[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 49 (Tuesday, April 28, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3667-S3678]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

PROTOCOLS TO THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY OF 1949 ON ACCESSION OF POLAND, 
                    HUNGARY, AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the privilege order, the Senate will now 
go into executive session to resume consideration of Executive Calendar 
No. 16, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Treaty Document No. 105-36, Protocols to the North Atlantic 
     Treaty of 1949 on Accession of Poland, Hungary and the Czech 
     Republic.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the treaty.
  Pending:

       Kyl amendment No. 2310, to establish principles of policy 
     of the United States toward the Strategic Concept of NATO.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 10:45 
having arrived, the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, is 
recognized to offer an amendment on which there shall be 2 hours of 
debate equally divided.
  The Senator from Iowa is recognized.


                      Executive Amendment No. 2312

 (Purpose: To limit any United States subsidy of the national expenses 
     of Poland, Hungary, or the Czech Republic in meeting its NATO 
                              commitments)

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send my amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Iowa [Mr. Harkin] proposes an executive 
     amendment numbered 2312.

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       In section 3(2)(A), strike ``and'' at the end of clause 
     (ii).
       In section 3(2)(A), strike ``(iii)'' and insert ``(iv)''.
       In section 3(2)(A), insert after clause (ii) the following:
       (iii) any future United States subsidy of the national 
     expenses of Poland, Hungary, or the Czech Republic to meet 
     its NATO commitments, including the assistance described in 
     subparagraph (C), may not exceed 25 percent of all assistance 
     provided to that country by all NATO members.
       At the end of section 3(2), insert the following new 
     subparagraph:
       (C) Additional United States assistance described.--The 
     assistance referred to in subparagraph (A)(iii) includes--
       (i) Foreign Military Financing under the Arms Export 
     Control Act;
       (ii) transfers of excess defense articles under section 516 
     of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961;
       (iii) Emergency Drawdowns;
       (iv) no-cost leases of United States equipment;
       (v) the subsidy cost of loan guarantees and other 
     contingent liabilities under subchapter VI of chapter 148 of 
     title 10, United States Code; and
       (vi) international military education and training under 
     chapter 5 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will yield myself such time as I may 
consume for opening comments and then reserve some time for others on 
the amendment.
  Mr. President, we are, as the Senate and the country now know, 
debating the issue of whether or not the Senate will advise and consent 
to the President's signature on a proposal to bring three more nations 
into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  While I was not present yesterday in this Chamber, I did watch some 
of the debate that unfolded yesterday, and I think the debate is taking 
a good course of action. The debate yesterday was a good debate. I hope 
that the debate today will continue along those lines. In other words, 
what I mean by that is not just people giving a speech and then walking 
off the floor but where we can actually engage one another in asking 
and answering questions about the implications of the NATO treaty.
  So I hope that will be the course of action during the Senate's 
responsibility to advise and consent here.
  Mr. President, I want to make some extended remarks about the whole 
picture of NATO expansion, but I will just talk very briefly right now 
about the amendment I sent to the desk.
  Basically, I think one of the most important issues facing us on NATO 
expansion is what it is going to cost, what it will cost the taxpayers 
of this country. So what I have sent to the desk is an amendment that 
will hopefully clear this up a little bit and provide for an accurate 
accounting of all of the expenses incident to the expansion of the 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And I will have more to say about 
that a little bit later.
  Concerns about the extension of our military obligations--and let's 
again be frank about this; NATO is a military alliance--have been 
voiced by Senators and interest groups, academics across the political 
spectrum, and when the voices expressing caution include Republicans 
and Democrats and progressives and conservatives, libertarians and 
others, such a diverse opposition may be a sign that we ought to really 
act very deliberately and deliberatively on this issue. So I am glad 
the debate has finally begun, and as I said, I am delighted with the 
course of action in the debate.
  At the outset, I hope the Senate would not simply rubber stamp this 
bill that we have before us. We have a constitutional responsibility to 
both advise and consent on treaties. This is a responsibility that is 
taken seriously by every Senator and ought to because, as you know, 
under our Constitution a treaty overrides the Constitution. So anytime 
we advise and consent on a treaty, we are advising and consenting on a 
document that basically overrides much of our Constitution. So we have 
to be very careful about this.
  There are important issues to consider in NATO expansion--
burdensharing, command and coordination, responses to real and 
perceived threats, even the basic questions of mission and scope of the 
organization itself. They are not simple questions that lend themselves 
to a simple, sound bite debate. These questions and their answers will 
shape for better or worse our defense and foreign policy options for 
decades to come.
  There is no doubt that NATO has been one of the greatest military 
alliance success stories in our Nation's history. And, again, at the 
outset we have to ask the question. Here is an organization founded in 
1949 shortly after the end of the Second World War--the Second World 
War in this century--when 12 countries signed the North Atlantic treaty 
to establish the military alliance known as NATO.
  Now, let's face it. The reason for NATO was the Soviet Union.  The 
reason for being in that alliance, and also to preserve the nations of 
Europe together, was to preclude any possibility of cross-border 
excursions by European countries. The treaty had as its goal ``to unite 
their efforts for collective defense and the preservation of peace and 
security in Europe.''

  Four nations have been added. Spain, the most recent, joined in 1982. 
So, again, it has been a success. It has kept the peace in Europe for 
nearly 50 years, both by deterring aggression by the Warsaw Pact and by 
encouraging cooperation between its members.
  I must say, due to the commitment of its members and the leadership 
of the United States, NATO has largely fulfilled the reason for its 
very birth--the demise of the Soviet Union. So we have to, I think, at 
the outset, say, if something was born because of the Soviet Union and 
it has succeeded, what,

[[Page S3668]]

then, are the reasons not only for continuing it but for expanding it? 
And, subsequently, are there better and other ways in which we can 
fulfill other goals, such as democracy, economic progress, market-based 
economies, and integration of the countries of Europe into one economic 
entity?
  So, what role will NATO play in a new century? And what is the cost 
going to be in financial terms? And what is the cost going to be in 
other less tangible areas, like the potential for strained relations 
with nonmember nations? Or what will the cost be in a dangerous 
rollback, perhaps, of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation 
progress made since the end of the cold war?
  By the administration's own admission, ``Enlargement will take place 
in a European security environment in which there is no current threat 
of large-scale conventional aggression and where any such threat would 
take years to develop.'' This is from the administration's own 
admission. There is no current threat and any threat would take years 
to develop. In response to questions from many Senators, the 
administration reiterated this point when they wrote, ``Current members 
and prospective new members face no imminent threat of attack.''
  This seems to be one of the few issues on NATO expansion where we can 
find wide consensus. There is no large-scale external threat, including 
Russia. They just don't exist. The administration's expectation for the 
role of an expanded NATO include:
  No. 1, helping to deter future threats; No. 2, expanding our 
collective defense capabilities to respond to both traditional and 
nontraditional security challenges; and, No. 3, helping to support and 
stabilize emerging democracies. I agree that these are goals that the 
United States should pursue. They are worthwhile goals. But again I 
ask, is NATO the proper framework in which to accomplish these goals?
  Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have legitimate concerns 
about protecting their borders and their national sovereignty. After 
all, they persevered through a century of invasions and decades of 
outside control by a large and powerful neighbor. But, again, let me 
also say that I remember when I happened to be in Moscow shortly after 
the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union was breaking up, I 
remember one of the Russian Members of the Duma telling me that, ``You 
think you were the victims of the Soviet Union. You think Europe was 
the victim of the Soviet Union,'' he said. ``We Russians were the 
biggest victims of the Communist Soviet Union.''
  So we have to think about it in that context also; of Russia, and of 
them coming out from underneath the yoke of a Soviet Communist empire. 
Think about Russia, also, in terms of its history, when it has gone, 
also, through a century of invasions and decades of control by a power 
not necessarily of Russian being.
  I learned a lot about what countries in this region had endured. Last 
year I attended the dedication of the National Czech and Slovak Museum 
in Cedar Rapids, IA.
  It is interesting. I was there with President Clinton and Ambassador 
Madeleine Albright, who was then-Ambassador to the United Nations, 
President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, and President Kovac of 
the Republic of Slovakia.
  Again, these people of these nations have shown a commitment and 
resilience to the democratic ideals during the economic and political 
transition. They are working in concert with the community of nations 
and peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, in Iraq also. I want to commend 
and recognize their efforts. That is all well and good. But is that a 
reason to expand NATO?
  I am not convinced it is the most appropriate vehicle that we can use 
to get the goals of security, stability, political reform, and economic 
integration with the West sought by these newly free countries.
  I am really worried we are buying into a mentality that has its roots 
in the cold war, and not the mentality that is looking ahead to the 
next century. Yes, it is true that Europe has sustained decades, almost 
a century, of warfare, invasions, domination and oppression by the 
people of Eastern Europe. This approach to foreign policy would be 
appropriate if the world climate was similar to what it was, say, 
before World War II. But the world has changed.
  To those who say that, well, we can have another cross-border 
invasion by a country in Europe against another country, even the 
administration admits this is not going to happen. This would not 
happen for years. It would take years for anything like this to 
develop. You are not about to see any headlines exclaiming that Russian 
troops are marching toward Poland or Czechoslovakia.
  The czars are gone. The Third Reich is gone. Germany is united as a 
democracy. Again, we need to reorient ourselves to the realities of the 
21st century where the security threats are not czars and Hitlers and 
people like that, but are more likely to be rogue nations, 
international terrorists, and, as we have seen again in Europe, 
internal ethnic clashes.
  For example, the security threat of most concern to Europe now is 
Bosnia and Kosovo. There is also the so-called nontraditional threat--
terrorism, chemical, biological weapons. Again, we need to consider, is 
NATO the best way to deal with these challenges? But my primary concern 
now, and with this amendment, is the cost.
  In February of 1997, the administration estimated the total cost of 
between $27 to $35 billion, of which the U.S. share would be $1.5 to $2 
billion.
  In December, NATO released their own study with the astonishingly low 
total cost estimate of $1.5 billion. Well, then the Clinton 
administration revised their initial projections down to reflect the 
NATO estimate of $1.5 billion.
  Some would argue that comparing these numbers is like comparing 
apples and oranges--I heard that--because of the different assumptions 
and scenarios. But I would argue that is exactly the point. We do not 
have any consensus or concrete ideas on what posture NATO will take in 
the future and at what cost.
  I have a chart here that shows basically the varying cost estimates 
so we get an idea of just how widely divergent they are. NATO, as I 
said, estimates $1.5 billion. The Clinton administration initially, as 
I said, came in last year--a year ago--at $27 to $35 billion. Now the 
administration says it is $1.5 billion. They just picked up the NATO 
estimate. CBO has given us a range of $21 to $125 billion. The Rand 
Corporation says it is $10 to $110 billion.
  As I said, the first Clinton administration estimate was $27 billion 
to $35 billion--to $1.5 billion. So we go from $1.5 billion to $125 
billion.
  Where is it? How much of this will the U.S. taxpayers have to pick 
up? The GAO issued a report late last fall, the title of which explains 
my concerns and the reason for this amendment. It says, ``NATO 
Enlargement Cost Implications for the United States Remain Unclear.''
  Now, much of the uncertainty is because--a quote from the  GAO 
report--``It will not be until June of 1998 that NATO will make 
decisions about whether or how much to increase the common budgets 
which would then be shared among current and new members. Until this 
has been done, the implications for the U.S. contributions to NATO's 
common budgets will be unclear.''

