[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 2, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4136-S4138]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           NATIONAL SECURITY

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, yesterday the President of the United 
States gave a very broad outline of a new national security strategy 
that moves away from the reliance on deterrence and arms control 
towards missile defenses and unilateral arms reductions.
  Frankly, the President's brief remarks raise more questions than they 
answer. I wanted to take a few minutes to address in this Chamber some 
of the key issues he touched on yesterday.
  First, the President stressed that we must move away from our 
reliance on deterrence to keep our citizens and our allies safe from 
aggression or from nuclear blackmail. While I agree that in principle 
we want to find alternative methods of being able to protect ourselves 
from the potential of nuclear blackmail or terrorism, the hard reality 
is that there will always be a measure of deterrence in any approach we 
find with respect to the prevention of attack or maintaining the 
security of the United States of America.
  If there is a real potential of a rogue nation--and I underscore 
``if'' there is a real potential of a rogue nation--firing a few 
missiles at any city in the United States, responsible leadership 
requires the most thoughtful steps possible to prevent losses as a 
consequence thereof.
  The same is true of accidental launch. If at some point in time, God 
forbid, there were to be an accidental launch of a nuclear missile, the 
notion that any country in the world, if technology were available, 
should be subject to that possibility would be unacceptable. All of us 
in the civilized world need to take steps to try to protect ourselves 
against the potential of that ever happening.
  Let me make it clear. The rogue missile rationale that has been 
offered on many occasions really merits much greater analysis than many 
people have given it. For a state to develop a missile capacity, it 
would require some measure of testing, some measure of actual 
deployment, such as we have seen in North Korea with its Taepo Dong 2. 
It would also require a launch site and capacity, all of which are 
detectable by the United States, all of which are traceable over a 
period of time.
  If, indeed, a state is to such a degree a rogue state that we think 
its leadership might be in a position of firing one or two rogue 
missiles at the United States, we ought to also think beyond that as to 
what they would be inviting as a response. Clearly, one or two missiles 
clearly traceable, obviously coming from a particular rogue state, 
would invite their annihilation.
  So when we measure threats, we don't just measure capacity to be able 
to do something. We measure the intent to do something. We measure the 
consequences of somebody doing something. Indeed, Saddam Hussein, who 
possessed weapons of mass destruction, saw fit not to use those weapons 
of mass destruction when we went to war against him, even when he was 
losing the war. The reason that he didn't was because, Secretary Baker 
made it patently clear what would happen to them if they did.
  Even the most unreasonable, most demonized of leaders still 
calculates risk and still calculates the repercussions of his actions.
  Indeed, our military, in making a judgment about the different tiers 
of threat we face, places the threat of a rogue missile attack at the 
very bottom of threats the United States might face.
  Here we are in a debate about education and we are being told we are 
not sure we have enough money for education; we are not sure we have 
enough money for alternative and renewable fuels; we are not sure we 
have enough money for a prescription drug program for seniors; we are 
not sure we have

[[Page S4137]]

enough money to fix our schools and provide the next generation with 
the kinds of education we want--we need to balance what we get for our 
expenditures in terms of national security against other initiatives 
that also have an impact on the national security of our country.

