Space

That is something I am sure we can all agree on.

Now, though the committee has approved many of the administration's requested theater missile defense projects, the majority's refusal to yield on several controversial proposals dealing with key missile defense issues gives these proposals the quality of partisan ultimata rather than a sound foundation for policy. In other words, it is either or else.

Similarly, the bill's heavy emphasis on investing in expensive hardware for missile defense detracts from an equally, if not more important, goal: Pursuing means to reduce the numbers and performance characteristics of offensive missiles that may be fired against us in theater conflicts. This goal typically requires significant improvements in export controls, intelligence capabilities, analytic capabilities for the conduct of arms control and nonproliferation verification activities, better coordination between our military and our diplomats and other such means.

The committee, however, is placing inordinate reliance upon technical fixes to counter missile attacks, rather than strengthening efforts to slow our halt of the proliferation of such missiles in the first place. This position is unfortunate, since the latter will ultimately prove to be a better investment of scarce taxpayers' dollars.

With respect to the missile defense provisions the bill does support, many of these would considerably erode the stable consensus that exists to support ballistic missile defense efforts, would jeopardize both antiballistic missile, ABM and START II treaties, usurp the President's constitutional powers with respect to the conduct of foreign relations and the performance of the role of Commander in Chief, or otherwise erode, rather than enhance, U.S. national security.

These conclusions, to me, follow from an examination of the following provisions of the bill: First, the bill mandates, as a statutory policy objective, an action that would violate the ABM Treaty. It establishes a policy of deploying a multiple-site national missile defense network by the year 2003. That is in violation.

Second, the majority places into U.S. law a formal definition of an ABM -permissible ballistic missile defense system. We can justifiably assume, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, has warned, any such statutory definition could jeopardize prospects for early ratification of the START II Treaty in the Russian Parliament and negatively impact our broader security relationship with Russia.

It seems only prudent that before the Congress ventures off with a unilateral interpretation of a major bilateral arms control accord, we should consider very carefully several implications of such an action.

They would include: Is this the type of precedent we wish to establish as a basis for treaty interpretation? Do we want to set an example that can lead the Duma to legislate its own preferred definitions of vital terms of Russia's arms control and disarmament treaties?

In other words, what if the Russian Duma, what if we had word coming through or had pictures on TV this evening on the news that the Russian Duma is unilaterally deciding to put a new interpretation into the ABM Treaty. What would we do? I know what we would do. We would think the whole thing is null and void if they went ahead and legislated preferred definitions of vital terms of Russia's arms control and disarmament treaties.

If Russia deployed enough ballistic missile defense sites containing missiles just falling below the dictated threshold, could they collectively acquire an ability to counter United States strategic nuclear forces? What will be the reactions of China and other powers if the United States moves away from its ballistic missile defense restraints?

I point out that these agreements are hammered out word by word by word over agonizingly long negotiations. The ABM Treaty was no exception to that. To change some of that wording, or to change an interpretation of it unilaterally, means that our word in any other treaty that we might have with any other place around the world--whether China, Russia, wherever--is not going to be looked at as being worth very much.

While the committee majority has raised the specter of structural nuclear disarmament--a term that is supposed to describe our alleged inability to expand our nuclear arsenal in the event of future threats--it ironically ignores completely the effects on our deterrent force of releasing Russia from the treaty obligations that prevent it from acquiring a national missile defense capability.

The Russians are not going to just stand by and see us reinterpret that treaty without feeling free to go their own way. They will no longer be bound by that agreement that was hammered out over a long period of time.

So, if the opponents in the ongoing missile defense debate have their way, and that `fearsome beast,' the ABM Treaty, is finally slain, the credibility of America's strategic missile forces would almost immediately be called into question as Russia begins to deploy its own large-scale national missile defense force.

What would prevent them from doing it? Certainly not the treaty that we would have violated at the time. It seems to me, if the majority is truly interested in avoiding this structural nuclear disarmament, as it is called, it should do all it can to ensure that U.S. nuclear deterrent retains its credibility. This is exactly what the ABM Treaty helps to achieve, by barring Russia from creating its own national strategic missile defense system.

The treaty accomplishes this, moreover, without the need for a diplomatically and financially costly expansion of our offensive nuclear capabilities. So-called deficit hawks in Congress today should, therefore, love the ABM Treaty, not revile it. It works to preserve our deterrent and saves plenty of money at the same time. One of the estimates by CBO has indicated that even a partial national missile defense system would cost about $48 billion, at a time when we really do not need it, as testimony and as the letters from the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have indicated.

I am afraid our colleagues in the majority, however, have turned a collective blind eye to these considerations. They appear to believe that unilateral United States actions to ensure against our own national missile vulnerability will instantly translate into a safer America and not lead Russia to reduce its vulnerability to our own strategic missile attacks.

In its enthusiasm not to miss an opportunity to bash the ABM Treaty, the majority is urging a course of action that can weaken our nuclear deterrent capability, can stimulate an offensive nuclear arms race, and eventually funnel tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into elaborate strategic national missile defense schemes, none of which, of course, will ever free American citizens from risk of nuclear attack.

The bill seems to enshrine into law what is known as the fallacy of the last move, which holds that any increment in our own security will take place without any detrimental side effects. I lose a lot more sleep over the side effects than I do over the slogan of `structural nuclear disarmament.'

The Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings, coupled with the Tokyo gas attacks should serve as a sobering reminder that weapons of mass destruction can be delivered by a variety of means other than missiles. It does not mean we are not concerned about missiles. We are. Furthermore, our intelligence officials have repeatedly testified the United States will not face a new missile threat until sometime in the next century.

The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. James Clapper, testified before the Select Committee on Intelligence last January: `We see no interest in or capability of any new country reaching the continental United States with a long-range missile for at least the next decade.'

We should not permit a fixation with delivery systems to distract our attention from the important goal of halting the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

Third, the majority voted down on a straight party vote a proposal by Senator Levin to ensure that America's theater missile defense systems will not be given strategic antiballistic missile capabilities, a proposal that was essentially a restatement of existing law, existing law under the ABM Treaty.

Fourth, the majority insisted on almost doubling the size of the administration's request for national missile defense projects, despite the majority's complete inability to identify any new foreign threat against which such a defense would be directed.

I do not believe that a highly conjectural North Korean missile threat to the Aleutian Islands sometime in the 21st century is sufficient grounds for America to abandon the ABM Treaty. I doubt North Korea will even manage to survive as a country by that time. It may not, anyway.

Furthermore, there is a fundamental contradiction in the majority's willingness to write a blank check on behalf of national missile defense and yet apply the sternest possible accounting standards for the more modest sums that we authorized elsewhere in this bill to such programs as humanitarian assistance and foreign disaster relief.

I would add, the systems we are talking about have yet to be invented. We made some progress in setting up systems, or doing some research in years past, but to mandate at this point we will have any of these systems by the year 2003, which is what is in the systems we are proposing here, is wishful thinking. Some of the claims under star wars were made back some years ago. I talked to the people at the Pentagon who were working in these areas, who had some confidence in those systems, or said they did. I thought some of the claims were so preposterous I went out to some of the laboratories where work was going on on the so-called star wars system. The scientists who were working on the systems out there almost laughed about some of the claims being made on star wars at that time. It was not just a matter of having the money to deploy, to cut the hardware and deploy it. We had not yet invented the systems. Yet we are talking about now we can set up a national missile defense system, just a partial one, for $48 billion, with equipment that has yet to be invented and certainly should not be deployed on a timetable between now and the year 2003. Within 8 years, we are supposed to now have this and it has to be deployed. And that is ridiculous.

Star wars before was talking about deformable laser mirrors, 12 feet across, that could take lasers of a power not yet invented, and focus it on a spot out there several hundred miles in space the size of a golf ball. At least the first step would be to focus it on a mirror in space that could be deformed, then focus it in turn on a spot the size of a golf ball several hundred miles away on a missile coming up at a changing rate of speed, and keep it focused on that area. We do not have the computer capacity nor the technology yet developed to enable us to do some of those things that were claimed years ago.

Now we are saying we have some different systems. But those systems are anything but proven and are anything but systems that should be set up on a time schedule that would have to be in place by law by the year 2003.

What do we think the Soviets would be doing all this same time? I know what the Duma would probably do, our counterpart over there in Russia. The Duma probably is going to say, OK, if all bets are off on the ABM Treaty, then the very first thing we are going to do is put all the coordinates back in on American targets we just took out of our missiles in agreement with the Americans, back just a few months ago. To me, that would be very silly if we did anything that might lead them into that kind of activity.

Yet, if the Russians were doing the same thing we are debating here today, I can guarantee the first thing I would be doing on the floor would be demanding we put their coordinates back in our missiles if they were advocating abrogating the ABM Treaty and deploying a missile defense system that neither side thought we needed to deploy.

Much has been written about the dangers of new isolationism as a foreign policy doctrine. Its companion in defense policy I guess would be called a fortress America. Nothing is more reflective of this doctrine than the current bill's fundamentally misguided policy approaches on nuclear testing and the ABM Treaty.

So I am still hopeful a new bipartisanship will emerge in the years ahead, however, behind policies that reflect a greater awareness of the costs of a modern national defense, a greater sensitivity to international reactions to U.S. defense actions, greater appreciation of the unexploited potential that lies in creative international solutions to security problems, and a greater emphasis on preventing proliferation rather than trying to manage it. If we abrogate the ABM Treaty or put language in here, in this legislation, or permit language to stay in that allows the Duma, in its own right, to start reinterpreting the ABM Treaty, then I do not see any option but what we are into an arms race again. Just as we spent probably most of the past decade taking some of those dangers down, reducing our arms, taking the targeting out of our missiles and the Soviets took it out--the Russians took it out of their missiles, I think we are in danger of reversing this whole direction, this trend that has been set in place over the past 10 years, and to cope with a threat that is not out there, by the best testimony we have from the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and spend a lot of money in the whole process, $48 billion for a very limited defense system that will not be a full national missile defense. It would be, basically, a missile defense that covers five States.

So I support the change proposed by the Senator from Michigan. I hope our colleagues will look at this very, very carefully. If we are to put into law something that encourages the ABM Treaty to be questioned and the Soviets to have less confidence in the American willingness to abide by that treaty, I think we will have made a drastic mistake in the Senate of the United States.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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ORDER OF PROCEDURE

Mr. DOLE. I will just take a minute. I want to see if we cannot get agreement on time here. We have been on this amendment since 11 o'clock. I have been listening to people ask for time agreements. We are not even close to a time agreement.