  Now, again, this is one reason why several other Senators and I asked 
for a delay in voting on NATO expansion. I felt and some others felt 
that we should have delayed this until this summer. We are not going to 
get this NATO estimate until at least June of this year. So why should 
we be voting on a blank check for the American taxpayer before we have 
the data? What is the rush? Why could we not wait until this summer 
until we get the NATO decisions on how much they want to increase their 
common budgets?
  The same GAO report went on to discuss the financing for commonly 
funded items, such as the needed infrastructure to send reinforcements 
to new allies in times of crisis, communications systems, or 
interoperability with NATO's air defense system. None has been agreed 
to yet. None of it has been agreed upon yet.
  Again, from the GAO report: ``Whether they will be financed within 
existing budgets or by increasing the size of NATO's common budgets 
will not be determined until June of 1998.''

[[Page S3669]]

  That is from the GAO report.
  I am hopeful that the managers of the bill would engage with us in 
discussing why we would go ahead with this before we have this data 
that NATO will come up with in June of 1998. So that is a missing piece 
of the puzzle right there.
  Another piece of the puzzle we are missing is how new members are to 
address their military shortfalls. The countries' force goals will not 
be set again until this spring. In other words, we are without a plan 
to address the force goals and the price tag associated with it.
  Again, I and others are uncomfortable signing the American taxpayers' 
names to a potentially ballooning blank check, so that is a second part 
of this puzzle that I believe is missing.
  The GAO concluded that while DOD's key assumptions were reasonable, 
their ``cost estimates'' are speculative. ``NATO enlargement could 
entail costs in addition to those included in DOD's estimate, including 
costs for assistance to enhance the PFP or other bilateral assistance 
for countries not invited to join NATO in July 1997.''
  So, in other words, it is not just those countries invited to join. 
What about the cost for assistance and other vital assistance for all 
of the other countries not invited to join in July 1997?
  Mr. BIDEN. Would the Senator yield?
  Mr. HARKIN. I would be delighted to yield.
  Mr. BIDEN. Wouldn't the Senator acknowledge the example he just gave 
has nothing to do with any commitment that is being undertaken by the 
expansion of NATO now? It is unrelated. We may or may not through the 
program which the opponents of expansion constantly point to--the 
Partnership for Peace, as what we should have stuck with--we may or may 
not do that. But passage of the expansion of NATO for these three 
countries in no way affects the point of whether or not we give 
assistance to Romania or we give assistance to any other country 
questioned. Is that not correct?
  Mr. HARKIN. Well----
  Mr. BIDEN. I respectfully suggest the answer is yes.
  Mr. HARKIN. Well, wait a second. I do not think the answer is yes. 
What GAO said is NATO enlargement could entail costs in addition to 
those countries in the Partnership for Peace, for example,  others who 
may not be invited to NATO but because of the enlargement of NATO there 
may be other costs incidental and associated with it. That is what they 
are saying.

  Does the Senator say absolutely there will be no other costs 
associated to PFP countries when NATO is enlarged?
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, the answer is I am saying there 
is no obligation we undertake. The Senator sits on the Appropriations 
Committee. The Senator will have to make an individual judgment as each 
of the items come before him whether he wishes to do it.
  For example, we are going to have, and right now the President has 
sent up within the last 3 months a request for additional equipment for 
Turkey, additional military equipment for Greece. Now, they have 
nothing to do with our common budget in NATO, zero.
  Now, the Senator sits on the Appropriations Committee. He can come to 
the floor, and on foreign military sales of those countries, he can say 
no, we don't want to do that, and we can vote against it. It is 
irrelevant. It has nothing to do with whether or not Poland is a member 
of NATO or the Czech Republic is a member of NATO.
  What the Defense Department means, I respectfully suggest, is the 
following; that with NATO, with the additional three countries in NATO, 
we may conclude that our defenses would be further enhanced, 
bilaterally enhanced, U.S. interests enhanced if we gave more money, 
more for military sales to Romania or to the Baltics or somewhere else. 
But it has nothing to do--nothing to do, zero--with whether or not we 
expand NATO. Zero, nothing.
  The Senator from Virginia is on the floor, a strong opponent of 
expansion. He knows that the Armed Services Committee has no obligation 
to send foreign military sales which we subsidize to Greece or Turkey, 
yet he votes for it. But it has nothing to do with NATO, zero. Nothing 
to do with NATO, zero. It is not part of NATO's common budget, common 
budget.
  The only thing, I respectfully suggest to my colleague, that we are 
committing ourselves to with the expansion of NATO is that we will 
continue to participate roughly 25 percent of the cost of the common 
budget of NATO. The things that the DOD referenced and what my friend 
from Iowa is talking about have zero to do with the common budget.
  There is a chart here, ``budget cost-sharing formula, in percentage 
of total NATO common budget.'' I will later in the day go into great 
detail, because I think one of the great misnomers here is how the NATO 
is funded. I am not speaking to my friend from Iowa, who knows this 
area very well because he serves on the Appropriations Committee. But 
many of us who do not serve on the Appropriations Committee or Armed 
Services Committee don't necessarily understand the details of how the 
NATO budget is constructed. There are three common budgets. I will not 
go into it now. But they are the things that all 16 NATO nations reach 
into their pockets and pay for. They are not the national budgets.
  The national budget, my friend on the authorizing committee--both my 
friends stand here on the Armed Services Committee--in the national 
budget we decide whether or not out of our military budget we are going 
to help Greece beyond the common budget, whether we are going to help 
Turkey beyond the common budget, whether we are going to help Chile 
beyond the common budget, whether we will spend money in Korea beyond, 
and it has nothing to do with the common budget of NATO.
  So what happens here is we are taking great big apples and putting 
them in baskets of small oranges. We talk about mixing apples and 
oranges. The reason why the numbers, which I will go into in great 
detail later, range from $125 billion to $1.5 billion is that we are 
counting the wrong things.
  So the issue here, and we will get a chance to talk about this in 
detail, what is NATO's--and I know my friend from Virginia knows this 
well--what is the common budget of NATO? And what are we committing 
ourselves to spend in addition to what we are now spending on the 
common budget of NATO because these three countries  are going to be 
added--if they are added, if we prevail?

