the alert status of the Russian missiles, in particular that the alert status of those missiles has, in fact, been reduced at a time when the situation of their armed forces is really almost chaotic. That is a special risk, it seems to me, that requires special attention. Mr. Perle. Could I just add, Mr. Chairman? Senator Cochran. Mr. Perle. Mr. Perle. The principal reason for the high alert status, which was important during the Cold War, was a concern that a well-crafted concerted attack on our retaliatory capability could so degrade it that we would not, in fact, have a credible deterrent. Of all the things one could do to lessen the burden of quick response and therefore the need for alert forces, the development of a ballistic missile defense seems to me a terribly important one. That is to say if we were confident that the critical elements of our deterrent would survive an attack, we would not feel it necessary to maintain an ability to respond instantly. So this is why I was surprised that there was no reference to a defense in this statement of the admirals and generals since a defense would permit us to do a great many things of the kind that they suggest, reducing numbers of weapons, reducing their alert status as well. Senator Cochran. Senator Levin, do you have questions? Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me wish you also a happy birthday, General. I will not ask you what number, but how old are you? [Laughter.] General Goodpaster. Eighty-two, today. Senator Levin. Congratulations. General Goodpaster. That used to seem like a big number, but it has gotten a great deal smaller. Senator Levin. Well, my father-in-law is 99 this week so you've got a ways to go. It seems to me that once General Goodpaster has said that nobody knows whether, when or how to eliminate nuclear weapons in a prudent way, that the real issue now should shift to how we can get to the next and whether we should get to the next level of reductions. Whether you accept the ultimate elimination as a goal or not, there seems to be some agreement that we ought to reduce it below the current level or that we might want to reduce it below the current level. So I would like to focus on that. It strikes me that it is in our interest that Russia not develop a new single warhead ICBM. It is in their interest, they say, too, because they do not have the money. It would seem to me it is in our interest that no new nuclear weapon systems be developed by anybody else. Would you agree with that? Mr. Perle. No, I do not think I would agree with that. Senator Levin. OK. I said by anybody else---- Mr. Perle. I think you always want to keep technical options open. Senator Levin. I thought you said you would rather there be no weapons in anybody's hands other than ours? Mr. Perle. Except ours, yes. Senator Levin. So that is why I said would it not be then in our interest that no weapon be developed by anybody else? Mr. Perle. Other than--oh, yes, anybody else. Yes, I agree with that. Senator Levin. All right. Mr. Perle. Unless, unless---- Senator Levin. That may be the last thing we agree on. At least I want to establish that. Mr. Perle. Unless you had the substitution of a less dangerous weapon for a more dangerous weapon. Senator Levin. All right. That is a fair qualification. By the way, before I go on I want to ask, Mr. Chairman, that Senator Glenn's statement and a set of questions that he would like to be inserted for the record be inserted at the appropriate time. Senator Cochran. Without objection it is so ordered. Senator Levin. One of your last paragraphs, Mr. Perle, says that you believe the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons is larger than is necessary for deterrence and can safely be reduced. And I want to just press you on that issue. I know you very much favor a national missile defense, and that came later in your statement near the end. But in the absence of a national missile defense, would you still agree that it is possible, at least, that we could reduce our nuclear weapons stockpile below the START II level in a safe way? Mr. Perle. Yes, I think so. Senator Levin. All right. If it would be helpful in that regard to work out some kind of a framework agreement with the Russians, which does not amend START II--it leaves START II exactly as we have negotiated--but then says that upon START II coming into force, we would then seek to negotiate a further reduction to some lower level than START II, would you be willing to consider such a framework agreement as possibly being in our national security interest? Mr. Perle. It could be. I would be cautious about framework agreements in general because there is a long history in our negotiations with the Soviets--and they are by and large the same people and in some cases by name and face the same people--there is a long history of framework agreements, which of necessity by definition are lacking in critical details, becoming an obstacle to good, well-crafted agreements because you have a general agreement in principle that the effect and consequences of which can be substantially altered, even undermined, by the way details are handled, and there is then, particularly in democratic societies, great pressure to wrap things up and concede on those very important details, but I see no problem whatsoever in making it clear to the Russians that we do not think they should be investing more money in new nuclear systems unless nuclear systems that they require are antiquated and unsafe. And I certainly would not want to rule out the substitution of safer for unsafe systems. Senator Levin. In that regard then, would you think it might be wise for us to seek some mechanism where we could provide a pathway to further reductions beyond START II so as to give the Russians the kind of assurance that they say they need to ratify START II? Mr. Perle. I am reluctant to take at face value the claim that the problem in the ratification of START II is the argument they have advanced and that you have cited. I think it is a more complicated picture than that, and I think this is an excuse. At the very least, it is an excuse. It may be more than an excuse. Senator Levin. All right. If you view it as an excuse, to remove that excuse---- Mr. Perle. Yes, I would happily remove that. Senator Levin. To remove that excuse, would it not be in our interest to try to find some mechanism which lays out a pathway to a lower level since you acknowledge a lower level-- -- Mr. Perle. Sure. Senator Levin [continuing]. Is consistent with our national security? Mr. Perle. Senator, given the very different circumstances that prevail after the end of the Cold War, I would not be adverse to our reducing to a level that we thought appropriate even in the absence of an agreement with the Soviet Union. I no longer believe that what was at one time the importance of not making unilateral reductions under any circumstances applies. We should have the force that we think makes sense, that we think meets our security requirements, and in some respects that will turn out to be independent of the size and nature of the Russian force. Senator Levin. And that being true--that we would consider a reduction below START II unilaterally--is it not doubly true then that working out some appropriate pathway to such a level--which would remove the excuse, in your words, but however it is viewed--and permit the Duma to move to ratification of START II, might be in our interest? Mr. Perle. Sure. Senator Levin. Would you agree that Russia is no longer our adversary? Mr. Perle. I certainly do not consider them our adversary. I think they still have people in positions of responsibility who regard us as an adversary, however, and I---- Senator Levin. You personally do not regard them as an adversary? Mr. Perle. No. They are too disorganized to be an adversary. Senator Levin. Other than that? Mr. Perle. Well, I think clearly there is a struggle going on among competing views of what Russia should be. They are going through a kind of national identity crisis, the outcome of which is uncertain. So while I do not believe that Boris Yeltsin is seized with the importance of maintaining a nuclear capability superior to that of the United States, I do not know what will come next, and I think in this very uncertain situation our focus ought to be on structuring our military forces, nuclear and non-nuclear, in way that we think meets our security requirements and that recognizes the inherent uncertainty about where Russia will be and what the next Russian leadership will consider to be in their interest. Senator Levin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Cochran. Thank you, Senator. Let me ask a couple of questions about some current topics of concern. One is in Libya today at Tarhuna, there is concern about the development of a weapons capability in an underground--I do not know all the intelligence, and I am not a member of the Intelligence Committee, and I do not mean to be divulging any secrets because I do not know any secrets on this subject, but this is what I have read in the paper--where there may be an effort to develop a weapon of mass destruction of some kind, chemical, who knows what. There