[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 66 (Monday, May 13, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4959-S4961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE FUTURE OF THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, this weekend there was an important 
conference in Prague, the Czech Republic, in which both Europeans and 
Americans discussed the future of the Atlantic alliance.
  I wanted to report briefly on that and submit statements for the 
Record later.
  First, let me ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an 
op-ed piece written by our colleague, the Senator from Mississippi, 
Senator Cochran, relating to the subject of missile defense.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, May 8, 1996]

                       Unready for Rogue Threats

                           (By Thad Cochran)

       When it comes to thinking about ballistic missile defense 
     (BMD), most opponents of defending America are mired in the 
     logic of the Cold War. Critics would do well to consider new 
     ideas, as their old logic is inadequate for the emerging 
     security environment.
       It was suggested in an op-ed piece by Michael Krepon [The 
     Last 15 Minutes, March 27] that the START process of reducing 
     the number of Russian nuclear weapons should be a preferred 
     alternative to national missile defense. This argument is, in 
     fact, a staple from the past. The ability to defend against 
     Soviet missiles was considered anathema to achieving U.S.-
     Soviet strategic arms control agreements, and therefore it 
     was sacrificed for the goal of reducing Soviet nuclear arms 
     through negotiation.
       This position, questionable at the time, now ignores 
     reality. It misses one of the primary features of the changed 
     world: the proliferation of missiles and nuclear weapons to 
     rogue states outside the old East Bloc. The central point of 
     the Defend America Act now before Congress is that American 
     cities must be protected against those rogues now bent on 
     acquiring long-range missiles and nuclear, biological and 
     chemical weapons. The START process does not help us here--it 
     doesn't even apply.
       START II, ratified by the Senate with overwhelming 
     bipartisan support, cannot and does not pretend to take a 
     single missile or mass-destruction weapon out of the hands of 
     countries such as North Korea, Iran and Libya. The Defend 
     America Act calls for defenses against the limited missile 
     arsenals existing and sought by such rogue states.
       The notion is also put forward that we should focus on 
     various multilateral and nonproliferation measures instead of 
     national missile defense. Again, the old Cold War debating 
     tactic of pitting diplomatic efforts against BMD shines 
     through. And again, it does not fit the new world. We know 
     that diplomatic efforts to prevent the spread of missile 
     technology alone are inadequate to address the 
     proliferation threat.
       Despite some modest diplomatic successes, such as with the 
     Missile Technology Control Regime, the list of countries 
     acquiring missiles and mass-destruction weapons continues to 
     grow. Rogue states have proven themselves capable of 
     sidestepping our diplomatic nonproliferation measures. For 
     example, inspections in Iraq, the world's most heavily 
     inspected regime, have been on the ground for years, yet we 
     are regularly surprised by new revelations of previously 
     unknown Iraqi proliferation efforts.
       Diplomatic efforts to help slow the pace of proliferation 
     must continue. But nobody should be fooled into believing 
     that arms control agreements alone can solve the problem; and 
     nobody should be fooled by the old Cold War argument that 
     missile defense must be sacrificed to pursue various arms 
     control efforts. This is not an either/or choice, as the 
     critics would like us to believe.

[[Page S4960]]