  So, that is the issue. With all due respect, my friend is mixing 
apples and oranges here when he refers to the DOD saying we might in 
the future decide to spend more money. It has nothing to do with any 
obligation we are taking on as a consequence of expanding NATO.
  I thank my colleague. I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. I would like to respond, but I yield to the Senator from 
Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa controls the time and 
the time has been running on his side.
  Mr. HARKIN. I had 1 hour.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Correct; the Senator has 35 minutes remaining.
  Mr. HARKIN. I yield to the Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank my distinguished colleague.
  First, I want to say what a pleasure it is to sit and listen to a 
well-informed presentation on a very important amendment. Indeed, I 
will, in the course of the day, engage in another detailed colloquy 
with my friend on this.
  I point out when you mention the Armed Services Committee, 
authorizing committee, I think the Senator should reconsider. It is 
your committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, that authorizes the 
level of assistance on matters like this, as opposed to the Armed 
Services Committee.
  Mr. BIDEN. That is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. A small matter, but I wanted to make----
  Mr. BIDEN. We are so accustomed to other committees stealing our 
jurisdiction that it was a slip of the tongue.
  Mr. WARNER. It is well-taken. At every opportunity the Armed Services 
Committee will do that.
  Your question is correct, but I say to my good friend that while 
there is no fixed-in-law obligation for an increased contribution on 
behalf of the United States to these three potential new members, there 
is, indeed, a moral, and

[[Page S3670]]

it seems to me that that moral obligation will come into play very 
strongly. If for any reason their economies cannot support their 
quotient of final costs allocated among the three, I am certain the 
United States would be a participant in picking it up.
  Mr. BIDEN. On my time, if I may respond, if I can take 3 minutes--and 
I guess it is not just my time but the time controlled by the majority 
here--if I can have 3 minutes to respond.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 3 minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I say to my friend, one of the things the 
Armed Services Committee has been very jealous of, rightfully so, even 
though foreign military sales fall within the Foreign Relations 
Committee purview, when we argued in the Foreign Relations Committee, 
some of us, against some foreign military sales, the Armed Services 
Committee members and staff have often come to us and said, ``Joe, do 
you know what you are doing?'' If you don't let Lockheed or Marietta 
Martin sell that particular item subsidized to the Germans or to the 
Greeks or to the Spaniards or to whomever, do you know what you are 
doing? You are just subsidizing the French because they will sell them 
a Mirage; they will sell this, they will sell that.
  When we make these judgments on foreign military sales, they are 
judgments that are not only made in terms of what we believe to be our 
security interest, but when we fail to participate in that, we find 
that we lose part of our infrastructure because we find that, as a 
lecture I received many times on the floor from Armed Services 
Committee members, we lose the competitive advantage to those foreign 
military sales merchants in France, in England, wherever else.
  So what we are talking about is the independent judgment of whether 
or not we may, in the future conclude, as we have in the past, that in 
addition to our contribution to the common military budget, in order to 
keep peace in the Aegean, we have supplied in addition to that common 
NATO budget, we have supplied additional moneys or subsidies to Greece 
or to Turkey or Denmark. We have done it for almost all of the 15 
members.
  What the amendment of my friend here would do is something 
revolutionary. It would say that we will redefine what NATO's common 
budget is as it relates to the United States. We now would have to 
include as part of the economic budget any of the following: foreign 
military financing under the Arms Control Export Act, transfers of 
excess defense articles, emergency drawdowns or no-cost leases of U.S. 
equipment or subsidies or loan guarantees, which would in effect give 
veto power over our interests with the other 15 NATO nations. The 
reason we give a veto power is because if we draw down, if we have to 
draw down from a 25 percent foreign military sales, we can't then pay 
our common budget that is owed to NATO because we have agreed. If we 
don't do that, then NATO says ``Woe, woe, you are not engaging in cost 
sharing.''  And that, in turn, means that they can veto whether or not 
as a practical matter we decide it is in our national interest to sell 
Cobra helicopters to the Greeks. My time is up.

  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I think the Senator is making my point. My 
friend from Delaware is making my point. We are limited to 25 percent 
of the common budgets. All of the cost estimates we keep hearing about 
only deal with the common budgets. We don't talk about the national 
budget. What my amendment says is what is good for one side ought to be 
good for the other. We are not mixing the two. We are applying a good, 
sound principle. If 25 percent is good for the common budgets, it ought 
to be good for the national budgets. That is what my amendment says. It 
says to the American people, look, you are right, we don't know what it 
is going to cost us in the future. The Senator just stated that. He 
said that we don't know what it may cost us in the future.
  What this amendment says is that at no time will the portion of the 
national budgets of these countries or any other new members of NATO be 
more than 25 percent, so that if some cost comes in at $10 billion, our 
share, the share of the American people, will be no more than 25 
percent. The other nations of NATO will have to kick in their 
proportionate share, also.
  That is why I drafted this amendment. People don't understand the 
difference between the common budgets and the national budgets. We keep 
hearing from the Clinton administration that this is only going to cost 
us $400 million--as I pointed out, we already promised as much as 
$1.069 billion in loans and subsidies to Eastern and Central Europe--
because they are talking about the common budgets, not about the 
national budgets of these countries. The Senator from Delaware is 
exactly right. My amendment seeks to say that no more than 25 percent 
of those would be paid for by the American taxpayers. I would think the 
Senator would support that.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield. He wants written into law in 
the passage of the amendment to the Washington treaty a commitment that 
the United States national budget will now and forever not exceed 25 
percent of all the money we decide to spend in the European theater. I 
can't imagine the Senator from Virginia supporting that.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, with all due respect, I don't think the 
Senator read my amendment.
  Mr. BIDEN. I have read it in detail.
  Mr. HARKIN. It is talking about the subsidy. It is not talking about 
what we spend ourselves in terms of our own military. It is talking 
about what subsidy we provide to these countries.
  Mr. BIDEN. Is that not out of our national budget? Is that not out of 
our national defense budget?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes, out of our taxpayer dollars, subsidies to those 
countries. But it has nothing to do with our military expenditures for 
our nation's forces stationed in Europe.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, it clearly does. It says that if we want to 
``take a tank off the shelf,'' as they say, which comes right now out 
of the Defense Department budget, and we want to give that tank to 
Turkey, or to Greece, or to Germany, it says that tank can't be given 
if in fact we have already met our obligation of 25 percent under the 
common budget because it would exceed 25 percent. So he is limiting--
limiting in perpetuity--the amount of money we can spend out of our 
national budget.
  Look, this is apples and oranges again. We say with NATO, here is the 
deal: We are going to pay 25 percent of all the moneys that directly 
relate to NATO. We do not say we are only going to keep 25 percent of 
the total amount of money we spent at 25 percent if, in addition, we 
decide we want to help, as we have over the last 30 years, Greece. If 
this had been the law in the last 20 years, the military aid that we 
have given to Greece and Turkey would have eaten up our share of what 
we agreed to do in the common budget. So in Aviano, Italy, the national 
budget of the country of Italy pays for that Air Force base. But if we 
are going to build a runway to land NATO planes on, or Italy comes back 
and says, wait a minute, even though that is on an Italian air base for 
which we pay for all the infrastructure, if you want to lengthen the 
runway to accommodate NATO planes, the other 15 members of NATO have to 
kick in to pay for it. If it costs $10 to extend the runway, we take 
out $2.50 and pay the 25 percent. But if we have already given $2.50 
off the shelf to Greece, we don't have any money, we are prohibited by 
law from being able to do this.

  This is hamstringing our national defense budget, unrelated to NATO. 
It is a little like my saying that we are not going to spend anymore 
money on education than what we now spend on title VII. So if we want 
to pass, as I do, and did, the subsidy for IRAs for private schools, 
that would have to come out of the ceiling for all title VII, which was 
a billion dollars. We would have to find $300 million out of that 
billion dollars, which means you don't have enough money to meet the 
obligation you have agreed to, separate and apart for decisions 
independent of NATO considerations. You know, the rest of NATO has not 
wanted to support Greece. We stepped in and said, OK, notwithstanding 
that NATO doesn't want to support Greece beyond the NATO common budget, 
we are going to step in and give them the following

[[Page S3671]]