was a question asked of an assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense, April of last year; Dr. Harold Smith was the witness. He said when he was asked do we have a weapon that we could use if we felt it was in our security interest to destroy that facility, recalling that Israel took a similar action when Iraq was developing what it considered to be a nuclear capability, and they took out a plant, Dr. Smith said ``We could not take it out of commission using strictly conventional weapons.'' Now, I assume from his answer that we might be able to take it out of commission if we used some kind of weapon, and the only kind of weapon I think we would have would be a nuclear weapon. So, it would seem that the capability to destroy a target like that may be a reason to have nuclear weapons in our arsenal. If our security we were threatened by the development of a weapons of mass destruction production facility, this capability is something that we would like to have. General Goodpaster and Mr. Perle, do you believe Dr. Smith is incorrect? Could we destroy such a target with conventional forces only, and if not, do you agree that we do need to maintain a nuclear capability under such circumstances if we decided that it was in our security interest to destroy a target like that? General Goodpaster. Well, if I could answer first, let me say that I think that Harold Smith knows what he is talking about, and I would honor his statement and his judgment. It is not immediately sure, however, that nuclear weapons could do what he says the conventional weapons could not do. I think this would be a matter if we are confronted with that situation, this would be a matter on which very, very thorough and careful analysis would be required by our military authorities, and I do not know what the outcome of that would be. Senator Cochran. Mr. Perle. Mr. Perle. Well, I think it is likely that a nuclear weapon of sufficient size could destroy even that plant, and so I for that and for other reasons would not wish to give up nuclear weapons, but I do think that we should be working hard at developing a conventional capability to attack and destroy targets of that nature. I believe that we have the component technologies to do that, and the issue is will we fashion them into a system capable of going after deep underground structures? I think it is a serious shortcoming in the arsenal that we do not have, but during the Gulf War we cobbled something together rather quickly which was brilliantly innovative. We used long withdrawn from service artillery tubes, maybe naval guns--I do not recall--and converted them into bombs, and they were able to penetrate very substantial distances and destroy underground bunkers. That is a very useful capability to have. We ought to have something in the arsenal that can do that, and this is a bit off the subject, but it worries me a lot, that the budget for investment in technologies of this kind has been declining so rapidly that if we do not find a way to reorganize the way we use our defense resources, we will find that we are missing an opportunity to develop non-nuclear substitutes for nuclear weapons. Senator Cochran. It strikes me that we were confronted by a similar situation when North Korea appeared to be proceeding to develop a nuclear weapon capability. There was a lot of question about what was going on, where it was taking place, perhaps in underground facilities, and there were discussions about what to do, not necessarily at the highest level of military strategy but here in the Senate. I know on a trip I took with others to Korea, we had reason to talk about this with our military leaders there, to try to find out what the risk was. We have 37,000 troops in South Korea right now, and the threat that they would be under with a nuclear weapon capability in North Korea is very troubling. Today Secretary Slocombe said that the North Korean nuclea proglem is effectively under control now. We hope it is. What is your view of that situation? Is that another argument for a continuing nuclear capability for the purpose of deterring the construction and the development of a nuclear weapon capability on that Korean peninsula? Mr. Perle, I will ask you that. Mr. Perle. Clearly, if we did not have a nuclear capability, it would only encourage the North Koreans to try even harder to get one because the effect that their acquiring a nuclear monopoly would have. So the answer is unambiguously yes, and it is precisely in this sort of situation that it becomes very clear that the idea that our nuclear force somehow encourages proliferation is seen for the nonsense it is. It discourages proliferation in my view. Senator Cochran. General Goodpaster? General Goodpaster. I would concur with that. The moment you say that a nuclear threat is being generated against us, I think you call into the question the use of our nuclear capabilities because one of their roles is, under counter- proliferation, to deter and if necessary defeat and destroy quickly and decisively any nuclear threat to us or to our allies. Senator Cochran. I am going to conclude with a question about the statement by the international generals and admirals of a prerequisite that they mentioned before we can contemplate total disarmament in nuclear weapons capability. One was an effective system for collective security. And Mr. Perle, I wanted to ask you is there reason to believe that the elimination of nuclear weapons can be a reasonable goal for the foreseeable future if effective systems for collective security are a necessary precondition? Mr. Perle. Well, I do not know what the generals and admirals have in mind when they talk about collective security. If they have in mind some universal serenity in which none of us is concerned because we all love one another, I mean that is the utopian never-never land, and it is never helpful, never helpful, to the construction of sound policy to establish an unrealistic goal. This is not like difficult to achieve goals in the moral or spiritual sphere where it is a good thing to strive to be, to achieve moral and spiritual qualities that are very hard to achieve and maybe can never be achieved, but it does not do any harm to try. Adopting a goal that is unrealistic almost certainly leads to unwise policies underneath that goal because they distract you from what is important and what is essential. And to say that we could only eliminate all nuclear weapons if we had a system of collective security of such majesty that we were no longer threatened by somebody else's nuclear weapon simply confuses the issue. So my answer is you can make a list as long as you like of the preconditions, and after you have solved all of the preconditions that one can talk about rationally, you still are left with the fact that you could not verify it. You are still left with the near certainty that nuclear powers would cheat, and you are still left with the fact that even if you did accomplish the total elimination of nuclear weapons, 1 day they could be rebuilt the next. Senator Cochran. That was going to be my last question. In light of one of the experiences from the war in Iraq, the verification of what is going on there now is subject to question, even with the implementation of the most intrusive inspection process in history by the International Atomic Energy Agency and others who are responsible for making sure that Iraq is not developing or continuing to hide weapons of mass destruction. This leads you to the question about another prerequisite of the international generals and admirals, which is verification and enforcement. Is there a regime for international verification that can realistically be expected to be available in the foreseeable future, and I ask this of General Goodpaster and Mr. Perle as well? Is that something that is so far in the future that it is not really a realistic criteria or prerequisite? General Goodpaster. That is part of what we do not know how to do at the present time, and the setting of prerequisites is a task that will have to be worked on during this period while our nuclear arsenals go down in size. So I think where we are in this is to do what we can do and continue to study and formulate the prerequisites and the means of accomplishing those prerequisites, but the reason that I do not believe it is fruitful to debate complete abolition or complete elimination today is, first, we have not really come down on just what the prerequisites are, and, second, we are far from being able to say how those could be met. Senator Cochran. Thank you. Mr. Perle. Mr. Perle. Well, I agree with General Goodpaster, and that seems to me a very good reason for not repeating this cliche that it is a useful goal to achieve the total elimination. The selection of goals should not be divorced from reality, and the reality is we cannot answer the critical questions about the prerequisites with any confidence so let us wait and see whether that is a good goal or not. What troubles me and the reason why I keep harping, it may seem academic, and anybody watching this hearing today would say, well, when we really got into it, nobody made much of a defense of the goal, and I think