This bill is dying on the floor. This may be a very important amendment, but we intend to complete action on this bill by tomorrow night or I do not see when it comes up again. Because Friday--Saturday we will do appropriations bills, maybe one or two appropriations bills. Maybe late Saturday afternoon we can start on welfare reform, and then late in the week take up the defense appropriations bill.

If we want to pass the DOD bill we have to have cooperation. If we do not want to pass it, I assume we can take 6 or 7 hours on this amendment. It has been 2 1/2 hours.

Is there any indication, any willingness to enter into a time agreement at this point? The Senator from Michigan----

Mr. LEVIN. If that is addressed to me, we are very willing to enter into a time agreement. Two Senators who wanted to speak have already spoken. There is one now who says he is willing to give up his time. I am adding it up and I will come up with a figure in about 2 minutes, now.

Mr. DOLE. I will just wait until the Senator adds it up. If we do not get it now, it may be another hour.

UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENT

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, when the Senator from Michigan adds the time there, we may want some time on the other side of the amendment. Hopefully not as much. I do not think it would take as much.

Mr. LEVIN. We need 1 hour and 50 minutes on this side.

Mr. DOLE. Say 2 hours on that side, and 1 hour on this side? So we could vote, then, by maybe 4:30, depending on how much time we use? I do not think we need 2 hours on this side. I just want to get the time agreement.

If there is no objection, let me propose this consent agreement.

I ask unanimous consent that there be 3 hours on the Levin amendment prior to a motion to table, to be divided 2 hours for Senator Levin or his designee, 1 hour for Senator Thurmond or his designee, no second-degree amendments or amendments to the language proposed to be stricken be in order prior to a failed motion to table, and any second-degree amendment or amendment to the language proposed to be stricken be relevant to the first-degree amendment, and that following the conclusion or yielding back of time, Senator Thurmond or his designee be recognized to table the Levin amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, did the unanimous consent preclude second-degree amendments?

Mr. DOLE. No, not until after a motion to table, if it is not tabled.

Mr. LEVIN. It would be open to second-degree amendments which are relevant.

Mr. DOLE. That is correct.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Mr. EXON. Reserving the right to object, I would hope we are about to be in a place where we could agree to this. I heard the leader say that there would be no second-degree amendments. Now I understand. I was not clear.

If I understand correctly, the amendment offered under the unanimous consent agreement by the majority leader, if we agree to this time agreement, as he has just spelled out, there would be no allowable second-degree amendment to the Levin amendment until after a tabling motion.

Mr. DOLE. That is correct.

Mr. EXON. After a tabling motion, then a second-degree amendment would be in order.

Mr. DOLE. That is what we have done here the last several times.

Mr. EXON. I have no objection.

Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object for one more moment, in the event that it is not tabled, then in the event more second-degree amendments are offered, there is not in this unanimous consent any time limit on those second-degree amendments.

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.

Several Senators addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, under this time agreement I would like to yield myself 20 minutes, and I ask to be notified when that 20 minutes has expired.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, since the Senator from Ohio just spoke in favor of the amendment, I thought I would take some of our time to speak in opposition to the amendment.

It seems to me that the arguments in favor of the amendment boil down to three: First of all, variations of the theme of the ABM Treaty is relatively sacrosanct; second, we have to do everything possible to avoid riling the Russians, doing something they may not like; and, third, that we should not limit the power of the President.

Let me discuss each of those arguments in turn. First of all, regarding the 1972 ABM Treaty, I think it is important to recognize that the ABM Treaty has, since its inception in 1972, been under the process of negotiation. There have been discussions going on between our two countries almost throughout that period of time. So the fact that we may be talking about making changes in it is nothing new, and it has never been interpreted as a breach or an anticipatory breach of treaty for the United States to be stating that we want to change a particular part of the agreement. As a matter of fact, the original ABM Treaty called for two national ballistic missile sites, not one. That was amended to one site. And one of the things that is being called for in the underlying legislation here is multiple sites.

I think almost all of us would agree that it does not make sense for us to deploy an ABM system in this country if we cannot have multiple sites. It just will not be effective. So that is our stated policy in the legislation. That is nothing new. It is nothing that the Russians should get excited about. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure what their position would be. I would not be surprised at all if they would agree that multiple sites are appropriate. So I do not think that is a big problem with the policy stated in the bill for multiple sites.

The second point under this first argument is that demarcation, as called for in legislation here, does not violate the ABM Treaty. As a matter of fact, the administration has already been demarking what is appropriate testing for a theater ballistic missile system, and has already been discussing that with the Russians.

Bob Bell, former staff member of the committee, a prominent specialist at the National Security Council, told the National Defense University that, `We have already reached an agreement with the Russians that you can shoot at a target that goes 5 kilometers per second and not have it captured as an ABM .' The problem here is, of course, that the negotiations that the administration has been engaging in went further than that, and accepted, at least temporarily, Russian demands that the proposed demarcation also include a speed limit on the United States' interceptor of 3 kilometers per second, which would in effect dumb down our system to the point where it would not be as robust as we would want it to be.

The point here is that you cannot argue demarcation per se is a violation of the ABM Treaty. The administration has done it. That has been policy. The question before us is whether or not we will in legislation demark that limit at which we can test our theater ballistic missile system since it has never been a part of the ABM Treaty. I think that is an important point for us to make. Again, the ABM Treaty only limits strategic systems. It does not limit theater systems.

All the demarcation in the Warner language does is to define the level of testing that can be engaged in for theater systems. There should not be anything wrong with that. The administration has already engaged in demarcation. As a matter of fact, in a speech before the National Defense University, again referring to Bob Bell, he ably explained that this question of identifying the demarcation between ABM and TMD has been an issue for as long as the treaty has been around, and, as a matter of fact, it has changed. One of the things he said is, what is a TMD and what is not a TMD goes back to the ratification hearings and the negotiations themselves.

During the Senate hearings on the ABM Treaty in 1972, then-Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Johnny Foster, was asked by Senator Proxmire, `Where is the line? Where is the distinction between the two?' He said, `If you shoot a missile interceptor at a target that goes faster than 2 kilometers per second, that is an ABM.'

Of course we all know that demarcation is unacceptable today. That is the point. Technology changes. It has been 23 years since the ABM Treaty was adopted.

What we are trying to do in this legislation is to keep up with the times. As a matter of fact, our own Defense Department has made the point that the treaty has not kept up with the times, and the gentleman who is now the CIA Director, John Deutch, has made the point that the treaty, the ABM Treaty, constrains us in ways that technology should not anymore. And, as a result, it seems to the committee--and it seems to me--that it is important for the United States to draw this demarcation so that we can test the systems that we could ultimately deploy against theater threats.

Why is it important to have the language in the bill? Because the administration in effect proposes to dumb down our TMD. And that is the problem. In both the Patriot system and the THAAD system earlier, we dumbed them down. The reason the Patriot could not be any more successful in the gulf war was because of decisions made right after the ABM Treaty that in effect preclude the use of certain sensors to enable it to be more robust.

We have done the same thing with the THAAD system in taking out certain software and making certain hardware changes that precluded it from being as robust as it otherwise would be in meeting these threats. We cannot do this anymore. And we should not dumb down our TMD system.

Our demarcation language in the bill merely proscribes tests against strategic missiles, as I said, and that enables us then to continue to test the theater system in a way that would make it effective against future threats.

Let me quote, as a matter of fact, from General Shalikashvili. He has been quoted before. Let me first of all quote a January 3 memo to Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch. Here is what he said General Shalikashvili said:

The United States should make no further concessions and even start thinking about rolling back the U.S. negotiating position.

The reason that General Shalikashvili, I believe, made that statement is because he understood that the position that Bob Bell had negotiated with the Russians that I referred to earlier was as far as this country should go; that if we went any further, we would arbitrarily be putting limits on our theater systems in ways that we should not do. That would make them less capable of meeting future threats. That is why he said at that time that we should make no further concessions and even start thinking about rolling back the U.S. negotiating position.

That is the real position of General Shalikashvili. That is the position which is embodied in this legislation, to make no further concessions with regard to this demarcation.

Finally, with respect to this argument that the ABM Treaty is sort of sacrosanct, I want to make this point. There is no anticipatory breach in the bill at all because, of course, there are two specific conditions. No. 1, there can be amendments to the ABM Treaty. That is all we are suggesting should eventually occur here. But it is suggested that maybe the Russians will not agree with the policies stated in the bill, and they will not agree to those negotiations or to our position.

The United States can always withdraw from the ABM Treaty after having given 6 months' notice if that is deemed to be in the interest of the United States. So should we deem it to be in the interest of the United States to act in ways that the Russians would deem inimical to continuation with the ABM Treaty, they can either negotiate or the United States can step out of the treaty. The bill itself does not violate the treaty.

I want to make that point crystal clear.

There is some notion that has been seeping into this debate that somehow there is still a cold war going on here.

The cold war is over. The Soviet Union, with whom we negotiated the ABM Treaty, is no longer even in existence. The threats that the theater ballistic missiles are designed to thwart are not necessarily threats emanating from the Soviet Union or now Russia but, rather, are threats coming from countries like North Korea and Iraq and Iran, and countries of that sort.

Therefore, we cannot be proscribed from acting against those threats because of an ABM Treaty with the Russians. We need to proceed to develop theater missiles that can protect the United States, protect our forces deployed abroad, and protect our allies against these theater threats, whether they come from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, or whatever. So the ABM Treaty really ought not to stop us from doing it.

The second point is that it would cause the Russians to react negatively. It would not be a reason for the United States to forego actions which are clearly in our national interest. The argument that is being made here is the same argument that was used against the Reagan initiatives that in fact today are credited with ending the cold war. Maybe the Russians will react badly to this. Well, as it turned out, by taking bold action, we were able to win peace through strength. The cold war is over because of the initiatives we took and because we did not listen to those who said the Russians might react badly to this if we do it. So I do not necessarily think that is a good argument.

I again refer to the now CIA Director, John Deutch, on the ABM Treaty. In some respects, the technology has exceeded the limits of the ABM Treaty, and we have to go forward with the technology to protect ourselves not just from Russian threats but from threats around the rest of the world. And the problem of waiting for the Russians to agree is that this is no longer a bipolar world and we have these other threats to be concerned about.

It is also, I think, an important point to make that the Russian Duma is not likely to ratify the START II Treaty in any event, and this is clear from a variety of things that come out of Russia. So to suggest that the action we take here is going to prevent Russia from ratifying the START II Treaty is not relevant.

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We need big money to carry out these reductions [in START II], and we don't have it. We do not want to ratify this treaty and then not be able to comply with its terms. We will have to wait until we see how to pay for our promises.

That is the reason--or at least that is one of the reasons--nothing to do with what we are talking about today.

Others suggest that ratification should be tied to other international issues.