subsidies, or the following military equipment off our shelf, out of 
our national budget, out of our pocket.
  Now, if we deal with any NATO nation, and we conclude that we want to 
engage in foreign military sales with them, unrelated to NATO, if we 
want to convince the French--which we never could--to stop flying 
Mirage aircraft in their national air force and fly F-15s, we could not 
do that. And so this is a profound change in national defense policy 
that, with all due respect, has nothing to do with NATO. If you want to 
cap all U.S. spending as it relates from the Euros to the Atlantic at 
25 percent, fine, do it; but understand that you are making a profound 
foreign policy judgment that has nothing to do with whether or not 
Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are members of NATO.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will get back to this amendment. I 
respectfully suggest that the Senator from Delaware, again, is making 
my point in two ways. What the Senator from Delaware has said is that 
the costs of the taxpayers of this country are going to increase in the 
future. We don't know how much, but that is what he said. It is going 
to increase. Listen carefully--
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, with all due respect, I did not say it is 
going to increase. It would be up to the Senate and the Appropriations 
Committee.
  Mr. HARKIN. After a treaty is signed. And keep in mind, treaties 
override the Constitution of the United States. Once those decisions 
are made, we are going to have to meet, as the Senator from Virginia 
said, our moral obligations.
  Mr. BIDEN. Moral obligations--
  Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will let me finish, I never interrupted 
him.
  Mr. BIDEN. The Senator is correct. I apologize.
  Mr. HARKIN. Again, I think the arguments, if I might respectfully say 
so, of the Senator from Delaware are arguments that we would have heard 
on the Senate floor in the 1950s and the 1960s and the 1970s. The 
Senator's arguments pertain to a world that no longer exists in Europe. 
The Senator talks about Greece, that if this amendment had been in 
effect 30 years ago, 40 years ago, we could not have done in Greece 
what we did. The Senator is right. But this is not 40 years ago.
  Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HARKIN. I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thought I heard the distinguished Senator 
say that treaties override the Constitution of the United States.
  Mr. HARKIN. Portions.
  Mr. BYRD. Did I hear him correctly?
  Mr. HARKIN. Portions.
  Mr. BYRD. No, treaties don't override the Constitution of the United 
States. Under the Constitution, treaties are a part of the law of the 
land, the supreme law of the land. They don't override the Constitution 
of the United States.
  Mr. HARKIN. I will not argue constitutional principles with the 
Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. I hope the Senator will take that out of his written 
speech.
  Mr. HARKIN. I will not argue constitutional principles with the 
Senator from West Virginia, I know that. But treaties under--I forget 
the article--treaties become the law of the land.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes; but they don't override the Constitution.
  Mr. HARKIN. Under the Constitution, they become the law of the land.
  Mr. BYRD. They become part of the supreme law of the land. I thank 
the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate the correction of the Senator from West 
Virginia.
  Back to my point; the Senator from Delaware is right. If this 
amendment had been in effect 40 years ago, we couldn't have been in 
Greece. But that was during the cold war. That is when we were facing 
the Soviet Union. That is when we were facing, if I might say to the 
Senator from Delaware, facing a Europe that was on its knees, busted, 
broke, basically decapitated from World War II. There is no way that 
they could have done it on their own. That is why I say with this whole 
NATO argument that it just seems to me we are arguing about a world 
that existed 50 years ago. The Senator from Delaware in his impassioned 
pleas is arguing for a situation that no longer exists. Europe is 
powerful. Europe is wealthy, and the nations' GNPs are going up. There 
is no Soviet Union. There is no external threat like Greece was facing. 
Europe has been rebuilt. The cold war is over. Let's look ahead.
  What I am saying is that I don't believe, in the context of a Europe 
that we see now and in the foreseeable future, that our taxpayers ought 
to be liable for the national costs anymore in excess of what they are 
liable right now for the common costs. That is what this amendment 
says. Very simply, it says very forthrightly, ``Any future United 
States subsidy of the national expenses of Poland, Hungary, or the 
Czech Republic to meet its NATO commitments, including the assistance 
described in subparagraph (c), may not exceed 25 percent of all 
assistance provided to that country by all NATO members.''
  When it comes to tanks, planes, or anything else, of course, we can 
still sell them. They can still buy from us. But our subsidy to this 
national effort cannot be more than 25 percent of the total amount of 
subsidies by all of the countries for that national effort----
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes. But I am losing a lot of time; if the Senator would 
help me by yielding back some time.
  Mr. BIDEN. Where you don't go back 50 years--for example, if the 
Senator's amendment had been in place, we probably could not have 
amended the conventional forces in Europe. In 1991, it became clear--
the wall came down in 1989--we had to amend the conventional forces 
amendment. We renegotiated that agreement. The flank agreement in the 
Senate was an amendment. It was passed in Russia in the Duma as well. 
What we said was that we had to give up a number of pieces of 
equipment, thousands of pieces of equipment, but because Greece and 
Turkey were on the southern flank of NATO and because we still were 
concerned about instability in the region, we still wanted force 
structure there, we had to call for a cascading down. We took all of 
the equipment that we were giving up, thousands of pieces, and we just 
gave them to the Greeks and the Turks. It was in our national interest 
to do so.
  Had the Senator's amendment been in place, the cost of all of those 
pieces of equipment would have to have been computed and added up, and 
then reduced from the 25 percent ceiling that was allowed to be spent 
by the United States on the common budget of the NATO. That had nothing 
to do with the cold war; it had to do with reality. It had to do with 
the arms control agreement. That arms control agreement would have done 
one of two things. It would not be able to have been negotiated and 
signed by us because we would not have been able to have that force 
structure on the southern flank, or we would have had to go in arrears 
to our commitment of saying 25 percent of the common budget of NATO.
  That is a contemporary example. That went on from 1991 to 1996. It is 
a further example of how well-intended but dangerous this amendment is.
  I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. HARKIN. Again, I respond to the Senator from Delaware. Again, 
what he is basically arguing for is giving a blank check to the 
American people. I disagree with the Senator on the point that he just 
said about conventional structure. We are talking about three 
countries. My amendment only mentions three countries. It mentions 
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. It is just those three 
countries that we are talking about and about their national costs. 
There may be other arrangements in Europe. There may be other 
structures in which we are engaged that are not covered by this 
amendment.

  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HARKIN. I am talking only about subsidies to the national 
military budgets, the national expenses of those three countries to 
meet their national commitments.
  Mr. BIDEN. Just those three?
  Mr. HARKIN. That is all.
  Mr. BIDEN. This in no way limits our ability to give aid or 
assistance to any other country in NATO. So we are going to say that 
you three guys can come in, but we are going to promise that we are 
never going to give you assistance, but we will maybe give assistance 
to Greece, Turkey, Germany, France and England.
  Mr. HARKIN. That is right. Exactly. Why is that? Because England, 
France,

[[Page S3672]]

and all of these countries' forces are modernized. They are fully 
integrated into NATO. Those are the three countries that are going to 
have a lot of money for interoperability, command, communications, 
force structures. That is where the money is going to go. I didn't want 
to say anything about the other countries. I don't think it is 
necessary for these other countries because we are not going to be 
involved in that kind of expenditure. That is why I limited it 
specifically to those three countries and why I respectfully demur from 
the Senator's comments that we could not be involved in other aspects 
of NATO beyond the 25 percent. We absolutely could. That is why I want 
to focus on those three countries only because that is where the money 
is going to be spent for force structure and modernization. I don't 
believe we ought to give a blank check.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Wouldn't we, if we accept the amendment of the 
Senator from Iowa, then be relegating Poland, Hungary, and the Czech 
Republic second class citizenship in NATO?
  Mr. HARKIN. I don't believe so. I think all we are saying is that the 
other members of NATO have to be as fully involved financially in 
upgrading and modernizing their force structure as the taxpayers of 
this country. I basically would submit that this amendment is more 
inclusive. It is saying to our partners in NATO that we are in this 
together; don't just stick the American taxpayer with the bill.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. One other question.
  It seems to me, as we look at the numbers that the Senator is 
presenting, $125 billion versus $1.5 billion, and changing 
circumstances, I would remind the Senate that the $125 billion was 
predicated on the Congressional Budget Office based upon an invasion by 
Russian forces of Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, and that it 
would require the full advanced positioning of the U.S. military. If 
that were to occur, those numbers are probably right. The much reduced 
number of $1.5 billion is a reflection, according to the GAO, of the 
current political situation and, therefore, isn't an accurate estimate.
  But I would say this: I don't think we should hamstring now our 
ability as the Senate and as the Congress to respond to whatever things 
might occur. But it seems to me, we would be doing just that if we were 
to accept the Harkin amendment.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I might, if I could restate what the 
Senator is trying to achieve with his amendment, is simply to say when 
NATO establishes the military requirements of three new nations, the 
costs associated with each of the nations and their ability to reach 
that requirement, the U.S. States taxpayer will pay no more than 25 
percent of that cost, and 75 percent is then to be allocated among the 
remainder of the nations. It is as simple as that in clear English 
language.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator. That says it very clearly and very 
eloquently, and I think brings the point home again. I say to the 
manager of the bill that when you talk about $1.5 billion, that is one 
of the common costs. That is why we are trying to reach out and find 
out what these other costs associated with it are. These NATO's costs, 
as I have pointed out, we have already allocated over $1 billion 
ourselves of taxpayer dollars for this.

  I also say in response to the comments of the Senator from Delaware 
about what happens in the future that, if there is an emergency or 
something happens where you have changed circumstances, I would respond 
with the same enjoinder that he gave to this Senator; that is, I 
believe it is important now to limit our taxpayers' exposure rather 
than a blank check. If there is an emergency in the future, if 
something does happen, yes, the Appropriations Committee will respond. 
The Foreign Relations Committee and the authorizing committee will 
respond. The Armed Services Committee in their capacity as authorizing 
committee will respond. The appropriators will respond. It is better to 
address it at that point rather than giving a blank check now and just 
sort of letting it go. I think from a budgetary standpoint, from the 
standpoint of protecting our taxpayer dollars better, we limit it now, 
and then, if there is an emergency, fine, we can come up with the money 
and finance the emergency.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield. If in fact this logic makes 
sense, I don't know why we would produce an amendment that says right 
now we spend--I don't know the exact national budget. My friend from 
Virginia may know how much we spend on defense right now in the United 
States of America on our total defense budget. I will make up a number. 
Let's say it is $300 billion. Why don't we attach an amendment right 
now and say that we will not spend more than $300 billion on defense, 
period? Why don't we do that? It is the same logic. Let's tell the 
American taxpayers now we are limiting what they are going to spend on 
defense. We will do it now. We will limit it to that number, not just 
in Europe but all over the world. Tell them that right now. If there is 
an emergency, we can come back.
  This is the same man, whom I respect enormously, who argued 
strenuously, and he argued on the same issue of a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget.
  Why not set a number? Defense spending cannot increase at all. We can 
pass it now, unless we come along and by a two-thirds vote in this body 
agree to spend more money on defense. That is what we are doing here 
relative to these three countries. That is what we are doing for 
Europe. Why don't we do it for the all of the national defense 
budget? If it doesn't make sense for the whole national defense budget, 
I respectfully suggest it makes zero sense to do it in Europe for these 
three countries.