Senator Levin wisely chose to comment on other things rather than defend the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons, the goal is part of a logical structure. If the ideal world is one without nuclear weapons, then the next best thing would be, I suppose, a world with one nuclear weapon, and after that with two, and after that with three and so forth. That misses the point entirely because the goal ought to be a stable, credible, effective nuclear deterrent that defends the interest of the United States, and you do not arrive at all of the decisions you need to make in achieving that realistic and important goal by confusing yourself with the idea that anything above zero is bad and the larger above zero, the more above zero, the worse it is. So I think we need a new long-term goal, and that new long-term goal is not the elimination of nuclear weapons, but it is the management of threats to our security, and if we focus on that as the goal, we will wind up probably with lower levels because I think the conditions are ripe for lower levels, but we will not confuse ourselves about where we are headed. Senator Cochran. One thing that I cannot end the hearing without asking what is wrong with comparing what both General Goodpaster and Butler have said with what President Reagan suggested at Reykjavik? You were an advisor at that time. Is there a difference? Mr. Perle. Well, there are several differences. One is that in the closing session at Reykjavik on the Sunday, the proposition that was on the table and about which drafts had been exchanged called not for the elimination of all nuclear weapons but for the elimination of all offensive ballistic missiles. And it was our judgment that the elimination of offensive ballistic missiles, given the balance of ballistic missiles between the United States and the Soviet Union, would enhance our security. In that last session on the Sunday, Gorbachev said in exasperation because he did not like our proposal much--he wanted to hold on to those missiles--he said, well, why not just give them all up? And the President said, well, that sounds fine to me. Now, this was the kind of exchange that takes place seldom at summits, to be sure, but takes place when people are discussing ideas in a broad sense. It was not a proposal in any meaningful sense. It was never written down. It was never formulated in a way that could be acted upon. And it was all conditioned on the substitution of defenses for offenses, and what President Reagan had in mind in some future world was one in which we had a near perfect or perhaps even a perfect defense so that if someone did cheat, the effect of that cheating would be nugatory; we would be able to defend against any weapon that was held improperly. And that at the end of the day is the inescapable concern. If you cannot be sure that somebody else does not possess a nuclear weapon, then you would be foolish to give up your own unless you had a defense. If you had a perfect defense, that would change the situation entirely. The irony is that if you look at the list of people, the admirals and generals who signed that statement--there are 60 of them--I doubt if there are three on there who favor a defense. I think General Goodpaster would favor a defense, but he can speak for himself, but I think a great many of those admirals and generals would not favor a defense or at least they would not say that they favored a defense. Senator Cochran. This has been an enormously helpful and interesting hearing to me, and I want to express the sincerest appreciation for your participation in the hearing and for Secretary Slocombe's as well. Already, we have given permission to Senator Glenn to submit questions that could be answered for the record. We may also have additional questions that we would like to submit to the witnesses, and we hope that you can respond to those, if you will, for the purpose of our hearing record. There being no other witnesses to come before the Committee today, this hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] A P P E N D I X ---------- OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR GLENN Today marks a change in the structure of this Committee--the resurrection of a subcommittee devoted in part to issues relating to the global spread of the world's most dangerous weapons. I remember well back in 1977 when I successfully urged then-Chairman Ribicoff to establish a subcommittee called ``Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Federal Services,'' whose title in 1981 became ``Energy, Nuclear Proliferation and Government Processes.'' I believed then, just as I believe now, that the global spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction merited close attention by the Congress. I have every hope that the Committee will continue its excellent record on this subject well in the future. When I became chairman of this Committee in January 1987, I abolished this subcommittee because I wanted to address proliferation issues at the full Committee level. I am certain that Sen. Cochran will give the subject the attention it deserves through this new subcommittee. I look forward to working with him and the ranking member, Senator Levin, whose interest in this area is longstanding, and who will also have many opportunities to address this issue as the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. I look at the subject of today's hearing--the future of nuclear deterrence--as encompassing some of the most important issues on America's national security agenda today. It requires us to think closely about what roles and missions we can expect our nuclear forces to perform in the years ahead. It requires us to consider the possibility that other nations may now be trying to copy what the U.S. has achieved by way of nuclear deterrence capabilities. The subject will take us into the realms of missile defense, new threats arising to U.S. interests from the Third World, the danger of a resurgence of old threats, the challenges posed from maintaining U.S. security in an age of shrinking Federal budgets, and the ways that America's treaties are working to preserve U.S. strategic interests. I congratulate Sen. Cochran for the level of attention he intends to devote to proliferation-related issues and offer may full cooperation for a strong bipartisan effort in this area throughout the new Congress. Since the subcommittee also has jurisdictional responsibilities for the areas of civil service and postal service, Senator Cochran's plate will undoubtedly be full in this era of reinventing government, downsizing of the civil service, and intensified search for economies and efficiencies in government. I look forward to working with him and Senator Levin in these areas as well. [Questions for Under Secretary Slocombe from Senator Glenn follows:] QUESTIONS FOR UNDER SECRETARY SLOCOMBE FROM SENATOR GLENN Post-Cold War Challenges to Nuclear Deterrence 1. Russia's Defense Minister has warned recently that he may not be able to ensure the safety and reliability of his nuclear arsenal--in terms of U.S. policy responses that would likely enhance stability, is this threat best addressed on the ground in Russia (e.g. via Cooperative Threat Reduction) or on the ground in America (e.g. by expanding the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal, resuming U.S. nuclear testing, developing a new generation of nuclear weapons, and deploying immediately a national missile defense system)? Answer: Defense Minister Rodionov's comments may have been intended to encourage additional funding for the Russian military. We believe that the Ministry of Defense continues to exercise control over Russia's nuclear weapons and the Ministry of Atomic Energy exercises tight control over the dismantled nuclear weapons stockpile. Nevertheless, through the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, we are helping to enhance the stability of the Russian nuclear arsenal by working with Russia on assistance projects to improve the security, control, and accounting of their nuclear weapons. For example, CTR is providing assistance to improve security at nuclear- weapon storage sites in Russia and to implement an automated inventory control and management system that will enhance the Russian MoD's capability to account for and track their nuclear weapons. We are working with Russia on a number of projects designed to enhance the security of Russian nuclear weapons and weapons components while being stored or transported to dismantlement facilities. These activities complement the strategic deterrent that we have maintained and will continue to maintain through START II and any further agreed reductions in offensive strategic forces. 