The Speaker of the Federation Council, their upper chamber, Vladimir Shumeyko, said:

We closely link [START II] ratification with the overall situation existing between Russia and NATO. . . We consider the perseverance of NATO as a stumbling block to our cooperation in the era of disarmament and advancement on the road to peace.

And still others see START II as inimical to Russian interests. Viktor Ilyukhin, chairman of the State Duma Security Committee, said:

If this treaty [START II] is fully implemented, the United States will almost double its superiority, while the damage to Russia's national security will be unrecoverable.

There are many more quotations that I could cite.

The point is there are a lot of reasons why a lot of Russians do not want to ratify the START II Treaty. It is not because of what we are doing in this legislation here today.

Finally, let me just refer to this notion of anticipatory breach. If we are going to use that legal doctrine here, we also ought to refer to the equitable doctrine of clean hands.

I will not take the time here to recite the numerous instances of Soviet and Russian violations of treaties that we have negotiated, but they are numerous. And in some respects we have chosen to ignore those violations because we believe that it is important to continue the dialog and to keep the process moving. But the fact is it would be anomalous for the Russians to consider that a policy we state today that in no way involves a violation of the treaty is some kind of a big deal when they are in violation of a variety of treaties, and should my colleagues desire we can put that information in the Record.

The final argument that is given as a reason to support the amendment of the Senator from Michigan is that the language of the bill ties the President's hands. What we do here is two things. We call for a study to determine what the administration should negotiate relative to the ABM Treaty. We are not saying what the administration has to negotiate. We are saying let us have a study and pick those areas where we want to make a change. One of them I think is going to be clear. We should not go forward in this country to deploy a national defense missile system at one site. That would not make sense. So one of the items clearly is going to be let us ask the Russians to negotiate this multiple site. That is the only way we should deploy a national system. And I do not see what the problem with that is.

In the meantime, we are saying let us not use defense funds to continue, the administration should not use the 050 account to continue to make concessions to the Russians on matters that ought to be either the subject of further negotiation or at least the administration ought to come to the Senate to discuss them with us.

That is the final point I wish to make here. We have been trying for months to get the administration to work with us. That is what advice and consent is all about. And it is true that there are prerogatives of the administration that are important to be protected, and I do not want to step on those. But it is also true that the Senate has prerogatives. We have the right of advice and consent, and thus far the administration has generally ignored the position that at least those of us on this side have taken. What we are asking in this legislation is that you not go any further--in fact, we are demanding that the administration go no further in the direction of making further concessions to the Russians in ways that would limit our ability to develop our theater systems which can be used not just against Russians but against other potential threats; that they do not do that; that they not use defense funds for that purpose. That is why we are saying it is important for us to be talking to the administration.

If the administration wants to get together with us and talk about what they can do, if they want to submit the changes to the Senate, then well and good. So far that has not been the administration's position.

So with regard to the argument that we are stepping on the administration's prerogative, I would just note that the administration has been ignoring the Senate and its advice and consent prerogatives, and it is time for us to be giving a little advice and asking for the ability to consent to what the administration is doing.

Mr. President, the bottom line here is that the Armed Services Committee came up with a very good bill, and I wish to commend the chairman of the committee, Senator Thurmond, who is here; Senator Lott is a member of the committee; Senator Warner made an excellent statement here this morning in opposition to the amendment of the Senator from Michigan, and I believe that it would be in the best interests of the United States for this body to agree with the Armed Services Committee to vote down the amendment of the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.

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Notwithstanding the desire to move on briskly, I simply say that I hope, regardless of political affiliation, we will all take a very close look at what we may be about to do unless the Levin, et al, amendment, of which I am proud to be an original cosponsor, is passed.

I have been listening to the Senator from Arizona and his rather interesting remarks, and during those remarks the Senator from Arizona mentioned the names of several very prominent administration officials, including Bob Bell at the White House, National Security Council. He mentioned the present CIA Director, the former second man at the Department of Defense. He mentioned the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili.

I simply want to say that I am not indicating the Senator from Arizona has misrepresented any of the statements that those individuals have made, but I have checked, while the Senator from Arizona was addressing the Senate, with Bob Bell at the White House. Bob Bell tells me that, notwithstanding the name dropping, all of the individuals mentioned by the Senator from Arizona to substantiate his position of being against the Levin amendment is not shared by anyone in the administration including each and every one of the officials mentioned in support of his argument by the Senator from Arizona.

This is a tremendously important matter. My judgment is that this should not come down to a party-line vote.

I am afraid it is going to be a party-line vote. Maybe if we can just reach a few Republicans. I would guess at this time that we would not lose more than one or two Democratic votes, two at the most, on this side of the aisle, maybe none, which means that we Democrats are talking to five, six or seven of our Republican friends asking that they look very closely at this before they vote against the Levin amendment.

I thought it was rather ironic a couple hours ago while I was on the floor at that particular time there were four Senators on the floor. There was Senator Nunn, for whom I have great respect and with whom I have worked closely for 17 years; there was the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, my dear friend, and no one has more respect in this body, in the view of this Senator, than my friend Strom Thurmond from South Carolina; there was John Warner, who came to the Senate the same time as this Senator. And the four of us happened to be here on the floor.

There have been many very important statements made and, I thought, well thought out by Members on both sides of this issue. It is an issue that may not be clear-cut in some people's minds. For 17 years, I believe, on national defense matters I have stood hand in hand with the Senator from South Carolina, the Senator from Virginia and others. I do not know that we have been very far apart, if far at all, on many issues. I can include Senator Lott, a Member of the Senate that I work very closely with; Senator Levin; and others.

I simply say that we are at a point where I do not feel it is fair to indicate people are in bad faith on that side of the aisle on the matter. I just hope they will listen to the pleas that we are making on this side. Maybe a good way to put it is, I think they know not what they do. They are not badly intentioned. I think they know not what they do.

To put this in perspective, I would like to ask a question of the Senator from Michigan on this matter that may put this in some kind of perspective as far as this Senator sees it. Notwithstanding the protestations to the contrary, if the Levin amendment is not adopted, I feel that we have gone a long way down the road to disrupt some of the advances that have taken place over the last few years with regard to downplaying the role of dependence on nuclear devices. It is this Senator's feeling--and I am wondering to what degree this is shared by my friend and colleague from the State of Michigan. Senator Levin and I came here at the same time. We have sat side by side on the Armed Services Committee. We have generally agreed. And I would generally include him in that group of bipartisan Senators, Democrats and Republicans, that have worked hand in hand on critical defense matters.

Without losing my right to the floor, I want to ask Senator Levin this question: If your amendment striking basically the references to the ABM Treaty fails, it is the opinion of this Senator that such action, if your amendment fails, will probably end any chance of finally completing in a successful fashion the implementation of the START I treaty. In all likelihood, further, it will scuttle any chances of cooperation to obtain ratification of the START II treaty and then further eliminations of the number of nuclear warheads that were planned to follow on beyond that. I think it drives a stake through the heart of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. I think it certainly would do great harm to any chances that we have with regard to the nonproliferation treaties that we are interested in. And last and certainly not least, I would think this action very likely would go a long way to maintain a conventional forces understanding in Europe meaningful from the standpoint of seeking some form of stability in the world. All of these things, I think, have a very grave threat of extinction if we proceed in the fashion that the ABM Treaty language that the Senator from Michigan is trying to strike as it came out of the committee remains.

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is right. In my view and, even more important by far, in General Shalikashvili's view when he says in his letter to Senator Warner, the following:

With regard to broader security issues, the linkage between the ABM Treaty and the START II has been stressed repeatedly by the Russians and U.S. military representatives in many forums, including discussions with many Members of the Duma. While there are, of course, other factors that play in the Duma consideration, one must assume that unilateral U.S. legislation could harm prospects for START II ratification and probably impact our broader security relationship as well.

And it is that broader security relationship that I think my good friend from Nebraska is referring to. And I do agree with his assessment of the impact. But again, our top military officer agrees, our Secretary of Defense agrees, our Secretary of State agrees with that assessment.

Mr. EXON. I thank my friend from Michigan. Let me summarize, if I can, some of the overall problems that I see with this measure that I partially addressed in remarks this morning.

The way this came out of the committee it attacks the limits of the Nunn-Lugar proposal that has been responsible for the safe and accountable disarming of over 2,500 former Soviet Union warheads. It cuts the Energy Department nonproliferation arms control and verification funding. It recommends reconstituting our nuclear weapons manufacturing complex at untold billions of dollars, while at the same time advocating the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons testing. This last committee initiative is contrary to U.S. policy, and it is designed to scuttle ongoing comprehensive test ban negotiations and any prospect of reaching a treaty agreement.

I will have some more to say about this later on as we go into other particular issues under consideration in this bill. Let me simply say, though, I am concerned with the tone and the substance of the bill and the level of micromanagement placed on the Pentagon and the Department of Energy is unprecedented and harmful to our Nation's standing in the international community. Many of the committee initiatives are driven by a desire to defend against a superpower threat to U.S. security that simply does not exist. At the same time, when one-time enemies are now allies and the world community is committed more than ever before to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the committee bill is at odds with the reality and the strong need of amendment before it can properly serve our Nation's security interests. At a time when American leadership in the world community is strongly needed, we cannot be viewed as a nation living in the past, jousting with our imaginary dragons in order to lay claim to the mantle of being strong on defense. We are a strong country, the preeminent military power of the world by far. But we must also be forward looking and recognize that it is in our national interest as well as the interest of other nations to encourage arms control and alliances based on collective security. It is unfortunate that some feel more comfortable in an adversarial environment than in one based on cooperation and lowering of superpower antagonism.

Like a beehive, the world in 1995 has the capacity to be both dangerous and peaceful. And handled properly, the hive can be benign and capable of producing sweet honey. If agitated, however, it can become hostile and threatening. The defense authorization bill in its present form is a sharp stick ready to be jabbed into the hive. The design and intent of the bill is to agitate the world community to the ultimate detriment of ourselves. This is not the time in history to rekindle the rhetoric of the cold war. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment that will correct these and other self-defeating elements of this flawed legislation.

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Our military leaders and our intelligence services have properly identified the threats our Nation faces.

They have come before us and told us what threats we face.

We have ignored much of their counsel and drafted a bill addressed to the realities of yesterday and a dark view of a possible future tens of years away.

This provision if enacted will take a step toward abrogating the antiballistic missile treaty, scuttling the START II Treaty, and launching us back into the arms race of the cold war.

This bill includes many weapons systems designed to match a missile threat from the Soviet Union that does not exist. Due to the diligent efforts of former President Bush, President Clinton, our diplomats and Senators like Mr. Nunn and Mr. Lugar, we have been able to substantially curtail that threat, to destroy hundreds of the missiles that used to be aimed at our nations, and to divert the targeting of the others that still remain.