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I could clarify, the funds the Senator 
is talking about come out of the Department of State budget, not the 
defense budget.
  Mr. BIDEN. Let's set the State Department budget.
  Mr. WARNER. It is important in this debate that we begin to establish 
a few fundamentals with some correctness. The defense budget will be 
around $260 billion to $270 billion, but it does not contain the funds 
to which my distinguished colleague is now referring.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, let's set the State Department 
budget then, freeze that.
  Mr. HARKIN. I didn't hear the Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the categories all come out of the State Department 
budget, then let's say let's freeze the State Department budget. 
Nothing can go up in the State Department budget, period. Freeze it, 
just like we are going to freeze it here. Why not do that? And if an 
emergency comes along, we can change our mind.
  It is not a way to do business, I respectfully suggest.
  Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa has 13 minutes 30 
seconds.
  Mr. HARKIN. I am sure the Senator will yield me some more off his 
time, because I have been so yielding to him.
  I think the analogy that the Senator from Delaware uses is totally 
wrong. Let me provide, I think, a more correct one. This amendment in 
no way limits how much total defense dollars we can provide to these 
three countries--not at all. It simply says, whatever their national 
budget, we will only pay 25 percent. So the Senator's analogy that we 
are somehow going to cap defense spending is not right.
  A better analogy, if I might say to my friend from Delaware, is this. 
We do have a defense budget in the United States. It is $260 billion. 
Let's say that for national emergency reasons, or whatever threat might 
come up, we have to increase it to $300 billion a year. But what we are 
going to do is tax the citizens of Delaware for half of it, and then we 
will spread the other half among the other 49 States of the Union. That 
is the more correct analogy as to what my amendment seeks to do.
  Now, certainly we would not say to the citizens of Delaware, ``We are 
going to increase the defense budget. You have to pick up 50 percent of 
the total.'' No. We would spread it out, make everybody pay a fair, 
proportionate share. That is what my amendment says. My amendment in no 
way limits the total amount of defense money spent on these three 
countries.

[[Page S3673]]

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I wonder if I might yield myself time 
from the Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will yield the floor and let others use 
their own time.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I wonder if, having discussed with the 
Senator from Oregon, I might yield myself time from his time so as not 
to deprive the Senator----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa yields the floor?
  Mr. HARKIN. I am sorry. Mr. President, I yielded the floor and 
reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, the Senator from Iowa has been very generous in 
yielding his own time. I wanted to make a brief statement and then pose 
two questions on what I take to be not just hypotheticals but real life 
probabilities.
  I followed the discussion on a particular element of the budget, 
whether State Department or defense. I don't think that is right on 
point to what is being said here. I think the amendment of the Senator 
from Iowa is saying that American subsidy, as it were, of the national 
expenses of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to meet their NATO 
commitments should not be more than 25 percent of all assistance 
provided to each of those countries by all NATO members.
  Let me lead into the questions that I want to ask the Senator from 
Iowa. The Senator from Iowa has said that his purpose in offering this 
amendment is to protect the taxpayers of America from incurring a 
liability greater than this 25 percent; that is, 25 percent of all 
assistance provided to each of these three countries by all NATO 
members. But I am concerned that there are some consequences in his 
amendment, perhaps unintended, which in fact not only do not protect 
the taxpayers of the United States but may hurt them, and certainly may 
hurt their security. And I want to describe two situations and then ask 
the Senator from Iowa if he would respond.
  The 25 percent number is one that has some currency--no pun 
intended--in NATO circles about the American share. So it is not the 25 
percent that I think troubles those of us who oppose this amendment. It 
is what the Senator from Iowa is including within the 25 percent in 
subsection (C) of his amendment, and I go particularly to this and I 
read from the amendment.

       The assistance referred to in (A)(iii) above includes (1) 
     Foreign Military Financing under the Arms Export Control Act.

  So here is the circumstance I am concerned about being covered here. 
At sometime in the future--next year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years--one of 
these three countries, the Czech Republic, Hungary, or Poland, decides 
that they, as part of their participation in NATO, their responsibility 
for their own defense, want to acquire certain modern military 
equipment systems.
  My concern is that by squeezing foreign military financing under the 
Arms Export Control Act--which is to say the credits that our 
Government gives to facilitate the sale of weapons systems by American 
manufacturers to foreign purchasers--we are going to block our defense 
companies from having a chance to compete equally with other foreign 
defense manufacturers to try to sell to the Czech Republic, Hungary, 
and Poland. Because the credits will be included within the 25 percent, 
and the effect of that will not be to protect American taxpayers, it 
will be to hurt American defense workers, whose products will not be 
able to be sold to these three countries.

  So, I ask my friend from Iowa, is it not true, if the amendment he 
has submitted is agreed to, that we will limit credits for foreign 
military sales to these three countries and therefore limit the 
opportunity of American defense manufacturers to sell to these three 
countries, meaning that they will be pushed to buy from other producers 
elsewhere in the world?
  Mr. HARKIN. I will respond to my friend, if he will yield.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I do.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again, this amendment does not preclude 
increased subsidies as long as we only pay our fair share. That is the 
point I was making prior to the Senator's comments.
  But, again, is the Senator arguing that, again, this is going to cost 
a lot more than the $400 million that the administration has 
suggested--that this could really balloon in the years ahead? That is 
what I am concerned about. What is this going to cost? We are told it 
is only going to cost us $400 million. But now I hear the Senator 
saying maybe, if a country there decides to buy some expensive military 
hardware, we will want to jump in and subsidize our sales, so, 
therefore, we don't give it? I mean, nothing is given? It is not free; 
the taxpayers pay for it. And that bothers me. It doesn't preclude the 
sale of weapons; it just means it must be a fair share.
  Again, I probably agree with the Senator that my amendment would 
preclude the kind of giveaway programs that cost our taxpayers a lot of 
money in order to maybe help one of these countries modernize to the 
point where they may not need it. But as long as it is free to them and 
costs our taxpayers, why not give it to them?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I appreciate the response of the Senator from Iowa, 
because I do believe the response confirms my concern that one of the 
effects of passage of this amendment will be to apply what I consider 
to be an arbitrary cap--which is to say a 25 percent cap--on all 
American expenditures related to the assistance provided to these NATO 
countries.
  Here is why I am concerned about that and why it does bother me. 
There are two different categories of expense. One is the direct amount 
we are contributing--common expenses, if you will--the $400 million 
that the Senator from Iowa refers to, to enlarge NATO to these 
countries. I do not consider the credits given to facilitate the sale 
of American military equipment to these countries in that same 
category. These are not giveaways. These are, in a long-established 
program, quite similar to what we do through the Export-Import Bank in 
other areas, or OPIC in other areas, to facilitate American companies' 
ability to sell their products abroad, creating or sustaining more jobs 
for American workers here at home.
  So, my initial concerns are confirmed. I think the effect of this 
amendment, if adopted, would be to limit the ability of American 
companies to compete equally with foreign manufacturers of comparable 
weapons systems to sell them to these three countries, and the losers 
in that would be the workers in defense companies all around America. 
So these export credits are not giveaways. Yes, it may take the budget, 
the possible spending, somewhat above the $400 million, but that is a 
different category. The $400 million, if you will, is a grant. This is 
a little bit like giving a bit of a subsidy so you can sell a multiple 
of many times more and create jobs for American workers.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will.
  Mr. BIDEN. The Senator from Iowa forthrightly responded, as he always 
does, that if we wanted to sell Poland, like we sell Greece or Germany 
or anyone else, a piece of American-made military equipment, as long as 
we did not subsidize more than 25 percent of what that was, then we 
could sell it.
  I wonder, why in God's name would the French Government agree to come 
up with money for Poland to allow them to buy an American jet instead 
of a French jet? Why would they possibly do that? And does this not 
give a veto, a veto on the part of other NATO nations, over American 
foreign military sales? Because unless they come up with 75 percent of 
what any subsidy would be, why would they possibly do that?
  Is it not true--the Senator is on the Armed Services Committee--is it 
not true that one of the core debates in NATO beyond burdensharing has 
been who gets to sell NATO the equipment, whether they fly Mirages--
whether NATO planes are Mirages or whether they are American made 
aircraft? Every other European country in NATO has been saying, ``You 
Americans get too much of an advantage.'' Every time we talk about 
burdensharing, don't they come back and say, ``Yes, but you don't get 
it; you get to make all that money and get all those jobs because you 
are supplying the equipment that all the NATO uses''?

[[Page S3674]]

  So why in the Lord's name would we give a veto power over the ability 
of American manufacturers and American employees to keep their jobs to 
the French and the Germans and the Brits?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. The Senator raises a very good question. For me, at 
least, there is no good answer to that. That is why I say I believe 
that this may be an unintended consequence of the amendment that the 
Senator from Iowa has put forward. There is very spirited competition 
among the member countries of NATO in arms sales and arms purchases by 
NATO.
  For instance, right now there is a great issue about the Joint Stars 
Program, a remarkable air surveillance of ground activity system in 
which we had an original requirement of 19 planes; assuming that NATO 
would buy 6, we would pay for 13. Our military says these are 
extraordinarily valuable. They are going to be critical in future 
warfare. We have already used them in Bosnia before we thought we would 
have to. Our allies in NATO decided last fall that they didn't want to 
buy the six from us, they wanted to try to make them themselves. So 
there is very spirited competition that goes on among the NATO members 
for NATO acquisitions, let alone to other countries.
  I do want to say one word additionally on this point. The credits 
that are given for foreign military financing under the Arms Export 
Control Act are not literally spending; they are more in the form of a 
guarantee. I don't have the exact information before me, because I 
didn't realize we were going to get into this point this morning. I 
don't believe that the taxpayers have actually spent very much money on 
these credits. They are a form of a guarantee to facilitate these 
sales.
  Anyway, bottom line, I leave this part of the debate with a confirmed 
concern, which deepens my opposition to the amendment, that one of the 
unintended consequences--or consequences of this amendment, if it 
passes, would be to hamstring, to tie up, to put a cap on the ability 
of American companies and workers to compete with foreign companies and 
workers to sell these three systems that they may want to acquire in 
the future.
  Mr. President, I would like to go on and pose a second question to my 
friend from Iowa. Let me describe a different kind of fact 
circumstance.
  One of the reasons I am so strongly supporting the enlargement of 
NATO to these three countries is that it will help us--it will share 
our burden, to be as specific as I can. NATO, as we continue our 
historic mission of providing for the collective defense of the member 
states, will face threats, as it has both within their territories and 
outside. We have seen it in Bosnia. I suspect, as others do, that we 
will be threatened increasingly from the south of NATO, not from the 
east, because Russia is now our ally and our partner--Partner for 
Peace, as we say--in that specific program. And I am struck by what 
these three new members can add to NATO's military capacity.
  First off, and most explicitly, they will add 200,000 troops. And not 
just the troops, but I think what we will find, because these new 
members will have the enthusiasm of new membership, perhaps even a 
greater willingness to be involved in sharing the burden that would 
otherwise fall exclusively on the United States of America in 
responding to threats to the security of NATO and its member states, 
including our own security.
  Let me give a specific example. Hungary has been of great help to us 
already in Bosnia, giving us a base from which we can launch or source 
so much of our activity in Bosnia. But let me come to a much more 
specific and recent point. A short while ago, we were on the edge of 
military action against Iraq again, because the Iraqis wouldn't allow 
us, or the United Nations inspectors, access to their facilities, 
according to the post-gulf-war promises that they had made. And that 
conflict, for now--I am afraid not forever, but for now--has been 
avoided. But the record will show that during the period of time 
leading up to the possibility of military action against Iraq, these 
three countries--Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic--made 
unswervingly clear that they were prepared to stand by us.
  Let me be very blunt about this, undiplomatically blunt. They were 
much more supportive of military action against Iraq, much more willing 
to commit forces and materiel, much more convinced of the common threat 
that an uninspected Iraq posed to them, as well as to us, than some of 
our longest term and foremost allies in NATO. There is no secret here. 
The French were particularly reluctant about military activity against 
Iraq.