2. Your testimony disputes the existence of a class of countries that two former Secretaries of Defense have termed ``undeterrable''; you also testified that nuclear weapons can deter ``rogue states with WMD programs''--(a) Are neighbors of such states thus justified in seeking their own bombs? (b) Do only U.S. bombs deter? Answer: (a) The fact that nations are, in principle, not undeterrable does not, in itself, justify a nation seeking nuclear weapons. As of 1 March 1997, 185 countries have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which indicates that they have concluded that possession of nuclear weapons does not serve their security interests even given the existence of other declared and undeclared nuclear powers. Multiple means exist that preclude the need for a state to acquire nuclear weapons, including being a party to the NPT and other non- proliferation agreements, reliance on U.S. and alliance security guarantees, and the like. Through participation in one or more of these mechanisms, states bordering rogue states don't need nuclear weapons to guarantee their security. (b) No. But, as stated above, the fact that deterrence is possible is not, in itself, a justification for a nation seeking nuclear weapons. 3. How does your department contribute to U.S. efforts against WMD proliferation by countries that are not ``rogue states'' and do you regard such proliferation as destabilizing or inimical to U.S. security interests? Answer: DoD believes that in general further proliferation of nuclear weapons is not in U.S. interests. Regarding South Asia, for example, in a presentation to the Foreign Policy Association earlier this year, former Secretary Perry stated, ``We believe that a strong defense relationship and increased cooperation [with India and Pakistan] will allow us to better pursue our common security interests, but, at the same time, they will provide a better basis for working out the policy differences which we have with each of those countries. . . . we find India and Pakistan's position on nuclear proliferation unpalatable. But to use this as a reason to disengage from the region, or to avoid deepening our security ties with these nations, could undermine efforts to cap their destructive capability. It could even help push them into an unfettered arms race. That would be disastrous. I believe that we can best help to avoid the disastrous by building bridges of trust between the United States and India and between the United States and Pakistan.'' With that as our guidance, Department of Defense has attempted to build bridges of trust through the strengthening our bilateral defense relationships and increasing our military-to-military cooperation within the established legal limitations. 4. How will arms reductions beyond START II and III likely affect America's ability to maintain its nuclear umbrellas in Europe and East Asia? Will these cuts affect the proliferation risk in those regions? Answer: The arms reductions agreed to under START II will not affect our ability to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent for allies and friends in Europe and East Asia, nor will the reductions that are likely under START III. By the same token, these forces, along with our other military capabilities, will continue to serve as a deterrent to proliferant threats against U.S. allies. 5. Is it a current mission of U.S. nuclear forces to preempt, to deter, or to respond to chemical weapons attacks on the United States or its allies emanating from the Third World? Answer: The mission of U.S. nuclear forces is to help deter attacks on the United States, its allies or interests. Nuclear weapons are part of our overall defense posture which is designed, in its totality, to contribute to the deterrence of any state threatening the United States or its allies including with chemical weapons. However, nuclear forces are only one of several options available. We have a broad range of conventional offensive response options, as well as active and passive defenses. As a long-standing policy, the U.S. does not specify in advance what response we would make to CW use, a use which would be in violation of the laws of armed conflict. However, it is our policy that we would consider all options in response to a CW/BW attack and that our response would be absolutely overwhelming and devastating. Former Secretary Perry added, ``in every situation I have seen so far, nuclear weapons would not be required for response. That is, we could have a devastating response without the use of nuclear weapons, but we would not forswear that possibility.'' 6. Is it a current mission of U.S. nuclear forces to preempt, to deter, or to respond to aggression against the United States or its allies involving only the use of conventional weapons? Answer: The mission of U.S. nuclear forces is to deter attacks on the U.S., its allies and interests. In general, we do not now foresee circumstances in which it would be in our interest to use nuclear weapons in response to a purely conventional attack. However, we would assess the situation in light of the circumstances then prevailing. 7. Is America prepared to use the bomb against parties to the NPT or treaties establishing regional nuclear-weapons-free zones, if such countries attack the U.S. or its allies with chemical or biological weapons? Answer: A 1978 Presidential declaration provided so-called Negative Security Assurances (NSA) for NPT NNWS. This assurance has been reaffirmed many times, including at the highest levels of the U.S. government. It says: ``The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear- weapons States Parties to the NPT except in the case of an invasion or an attack on the United States, its territories, its Armed Forces or other troops, its allies, or on a State towards which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by such a nonnuclear-weapon State in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon-state.'' Additionally, the Protocols to the Treaty of Rarotonga and Treaty of Pelindaba include a provision that each protocol party undertakes not use or threaten to use a nuclear explosive device against any treaty party or against any dependent territories within the zone. This provision would come into effect once all ratification and entry-into-force steps had been taken. In connection with the Treaty of Pelindaba the USG stated: ``. . . we will not limit the options available to the United States in response to an attack using weapons of mass destruction.'' See also the answer to question 5. 8. A Brookings analyst has estimated that the minimum total historical cost of the U.S. nuclear arsenal was at least $4 trillion (in constant 1996 dollars)--(a) Was that a fair estimate? (b) For the record, can you estimate the total costs (including the stockpile stewardship, operations and maintenance, C\3\I, personnel, cleanup, etc.) of the U.S. nuclear arsenal at the START I and START II force levels from 1997-2010? (c) Assuming a ceiling of 2,000 weapons, can you estimate the savings from moving to START III in the same period? Answer: The Brookings analysis consolidated government-wide data in Fall 1995, including the estimated expenditures of the DoD, DoE, International Atomic Energy Agency, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Justice Department, and a host of other government activities. The Brookings analysis only looks at historic data, l950s to FY95. Reporting future expenditures, as you have requested, is more difficult because we cannot predict the force structure out to 2010. However, I can speak to some DoD estimates that were developed as part of our START I and START II assessments. If we maintain the START II force structure though FY2010, the DoD cost (force structure, operations and maintenance, personnel) is $7-$8 billion per year. To decide to maintain START I forces out to FY2010 would cost an estimated $10-$12 billion more over the FY1997-FY2010 period (the cost per year varies from a few million to over a billion dollars). Additionally, we understand that DOE plans to spend approximately $4 billion per year over the next 10 years on stockpile stewardship. As for START III, there is no decision on the force structure, but it would be reasonable to assume that the budget per year would be somewhat less than that of START II depending on the force structure. Future of Nuclear Deterrence in the Third World 1. Former CIA directors James Woolsey and John Deutch have each testified that they could not think of an example where the introduction of nuclear weapons into a region has enhanced that region's security or benefited the security interests of the United States--do you agree? Answer: It is not clear what is the context of the statements cited in the question. However, the statement is accurate in regard to those regional powers that are the focus of our current nonproliferation concerns. 2. Are new regional balances of nuclear terror in the Third World likely to be stable or to make war less likely, and if not, how exactly will they affect U.S. security interests? Will the emergence of such deterrence relationships have any effect on U.S. nuclear targeting policy? Answer: The United States considers further proliferation of nuclear weapons to be destabilizing and inimical to U.S. interests, particularly in regions of tension, because it is destabilizing and raises the prospect that a regional conflict could result in the use of nuclear weapons. We, of course, have to take the nuclear capability of any proliferator potentially hostile to U.S. interests into account in our own planning. 