  I say, with respect, that the President's efforts with respect to the 
rogue missile threat seem to be willing to do things to the ABM treaty, 
to our relationships with Russia and China that go well beyond what we 
could possibly gain in terms of our security.
  Let me come back to missile defense, which is really only a response 
of last resort when diplomacy and deterrence have failed. I support 
research and development of a limited missile defense system that, 
indeed, might have the ability to knock down one or two incoming 
missiles. I think it would be, in fact, a step forward for the United 
States to be able to at least know that we have that capacity. I 
suggest, very respectfully, that most scientists and most strategists 
who are well respected in this country recognize the extraordinary 
difficulties developing a system that might do much more than take out 
a selected number of missiles, and that if this were something more 
than a limited system, if it were a system designed to provide some 
kind of shield or some kind of larger protection against the potential 
of a larger attack, and was in fact deployed in that way, we would 
simply be inviting the kind of counterresponse we saw throughout the 
cold war, when we unilaterally initiated some advance in technology 
which the Soviet Union interpreted in a way that invited them to 
respond.
  Most people who make judgments about the potential of knocking down 
missiles, given the difficulties of decoys, of the extraordinary 
technological difficulty of discerning the difference between 
artificial and real targets, the capacity of 1 warhead to potentially 
carry 100 different bomblets, which you have to discern the difference 
between in a matter of seconds--to suggest you can somehow have a 
system that is going to be 100- percent effective would be to stretch 
the imagination to where I think no strategist would want to go. I 
don't think anybody worth their salt in making judgments about 
potential conflict would come to a conclusion that one is 100-percent 
failsafe protected.
  So if you are not 100-percent failsafe protected, you are still 
dependent, ultimately, on deterrence. We can't get rid of that 
equation. If you know you are going to suffer some damage, the judgment 
then becomes, well, how much damage? If we suffer that amount of 
damage, what is it going to take in return to be able to guarantee that 
they will, too? So, in effect, you are pushed back into a corner where 
you are still dependent on the mutual assured destruction equation--the 
very equation we have lived with since the beginning of the Cold War in 
1945.
  If you have a system that is 100-percent effective, you have also 
dramatically changed the equation of the balance of power because if 
you are sitting there and your adversary says, well, they have a system 
that is 100-percent effective against an intercontinental ballistic 
missile, so we had better deliver systems that completely avoid the 
intercontinental ballistic missile--if, indeed, they are an adversary--
if China is sitting there and their strategists are saying the United 
States now has the ability to shoot down all of our missiles--they have 
a 100-percent effective defense--that means they have the first strike 
capacity because the minute you have developed a 100-percent defense, 
you have translated defense into offense because if you are 100-percent 
protected, you can fire with impunity first, knowing nothing hits you 
in return.

  So what you have done is really turned on its ear the very concept of 
fear by both sides that the consequences of a conflict are so great 
that you avoid the conflict. In point of fact, one of the reasons the 
United States restrained itself from considering even greater 
escalation in Vietnam, and in other parts of the world in conflicts, 
was knowing that the Soviet Union and China have this extraordinary 
capacity to escalate to the ultimate confrontation. It was always the 
fear of the ultimate confrontation that drove us to restrain ourselves 
and ultimately to put in place the ABM Treaty.
  The ABM Treaty represents the conclusion of Republican and Democrat 
administrations alike that we need to find a way out of the continuing 
escalation of the arms race. That is why we put it in place. It gave us 
a guarantee that we knew we could begin to reduce weapons because 
neither side was going to upset this equilibrium. That is why China and 
Russia are so deeply upset at what we are now considering doing--if we 
do it unilaterally. I am not against doing it if it is arrived at 
mutually. I want to research the capacity. I think there is a value to 
being able to say to New York City or Los Angeles, you are never going 
to be hit by a rogue missile or an accidental launch.
  But what good is it if you deploy it in such a way that you abrogate 
the treaty that has held the balance and invite your adversaries to 
interpret it as the efforts of the United States to gain this superior 
edge, which then leads them into the same response--the tit-for-tat 
syndrome that led us through the entire arms race in the first place?
  That arms race is completely traceable. We were the first people to 
actually use an atom bomb. People forget that. We used it for a noble 
purpose--to end the war and hopefully save lives. But we used it. After 
that, quickly Russia did an atom bomb. Then we did the hydrogen bomb. 
Russia did the hydrogen bomb. Then we did long-range bombers. They did 
long-range bombers. We put them on submarines, and they put them on 
submarines. In one--maybe two--instances, they beat us. With Sputnik, 
they beat us. In every other instance, the United States led. We were 
the first to put out the more sophisticated weaponry capacity.
  But what happened? Inevitably immediately it may have taken we found 
ourselves in this race. The whole purpose of the SALT talks and the 
START talks--now START I and START II--where we have the capacity to 
lower from 7,200 weapons down to the 3,500, is the notion that we have 
arrived at an equilibrium and we are prepared to ratchet down together 
to make the world safer.
  I say to my colleagues, very simply, if we can get China and Russia 
and our allies to understand that a mutual deployment of a clearly 
verifiable, highly transparent system, mutually arrived at in 
protocol--if we can deploy that, all of us together, with a clear 
understanding of the reductions we are seeking, that could be salutary 
in its extraordinarily limited way.