  So what I want to pose now is another fact situation. Let us say in 
the next half year--we all hope this does not happen, but we can feel 
it building in Iraq again. Mr. Butler, of UNSCOM, of the U.N. group 
charged with inspecting in Iraq to guarantee that weapons of mass 
destruction have been eliminated, has said in the last week or two 
that, yes, the inspectors gained access to Saddam Hussein's palaces, 
but as far as I interpret his statements, the Iraqis cleared out the 
palaces, let the inspectors in, the inspectors naturally found 
nothing--there was a lot of time that passed--the inspectors went out, 
and now the Iraqis say, ``That's it. Lift the sanctions.''
  Mr. Butler, steadfast, honorable, independent, says, ``Hey, we don't 
have affirmative proof as required under the post-gulf war agreements 
that the Iraqis are not developing chemical and biological weapons.''
  So let us go forward a few months, and the conflict grows, the 
disagreement grows, the Iraqis refuse to allow U.N. inspectors in, and 
we are on the edge of military conflict again, and as we hope it will 
not happen, in fact there is a decision to launch a military action, 
and in this we ask and receive the support of our allies in Hungary, 
Poland and the Czech Republic.
  I know I am speeding up the schedule a little bit because they will 
not in that timeframe have acceded to NATO membership. So let us take 
it forward a year or two or three. They want to help us in an 
international conflict. And the one in the gulf is most likely. To 
facilitate their aid to us, we have to invoke exactly the sections of 
law that the Senator from Iowa includes in his amendment under the 25-
percent cap--transfers of excess defense articles under section 516 of 
the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, emergency drawdowns of our 
equipment to give to them no cost leases of U.S. equipment. All of this 
is not to throw it away but because they can share our burden. They can 
send troops to be with ours. But they may need some assistance, 
materiel assistance that we would normally draw down from.
  So perhaps this has been a longer way than necessary to say that my 
concern is, these additional sections of this law would prevent the 
United States from, in a crisis such as the one I have described, or 
God forbid a larger one, where the soldiers, the military forces of 
these three countries were ready to share the burden of the United 
States in defense, in fact the 25-percent cap would say, you cannot do 
it, you cannot help them help us.
  That is not only in the most limited and technical sense such a 
result in the interest of the taxpayers of the United States, it 
certainly is not in the interest of the security of the United States 
or in the interests of the well-being of the military of the United 
States, without assistance from countries like this, to have to 
shoulder more of the burden.
  So I ask my friend from Iowa, is it not true that these sections of 
this amendment would limit the ability of the United States to draw 
down, to transfer articles, to enter into no-cost leases of U.S. 
equipment to these three countries in a time of crisis, in which we 
would very much want them to be helping us with our assistance?
  Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will yield.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will.
  Mr. HARKIN. Is the Senator then saying that the cost of this is going 
to escalate greatly in the future, that it is not $400 million, it is 
going to be something much above that because we are going to subsidize 
a lot of sales? Is that what the Senator is saying?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator. What I am saying is that from the 
best estimates I have seen, the American contribution to the common 
costs of NATO will be limited to the $400 million. But there will be 
other cases in our self-interest, such as the ones I have mentioned, 
where there is an international crisis and we will want to

[[Page S3675]]

draw down, to give no-cost leases to Hungary, Poland and the Czech 
Republic to help us so we incur less damage and less direct costs 
ourselves that I am afraid this amendment would limit. I consider that 
a very separate category than in the contribution we make to the common 
costs of NATO enlargement.

  Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator would yield further.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will.
  Mr. HARKIN. The Senator talks about prices. Again, with all due 
respect, when a crisis happens, Congress responds. Again, just from a 
budgeting standpoint, from being perhaps a little tightfisted with 
taxpayer dollars, and not giving sort of a blank check and saying, 
``Fill it in,'' I think by having a cap on these costs, a national cost 
that I propose equivalent to what we do in our common costs, that it 
precludes a kind of runaway giveaway.
  It is like, OK, Hungary wants to upgrade their capabilities in a 
certain area, so we say, ``Oh, wonderful. You need not the $1.98 
version, you need the $100 version.'' But Congress says, ``We can't 
afford the $100 version.'' We say, ``Not to worry. We'll give it to 
you. That will be one of our grants. We will subsidize it, and you will 
get ours.''
  Again, I must respectfully say to my friend from Connecticut, this is 
a whole new vineyard, this debate about jobs. I thought this was about 
democracy and markets and peacekeeping. Now we are talking about jobs. 
I find this debate now is veering off course a little bit.
  To answer the question as forthrightly as I can, yes, I am saying 
that if one of these three countries want the $1.98 version, we could 
give up a 25-percent subsidy for that. We would not come in with a $100 
version and say taxpayers are going to pay for the whole thing. Yes, 
that is exactly what I mean.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Iowa. I will say a brief word 
or two more and then yield to the Senator from Oregon.
  What I fear from the amendment is that the effect of the amendment 
will be to limit our ability to sell cost-effective items to these 
three governments, not just the ones that the Senator may consider to 
be bloated in expense. And more to the point of the second example that 
I have asked him about, I think it will have the unintended consequence 
of shackling us in our attempt to benefit from the willingness of these 
three countries to assist us in a time of international crisis.
  I want to make a final point about the comment that the Senator made 
in passing that this is about, the NATO enlargement debate is about 
principle, not about jobs in America. I respectfully, loosely 
paraphrase there.
  In my opinion, as I tried to indicate yesterday, this debate really 
is about a principle, about the principle of freedom that was secured 
and won in the cold war and that we now, in my opinion, have a moral 
obligation to ratify that victory in the freedom won by countries like 
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, countries that suffered during 
the cold war and the long years of Soviet Communist domination, to 
welcome them into this military alliance which is based on the 
principle of freedom, also on collective defense.
  I know that there are some who have said that what drives this 
debate, what drives the move for NATO enlargement is the yearning by 
American military contractors for more sales in Central or Eastern 
Europe. I must say, I am on the Armed Services Committee and I have not 
had a single comment--I have contact on a regular basis with 
representatives of defense companies, and I have not had a single one 
of them say a single word to me about NATO enlargement.
  But that having been said, and looking realistically, the potential 
sales here are quite modest as a proportion of overall military sales 
throughout the world, particularly within the United States with the 
Pentagon as the purchaser. But if these three countries want and need 
to purchase new military equipment, why would we want to limit the 
ability of American companies to sell American made products to them? 
So, no, the debate overall is not about American workers; it is about 
the principle of freedom and collective defense, and the promotion of 
peace and stability on the European Continent, which is what NATO has 
done so greatly for almost 50 years and will do more broadly in the 
years ahead if we enlarge it.