3. What is the role of U.S. nuclear weapons (both strategic and non-strategic) in current U.S. ``counterproliferation'' policy? What is the official military mission of the nuclear-armed Tomahawk? Answer: The goal of the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative is to ensure that our forces are prepared to protect themselves and to fight effectively on an NBC-contaminated battlefield. We can accomplish this by equipping our forces with active and passive defenses, counterforce capabilities, and the supporting command, control, communications and intelligence systems. Military preparations for operations in an NBC environment make clear that threats of use or actual use of NBC weapons will not deter the United States from applying its military power to protect its vital interests. In addition, effective capabilities to counter proliferation devalue the potential political and military benefits of NBC weapons and thus have a deterring effect on the acquisition and use of such weapons by rogue states. In addition to these conventional capabilities, U.S. nuclear forces also provide a significant deterrent to proliferators to even contemplate the use of NBC weapons. The nation's Non-Strategic Nuclear Force (NSNF) are available to be deployed to or tasked to support theater nuclear requirements and thereby link conventional forces to the full nuclear capability of the United States. The Tomahawk missile, in particular, since it would be carried on board our attack submarines, gives the U.S. the ability, in a crisis, to hold at risk key targets from a stealthy, offshore position. 4. Are India and Pakistan now practicing nuclear deterrence as a basis for stability in South Asia? If so, how will U.S. interests be affected and what are the continuing risks of instability? Answer: Both India and Pakistan view their potential nuclear capability as a central part of their national security. One of our key objectives in the region is to keep the nuclear and missile capabilities on both sides from escalating in order to avoid an intensification of the South Asian nuclear arms race. We therefore seek to cap, roll-back, and eventually eliminate these capabilities. Currently, our objective is to seek Indian and Pakistani adherence to global nonproliferation norms; specifically to seek their accession to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and support for the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. 5. A recent Council on Foreign Relations report has urged the U.S. to drop its goal of rolling back the bomb in South Asia and to aim instead at fostering a ``a more stable plateau for Indo-Pakistani nuclear competition.'' (a) Is nuclear rollback now an impossible U.S. nonproliferation goal in South Asia--is U.S. policy in the region now limited merely to preventing detonations or extra-regional bomb transfers? Answer: Our policy is not so limited. It is as stated in response to question 4. Our near term challenge has been to break the momentum and cap a potential South Asian nuclear arms race through mutual restraint and confidence building measures. Currently, our efforts are focused on getting both India and Pakistan to become parties to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and to engage constructively in negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty--two nondiscriminatory treaties that both countries have long supported in principle. In parallel with our efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we have urged both sides not to be the first to produce or deploy ballistic missiles which could trigger a missile race with tragic consequences. (b) Would it advance U.S. nonproliferation objectives for America to assist India and Pakistan in managing their ``nuclear competition,'' as opposed to the current U.S. policy of opposing both bomb programs? Current U.S. policy is to oppose nuclear weapons programs in both countries. For the near term, the U.S. can contribute to the cause of regional stability by urging both countries to expend maximum effort towards resolving differences, one by one, through dialogue. We believe India and Pakistan should revalidate confidence building measures (CBMs) agreed to years ago. These include: a ``hotline'' between Directors General of Military Operations; prior notification of major military exercises; limitations on size and location of exercises; a pledge not to attack each other's nuclear facilities; and a prohibition on chemical weapons. We also believe India and Pakistan would benefit from implementing additional CBMs, one example being a negotiated end to their confrontation over the Siachen Glacier. There are many civilian and military areas in which India and Pakistan can strive to build a foundation for fruitful and cordial relations. The U.S. should support the constructive efforts and continue to disapprove of India and Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. We should encourage both states to become parties to the CTBT and to support negotiation of a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. (c) Does America have a strategic interest in assisting either Pakistan or India to have a safe and reliable nuclear arsenal and would such assistance square with U.S. obligations under the NPT? Answer: It is not our policy to assist either Pakistan or India to have a safe and reliable nuclear arsenal. Of course, it would be in the interest of any state which created a nuclear weapons capability to ensure that is was as safe and secure as possible. (d) The Council's report also urges new U.S. arms transfers to Pakistan as an instrument of nonproliferation policy--given the experience of past transfers for this purpose, how likely would such transfers either advance U.S. nonproliferation policy or assist Pakistan to achieve military parity with India? Answer: Government-to-government arm sales to Pakistan, of course, continue to be prohibited under the Pressler Amendment. In the case of India, we have abstained from major arms sales that might alter the existing military balance of forces. Simultaneously, the Department of Defense is actively involved in the coordinated U.S. effort to convince India and Pakistan that weapons of mass destruction do not provide the security that each side perceives. DoD will continue to seek new ways, within the bounds of U.S. law and policy, to expand military- to-military cooperation with both India and Pakistan. 6. How would the introduction of an effective missile defense system in either India or Pakistan likely affect the nuclear weapons posture of the other country? Would such a development likely prove to be stabilizing? Answer: There are sharp differences of view about the stability effect of missile defense systems. Since neither India or Pakistan now has a deployed nuclear weapon-delivery missile system, much less an anti-missile defense system, it is not possible meaningfully to assess the application of these debates to the South Asia case. 7. What options would be available to China by way of a strategic response to the introduction of an effective missile defense system by either Russia or India? Would the deployment of effective missile defense systems throughout East Asia add to or jeopardize strategic stability in that region? Answer: Russia already has an ABM system consisting of about 100 nuclear-tipped ABM interceptors in the vicinity of Moscow as permitted by the ABM Treaty. For a number of years, Russia has also deployed a TMD system for use against shorter range systems. China has embarked upon a strategic missile modernization program even as Russian force readiness across the board has significantly diminished and its ABM capability has remained relatively static. Presumably one purpose of that program is to enhance the capability of Chinese missiles against defenses. Whatever may be the case with regard to the China-India- Russia case, deployment of TMD systems for defense against rogue state missiles, especially from the DPRK, would be stabilizing in East Asia, as well as elsewhere. 8. Does America have a strategic interest in assisting China to have a safe and reliable nuclear arsenal? Answer: It is certainly in America's interest that China's nuclear weapons are physically safe and not prone to unauthorized or accidental launch. However, the United States has not engaged in programs to assist China in ensuring the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal, or dismantlement of nuclear weapons, as we have with Russia. National Missile Defense 1. Have the existing technologies and components now under consideration for the national missile defense system been adequately and successfully tested under realistic conditions to justify full deployment by 2003? Would such systems guarantee that no foreign strategic missile would ever strike any point in the U.S.? Answer: No. Under Secretary Kaminski's recent testimony to the SASC addresses the technical particulars of our NMD program, including the test schedule. In summary, the 3 plus 3 program conducts sufficient development, albeit at high schedule and technical risk, to allow a deployment decision to be made in 2000 if a threat warrants. If the decision is made in 2000, an IOC of an initial NMD system could be achieved in 2003, subject to the risks noted. This decision would necessarily be based on limited test data and would only be justified in the face of a clearly defined emerging threat to the United States. In the absence of such a threat, we expect to continue development and testing of the NMD system in order to achieve the user's requirements. No system can guarantee protection absolutely under all circumstances. 