       It should be common knowledge, but it isn't, that America 
     has no operational national missile defense system. 
     Consequently, because we cannot be confident in our various 
     diplomatic efforts to stop missiles before the ``last 15 
     minutes'' of their deadly flight, it makes sense to focus 
     attention and resources now on the capability to intercept 
     missiles and warheads before they reach their targets. The 
     proliferation of missiles and mass-destruction weapons now 
     makes missile defenses essential to American security.
       Some argue that there is no missile threat to the United 
     States for the foreseeable future. This notion comes on the 
     heels of statements by Chinese officials to American 
     officials that the United States would not support Taiwan in 
     a crisis because of the Chinese capability to rain nuclear 
     bombs on Los Angeles. It also ignores the fact that, 
     according to U.S. intelligence estimates and private 
     accounts, the North Koreans have in development a missile 
     that, when operations, will be able to target parts of the 
     United States. In the past, the North Koreans have sold 
     missiles to anybody with the cash to pay. How far and wide 
     might this missile be sold? Nobody inside or outside the 
     intelligence community knows.
       We do know that North Korea has sold its missiles to rogue 
     states in the past, including Iran. We also know that Libya's 
     Qadhafi and Saddam Hussein have both expressed their longing 
     for missiles and nuclear weapons with which to threaten the 
     United States, and willing sources of technology and brain 
     power exist to help them.
       For America to delay moving ahead on BMD until multiple 
     rogue missile threats emerge--and there is consensus in the 
     intelligence community that such is the case-- carries high 
     risks that Americans need not be vulnerable to.
       Some think tanks may be able to convince American leaders 
     that they should not worry about emerging missile threats, 
     but providing the common defense is a constitutional 
     responsibility those in authority dare not forfeit or ignore. 
     That is why I support the Defend America Act and that is why 
     the president should sign it.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the conference to which I referred was to 
discuss the future of the Atlantic alliance given the fact that the 
Central European nations of Europe have not yet been taken into either 
the economic or the political organizations to which the Western 
European nations have belonged since the end of World War II. 
Specifically, would these countries be taken into NATO, and would they 
be taken into the community of European nations in terms of the 
economic arrangements that currently exist? The answer to those 
questions by most of the members at this conference was that it was 
time for the Western European nations, including the United States, to 
reach out to the Central European countries like the Czech Republic, 
Poland, Hungary, and others who wished to be a part of the alliance 
both to develop stronger economic ties and also to provide for common 
security arrangements. The basis for this conclusion was primarily 
philosophical, not practical, though the practical benefits of the 
arrangement are clear for all to see.
  From a practical standpoint, it goes without saying that exports and 
imports benefit all nations participating, that there are benefits to 
common defense, and certainly from the United States' perspective a 
forward defense by having friends in Europe as preferable to an 
isolationist position. But the philosophical reasons were the ones that 
were dwelt upon by the participants in this Atlantic alliance 
conference because of the understanding that the Western nations, among 
others in the world, share a common set of values, a common heritage, 
and an understanding that mankind should be free, that government 
should protect that freedom and independence based upon the 
philosophical and moral values of the Western nations. There is a sense 
that we do not have an option to be apart but rather must continue to 
work together to advance that philosophy.
  Why is that so? Mr. President, it is important for the people of the 
United States to see the advantages of democracy in the world. If I 
could sum up in one sentence what our national interest is abroad, it 
would be to advance the cause of democracy for the peoples who share 
that common value with us.
  As I said, it benefits the United States from a philosophical point 
of view because, if there is conflict in the world, the United States 
is less free not only from a military point of view but from the point 
of view of the rights that we exercise as American citizens. We know 
from the depths of the cold war that Americans were less free at home 
because of the commitments that we had to make abroad.
  That is why, both from a practical and a philosophical point of view, 
it is important for the United States to participate with our Western 
European allies and why it is important for all of us to try to advance 
the cause of freedom by extending the number of democratic states in 
the world.