  Way down on the list of effects is the possibility that there might 
be a few sales of American-made equipment to these countries. I fear 
that the unintended consequence of this amendment would be to limit 
those sales and, in that sense, to give an unusual and surprising 
competitive advantage to military contractors abroad, particularly in 
Europe, perhaps even in Russia or China, as well.
  I thank my friend from Iowa for what I hope has been an illuminating 
dialog and for the directness and eloquence of his own participation.
  I thank my friend from Oregon for yielding me this time. I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I was once asked by a mother in a 
town meeting I had in Oregon why her son or daughter should put his or 
her life at risk for a Hungarian or Pole or Czech through the expansion 
of NATO. I think it sometimes helps to think in human terms like that. 
My answer to her was that the surest way not to put her son's or 
daughter's life at risk was, in fact, to expand NATO.
  It is a very troubled area in world history. In a tough neighborhood, 
good fences make for better neighbors. I have fought to expand NATO 
because I think to leave the vacuum, to leave muddled ``international 
speak'' out there at the border was a mistake.
  I think the answer I gave to that mother can also be given to my 
friend from Iowa. The Senator is concerned about the bill going up. I 
am concerned about that, too, but I think the surest way that the bill 
not go up is to expand NATO. I think if we did not expand NATO, and the 
worst kinds of scenarios you could construct actually occurred, we 
would be spending far more than $1.5 billion--whether Poland, Hungary 
and the Czech Republic were in NATO or not because I don't think this 
time we would stand idly by. I certainly hope we would not.
  So the surest way, I think, we can assure the American taxpayer that 
Senator Harkin is rightly concerned that we won't spend $125 billion to 
expand NATO, is to define the terms of the future, not just react to 
them, make them, expand NATO, make this commitment, and I believe it 
means we will not be spending the kind of excesses that I also fear 
with the Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 11 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will respond with a couple of things.
  First of all, I have to ask again the question: Can these three 
members, these three nations, can they afford membership in NATO or can 
they not? Can they afford to bear the burden or can they not? We have 
been told they can. One of the requirements for membership is they can 
pay the tab. These three nations have stated over and over they could 
afford it.
  Now I am hearing, wait a minute, no, maybe they can't, because now we 
will have to give them a lot of subsidies to buy weapons systems. Well, 
if that is the case, then do they have the economic strength to join 
NATO? It seems like we cannot have it both ways. If they have the 
economic strength, why do they need all the subsidies? If they don't, 
are they really capable of joining NATO?
  Secondly, yes, I am concerned about these types of giveaway programs 
and loans and grants. I say to my friend from Connecticut, we have--I 
have been on the Defense Appropriations Committee for several years 
now, and I have been in some aviation things going back almost 20 
years, both in the House and the Senate. I say to my friend from 
Connecticut, we have always been faced with other countries 
subsidizing, in many cases more than we ever subsidized our arms 
manufacturers.
  So how do we beat them? We beat them because we make the 
best products. We have the best quality. No one can match our aircraft. 
No one can match our weapons systems. No one can match not only the 
quality but the kind of support infrastructure that we can provide for 
those weapons systems. So other countries might have to subsidize 
theirs a little bit more, but only

[[Page S3676]]

because they cannot match us in those areas. So we have been quite 
capable of competing and winning in the world market our share of 
defense items in the past. I do not think that will change in the 
future.

  So in the last decade we have written off or forgiven over $10 
billion in default of loans on military-related items on this. I think, 
again, we have to be very careful about this. We are told it will only 
cost us $400 million, but now what I hear is no, that is only for the 
common costs. This could go up and up and up and up, subsidy after 
subsidy after subsidy.
  Then we hear that is only if there is a crisis. Fine. If there is a 
crisis we will address it then. But even the administration has said 
any threat to Europe to these nations is not imminent and would take 
years to develop. So we are not facing something that might happen in 
the next few months or even in the next couple of years or so, even 
according to the administration's own admission.
  Therefore, I submit once more, Mr. President, that to keep the costs 
down, to be honest with the taxpayers of this country, what my 
amendment says is what is good for the common costs--that is, we limit 
our involvement to 25 percent--that we should limit the 25 percent, for 
subsidies for all of those national costs, also. That is all this 
amendment does. My friend from Oregon, my amendment does not stop NATO 
expansion. It simply says no longer will our taxpayers simply pick up 
the tab.
  I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, with all respect for my friend 
from Iowa, I believe the Harkin amendment attempts to strangle NATO's 
expansion because it cannot prevent NATO expansion. This amendment 
places unreasonable restrictions on expenditures by limiting our 
assistance to new NATO members to 25 percent of all assistance provided 
to these countries by current NATO members.
  I urge my colleagues to read carefully the resolution of ratification 
that we have before us. Condition two requires the President to certify 
that the United States is under no obligation to subsidize the national 
expenses necessary for Poland, Hungary, or the Czech Republic, to meet 
those countries' NATO commitments.
  Let me be clear on this point. In signing the Protocols of Accession 
with these three countries, the United States has not signed up to foot 
the bill for their membership in NATO, and Poland, Hungary, and the 
Czech Republic understand that it is ultimately their responsibility to 
make the necessary improvements to their military structures.
  Now, my friend from Iowa knows that in the past, the U.S. Congress 
has authorized and appropriated funds for countries in Central and 
Eastern Europe to assist in their efforts to meet the criteria for NATO 
membership.
  Approving this resolution, however, in no way restricts the 
congressional prerogative to make this decision on an annual basis. In 
other words, why draw an arbitrary line now? We are going to do this on 
a regular basis anyway as circumstances change.
  If in the future years we determine that Poland, Hungary, and the 
Czech Republic do not warrant or do not need the U.S. assistance, we 
will not authorize and appropriate it. I trust that future Congresses 
will be able to make this decision based on the circumstances in their 
time and will not need artificial percentages to dictate how our 
assistance should be appropriated.
  I also confess concern about the signal that would be sent if the 
Senate adopted the Harkin amendment. Does approval of this amendment 
mean that the United States would only need NATO 25 percent of the time 
no matter what our security interests may be? Does it mean that the 
United States is interested in only 25 percent of NATO's activities, 
exercises, and planning processes? Does it mean that the United States 
would participate in just 25 percent of NATO operations despite any 
potential threat posed to the alliance? I think these questions 
demonstrate why arbitrary ceilings simply do not belong.
  Mr. President, I suggest that we allow the Congress to make funding 
decisions based on our foreign policy interests and that we reject any 
effort to tie our assistance to countries in Central and Eastern Europe 
to that provided by our NATO allies. I, therefore, urge my colleagues 
to oppose the Harkin amendment, which I do today.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seven minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to briefly touch on an issue the 
Senator from Connecticut mentioned, and that is lobbying by defense 
contractors.
  At the outset, I want to say that I have not been contacted by any 
either. I don't know that my staff has; at least they haven't told me 
that. I respond by reading from an article that appeared in the New 
York Times on March 30, which I obviously got off the Internet, in 
which the writer of the article went on to say that ``The chief vehicle 
of support for NATO expansion is a group called `The U.S. Committee to 
Expand NATO'.'' The president of that innocent-sounding group is Bruce 
Jackson, director of strategic planning for Lockheed, a vice president 
for Lockheed for strategic planning.
  Mr. President, again, a lot of these people have been championing 
NATO membership for these countries. He quoted me as saying that ``This 
may amount to `a Marshall Plan' for defense contractors who are 
chomping at the bit to sell weapons and make profits.'' Well, I am a 
Democrat, and it says, ``A top Republican aide joked that the arms 
makers were so eager for NATO expansion, we will probably be giving 
landlocked Hungary a new navy.'' Those are just musings and comments by 
various and sundry people.
  Again, this gets back to the question of whether or not we are going 
to ask the taxpayers of this country to provide subsidies over, above, 
and beyond what they kind of have been told in terms of NATO expansion 
as to what the costs would be. Yes, if these countries are going to 
upgrade their weapons system, sure. Do I want our defense contractors 
to be in there to provide them the necessary resources they need for 
defense? Absolutely. But do I want them there when the taxpayers say--
as I pointed out to my friend from Connecticut, which we have seen so 
often in the past, for one of those countries may say that we need a 
certain system and it cost $1.98. Since there is no limit on the 
subsidies, one of our contractors could come in and say: You don't need 
the $1.98 one, you need the $100 version. Hungry, Poland, or the Czech 
Republic may say: We can't afford that. The contractor may say: Not to 
worry. You see, under the situation we have now, the U.S. taxpayers 
will provide the subsidy for it and you can go ahead and have it.
  Once again, our taxpayers are stuck with it. I think that is the 
normal course. If there is a crisis, as has been stated many times, 
well, this would hamstring us in terms of a crisis. Again, I point out 
that no one is saying there is any imminent threat of any crisis at 
all. The administration says that for years ahead Russia is no threat. 
So if, in fact, a crisis comes up in the future--in the distant 
future--we have time to react, we have time on both the authorizing 
committee and on the appropriating committee to make changes, to make 
sure these countries have the adequate and necessary defense 
capabilities to defend themselves. But to just give a blank check now, 
I think, is wrong. I think it will cost the taxpayers of this country 
untold billions of dollars, unless we put the same cap on our subsidies 
for national expenses that we have on the common costs.

  We have agreed with our fellow member nations in NATO that on the 
common costs we would provide about 25 percent. I see no reason why 
that same logic cannot prevail and be used to cap our exposure on the 
national costs. In fact, I have gotten an idea this morning that I may 
offer another amendment to this bill, and that is to get other member 
countries of NATO to also agree that their subsidies, their proportion 
of the national costs, would not exceed what their proportion is under 
the common costs. Now, we cannot force them to do that, but it seems to 
me that should be one of the negotiating principles that we would use 
with other countries when they want to expand and enlarge NATO. In 
fact, it kind of comes as a surprise to me that

[[Page S3677]]

we did not do that in the beginning. If we really want honest 
accounting, and we want the European countries that are quite wealthy 
now to bear their fair share of the costs, it seems to me that we 
should have insisted in the beginning that the same proportionality 
that pertains to the common costs should pertain to the national costs. 
To me, this is a gaping hole, and the first place to close it is here 
with this bill, by saying that the United States will provide no more 
than its 25-percent share of those national costs.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve my time.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I wonder if the Senator from Washington will yield up 
to 5 minutes.
  Mr. GORTON. Certainly.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I want to respond briefly to two 
points. One is on the question of the involvement of the American 
defense industry in this debate. The Senator from Iowa cited a news 
article indicating that a group called the U.S. Committee to Expand 
NATO, headed by a gentleman involved in the defense industry--honestly, 
I don't know the facts about that committee at all, but I have seen 
some advertisements they have placed. But what I want to do is 
suggest--and I know the Senator from Iowa didn't mean to say this in 
quoting the article--that the support for NATO enlargement is quite 
broad. It is enormous. It goes well beyond this one organization headed 
by this one man. There are a host of military and veterans' 
organizations that I think support this because they have learned the 
lessons. They feel enlarging NATO is one of the rewards, if you will, 
for their service over the long years of the cold war. It was one of 
the goals they aspired to--to free the captive nations and let them 
become part of the community of freedom-loving nations. AMVETS supports 
NATO enlargement, as do the American Legion Association, U.S. Army 
Jewish War Veterans, Marine Corps League, National Guard Association, 
Reserve Officers Association, Veterans of Foreign Wars 
Association, and, in addition, a host of civic policy and political 
organizations, including, interestingly, the Council of State 
Governments, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a host of State legislative 
bodies, including my own State senate in Connecticut that spoke on 
behalf of enlargement;