2. For the record, what is your rough estimate of the total historical costs of U.S. national missile defense efforts? Answer: In determining the rough estimate of historical NMD costs, SDIO/BMDO costs from FY85 through FY98 were selected that could be attributed to a defined architecture for National Missile Defense--Phase I, GPALS, NMD, and Technology Readiness. The resulting cost estimate is approximately $15 billion, or slightly more than one-third of the total SDIO/BMDO costs for FY85 through FY98. This figure does not include research programs that were part of the SDIO/BMDO advanced technology base, e.g., space-based laser. 3. As an issue of sound procurement practice, should the U.S. government deploy any missile defense system, technology, or key component that had not been successfully tested under realistic test conditions? Answer: No. Normally, the United States should not deploy a national missile defense system (or anything else) without adequate testing. The program that we have designed for the ``objective'' NMD system employs adequate testing. Our ``3+3'' philosophy would permit deployment of an initial NMD capability in an emergency created by a threat emerging much more rapidly than the intelligence community now expects. The ``3+3'' program provides for testing appropriate to support a deployment decision in such an urgent situation, but it explicitly does not allow sufficient time before an FY 2000 deployment decision for traditional rigorous testing of the system elements or the integrated configuration in the absence of reason for a deployment. 4. Say the U.S. unilaterally deployed an effective strategic national missile defense system by 2003--(a) How would this likely affect the offensive nuclear capabilities and postures of Russia and China? (b) What would be the implications for the future of START, the fissile material control convention, the CTBT, prospects for future cuts by nuclear weapons states other than the U.S. and Russia, and the NPT and ABM treaties? Answer: As the Administration has stated on numerous occasions, the development of the U.S. NMD program--a limited defense capability designed against a ballistic missile threat from a rogue state--will be conducted in compliance with the ABM Treaty. Depending on its configuration, a deployed NMD system could either be compliant with the treaty as written, or might require amendments of the Treaty's provisions, or, if the necessary amendment could not be agreed, withdrawal. Amendment should be possible because the type of limited ballistic missile defense for the U.S. being considered would not affect the strategic offensive postures of the declared nuclear powers, nor should it have any effect on the arms control treaties noted. 5. If the U.S. should leave the ABM Treaty and deploy a multiple- site national missile defense system, which American states would likely host such a system? Answer: No decisions have been made as to locations of NMD sites. The elements of the NMD system are being designed to a baseline set of requirements that would allow them to be deployed in a flexible manner, depending on the emerging threat. The Department is continuing to examine the issue of specific NMD architectures, including where elements of the system might be located. Future of the ABM Treaty 1. What are the key strategic benefits to the United States from continued membership in the ABM Treaty and how would these benefits be jeopardized by a U.S. or Russian abrogation of that treaty? Answer: The Administration considers the ABM Treaty to be a cornerstone of strategic stability, as do many other states, including key U.S. allies and START partners. The Treaty's limitations on defenses against strategic ballistic missiles provide a certain measure of predictability and foster a situation conducive to reductions in strategic offensive weapons. 2. How would the demise of that treaty likely affect Russia's strategic offense and defense capabilities, and specifically, how confident are you that Russia will never be able to develop an effective response (offensive or defensive) to the U.S. deployment of an effective, multiple-site national missile defense system? Answer: How the hypothetical demise of the ABM Treaty would affect Russian strategic capabilities cannot be determined in the abstract, but instead would depend on the actual circumstances at that time, such as the reasons for the Treaty's demise. However, a hypothetical U.S. deployment of a national missile defense system would not necessarily lead to the demise of the ABM Treaty or prompt an adverse Russian reaction. The Administration has made clear that the national missile defense capabilities we are developing are not directed at Russian strategic forces, but rather at the limited potential threat that would be posed by rogue states were they to acquire long-range ballistic missiles. If it were determined necessary to deploy a national missile defense system for this purpose at more than one site, the U.S. could seek Russian agreement to amend the ABM Treaty to permit this. Under such circumstances, U.S. deployment of a multiple-site national missile defense would not necessarily elicit a Russian response in either offensive or defensive terms, nor cause the demise of the ABM Treaty. 3. How does the ABM Treaty's ban on the proliferation of strategic missile defense systems serve U.S. security interests and how would the end of that ban, with the collapse of the ABM Treaty, jeopardize those interests? Answer: The ABM Treaty prohibits the parties from transferring ABM systems or their components (or technical descriptions or plans enabling their construction) to other states. However, these provisions were formulated in the context of the Cold War confrontation between the U.S. and the then Soviet Union, and were not intended to address contemporary proliferation problems. It is difficult to assess in the abstract the net impact which termination of these ABM Treaty provisions would have on U.S. security interests. Moreover, the U.S. and Russia have undertaken other international commitments that would also affect decisions to transfer missile defense systems abroad, including the MTCR and the Wassenaar Arrangement. 4. If Russia developed what it termed a ``theater missile defense'' system that had significant capabilities against strategic missiles, and deployed that system to cover its entire territorial periphery--(a) What would be the impact of such a development upon the reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent and how would the U.S. likely have to respond? and (b) Are you confident that Russia could never develop or deploy such a system? Answer: Systems properly designed and tested as theater missile defense systems to counter theater ballistic missiles would not be able to perform effectively as ABM systems to counter strategic ballistic missiles. In their May 1995 summit joint statement of principles, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed (inter alia) that theater missile defenses may be deployed by each side which will not pose a realistic threat to the strategic nuclear force of the other side and which will not be tested to give such systems that capability, and that theater missile defense systems will not be deployed by the sides for use against each other. The U.S. and Russia are engaged in negotiations intended to implement these principles and to provide a clear demarcation between non-ABM systems (such as those for theater missile defense) and ABM systems, which are intended to counter strategic ballistic missiles. The conclusion of the demarcation agreement we envisage would preclude the hypothetical situation described by the question. __________ QUESTIONS FOR GEN. GOODPASTER FROM SENATOR GLENN 1. Former CIA Directors James Woolsey and John Deutch have each testified that they could not think of an example where the introduction of nuclear weapons into a region has enhanced that region's security or benefited the security interests of the United States--do you agree? (Woolsey 2/24/93 and Deutch 3/20/96 (SGAC testimony).) Answer 1. From the creation, under General Eisenhower's command in the early 1950s, of NATO's collective force in Europe (the area with which I am most familiar) up to the end of the Cold War, the availability of nuclear weapons support and the presence of a nuclear capability in Europe in which our allies shared (primarily with their delivery capabilities) have, in my judgment, made a contribution of the highest order to allied confidence in the deterrent, to the region's security and to the security interests of the United States. I myself rate that contribution as indispensable to the success achieved by the alliance, including the United States. 