Since 1991, the Nunn-Lugar program has helped the states of the former Soviet Union to destroy their weapons of mass destruction and reduce the threat posed by proliferation of these weapons. This program remains an example of concise policy designed to meet an identified threat and has significantly improved our national security.

We cannot stress to the appropriate degree how important arms control efforts have been to our national security. Today, as a result of bipartisan efforts from different administrations, Russia is planning to eliminate 6,000 nuclear warheads that formerly were directed toward our Nation. That is far more than any national missile defense could hope to destroy.

It would be a shame if the other provisions of this bill caused this progress to be in vain.

Therefore, I reject the provisions in this bill that if enacted will most likely resurrect an arms race between the United States and Russia.

By unilaterally deciding what the ABM standard is in regard to missile interceptors, the Senate would disrupt the negotiating process currently underway. Not only is this an unwarranted intrusion into the normal working of foreign policy, this provision dangerously increases the risk that the ABM and other weapons treaties will be abrogated completely by the Russians.

Later this year the Russian Duma was to vote on the ratification of START II. After they see the provisions in this bill regarding the ABM treaty, and realize how we plan to have a missile defense system that could theoretically counter an attack on the United States, the incentive to destroy the thousands of weapons called for in START II will be greatly diminished.

Regardless of what we tell them, the Russians will logically be thinking, why destroy our missiles when we may need them to get through a U.S. missile defense system?

Though its proponents claim this measure will protect us from a change in Russian policy, this measure will only further destabilize our relations and cause the hardliners in Russia to question our commitment to START II.

We would be throwing away a chance to destroy literally thousands of nuclear weapons on the faint hope that we can build an impenetrable missile defense system.

To justify the national missile defense system now when the Soviet threat is gone, the supporters of this bill are countering the views of our professional military and intelligence personnel and telling the American people a threat exists elsewhere when in fact it does not.

The supporters of this bill say that North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or Libya now have or will have shortly the ability to launch a missile that can reach our shores. That is simply not the case.

The report to this bill specifically notes the possible threat from the North Korean Taepo Dong II missile, which the report claims may have the range to hit Alaska. Since this weapon is in development, we do not in fact know that this missile will be capable of that range. But with North Korea in such dire straits economically and the growing possibility of its opening, with reunification with the south increasingly likely, should we spend billions on a missile defense system that probably won't work to counter a threat that may never exist?

Our professional military and intelligence personnel, the people who have the training, the knowledge, and the access to the most sensitive of information to judge these threats, say there is no threat from any indigenously developed missile for the next 10 years. Yet the supporters of these provisions do not believe those who know the most about this subject.

This presumed threat does not justify spending the tax money of American citizens on unproven and untested antiballistic missile defense.

This bill adds $300 million this year toward a national missile defense system. In 1993, the GAO reported that the cost of such a system would total $35 billion and a CBO estimate from earlier this year pegged the cost at $48 billion. As we know from past estimates, these estimates would probably be low.

The bill calls for the deployment of this system even though it is unproven and untested.

Under the most likely of scenarios, the nuclear umbrella this would create would be a leaky one that fails to completely protect our Nation if the nonexistent threat were to become real. With nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, anything less than 100 percent certainty will not suffice.

One clear lesson from history is that in military affairs, those who concentrate their efforts on defense are bound to fail. In the 1930's and 1940's France felt secure behind the Maginot Line. Their defensive posture was outwitted and decimated by a German Army dedicated to the offensive. When it comes to threats to the United States today, the means chosen to deliver a weapon of mass destruction would very likely be something other than a missile. It may be a cliche that the best defense is a good offense, but it is also true. We should look to counter any incipient threat from rogue nations through a robust offensive capability.

If someone is intent on attacking the United States, they need not be rocket scientists to figure out our Nation's vulnerabilities. Why spend millions of dollars on missiles whose launch we can instantly trace and respond to with enough devastating force to destroy an entire civilization? No, our potential adversaries would most likely seek the path of least resistance. The delivery system posing the greatest threat is the rental truck, not a ballistic missile. We face that real threat through offensive actions against rogue nations and terrorist groups.

We can support and focus our offensive capability through intense intelligence activities, so our policymakers and military commanders know most about what countries or groups are developing weapons of mass destruction, delivery systems, and the characteristics and locations of these systems. Next, the full diplomatic and economic powers of our Nation can be used to counter the threat that may develop. Then, if the developers cannot be dissuaded in peacetime, the weapons themselves can be destroyed either preemptively or in war.

I have heard other Senators state that the United States is vulnerable to an accidental ballistic missile attack. The truth is, the situation today is the same as it has been for 30 years. We have managed to survive this long because governments have stressed proper security and operating procedures for these terrible weapons. Nations understand the gravity of a mistake when nuclear weapons are involved. That is why the launching of one of these missiles involves so many intricate, redundant steps with multiple built-in safeguards.

Yes, Murphy's law is true. Accidents can happen. But to have an accidental ballistic missile launch, several accidents must occur. Several redundant safeguard systems would have to fail all in the proper sequence at the precise moment, not just multiple failures of equipment but also multiple failures of human judgment, communication, and authority.

I am no statistician, but I bet the likelihood of all that occurring simultaneously is far more remote than other Senators have led the public to believe. It would be far more likely that an interceptor missile in the national missile defense aimed at a moving target would miss its mark. The threat of an accidental ballistic missile launch toward our shores does not meet even the lowest threshold to qualify as a legitimate threat.

Again, I say to my colleagues, we need to have a rational assessment of the threats our Nation faces. And the threat we face from a Russia with several thousand more nuclear weapons is far greater than the threat from a Russia that abides by the START II agreement.

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The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Snowe). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. EXON. I ask the Chair how much time is remaining of the time assigned to the Senator from Nebraska?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six and a half minutes.

Mr. EXON. I reserve the remainder of my time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at this time, I be allowed to yield in this order: 8 minutes to Senator Simon; 15 minutes to Senator Kerry; 8 minutes to Senator Bingaman, and that they be recognized in that order.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Illinois.

Mr. SIMON. Madam President, it was just a few days ago when Senator Byrd, in the middle of a series of votes, was acknowledged for his 14,000th vote in a row. He got up and, among other things, he said there is a growing and excessive partisanship in this body.

I was on the subway this morning with Senator Lugar, and some young eager student asked me what was different from when I came here. I said, `The body, the Congress as a whole, is more partisan than it used to be.'

I mention that because if we end up with a straight party vote on something as vital to the future of our Nation as this is, we have not done our two parties a favor. I think the Levin amendment is extremely important to the security of our country.

If we just decide we are going to abrogate the ABM Treaty on our own, we are going to interpret it the way we want to, and that is what this amendment calls for, we are going to raise fears all over the world. We are going to be playing into the hands of the Russian hardliners. No one should misunderstand that for a moment. If we pass this bill without the Levin amendment, the Russian hardliners are going to say, `We're going to have to stop this elimination of nuclear warheads. We're going to have to move in the other direction.'

Unilaterally to say this is what the ABM Treaty is going to be--and among other things in this bill it says, no U.S. official, presumably the Department of Defense, can discuss with any other country what the ABM Treaty means. That is a restriction on freedom of speech, among other things, that is unwise.

What we have is the present course where we are gradually reducing the nuclear threat, the arms threat in the world where we have moved from the great threat being nuclear annihilation, to the great threat being instability around the world, and we are going to move to a world where the threat is both instability and a nuclear threat.

Our present course reduces the nuclear danger. I happen to think we are spending way too much on arms. We are spending more than the next eight countries combined. If you take a look at the 1973 defense appropriations and add the inflation factor to it, we are spending more today than we were in 1973. That is when the Berlin wall was up, that is when we were in Vietnam, that is when we had almost twice as many troops in Europe.

I think some sensible reduction in arms expenditure is desirable and, frankly, I think even the high number requested by the administration would not be there but for the sensitivity of the President, because he was not part of the military, he does not want to look like he is antimilitary. But this $7 billion increase is just unwarranted.

On top of that, to say we are going to just unilaterally decide what the ABM Treaty means, on top of that to escalate the nuclear threat, I think, just does not make any sense at all, and it is going to waste billions and billions and billions of dollars in addition to increasing the threat to our country.

If this bill passes in substantially the present condition, then I think the President of the United States has no option but to veto it, and I will strongly urge the President to veto it.

We have to move away from an arms race. This bill, without the Levin amendment, increases the probability of an arms race.

Madam President, I yield whatever time I may have left to Senator Levin.

Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized for 15 minutes.

Mr. KERRY. Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President, I want to congratulate the Senator from Michigan and also thank the Senator from Illinois for his comments with respect to this amendment. It seems that some of our colleagues in this body, in the wake of losing the former Soviet empire and the monolith of communism as targets of their opposition, now have lost their compass. They seem unsure of where to direct their energies and our taxpayers' money, and so are struggling to find another opponent at which to throw this Nation's treasure--regardless of the costs or risks entailed.

The Soviet Union has ceased to exist, and we are well into implementation of the START I Treaty limiting nuclear weapons and on our way to a START II Treaty to dismantle strategic delivery systems and further limit nuclear weapons.

So we are on a course where the compass clearly points toward reduction in the number of nuclear weapons present in our world, toward the reduction of risk to our citizens and our society itself from an aggressor's attack, toward the control and reduction of weapons, and, indeed, toward the creation of stability in our world's political equation.

As all of us who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's understand, nuclear deterrence is built on the concept of mutually assured destruction. `They' can destroy `us,' `we' can destroy `them,' so neither chooses to destroy the other because nobody knows what would be left.

In effect, that has maintained a state of rough peace--even if an uneasy peace--since the end of World War II. Certainly there have been surrogate wars and smaller skirmishes and client-state struggles around the globe, but the great nuclear powers have never seen fit to attack each other because of the belief that the damage that would be returned would be unacceptably great.

Now, in 1995, we are no longer faced with Soviet expansionism, a Soviet desire to exploit every conceivable Western weakness, and, in every way short of initiating an all-out conflict, a Soviet desire to achieve and maintain the advantage in every competitive situation. We no longer stare across the North Pole at thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads targeted on America's cities, its industrial and military facilities, and its governmental and social lifelines. Yet in the bill that is before the Senate today, we have a provision that unilaterally abandons--and, I would argue, effectively nullifies--one of the critical ingredients that has brought us to the point where the compass is pointing in the right direction.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile--or ABM --Treaty is a keystone to this arms control progress--which already has made huge contributions to the security and safety of our Nation and its people, and offers the promise of even greater safety and security in the foreseeable future.