  A true rainbow coalition of ethnic organizations, American ethnic 
organizations, many of whom have members who have family ties to the 
people who have suffered for almost five decades, four decades anyway, 
under Soviet Communist domination, are now thrilled that their family 
and friends can enjoy the blessings of liberty and want to affirm that 
opportunity by membership in NATO;
  Many business and labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO, support 
the enlargement of NATO. So this is a very broad-based organizational 
effort, much beyond one group;
  A remarkable number of high-level officials have signed a statement 
of support of NATO enlargement; former Vice Presidents Quayle and 
Mondale; former Secretaries of State Baker, Christopher, Eagleburger, 
Haig, Rodgers, Shultz, Kissinger, and Vance. I believe that is every 
living former Secretary of State;
  Former National Security Advisers Allen, Brzezinski, Lake, McFarland, 
and Powell;
  Former Secretaries of Defense Carlucci, Cheney, Clifford, Perry, and 
Rumsfeld.
  It is a remarkable, broad coalition, much beyond one person whose 
affiliation may be the defense industry and an organization that I 
presume is much larger than that.
  The second and final point that I want to make is I want to draw on 
something that the Senator from Oregon said, and it helps me to make a 
point about what I believe to be one of the unintended, certainly 
undesirable, consequences if we should adopt the Harkin amendment, 
which I hope we will not. The Senator from Oregon has occasionally held 
town meetings in Oregon. He has asked about NATO enlargement. Do we 
want to send your sons? How will you respond to the question of why 
would you send your sons to defend Budapest or Warsaw or Prague?
  One of the effects of enlarging NATO is in effect quite the opposite, 
which is to bring the military forces, 200,000 strong, into the common 
effort to defend NATO and its member states from security threats to it 
and them. That involves a scenario that I suggested earlier that may 
occur in the Middle East around Iraq and other trouble spots around the 
world. What I am confident of is there will be an enthusiasm and a 
steadfastness to participate among these three new members that we 
don't always find, frankly, among the other members who have been with 
us from the beginning.
  The question could almost be turned. That is, expanding NATO holds 
the prospect that Hungarian soldiers, Czech soldiers, and Polish 
soldiers will be sent to trouble spots in the world and not require 
American soldiers to be sent, certainly not in the same numbers. I 
believe that one of the consequences of this amendment putting an 
arbitrary 25 percent cap on American involvement here will be to make 
it impossible for us to draw down supplies and equipment to offer 
assistance to those soldiers of these three countries when they share 
our burden and place less of a burden on our military and on those who 
wear the American uniform.
  I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, 10 days ago in a column appearing in the 
Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer wrote:

       By ruling Central Europe out of bounds to Russia, NATO 
     expansion takes one of this century's fatal temptations off 
     the table. It is the easiest U.S. foreign policy call of the 
     decade.

  Why is it the easiest foreign policy call of the decade? Because the 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization for 50 years has preserved the peace 
of Europe and the peace of the United States. As a result of the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Soviet Union literally ceased to 
exist. All of this was accomplished by a military alliance that never 
was required to fight or to sacrifice its young men and women in a 
military conflict within the bounds of that organization.
  Why did the North Atlantic Treaty Organization come into existence in 
the first place? Because the first half of this century showed that 
both world wars began in Central Europe because of the weakness, the 
instability, the unsettled nature of the former empires and the then 
national states in that part of Europe, occupied almost wholly by the 
Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The West could only be 
defended by a military organization of which the United States was a 
part. Behind the magnificent defensive line, the parapets, built by the 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Western Europe became free, 
democratic, and prosperous.
  During that 50 years, we and the Western Europeans invested not an 
inconsiderable amount of money in communicating those ideas of freedom 
to the people of Central and Eastern Europe through the Voice of 
America and other such organizations. It is clear now that nothing was 
desired by the people of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary more 
than to join the free and prosperous countries of Western Europe. 
Partly because of our efforts through NATO, partly because of our 
economic success, and partly from their growing dedication to freedom, 
they freed themselves--they freed themselves--from the Soviet Union. 
The Soviet Union disappeared and became Russia, a country still 
unstable, a country with candidates for President in the year 2000 who 
would desire nothing more than the restoration of the old Soviet Union.
  So the rationale of the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization is to say, no; these countries freed by their own efforts 
and our own efforts will stay freer. They will be to us as Germany and 
France and Normandy have been for the last half century. What history 
teaches us is that a political vacuum filled with weakness and 
irresolution is a temptation to an aggressor. Countries a part of the 
North

[[Page S3678]]

Atlantic Treaty Organization were not such a temptation, even at the 
height of the power of the Soviet Union.
  Accession to NATO is as close to a guarantee as we can possibly come 
of the fact that our sons and daughters will not die in Warsaw or in 
Prague or in Budapest any more than they were required to do so in Oslo 
or in Paris in the course of the last half century.
  Mr. President, this is the easiest foreign policy call of the decade. 
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will lend strength to us, a 
contribution to our own defense, but most importantly the security of 
countries that have not been secure that want to join us in prosperity 
and in safety as they have in freedom.
  The amendment of the Senator from Iowa is simply another attempt to 
make these members second-class members. We have already stated that we 
made no commitment at all, a zero commitment, to subsidize the national 
expenses for these countries. How much, if any, we subsidize them in 
the future is a decision that can and should be made in the future and 
not in the course of this debate.
  Even more mischievous, in my view, Mr. President, are amendments to 
say that there will be no further expansion, that we will leave a 
vacuum unless certain preconditions are made. For more than 50 years 
the United States of America refused to recognize the annexation of the 
Baltic republics by the Soviet Union. When their cause was deemed to be 
a hopeless cause by almost everyone, they, too, have freed themselves. 
They, too, want at some future date to be a part of NATO. They, too, 
create a vacuum at the present time in the power structure of Central 
and of Eastern Europe.
  To pass an amendment that is likely to be proposed by another of my 
colleagues that singles them out as being countries we will not want to 
defend or be a part of without special circumstances, in my view, is 
simply an engraved invitation to some future Russian Government to say: 
We're coming back in; we don't care about your desire for freedom. 
You're a part of us whether you like it or not. And, look, the 
Americans have in effect in the Senate said that's OK.
  That is the essence of instability and of uncertainty, not only for 
the nations immediately involved but for all of us.
  Certainty created through 50 years by the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization is the best guarantor of peace. I am convinced we should 
reject all limiting amendments, admit these three nations, and judge in 
the future what additional nations should be admitted to NATO--nations, 
in my opinion, consisting of all of those that become real democracies, 
real free market countries, with a real desire not only to be a part of 
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but to contribute their own 
strength to it.
  We should reject the Harkin amendment. We should grant the accession 
of the three countries before us at the present time without further 
conditions, and in the good faith that their accession will strengthen 
peace, strengthen their democracy, and strengthen our own security.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to address the Senate as if in morning business past the agreed upon 
time of 12:45.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, for the moment I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I realize we only have a minute or two 
before the unanimous consent order kicks in which ends discussion at 
12:45, but let me say for the record that one of the aspects of the 
amendment that we are considering and will be voting on when we come 
back from our caucus luncheons, the Harkin amendment, deals with 
requiring excess military materiel transferred to any NATO country--in 
this case, the three new members--to be counted against our common 
budget.
  I did not have these numbers before, but I want to put them in the 
Record now. The Senator from Iowa has contended that we provide aid 
only to the less well off countries in NATO, and he implied they are 
the only ones we have given this excess military equipment to. Most 
people don't know what we are talking about here, so let me make it 
clear. Here are the facts.
  In fiscal year 1996, we provided excess defense articles to the 
following countries: Denmark, Germany, Greece, Portugal, and Turkey, 
for a total value of $55 million. In fiscal year 1997, these excess 
articles went to the United Kingdom, Norway, Spain, and Turkey; value: 
$113 million. And my friend from Iowa, if his amendment passes, would 
say we can continue to spend taxpayers' money for what we believe is in 
our national interest to give excess items to other NATO countries, not 
part of our NATO requirement but our individual judgment, but we could 
not do the same for Poland, the Czech Republic, or Hungary. I think 
that would a serious mistake. If he wishes to do that and ``save the 
taxpayers' money,'' why not have his amendment say no excess military 
arms could go to any NATO country? Why single out for this second-class 
treatment the three new countries?
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend from Delaware. His statement is a very 
important contribution to this debate on NATO, and I appreciate the 
fact that not only is he giving the Senate information but the great 
job the Senator is doing on this issue here for these many days. I am 
very appreciative.
  Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. McCAIN. There is no one more qualified, in my view, in the Senate 
than the Senator from Delaware, on this issue especially, but other 
foreign policy issues.

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