  But if the United States insists on moving unilaterally, abrogating a 
treaty, we will send a message to already paranoid hardliners in other 
countries that the United States once again wishes to have 
technological superiority. That will drive them to respond as a matter 
of their security perception and as a matter of their politics, the 
same politics we have, where a bunch of people sit around and say: How 
can you allow them to do that? You are a weak leader. You had better 
respond. If you don't respond, you are going to be thrown out of 
office. And they respond. What happens? We wind up spending trillions 
of dollars on something that takes us to a place that we will 
ultimately decide is more dangerous than the place we are in today and 
from which we need to back off.
  Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar, two of the most respected Senators--one 
former Member and one current Member of this institution--have led this 
body in a well known effort to reduce the nuclear threat from the 
former Soviet Union. We had distinguished bipartisan testimony in the 
Foreign Relations Committee a few weeks ago that we need some $30 
billion more than we are allocating now just to reduce the threat of 
the nuclear missiles we are trying to dismantle in the former Soviet 
Union. Yet we are talking about spending more than that to create a 
whole new round of mistrust and misunderstanding.
  The President, yesterday, also stressed the fact that national 
missile defense is only one part of a comprehensive national security 
strategy. I could not agree more; it is. But let me underscore that 
missile defense will do nothing to address what the Pentagon itself 
considers a much more likely and immediate threat to the American 
homeland from terrorists and from nonstate actors, who can quietly slip 
explosives into a building, unleash chemical weapons into a

[[Page S4138]]

crowded subway, or send a crude nuclear weapon into a busy harbor.