  There is another important point that was reached by most 
participants in the conference. That was that of all of the threats 
that face the civilized nations of the world today, as Lady Margaret 
Thatcher said in one of the key addresses at the conference, the most 
critical threat of all is the threat of weapons of mass destruction and 
the missiles to deliver those weapons. That same theme was articulated 
by others at the conference as well.
  The conclusion of the policy statement at the conference was that a 
concerted action by the alliance leaders to develop and to deploy an 
effective ballistic missile defense for all of the democratic peoples 
of the world was an important goal for us to be achieving, and that, if 
we could achieve that goal, we would no longer have to answer the 
question of why NATO continued to have a purpose in the world today.
  Conceived as an organization to protect Western Europe from the 
threat of communism and the expansion of communism, some have felt that 
NATO has no more purpose because that ideological threat no longer 
exists. That is true; but what does exist is the threat from rogue 
nations, whether ideologically oriented or not, rogue nations who are, 
one could say, the world's criminal element because they have no regard 
for the democratic rights of other nations and have exhibited 
aggressive tendencies. Iraq and Iran are two of the most recent 
examples. These are nations, along with others like North Korea, who 
have acquired or are acquiring both weapons of mass destruction and the 
missiles, the means, to deliver them, and who can use those missiles 
not only in military activity against the Western alliance such as in 
the gulf war but also in conduct of their foreign policy to blackmail 
states such as the Western European nations and the United States.
  Let me conclude with this point. As Margaret Thatcher pointed out to 
the conference, the threat is primarily against nations of the so-
called civilized world attempting to advance legitimate foreign policy 
goals by making threats with the use of ballistic missiles. If Iraq, 
for example, had had a nuclear capability and we knew that, the 
question that I posed in the conference was, would the United States 
have, and would the United States conference have voted to use military 
action against Saddam Hussein? It was a close enough question in the 
conference even knowing that we could defeat Saddam Hussein, but if 
Saddam Hussein had had a nuclear warhead, or if we knew that he would 
use chemical or biological weapons, would the United States Congress 
have voted to thwart his actions after he invaded Kuwait? For that 
matter, would the European nations have joined the grand coalition if 
they knew that they were vulnerable to a missile attack from Saddam 
Hussein?

  Asking that question raises the point of the use of these weapons for 
blackmail, because a nation which can blackmail, others obviously is a 
criminal nation and a nation who can expand its foreign policy goals 
and thwart ours. But with the development and deployment of effective 
missile defenses, that ability to blackmail is gone because the United 
States and the Western European allies, who would have such an 
effective defense at that point, would be able to say to Saddam Hussein 
or to the rulers of Iran or North Korea or Syria, whatever country it 
might be, ``You cannot push us around; you cannot threaten the nations 
of Europe; you cannot threaten your neighbors with these ballistic 
missiles because, as you know, we can destroy them; we have a defense 
against them.''
  So, Mr. President, I think it is an important development that, at 
this Atlantic alliance, leaders there concluded by and large that it 
was important for us to develop in a concerted way--our European allies 
as well as the United States--an effective ballistic missile defense to 
thwart this blackmail use of weapons of mass destruction by the outlaw 
or so-called rogue regimes of the world.

[[Page S4961]]

  I will just conclude by saying that the importance of the United 
States proceeding with this and bringing it to the floor in the next 
couple of weeks, along with the budget that we will be debating later 
this week and the authorization bill for the Armed Services Committee 
which the distinguished Presiding Officer sits on--as we debate this 
bill we will be discussing specifically the issue of whether or not we 
will continue to adequately fund and to begin deployment of an 
effective missile defense system.
  That will be a matter of great debate on this Senate floor, and I 
hope my colleagues, in consideration of that, will pause and reflect 
upon the conclusions of this Atlantic alliance which, as I said, has 
now come much farther along the path of agreeing that in the end there 
should be a coordinated, combined effort. It would not just be the 
United States, but it would be our Atlantic allies as well 
participating with us in some kind of effective global ballistic 
missile defense system.
  Mr. President, I will at a future time insert in the Record some of 
the statements that were made at this important conference. For the 
moment, I simply wanted to alert my colleagues to the fact that, as we 
begin this budget debate and as we begin the debate on the Defense 
authorization bill, a consensus is developing around the world, and the 
United States needs to lead in this effort. I know the distinguished 
Presiding Officer and I will be involved in that debate in a 
significant way as it unfolds in the next few days.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Under the previous order, the time until 3:30 shall be under the 
control of the Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Chair.
  It is my understanding that before the Senate we have a cloture 
motion against the travel provision against which lays the majority 
leader's proposal to repeal the administration's 4.3-cent gas tax 
inaugurated in August 1993. Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion the Senator talks about will be 
voted on tomorrow.
  Mr. COVERDELL. At what time, if I might ask the Chair?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is set for 2:15 p.m.

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