The bill brought before the Senate by the Republican-controlled Armed Services Committee establishes as our national policy that we will have a national missile defense system at `multiple locations,' which violates the ABM Treaty. It says that we will develop defense systems against theater ballistic missiles without regard to the ABM Treaty restrictions. It prohibits our President from even negotiating on this subject. It prohibits any interference with TMD missile testing that is self-apparently illegal under the ABM Treaty which our Nation signed and this very body ratified.

The bill before us unilaterally obliterates the ABM Treaty, Madam President.

Anyone who understands the history and psyche of the Russian people knows that they adamantly insist on realistic means of defending their nation. Fundamental to their willingness to enter into arms control agreements, and to continue to abide by them, is a requirement that their strategic weapons systems be effective in order to serve as a real deterrent to aggression against their nation, and an effective means of retaliation if that deterrence fails.

If the United States moves ahead unilaterally to build a system that can defend successfully against their strategic forces, we undo a delicate balance, and in the process almost surely destroy the willingness of the Russian nation to continue to honor arms control agreements that further damage their side of the balance-of-power equation.

Madam President, nuclear deterrence is already tricky enough. But it really has always rested on each nation's perceptions of the others' forces and of the threat that is poised against it. We hold the upper hand with respect to that today, relative to every country on the face of this planet.

Today, to break out of the ABM Treaty, or signal our intention to do so, is to invite a return to the days of suspicion and countersuspicion, and far more dangerously, to invite a diminishment of the stability of our current world order. It is not perfect, of course, but I think few would argue with the assertion that it is better than it was for the 40 years between 1949 and 1989.

We do not attack each other, because we know to do so would be to beg the ultimate destruction. But if we develop a capacity to knock down anything that could be sent at us, we have changed the threat perception--the perception of whether a balance exists--changed it in our own mind, and changed it for those who are our adversaries.

Changing the threat perception or the perception of whether a balance exists initiates the very hopscotching process that is the simple history of the entire cold war. We detonated the first atom bombs; the Soviets followed. We detonated the hydrogen bomb; they followed. We put long-range bombers in the air with nuclear weapons; they followed. We developed intercontinental ballistic missiles; they followed. We developed long-range submarines with ballistic missile capability; they followed. We developed multiple independently-targeted reentry vehicle or MIRVed nuclear warheads; they followed. Every single major episode of the cold war consisted of a first effort by the United States to develop technology that would give us an advantage. In every case, the Soviets responded by countering that advantage. After the Berlin wall fell, finally it became evident that this was an insane and vicious circle, consuming precious resources in our Nation and bankrupting the Soviet Union--in more than one respect.

But now, at long last, that threat has receded. The Soviet Union is no more. And the threat of ballistic missile attack of the United States is virtually nil--and will be virtually nil for many years.

Only Russia and China today can reach the United States with a nuclear warhead carried on an ICBM. All our intelligence agencies agree that there is no significant threat of such a missile attack today from either of those nations. Russia, while one must respect the military power still at its disposal, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, is not in any wise prepared to engage our Nation in an armed conflict. China has some strategic ballistic missile capability, but not anywhere close to enough to initiate a war with the United States. We are the only remaining superpower.

And our intelligence community further agrees that no other nation will be able to develop the ability to hit the United States with ballistic-missile-conveyed weapons of mass destruction for a minimum of 10 years.

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We see no interest in or capability of any new country reaching the continental United States with a long-range missile for at least the next decade.

Then-Acting Director of Central Intelligence Adm. William Studeman, in response to questions asked at that same hearing, replied that

No new countries have emerged with the motivation to develop a missile to target CONUS and the four that we previously identified--North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Libya--are at least a decade away.

The administration, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of State are all opposed to the missile defense and ABM provisions of this bill. Let me share the Secretary of State's letter with the Senate. In a letter to the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he says:

I am writing to you to express my deep concern over certain provisions in S. 1026. Specifically, it contains missile defense and ABM Treaty-related provisions that raise serious constitutional foreign policy and national security concerns. Unless these provisions are removed or modified, I will oppose this bill.

If enacted into law, the provisions related to missile defenses and the ABM Treaty would put the U.S. on a path to violate the ABM Treaty by developing for deployment a non-compliant, multi-site, National Missile Defense by the year 2003. Such a program is unnecessary and would place the START I and START II treaties at risk.

I know that the Secretary of Defense also has opposed these provisions.

Successive administrations, this one included, have supported the continued viability of the ABM Treaty as the best way to preserve and enhance our national security.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have the entire letter printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

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I might add, respectfully, that there are other ways to respond to a perceived threat that do not require building $40 billion systems that we do not even know will work when they are completed. We could use permissive action links; we could be negotiating harder with the Russians, and others, to take steps to prevent any kind of accidental launch; we could pursue the activities supported by Nunn-Lugar program funding, including strengthening Russian government controls over their nuclear weapons, safely and surely dismantling surplus nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and preventing technicians from transferring dangerous technologies to rogue states; we can provide for integral systems that literally destroy a missile before it is launched if someone tries to fire it without authorization.

Indeed, under the terms of the ABM Treaty, we already are allowed to develop an antiballistic missile defense system in one location, and we started to do some years ago in Grand Forks and then we decided it was too expensive and we gave it up.

But that is not the course this bill takes, Madam President. The missile defense and ABM provisions of this bill are an exercise in sheer lunacy. This is an attempt to create from thin air a reason to continue the numbingly expensive defense systems that the demise of the cold war has made superfluous--while simultaneously threatening the tremendous progress we have made in reducing the threat to our people from nuclear weapons.

The effect of this bill is to jettison the current, real, demonstrable protections of the START I and START II Treaties in exchange for spending a minimum of $40 billion to develop a system to attempt to defend our Nation against ballistic missiles--an entirely theoretical system that may or may not function as designed.

There are some Senators who have argued that we must be prepared, even if the risk is small and distant, for the possible threat of a potential aggressor nation developing and choosing to use against the United States a ballistic missile carrying a weapon of mass destruction. Others have said that the biggest risk is that some rogue nations may purchase such systems from either Russia or China. Mr. President, the fact is that if such nations wish us ill, and choose to act on those wishes, there are far less expensive, far faster, far easier, and far less technically complicated and failure-prone ways to wreak ill on the United States--ways against which a national missile defense system would be powerless to defend.

Should a rogue nation, for whatever reason, choose to pursue development and fielding of a ballistic missile system capable of reaching our Nation, that capacity is so far down the road, so prone to detection, and so capable of being preemptively neutralized if necessary, that the world should not shudder at the notion that we are somehow defenseless.

The main threats to our Nation today are from terrorists rolling bombs, nuclear or conventional, into our cities in cars or trucks, or carrying them in suitcases. Or cruise missiles launched from offshore. These are threats that the $40 billion-plus national missile defense system either cannot defend against at all, or against which the system could defend only incompletely.

The biggest threat of all, Madam President, is one right before our faces. It is the very same threat with which we have lived for the duration of the cold war, and which we finally reduced dramatically and are reducing further by the arms control treaties which are constructed on the bedrock foundation of the ABM Treaty. Trashing the ABM Treaty will rekindle the strategic/nuclear arms race with Russia, because even in its current condition of economic distress, Russia will do whatever is necessary to ensure it has an effective deterrent and retaliatory capability. Russia, at a minimum, will retarget its ICBM's and SLBM's on American cities, industries, and military installations. It will stop retiring and disassembling nuclear warheads and delivery systems. The progress toward a safer world that was so painstakingly and painfully achieved over two decades by Presidents of both parties would be demolished. Surely, in a world that lacks the Soviet empire, in a world where we do not have the same kind of threat we have lived with for the last 50 years, we do not have to turn around and create a new arms race.

Let us review the effects of this provision of the bill: In one sweeping movement, we are effectively demolishing--unilaterally--a treaty to which our Nation is a party and which this Chamber ratified. This action simply ignores procedures to withdraw legally from a treaty we determine no longer is in our best interests.

We are countenancing in law the known, deliberate violation of U.S. law.

We are pushing Russia to cease abiding by the terms of START I and halt progress to implementation of START II.

We are tying the hands of our President in terms of negotiating arms control agreements.

And we are launching this Nation on the course of spending a minimum of $40 billion for an untried, untested missile defense system that will not protect against the greatest threats of attack on this Nation.

The people of this Nation have long ago concluded that we in the Congress often make decisions and laws that make no sense to them. The provisions of this bill that pertain to missile defense and, in particular, to the ABM Treaty, result from fanning the flame of an irrational fear built on a fiction--a fiction with which none of our senior intelligence community officials agrees, and that has no basis in our foreign policy history, in our arms control history, or in current threat analysis. If the Senate approves these provisions, it will take one of the most outrageously nonsensical steps it has taken in my 11 years of service here.

I strongly support the amendment of the Senator from Michigan in deleting the offensive language from this bill. I believe Senate adoption of his amendment is absolutely essential. Without approval of this amendment, I will vote against this bill and urge all Senators to do the same. I will join with other Senators to urge the President to veto it--a step he already has indicated he expects to take if these provisions are not acceptably modified.

I believe this bill is destined for the trash heap if the amendment is not approved. I hope it will be approved by an overwhelming vote.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I opposed this bill when it was being considered in the Armed Services Committee. The main reason I did so were the provisions in the bill entitled the Missile Defense Act of 1995.

I believe these provisions will do this Nation's security more harm than good, by ensuring that START II will not be ratified by the Russian Duma.

Madam President, I am not going to repeat the analysis which Senator Levin, Senator Nunn, Senator Exon, Senator Kerry, and various others have already made about the specific provisions that the Levin amendment would strike. They are clearly the most provocative of the provisions on missile defense that the bill contains and the ones that are most certain to incite the Russians to react.

I would like, however, to ask my colleagues how we, here in this Senate, would react if the Russian Duma passed a defense bill that contained the following provisions: First, how would we react if the Russians adopted a provision that committed Russia to deploy a multisite antiballistic missile defense by the year 2003, with an interim capability by the year 1999, which constituted an anticipatory breach of the ABM Treaty and that added hundreds of millions of dollars in ruble equivalence in order to pursue that goal.

How would we react here in this Senate if the Russians adopted a provision that revived a space-based missile defense program, in the hope that it would allow Russia to dominate space in the long run, while providing a second layer of missile defense for that country?

How would we react here in this Senate if the Russians adopted a provision that unilaterally resolved the theater missile defense demarcation line at a point that would clearly make the American theater missile defense systems beyond Patriot violations of the ABM Treaty in Russia's view?

How would we react here in this Senate if the Russian Duma adopted a provision that limited President Yeltsin's ability to retire strategic weapons systems before START II is ratified by the U.S. Senate?