  I ask my colleagues: What do you think is the more likely scenario? 
Do you really believe that North Korea will leave the trail of a 
missile, a targetable trail and send a missile to the United States, 
and like the sleeping giant that was awakened in Pearl Harbor, have us 
return the compliment, or do you believe if they were intent on doing 
injury to the United States, they would take a little bottle of anthrax 
and drop it in the water system in Washington, DC?
  What do you think is more likely? Do you think it is more likely 
perhaps that some rogue nation might say: Wait a minute, they have the 
ability to knock down our missile, so let's put one of these illegally 
purchased weapons in the marketplace--because we are not doing enough 
to stop proliferation internationally so they can go out and purchase a 
small nuclear weapon--and they bring it in on a rusty freighter under 
the Verrazano Bridge, and detonate a nuclear weapon just outside New 
York City.
  I would like to see us focus on those things that most threaten us, 
not create these notions of false threat that require us to debate for 
hours to stop something that does not necessarily promise a very 
positive impact for the long-term interests of our Nation.
  Obviously, the President gave very few details yesterday because he 
cannot. We do not have an architecture yet. We do not even have a 
budget yet. We do not even have enough successful tests yet to suggest 
we should be rapidly deploying and abrogating the ABM Treaty. What are 
we talking about?
  The President said he wants to pursue technology that would allow us 
to intercept a ballistic missile at the boost phase when they are 
moving the slowest. I agree with that. In June of 2000, I called on the 
previous administration to explore the technology for a boost phase 
intercept system which would build on the current technology of the 
Army's land-based THAAD and the Navy's sea-based theater-wide defense 
system to provide forward-deployed defenses against both theater 
missile ballistic threats and long-range ballistic missile threats.
  I welcome President Bush's commitment to investing considerable 
resources needed to make those systems capable of reaching the speeds 
necessary to intercept an ICBM. A forward-deployed boost phase 
intercept system would allow us to target relatively small ballistic 
missile arsenals and shoot down a very few accidental or unauthorized 
launches.
  Deploying such a system, even though it might require amendments to 
the 1997 ABM Treaty Demarcation Agreement, would establish the line 
between theater missile defense systems that are not limited by the 
treaty and the strategic defenses that the treaty prescribes.
  In a nutshell, these agreements allow the United States to deploy and 
test the PAC-3, the THAAD, and the Navy theater-wide TMD systems, but 
they prohibit us from developing or testing capabilities that would 
enable these systems to shoot down ICBMs.
  Russia might not be happy about that, but I believe they would prefer 
that to a system that would really scrap the entire treaty and all the 
limitations on strategic defenses that would come with it.
  I agree that the strategic situation we confront today is worlds 
apart from the one we faced in 1972, but nothing in this changed 
environment suggests that we will be better off by walking away from 
the ABM Treaty. If somehow Russia and China are not persuaded by 
President Bush's assurances that our missile defense system is not 
aimed at undermining their nuclear deterrent capabilities, and instead 
they perceive a growing threat to their interests, they will act to 
counter that threat. We will not be safer if our NMD system focuses 
their energies on developing--and eventually selling--new ways to 
overwhelm our defenses.
  The ABM Treaty can be amended to reflect our changed security 
environment. But to abandon it all-together is to welcome an arms race 
that will make us more vulnerable, not less.
  The President made a point of announcing that he will begin high-
level consultations with our allies about his plans for NMD and he 
stressed that he would seek real input from them as he moves forward. 
This is critical. Even if, as can be expected, our allies in Europe and 
Asia accept a U.S. NMD system, they have a lot at stake in how we 
develop and deploy that system. The President must take their views 
into account as he determines what architecture he will pursue and the 
timing of deploying. Clearly, these are important discussions that will 
require more than one or two cursory consultations.
  The administration must also pay close attention to our allies 
concerns about Russia. Because they are keenly aware that a fearful, 
insecure Russia is a dangerous Russia, they have consistently stressed 
the importance of including Moscow in our discussions on NMD. Let me be 
clear: the importance of working with Russia as we move forward is not 
to suggest that Moscow has a veto over our missile defense plans. But 
we have an obligation to avoid unilateral steps that will throw our 
already tenuous relations with Russia into further turmoil. Serious 
discussions with Moscow on amending the ABM Treaty--even if they are 
not ultimately successful--will allow us to move toward NMD deployment 
transparently and with minimal provocation.
  As with Russia, if an NMD decision is made absent serious discussions 
with China, the leadership in Beijing will perceive the deployment as 
at least partially directed at them. The Administration must try hard 
to reach a common understanding with China that there is a real threat 
from isolated regimes bent on terrorism and accidental or unauthorized 
launches. The Clinton administration invested a great deal of time and 
diplomatic effort convincing Russia that the threat is real and it 
affects us both. We must make the same effort with China. If we fail to 
take this task seriously, we will jeopardize stability in the Pacific.
  The President's proposal on NMD lacks specifics and his intentions on 
the ABM Treaty are vague. He and his advisors know that the American 
people will not support an expensive, ineffective NMD system, or one 
that comes at the expense of a Treaty that has made them safer over the 
last 20 years. So to sweeten the President's bad news on these two 
issues, he promised--again without any detail--to unilaterally reduce 
the U.S. arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons.
  The proposal to unilaterally reduce U.S. nuclear stockpiles is an 
important and overdue first step toward reducing the nuclear danger. 
Unfortunately, before the President can make good on this promise, he 
will have to convince his Republican colleagues in the Congress to 
repeal a provision in the FY 98 Defense Department Authorization bill 
that prohibits the reduction of strategic nuclear delivery systems to 
levels below those established by the START I treaty.
  Senate Democrats have tried for the last three years to repeal this 
provision, which prevents exactly the kind of nuclear reduction 
President Bush has spoken about. But they have been stymied by a 
Republican leadership that believes the U.S. should not move to START 
II arms levels even though the Senate ratified that treaty in 1996--
before Russia has done so.
  I hope we can move immediately to repeal this prohibition and begin 
the process of cutting our strategic arsenal in half--from more than 
7,000 warheads today to the 3,500 allowed under START II. While those 
reductions are underway, the President should immediately proceed to 
talks with Russia on a START III agreement, which could bring our 
arsenal to below 2,000 warheads and codify similar, transparent, 
verifiable and irreversible reductions by Russia.
  Mr. President, for 40 years, the United States has led international 
efforts to reduce and contain the danger from nuclear weapons. We can 
continue that leadership by exploiting our technological strengths to 
find a defense against ballistic missiles, and by extending that 
defense to our friends and allies. But we must not jeopardize stability 
in Europe and Asia by putting political ideology ahead of commitments 
that have kept us safe for decades.

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