2. Last month, the Council on Foreign Relations released a report urging the U.S. to abandon its goals of preventing or reversing nuclear weapons proliferation in South Asia and to aim instead at establishing a ``more stable plateau for Indo-Pakistani nuclear competition''--Do you agree that it is either too late or impossible to stop or to roll back nuclear weapons proliferation in South Asia? Answer 2. I believe it should be a goal of the United States to persuade India and Pakistan, insofar as possible, not to go beyond their respective current stages of weapons development and/or production, and to urge them to seek to resolve their disputes by peaceful means. Until there has been substantial progress in the latter regard, which cannot now be foreseen, it seems unlikely that they will agree to any greater restraints or reduction of their nuclear programs. 3. Russia's Defense Minister has been warning recently that he may not be able to ensure the safety and reliability of his nuclear arsenal--in terms of their likely effectiveness, how would you assess the following as possible U.S. responses: (a) expanding the Cooperative Threat Reduction program; (b) immediate deployment of a national missile defense; (c) expanding the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal; (d) resuming U.S. nuclear testing; and (e) developing a new generation of nuclear weapons? Answer 3. The continuation and, as practicable, extension of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program seems clearly the most promising course for the United States to follow. It reinforces what should be the governing aim of U.S. security policy: The building of an overarching relationship of cooperation and friendship between Russia and the rest of the Euro-Atlantic community, including the United States above all. The other listed responses move in the wrong direction, and should be considered only in the unlikely event Russia should revert to a policy and practice of confrontation and mutual threat. 4. What do you will expect will be the role (if any) of international organizations in verifying deeper reductions as a result of the START process? Answer 4. The IAEA has, and should have, the lead role in nuclear arms reduction and non-proliferation verification. Its functions should be strengthened (as its charter already allows) and it should be supported financially, technologically, and otherwise by the world's nations, notably including the United States. __________ JOINT STATEMENT ON REDUCTION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARSENALS: DECLINING UTILITY, CONTINUING RISKS By Generals Andrew J. Goodpaster and Lee Butler As senior military officers, we have given close attention over many years to the role of nuclear weapons as well as the risks they involve. With the end of the Cold War, these weapons are of sharply reduced utility, and there is much now to be gained by substantially reducing their numbers and lowering their alert status, meanwhile exploring the feasibility of their ultimate complete elimination. The roles of nuclear weapons for purposes of security have been sharply narrowed in tends of the security of the United States. Now and in the future they basically provide an option to respond in kind to a nuclear threat or nuclear attack by others. In the world environment now foreseen, they are not needed against non-nuclear opponents. Conventional capabilities can provide a sufficient deterrent and defense against conventional forces and in combination with defensive measures, against the threat of chemical or biological weapons. As symbols of prestige and international standing, nuclear weapons are of markedly reduced importance. At the same time, the dangers inherent in nuclear weapons have continued and in some ways increased. They include the risks of accidents and unauthorized launches--risks which, while small, nevertheless still exist. Seizures or thefts of weapons or weapons materials and threats or actual use by terrorists or domestic rebels, are of additional concern. Moreover, despite the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, nuclear weapons could spread to additional nations, with risk of their use in crisis or war. And if they should spread, the risks of accidents and of unauthorized, inadvertent, or deliberate use will spread as well. We believe the nations that possess these weapons should take the necessary steps to align their nuclear weapons policies and programs to match the diminished role and utility of these weapons, and the continuing risks they involve, joining in reducing their nuclear arsenals step by step to the lowest verifiable levels consistent with stable security, as rapidly as world conditions permit. Taking the lead, U.S. and Russian reductions can open the door for the negotiation of multilateral reductions capping all arsenals at very low levels. Added safety and an enhanced climate for negotiations would be achieved by removing nuclear weapons from alert status and placing the warheads in controlled storage. These arrangements should be applied to all nuclear weapons, discarding the distinction between tactical and strategic weapons, limiting nuclear warheads rather than launchers, and subjecting all weapons to inspection and verification measures. The ultimate objective of phased reductions should be the complete elimination of nuclear weapons from all nations. No one can say today whether or when this final goal will prove feasible, but because the phased withdrawal and destruction of nuclear weapons from all countries' arsenals would take many years, probably decades, to accomplish, time will be available--for work on technical problems, for political progress in ameliorating the conflicts and political struggles that encourage countries to maintain or to acquire nuclear weapons, and for building confidence in the system of safeguards and verification measures established to support the elimination regime. We believe the time for action is now, for the alternative of inaction could well carry a high price. For the task that lies ahead, there is need for initiatives by all who share our conviction as to the importance of this goal. Steady pursuit of a policy of cooperative, phased reductions with serious commitments to seek the elimination of all nuclear weapons is a path to a world free of nuclear dangers. Signed, General Andrew J. Goodpaster, U.S. Army (Ret.), former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) (1969-74) General Lee Butler, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), former Commander-in- Chief, United States Strategic Air Command (1992-94); former Commander- in-Chief, United States Strategic Command (1992-94) __________ STATEMENT ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS BY INTERNATIONAL GENERALS AND ADMIRALS We, military professionals, who have devoted our lives to the national security of our countries and our peoples, are convinced that the continuing existence of nuclear weapons in the armories of nuclear powers, and the ever present threat of acquisition of these weapons by others, constitutes a peril to global peace and security and to the safety and survival of the people we are dedicated to protect. Through our variety of responsibilities and experiences with weapons and wars in the armed forces of many nations, we have acquired an intimate and perhaps unique knowledge of the present security and insecurity of our countries and peoples. We know that nuclear weapons, though never used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, represent a clear and present danger to the very existence of humanity. There was an immense risk of a superpower holocaust during the Cold War. At least once, civilization was on the very brink of catastrophic tragedy. That threat has now receded, but not forever-- unless nuclear weapons are eliminated. The end of the Cold War created conditions favorable to nuclear disarmament. Termination of military confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States made it possible to reduce strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, and to eliminate intermediate range missiles. It was a significant milestone on the path to nuclear disarmament when Belarus, Kazakhastan, and Ukraine relinquished their nuclear weapons. Indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995 and approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the UN General Assembly in 1996 are also important steps towards a nuclear- free world. We commend the work that has been done to achieve these results. Unfortunately, in spite of these positive steps, true nuclear disarmament has not been achieved. Treaties provide that only delivery systems, not nuclear warheads, will be destroyed. This permits the United States and Russia to keep their warheads in reserve storage, thus creating a ``reversible nuclear potential.'' However, in the post- Cold War security environment, the most commonly postulated nuclear threats are not susceptible to deterrence or are simply not credible. We believe, therefore, that business as usual is not an acceptable way for the world to proceed in nuclear matters. It is our deep conviction that the following is urgently needed and must be undertaken now: First, present and planned stockpiles of nuclear weapons