Finally, how would we react in this body if the Russians adopted a provision that proposed to resume hydronuclear testing with yields up to hundreds of tons of TNT, which is a level that is not usually associated with the term hydronuclear.

Madam President, if that bill were to pass the Russian Duma, the din on this floor would be deafening. Member after Member would stand up and declare that the right wing had won the internal political controversy in Russia, that the cold war was back on, and that in light of this deeply provocative attack by the Russian Duma, ratification of the START II Treaty was out of the question.

I am certain that at least 34 Senators here would dispatch a letter to the President declaring their opposition to START II, and demanding a defense supplemental bill be submitted to the Congress so we could react to what has happened.

Now, of course, if we do this sort of thing, in this defense bill that we are now considering on the floor, I presume the expectation is that the Russians would not be similarly provoked.

Madam President, I do not buy that assumption. The one thing that the Russian industrial base could effectively compete with us on is fabricating nuclear weapons and missiles. Some of that base is in the Ukraine and would have to be revived in Russia.

I, for one, do not want to take the chance that the extreme provisions in this bill will reignite the arms race. I, for one, do not want to subscribe it a double standard in our dealings with the Russians, now that the cold war is over.

The extreme and provocative actions by our so-called `conservatives' in this bill, in my view, will undoubtedly play into the hands of those who consider themselves conservative from a Russian perspective--those, in many cases, in Russia at least, who are bent on unraveling START II and other arms control efforts.

The only thing that is attempting to be conserved by this transnational alliance would be the cold war.

Madam President, I urge my colleagues, as many others have this afternoon, to support Senator Levin's effort to strike the most extreme provisions of this bill. If they are not struck, I trust that the President would veto the bill. I hope that is not necessary. I hope that we can act appropriately on this amendment and this bill can be improved to an extent that the President could sign it. Thank you. I yield the floor.

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, in sitting here in the past few moments listening to the debate, I am somewhat surprised at the level of rhetoric that is currently being used.

We heard Senator after Senator get up and say this declaration in the DOD authorization bill is one to violate the ABM Treaty, or to signal our intent to do so. They say this is a unilateral abrogation of the treaty against a fictional threat.

I point out to my colleagues that nothing in this bill calls for the abrogation of the ABM Treaty. Nothing in this bill calls for us to violate the treaty.

Fictional threat? I wonder how our supporters on the other side feel about the fictional threat that was launched against the state of Israel? What if the state of Israel had no defensive systems? What if they had no Patriots to defend against the Scud missile?

I wonder how many would take the floor and say it is tough luck that they are out of business. All we had to have is a few Scud missiles carrying chemical warheads land in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem and wipe out their populations. They had no defensive mechanism available against it.

We are talking about something quite different in terms of ICBM threats. I recall the debate on the threat from Iraq, during the debate on the Persian Gulf war. I remember those citing estimates by our CIA and our DIA and other intelligence agencies at that time. They said, we cannot give you an estimate. It could be 1 year, it could be 10 years, and we are guessing it is closer to 10 years than 1 year.

Following the war with Saddam Hussein, I think we came to an entirely different conclusion. We discovered that Saddam had achieved much greater progress toward that goal than we had been aware of.

Members on the other side say this should not be a partisan issue. Why is it that every time the Republican majority suggests a policy, it is partisan, but when everybody on that side lines up and vote against it, it is not partisan.

This is not a partisan issue. It ought to be bipartisan. We ought to say, as a body, that we are concerned about the proliferation of technology--missile technology--in the world. We are concerned when we see major powers selling technology to potential enemies. We are concerned when we see China, for example, selling technology to other countries that may pose a threat to us in the future. We ought to be concerned about the proliferation of technology that one day--and we cannot predict when that one day will be--will pose a threat to our population.

Now, admittedly, if we were to engage in a war with the former Soviet Union, that would not involve a limited attack or an accidental launch against us. That would be a massive exchange, against which there is no defense.

I am one who, at different times over a number of years, has stood on this floor opposing the notion of having a so-called dome over the United States to protect us from an all-out attack. I never believed it was possible to do so and led the effort to defeat spending money in pursuit of that kind of system.

But I have also stood on the floor with the Senator from Georgia, Senator Nunn, when he expressed concern about limited attacks, about accidental launches, about what we would do if suddenly received a message stating: `Sorry, some accidental launch has taken place. There is an ICBM headed for New York City or Washington, DC, or Los Angeles,' and all we can do is wait for it to hit?

We are talking about constructing a system that will protect against a limited attack or accidental launch and nothing more, and it is all to be done in accordance with the ABM Treaty.

The ABM Treaty as originally written called for multiple site defenses, two sites for each side. We renegotiated that treaty--at that time with the Soviets--to one site. Now we are saying, in view of the proliferation of technology, we ought to renegotiate it to allow each of us, the Russians and the United States, to have some minimal capability to protect our respective countries against an accidental launch or a limited attack. We can do that within the ABM Treaty.

The ABM Treaty explicitly anticipates `changes in the strategic situation' and provides a means to negotiate amendments to deal with such changes. It also allows for us to pull out of the ABM Treaty upon 6 months' notice.

Following what I hope will be the defeat of the Levin amendment, I intend to offer an amendment--perhaps joined by the Senator from Georgia, perhaps not--to make it clear that we intend to act in accordance with the ABM Treaty. We intend also to call upon the President to seek to negotiate with the Russians to allow each side to develop and deploy a limited system to protect our respective countries against this proliferation threat. And if the President should fail to do so, it will be my recommendation that the President come back and report to the Congress and then seek our advice as to whether or not we should continue with the ABM Treaty or at that time should indicate our desire to withdraw.

That is all within the ABM Treaty. And contrary to what is being represented here on the floor this afternoon, we are not seeking a unilateral abrogation. I do not want to see that. I hope, later on during the course of this afternoon, I can make that very clear with explicit language that will resolve any doubts about that. We want to continue to act in accord with the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty allows us to negotiate to seek amendments. We want to see if we cannot negotiate with the Russians to allow for a deployment on a land-based system with multiple sites--and the Russians would have the same right to do so--to protect us against miscalculation or accident.

Madam President, there is an assumption in all of this debate that somehow the threat will only come from the former Soviet Union. I do not make that assumption. We are concerned about what is taking place on a global basis. We are concerned about potential threats from other sources. We cannot predict who they are, where they may be, or how far along the line of technology development they have proceeded. But we cannot face our constituents in good conscience and say: `Sorry we failed to take any measures to protect you. Our only defense is to launch an all-out attack on whomever launched that missile.' That is our only option today. Is that a rational, sound option, to say if you launch one or two missiles against the United States, we end up launching ours against yours?

What we need to do is to have a limited protective system. That is what the Armed Services Committee seeks to do in this authorization. I intend, following the debate and conclusion of the Levin amendment, to offer an amendment to make that very clear.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, the language of this bill which we strike says it is the policy of the United States to deploy a multiple site national missile defense system. A multiple site national defense system is not allowed by the ABM Treaty. Period.

It also says we should negotiate. That is great. But it is very precise, and we tried to get these words out in committee and we failed. I am very glad to hear from the Senator from Maine he does not support abrogating the treaty and he will offer language making it clear we want to stay inside the ABM Treaty. That is what my amendment does. That is precisely what my amendment does, is to strike the language which says that it is the policy of the United States to deploy a multiple site system--which violates the ABM Treaty.

There is one other provision in here. The Senator from Maine talks about, `We should negotiate,' and I surely agree with him on that, too. It is stated right here in language which the amendment will strike, if it succeeds, that it is the sense of the Senate the President should cease all efforts to modify or clarify obligations under the ABM Treaty.

So while the Senator from Maine, in a way that I fully support, says he thinks we should negotiate changes in the ABM Treaty, the bill has language, which the Levin amendment will strike, which says that for 1 year pending this study the President should not seek to modify, to clarify obligations under the ABM Treaty.

So I think the amendment which the Senator from Maine says he will oppose actually gets exactly at the language which I believe he basically will oppose as well, at least from the statement he gave this afternoon on the floor, that is to make it clear we are not now going to declare we are going to violate the ABM Treaty. The purpose of the Levin amendment is to strike the language in the bill that says we are going to violate the ABM Treaty. It is clear, as you can read it. `It is the policy of the United States to deploy a multiple site system.' That is what is not permitted by the ABM Treaty. That is the language, specifically targeted, rifleshot language that we seek to remove from this bill.

Now I will yield to the Senator from Massachusetts 15 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized for 15 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Madam President, I listened to the interventions of my friend and colleague from Maine and the response from the Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, about whether the provisions in question effectively abrogate the ABM Treaty. I would like to refer to the committee report which I believe gives us an answer. The report reads, `The committee acknowledges that many of the policies and recommendations contained in the Missile Defense Act of 1995, if implemented, would require relief in one form or another from the ABM Treaty.'

It cannot be much clearer than that. This language, agreed upon by the majority of the members of the committee, acknowledges that many of the policies and recommendations contained in the Missile Defense Act of 1995, if implemented, would require relief from the ABM Treaty.

It is the purpose of the amendment of the Senator from Michigan to remove those particular provisions that would require such relief. Those who oppose his amendment want to maintain the provisions in the Missile Defense Act of 1995 which effectively will emasculate the ABM Treaty.

There is no question--certainly there was no question on the minds of any of the members of the Armed Services Committee--as to what was intended, and the Senator from Michigan has outlined in careful detail those parts of the ABM Treaty that are inconsistent with the provisions included in this bill. So we should be under no illusion about what was intended by the majority of the members of the Armed Services Committee and what the remedy will be if the amendment of the Senator from Michigan is accepted.

Madam President, during the course of the debate on the issue, some on the other side have argued that we need to build and deploy a national missile defense to protect our citizens against the accidental and unauthorized launch of Russian nuclear missiles. The Defense Department has looked at this matter. It is not a new issue. It is not a new argument. It is a matter that was considered and has been considered in its various forms over recent years in the fashioning and shaping of the START I, START II and the ABM treaties. During that consideration, the Defense Department determined that the best way to defend our Nation against accidental launches is to do two things: first, reduce the number of nuclear missiles in the Russian arsenal, thereby reducing the likelihood of an accidental launch. Republicans understood that. President Nixon understood it when he advanced the ABM Treaty. President Bush understood it when he advanced the START I and START II treaties. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the various Secretaries of Defense and State understood it as well.

There must be some new revelation that has come over the members of our committee to undermine that very basic and fundamental concept embraced by Republicans and Democrats, Presidents, Secretaries of Defense, and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They agreed that the most important thing that can be done for the security of the United States was to achieve nuclear arms reductions. These agreements were initiated and supported because Presidents over a long period of time believed that they were in the interest of the security of the American people, and of the nations of the globe.

The Missile Defense Act would undermine these achievements, the successful arms reductions negotiated in START I and START II. We have been warned of that. The Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of State have outlined the statements, comments, and conditions of Russian leaders that indicate they would not go forward to ratify START II if the ABM Treaty is abrogated.

Before taking the second step to protect our Nation against the unauthorized or accidental launch of nuclear missiles one must understand that the Soviet Union is not our adversary and that it is not our ally. We can expect one form of conduct from our adversary and another from our ally. But the Soviet Union is neither.

So the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs have recognized a second step, which they have put into practice, that will be further undermined if the Levin amendment is not agreed to, and that is to work cooperatively with the Russians to assure firm command and control over our respective forces. For example, in 1994 we reached the nuclear detargeting agreement with the Russians. We agreed that our nuclear missiles deployed in silos or on submarines would not be targeted against each other--an important step.

The Russian missiles are not targeted against us today. I do not want to see them retarget their missiles on our territory because they have additional concern about the United States breaking out of the ABM Treaty. Our friends on the other side cannot guarantee that. We cannot, as supporters of the Levin amendment, guarantee it. But we can say with some degree of predictability that the arguments for changing that policy of retargeting and increasing instability are further advanced by the defeat of the Levin amendment.

We agreed in 1994 that we would change the targeting of our missiles both on land and on the seas, and, in that way, if there were an accidental launch of a Russian nuclear missile, it would not land on United States cities but harmlessly in the ocean. We achieved this important agreement through cooperative discussions, not by mandates such as those included in this particular proposal that would mandate the President's negotiating position on the demarcation between theater missile defenses and strategic defenses. We get it through cooperative methods, not by sending bulletins to the Russians. We did it through cooperation, and it has worked and is working, and we are safer and more secure today because of that.

How are we going to make similar progress if there is no cooperative relationship with the Russians? How are we going to do that? We have not heard an explanation of how cooperation will continue if this bill is not amended. Once again, the key to United States-Russian nuclear safety is maintaining the productive relationship we have struck since the end of the cold war: to continue with the START reductions and cooperative threat reduction efforts. And the best way to protect Americans from unauthorized and accidental launches of Russian missiles as maintained by the Defense Department is through cooperative measures, not through active defenses.

There are two efforts--continued reductions in strategic nuclear weapons and the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction programs--that we must ensure will continue. There is no question that there would be serious damage to these efforts if we allow this bill to put cooperative ventures at risk.

Finally, Mr. President, in the committee report on this bill, there is the discussion in the section on the Missile Defense Act that states that in the near term, national missile defense deployments serve to stabilize mutual deterrence by reducing prospective incentives to strike first in a crisis.

That has been an issue that has been debated by Republicans and Democrats for as long as I can remember, for as long as we have been talking about strategic nuclear weapons. That was the argument when we were looking at star wars, and it has been resurrected even with the changed world conditions.

I have great difficulty understanding the logic behind this point. If we were to deploy a national missile defense, we would be degrading the effectiveness of the Russian offensive missiles. And as anybody who follows strategic nuclear policy understands, any time you degrade the effectiveness of a nation's missiles, you shorten the fuse on those missiles in a time of crisis, you increase the incentives for the other side to strike first.

Mutual deterrence remains as the ultimate guarantor of our safety from nuclear attack. There are ways to make deterrence more stable and more secure. That is through negotiation of arms reductions and negotiations on command and control agreements that improve the safety of U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals.

I believe that is the way to go, and all of those efforts will be advanced by the acceptance of the Levin amendment.

Madam President, I strongly support the amendment to save the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty from unilateral abrogation, which would be the result if this bill is enacted in its present form. Since the United States and the Soviet Union signed this landmark treaty in 1972, it has been the cornerstone of United States nuclear arms control policy. By insuring that nuclear arsenals remain effective deterrents, the ABM Treaty has brought stability to the nuclear relationship for the past quarter century.

Unilaterally discarding the ABM Treaty would severely undermine the cooperative United States-Russian strategic relationship. Just as the United States is beginning to reap the greatest rewards from the strategic nuclear policy constructed on the foundation of the ABM Treaty, many Members of Congress want to throw it all away.

The START I and START II accords, signed by President Bush, would verifiably eliminate three-quarters of all the nuclear weapons ever pointed at the United States. Through the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction Program, the Russians are actually accepting United States help to dismantle their nuclear weapons, a situation that none of us would have dared imagine only a decade ago.

The bill's provision is a clear and present danger to the ABM Treaty. It would turn United States-Russian cooperation into mistrust. We would be discarding tangible present advances in arms control for the illusion of future security through a national missile defense system that will cost billions of dollars above and beyond the huge defense burden we already carry in this era of deep budget cuts.

The only way that opponents of the ABM Treaty could develop a rationale in support of the offending provisions in this bill is by misrepresenting the nature of nuclear threats to the United States in the post-cold war era, the value of the ABM Treaty today, and the need for building and deploying strategic defense in the near future.

Five transparent myths underlie the case for building national missile defenses and abrogating the ABM Treaty. Once the myths are exposed, the case for abrogating the ABM Treaty crumbles.

Myth No. 1 is that the ABM Treaty is a cold war relic whose value disappeared with the demise of the former Soviet Union, so that we can abrogate the ABM Treaty at no cost to United States security.

The cold war may have ended, but nuclear deterrence still remains as the centerpiece of U.S. nuclear security.

The end of the cold war and the relaxation of military tensions between the United States and the Soviet successor states have not made the ABM Treaty obsolete. The nature of nuclear weapons and their massive destructive power has not changed. No matter how much the opponents of the ABM Treaty wish it were otherwise, effective mutual deterrence is what keeps Americans safe from nuclear war.

Today, 6 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nearly 4 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the relationship between the United States and Russia is in transition. Russia is no longer our adversary, but it is not our ally either. Although we see no apparent tensions that could lead to nuclear conflict, prudence dictates that we structure our remaining nuclear arsenals to achieve the most stable nuclear deterrence possible.

The end to the hostile relationship allows us to cooperate much more extensively than in the past to solidify and stabilize nuclear deterrence at much lower levels of nuclear weapons. Over the past 6 years, we have managed to use this change in the relationship in a way that leaves deterrence more stable, and the American people safer than at any time since the beginning of the cold war.

Consider the progress we have made in recent years. In 1991, President Bush and President Gorbachev signed the START I Treaty. Two years later, President Bush and President Yeltsin signed the START II Treaty, which will reduce the number of Russian nuclear warheads pointed in our direction from 10,000 to 3,500.

In addition, through cooperative initiatives, the so-called Nunn-Lugar programs, we are working with the Russians to assist them in dismantling their nuclear warheads, thereby substantially reducing the Russian arsenal's threat to the United States and substantially reducing the likelihood that nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of renegade regimes or terrorists.

The ABM Treaty is the indispensable foundation for these steps. Abrogating the treaty would jeopardize all of these important advances, and endanger the future of United States-Russian nuclear relations.

Some argue that the ABM Treaty is obsolete because deterrence is no longer needed. They pretend that we can rely on missile defenses to protect the American people from nuclear war. This is the same preposterous argument we heard during the 1980's, when star wars was oversold as a miracle protection from the nuclear threat.

SDI never came close to meeting the standards of operational effectiveness and cost-effectiveness that the Reagan administration said would be necessary to make the transition from deterrence to defense. No technical advances since the abandonment of that ill-conceived and wasteful adventure make the reality today any different. Defense cannot replace deterrence, and we would be foolish to try it. The ABM Treaty is not obsolete. It is still the foundation for stable deterrence, and it deserves to be maintained.

The second myth is that the Russians will not mind if we abrogate the ABM Treaty. It is said that we can deploy a national missile defense and still maintain a cooperative strategic relationship with Moscow.

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Gen. John Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a June 28 letter to Senator Levin stated that undermining the ABM Treaty will make START II ratification by the Russian parliament highly unlikely. In the letter, he addresses this issue clearly. He writes:

While we believe that START II is in both countries' interests regardless of other events, we must assume such unilateral US legislation could harm prospects for START II ratification by the Duma and probably impact our broader security relationship with Russia as well.

General Shalikashvili is the top military officer in the Nation. He has had extensive contacts with senior Russian military officers. In his view, enactment of legislation that harms the ABM Treaty will damage our cooperative security relationship with the Russians at the very moment when we are trying to move forward in arms control.

Secretary of Defense Perry, in a letter to Senator Nunn, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, feels the same way. He writes that the provisions in this bill `would jeopardize Russian implementation of the START I and START II treaties, which involve the elimination of many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons.' Secretary Perry understands full well the damage this bill would inflict on U.S. security, which is why the administration strongly opposes these provisions.

The Russians themselves feel the same way. At the May summit in Moscow, President Clinton and President Yeltsin signed a joint statement that commits both nations to upholding the ABM Treaty, and to developing and deploying theater missile defense systems in compliance with the Treaty. It is reckless to think that the Russians will watch us violate this commitment without a response that will set back the cause of our mutual security.

At the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on June 29, Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Kozyrev reaffirmed the commitment of the Yeltsin government to ratify the START II Treaty, `subject to strict compliance with the ABM Treaty.'

It could not be any clearer. If we abrogate the ABM Treaty, we will not have START II, much less START III. We will not have cooperative threat reduction. And we may well not have a comprehensive test ban and other arms control agreements we need in the years ahead.

The third myth underlying the proposed abrogation of the ABM Treaty is that we face the threat of ballistic missile attack from renegade nations that will achieve this capability in the near future.

This myth squarely contradicts the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon leadership.

Lt. Gen. James Clapper, Jr., the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified before the Armed Services Committee in January that `we see no interest in or capability of any new country reaching the continental United States with a long range missile for at least the next decade.' Secretary Perry endorsed this judgment in testimony before the Armed Services Committee this year.

Concern about future ballistic missile threats to U.S. territory is the basis for the Clinton administration's research and development program on national missile defenses. This reasonable level of spending on anti-missile defenses will put the United States in a position to rapidly deploy such a defense if unforeseen threats arise in the near future. It makes sense to spend a modest amount on R&D. It makes no sense to throw billions of dollars into deploying what may be an unnecessary system sooner.

Myth No. 4 is that a multi-site national missile defense can be deployed over the next decade for a modest cost. This assertion is a fantasy. This year's bill plans to spend $671 million on national missile defense, an increase of $300 million over the administration's request. But this increment is only the tip of a very large iceberg.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, deploying a single-site national missile defense would cost $29 billion to complete and $16.5 billion of the total would be spent over the next 5 years. This estimate does not include the cost of building additional sites, which the pending bill calls for, and it does not include the cost of operating and maintaining the system once it is operational.