are exceedingly large and should now be greatly cut back; Second, remaining nuclear weapons should be gradually and transparently taken off alert, and their readiness substantially reduced both in nuclear weapon states and in de facto nuclear weapon states; and Third, long-term international nuclear policy must be based on the declared principle of continuous, complete and irrevocable elimination of nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia should--without any reduction in their military security--carry forward the reduction process already launched by START: they should cut down to 1,000 to 1,500 warheads each and possibly lower. The other three nuclear states and the three threshold states should be drawn into the reduction process as still deeper reductions are negotiated down to the level of hundreds. There is nothing incompatible between defense by individual countries of their territorial integrity and progress toward nuclear abolition. The exact circumstances and conditions that will make it possible to proceed, finally, to abolition cannot now be foreseen or prescribed. One obvious prerequisite would be a worldwide program of surveillance and inspection, including measures to account for and control inventories of nuclear weapon materials. This will ensure that no rogues or terrorists could undertake a surreptitious effort to acquire nuclear capacities without detection at an early stage. An agreed procedure for forcible international intervention and interruption of covert efforts in a certain and timely fashion is essential. The creation of nuclear-free zones in different parts of the world, confidence-building and transparency measures in the general field of defense, strict implementation of all treaties in the area of disarmament and arms control, and mutual assistance in the process of disarmament are also important in helping to bring about a nuclear-free world. The development of regional systems of collective security, including practical measures for cooperation, partnership, interaction and communication are essential for local stability and security. The extent to which the existence of nuclear weapons and fear of their use may have deterred war--in a world that in this year alone has seen 30 military conflicts raging--cannot be determined. It is clear, however, that nations now possessing nuclear weapons will not relinquish them until they are convinced that more reliable and less dangerous means of providing for their security are in place. It is also clear, as a consequence, that the nuclear powers will not now agree to a fixed timetable for the achievement of abolition. It is similarly clear that, among the nations not now possessing nuclear weapons, there are some that will not forever forswear their acquisition and deployment unless they, too, are provided means of security. Nor will they forgo acquisition if the present nuclear powers seek to retain everlastingly their nuclear monopoly. Movement toward abolition must be a responsibility shared primarily by the declared nuclear weapons states--China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; by the de facto nuclear states, India, Israel and Pakistan; and by major non-nuclear powers such as Germany and Japan. All nations should move in concert toward the same goal. We have been presented with a challenge of the highest possible historic importance: The creation of a nuclear-weapons-free world. The end of the Cold War makes it possible. The dangers of proliferation, terrorism, and a new nuclear arms race render it necessary. We must not fail to seize our opportunity. There is no alternative. Signed, International Generals and Admirals who have signed statement on Nuclear Weapons CANADA Johnson, Major General Leonard V., (Ret.) Commandant, National Defense College DENMARK Kristensen, Lt. General Gunnar (Ret.) former Chief of Defense Staff FRANCE Sanguinetti, Admiral Antoine (Ret.) former Chief of Staff, French Fleet GHANA Erskine, General Emmanuel (Ret. former Commander in Chief and former Chief of Staff, UNTSO (Middle East), Commander UMFII (Lebanon) GREECE Capellos, Lt. General Richard (Ret.) former Corps Commander Konstantinides, Major General Kostas (Ret.), former Chief of Staff, Army Signals Koumanakos, Lt. General Georgios (Ret.) former Chief of Operations INDIA Rikhye, Major General Indar Jit (Ret.), former military advisor to UN Secretary General Dag Akmmerskjold and U Thant Suit, Air Marshall N. C. (Ret.) JAPAN Sakonjo, Vice Admiral Naotoshi (Ret.) Sr. Advisor, Research Institute for Peace and Security Shikata, Lt. General Toshiyuki (Ret.) Sr. Advisor, Research Institute for Peace and Security JORDAN Ajeilat, Major General Shafig (Ret.) Vice President Military Affairs, Muta University Shiyyab, Major General Mohammed K. (Ret.) former Deputy Commander, Royal Jordanian Air Force NETHERLANDS van der Graaf, Henry J. (Ret.) Brigadier-General RNA, Director Centre Arms Control and Verification, Member, United National Advisory Board for Disarmament Matters NORWAY Breivik, Roy, Vice Admiral Roy (Ret.) former Representative to NATO, Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic PAKISTAN Malik, Major General Ihsun ul Hag (Ret.) Commandant, Joint Services Committee PORTUGAL Gomes, Marshal Francisco da Costa (Ret.) former Commander in Chief, Army; former President of Portugal RUSSIA Belous, General Vladimir (Ret.) Department Chief, Dzerzhinsky Military Academy Gareev, Army General Makhmut (Ret.) former Deputy Chief, USSR Armed Forces General Staff Gromov, General Boris, (Ret.) Vice Chair, Duma International Affairs Committee; former Commander of 40th Soviet Army in Afghanistan; former Deputy Minister, Foreign Ministry, Russia Koltounov, Major General Victor (Ret.) former Deputy Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Larionov, Major General Valentin (Ret.) Professor, General Staff Academy Lebed, Major General Alexander (Ret.) former Secretary of the Security Council Lebedev, Major General Youri V. (Ret.) former Deputy Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Makarevsky, Major General Vadim (Ret.) Deputy Chief, Kouibyshev Military Engineering Academy Medvedev, Lt. General Vladimir (Ret.) Chief, Center of Nuclear Threat Reduction Mikhailov, Colonel General Georgy (Ret.) former Deputy Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Nozhin, Major General Eugeny (Ret.) former Deputy Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Rokhlin, Lt. General Lev, (Ret.) Chair, Duma Defense Committee; former Commander, Russian 4th Army Corps Sleport, Lt. General Ivan (Ret.) former Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Simonyan, Major General Rair (Ret.) Head of Chair, General Staff Academy Surikov, General Boris T., (Ret.) former Chief Specialist, Defense Ministry Tehervov, Colonel General Nikolay (Ret.) former Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Vinogradov, Lt. General Michael S. (Ret.) former Deputy Chief, Operational Strategic Center, USSR General Staff Zoubkov, Rear Admiral Radiy (Ret.) Chief, Navigation, USSR Navy SRI LANKA Karunaratne, Major General Upali A. (Ret.) (Sri Lanka) Silva, Major General C.A.M.N., (Ret.) USF, U.S.A. WC (Sri Lanka) TANZANIA Lupogo, Major General H.C. (Ret.) former Chief Inspector General, Tanzania Armed Forces UNITED KINGDOM Beach, General Sir Hugh (Ret.) Member, U.K. Security Commission Carver, Field Marshal Lord Michael (Ret.) Commander in Chief for East British Army (1967-1969), Chief of General Staff (1971-73), Chief of Defence Staff (1973-76) Harbottle, Brigadier Michael (Ret.) former Chief of Staff, UN Peacekeeping Force, Cyprus Mackie, Air Commodore Alistair (Ret.) former Director, Air Staff Briefing UNITED STATES Becton, Lt. General Julius (USA) (Ret.) Burns, Maj. General William F. (USA) (Ret.) JCS Representative, INF Negotiations (1981-88) Special Envoy to Russia for Nuclear Weapon Dismantlement (1992-93) Carroll, Jr., Rear Admiral Eugene J. (USN) (Ret.) Deputy Director, Center for Defense Information Cushman, Lt. General John H. (USA) (Ret.) Commander, I. Corps (ROK/US) Group (Korea) 1976-78) Galvin, General John R., Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (1987-92) Gayler, Admiral Noel (USN) (Ret.) former Commander, Pacific Homer, General, Charles A., (USAF) (Ret.) Commander, Coalition Air Forces, Desert Storm (1991), former Commander, U. S. Space Command. James, Rear Admiral Robert G. (USNR) (Ret.) Kingston, General Robert C. (USA) (Ret.), former Commander, U.S. Central Command Lee, Vice Admiral John M. (USN) (Ret.) O'Meara, General Andrew (USA) (Ret.) former Commander U.S. Army, Europe Pursley, Lt. General Robert E., USAF (Ret.) Read, Vice Admiral William L. (USN) (Ret.), former Commander, U.S. Navy Surface Force, Atlantic Command Rogers, General Bernard W. (USA) (Ret.), former Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander (1979-87) Seignious, II, Lt. General George M. (USA) (Ret.), former Director Army Control and Disarmament Agency (1978-1980) Shanahan, Vice Admiral John J. (USN) (Ret.) Director, Center for Defense Information Smith, General William Y., (USAF) (Ret.) former Deputy Commander, U.S. Command, Europe Wilson, Vice Admiral James B. (USN) (Ret.), former Polaris Submarine Captain -