Other costs will be higher too. Abrogation of the ABM Treaty will doom START II, and saddle us with a nuclear stalemate with the Russians at cold war levels. We will have to maintain our strategic nuclear arsenal at its current size, not the greatly reduced level under START II. If we proceed with this bill, we will be spending tens of billions of tax dollars in a way that increases the nuclear threat to the United States. The American taxpayer was taken for a long and expensive and unnecessary ride by star wars in the 1980s. It makes no sense to repeat that experience in the post-cold war era.

Myth No. 5 is that we need to discard the ABM Treaty in order to build and deploy effective theater missile defenses to protect U.S. forces in the field. The fact is, the United States can do both. We can comply with the ABM Treaty, and we can create effective theater missile defense systems.

The ABM Treaty strictly limits development and deployment of strategic missile defenses. But it expressly allows the signers to deploy theater missile defenses. The United States is already developing advanced theater missile defenses that may have significant capability to defeat strategic offensive missiles.

As a result, the Clinton administration has entered into negotiations with Russia to determine which systems will be permitted under the ABM Treaty. By so doing, the President is using one of the key features of the treaty--its flexibility to update and revise the Treaty as developments demand.

This bill, however, prevents the effective negotiation of any boundary between theater and strategic defenses. It would deny the President the power to negotiate this clarification of the treaty in a way that will best serve our national security.

By attempting to achieve by legislative mandate what the President should negotiate, the bill will undercut the basic constitutional allocation of treaty-making powers between the President and Congress. It is wrong to legislate an ideological negotiating position while rational negotiations are underway. This step sets an extremely dangerous precedent for the future, and could result in the collapse of the ABM Treaty.

It is time to cut through the myths and misrepresentations. Our national security is at stake. It makes no sense to sacrifice real and verifiable reductions in the Russian nuclear arsenal, in exchange for a multibillion dollar national missile defense that will leave us less secure. A decade ago, we should have left star wars in Hollywood where it belonged--and that is where this senseless sequel belongs too.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Madam President, I yield whatever time remains back to the Senator from Michigan.

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The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). The Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. THURMOND. I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. SMITH. I thank the Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. President, the other side in this debate, Senator Levin and others, assert that somehow this bill is going to violate the ABM Treaty or require us to violate the ABM Treaty. Those are the terms that we have heard used--violate or require us to violate the treaty.

My friend, Senator Levin, is a very accomplished attorney, and I respect his intellect very much, but this is just patently false. There is no requirement to violate any treaty in this legislation we have written. Nothing in this bill violates the treaty, nothing. If it did, if the language in here were to violate the treaty, why does the distinguished Senator from Georgia, Senator Nunn, in comment after comment talk about an anticipatory breach down the road?

If there is an anticipatory breach down the road, the way I read that is there is not any breach yet. There is not any violation of anything. We are anticipating it. Well, you can anticipate anything you want, but the facts speak for themselves. This does not violate the ABM Treaty, period. Nothing in this bill violates the ABM Treaty. It is simply patently false to say that it does.

Now, in 2003--that is the deployment date for ground-based multiple sites--in 2003, yes, we could do that, but it is not 2003. This is still 1995 as I looked at the calendar, and I do not quite understand the logic here of how it is that we are violating something that we have not violated yet. We are anticipating a violation, but we are not violating anything. So I am having trouble understanding the semantics, and I think that is probably the intent of the opposition here, to make sure that others have trouble understanding the semantics so that we can confuse and obfuscate and hide the real truth, which is that we are not violating any treaty at all in this language.

Now, article XIII, which the Senator from Michigan and others are aware of, is very clear on this, about what our rights are under this treaty. There is nothing hidden about it. I have a copy of the treaty right here in my hand, and it says:

To promote the objectives and implementation of the provisions of this treaty, the parties shall establish promptly a standing consultative commission within the framework of which they will--

Among other things,

consider possible changes in the strategic situation which have a bearing on the provisions of this treaty.

Surely, my colleagues will admit there have been strategic changes since the fall of the Soviet Union. Second:

Consider as appropriate possible proposals for further increasing the viability of this Treaty including proposals for amendments.

We have a right to amend the treaty. And finally it says under article XV, Mr. President, that:

Each party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events relating to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests and it shall give notice of its decision to the other party 6 months prior to the withdrawal from the Treaty.

So we are not violating any treaty with this language. If someone is saying we are anticipating the violation of the treaty, fine; we can anticipate anything we want to. But it is simply wrong to say that we are violating this treaty or that we do not have the right to change this treaty or to withdraw from this treaty or whatever the parties wish to do. It is right there. It is written. It is clear. It is indisputable. It is fact.

I am kind of surprised to hear that we are going to automatically violate this treaty if we decide that we, in the United States of America, want to defend America against attack.

Well, you know what? We do not violate the treaty, but if we had to defend America I would violate the treaty--that happens to be this Senator's personal opinion--because I do not think I am worshiping at the altar of a treaty. I did not know that a treaty was forever and that we could not change the provisions.

We have the right to change this treaty. It was written to change, just like the Constitution was written with a possibility to amend it. This treaty was written to change it, to even withdraw from it if it is in the national security interests of a nation to do so.

Those are the facts. I suggest to my colleagues that the end of the cold war is just the kind of change the treaty is referring to. That is the kind of strategic change that this treaty is referring to, the end of the cold war, the end of a bipolar world. We are now in a multipolar world with threats that we do not really know how to calculate, with weapons that are different and in the hands of some who may be more inclined to use them than even the old Soviet Union. Our colleagues who support the Levin amendment, if we are to put this in perspective, are the same people who day after day, day after day, year after year, argue the cold war is over and therefore we should adapt our defense program to the changed environment.

That is a good argument. The cold war is over. We must adapt. We are adapting. We have downsized our military. We are changing some of the priorities in our weapons systems. That is fine. But why are they fighting so hard, Mr. President, to preserve the most obvious relic of the cold war, the ABM Treaty? The ABM Treaty, the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty, the relic of the cold war, deals with a bipolar world, deals with a concept of mutual assured destruction, that if one side fires at the other, the other will fire back; therefore, the first side will not fire. That is the whole logic here, but is not a bipolar world.

Does anybody believe that Saddam Hussein would be reasonable and rational, or perhaps Qadhafi in Libya? Are we dealing with rational people in some of these fundamentalist and other nations around the world today? I think not, and the American people know that.

Frankly, those who wrote this treaty knew that, that we were not always going to have the same situation in the world. The treaty is between the United States and the Soviet Union. There is no Soviet Union anymore. Even if we agree that Russia is the successor to the Soviet Union--which frankly is an open question--there are many other nations now, legitimate nations of the world that were part of that old Soviet Union. It is not just Russia. Russia is not the automatic successor to the Soviet Union.

It is clear that this treaty does not include the nations that threaten us the most. The nations that threaten us most: Libya, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Iraq, China, they did not sign the ABM Treaty. They do not have anything to do with the ABM Treaty. So why are we locked to an ABM Treaty? Why are we locked to an ABM Treaty that does not even deal with the countries that are threatening us?

The answer is very simple. We should not be. And the treaty founders, those who authored that treaty, knew it. We are not standing on the brink with Russia. In fact, Yeltsin says Russia is no longer targeting us with missiles. This is no longer bipolar. It is multipolar.

The Levin amendment would leave us perpetually locked into an outdated posture of confrontation with the former Soviet Union, the past, the cold war. Let us step into the 21st century. Let us look at the threat today, not yesterday. We have an obligation here in this Senate to look ahead, to protect the future, and this language does it. This language does it. It encourages a cooperative transition away, away from mutual assured destruction toward mutual assured security--not destruction.

The Levin amendment would leave America completely vulnerable to ballistic missile attack. It would strike this language, gut the essence of the bill, restrict our ability to make theater defenses as technologically capable as possible.

The SASC bill says all Americans deserve to be protected and ensures that our national security and theater defense programs are targeted toward the specific threats which confront us today, not yesterday.

The Levin amendment would perpetuate the policy again of mutual assured destruction, even though the cold war is over. Do not take my word for it. Henry Kissinger, who helped develop the doctrine, agrees that mutual assured destruction is no longer relevant; not even appropriate, yet Senator Levin would continue a policy that I believe is absurd, that leaves our Nation defenseless while being locked into a policy, a relic that belongs in the dustbin of history.

It is time to move on, Mr. President. It is time to move into the 21st century.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Forty-seven seconds.

[Page: S11268]

Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the Senator from Arkansas 10 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. BUMPERS. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. President, I heard the Senator from Maine a moment ago say that there is not anything in this bill that abrogates the ABM Treaty between Russia and the United States.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I cannot hear very well. Is the Senator using his microphone?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator using his microphone?

Mr. BUMPERS. I thought I was. I see it lying on the floor.

Most people say, `I heard your speech awhile ago, and when I stuck my head out the window I could really hear it.'

Is this better? I apologize.

As I was about to say, the Senator from Maine awhile ago said there was not anything in this bill that would abrogate the ABM Treaty. I do not know how more forcefully you can abrogate the treaty than to pass this bill. Now, obviously, it is not going to be abrogated until the Soviet Union gets a stomach full of this kind of stuff and withdraws from the treaty, which they have a right to do on 6 months' notice. But, first of all, I want you to look at the language of the treaty. As I said this morning, English is the mother tongue. That is what we speak. That is what we write. And here is what the mother tongue says in article I of the 1976 Protocol of the ABM Treaty. `Each party shall be limited at any one time'--limited at any one time--`to a single area out of the two provided in article III of the treaty for deployment. . .'

You see the word `single'? That means one. `Single' and `one' are the same.

Here is what the bill says. Section 233, `It is the policy of the United States to . . . deploy a multiple-site'--`multiple,' colleagues, is more than one. `. . .United States to . . . deploy a multiple-site national ballistic missile defense system.'

Section 235, two sections down, `The Secretary of Defense shall develop . . . national missile defense system, which will attain initial operational capability by the end of 2003.' It shall include `Ground-based interceptors deployed at multiple sites'--not two; maybe a half a dozen. And the treaty is very specific that we shall be limited to one.

And people have the temerity to get up on this floor and, I assume, try to deceive the American people into believing this is a perfectly harmless, innocent little bill. Oh, I wish I missed the cold war like some of my colleagues do. There are colleagues in this place that cannot sleep at night since the cold war ended and will do anything to resurrect it. There are defense contractors who cannot stand the demise of the Soviet Union. I do not know why it bothers them. We certainly have not cut defense spending any.

When the Senator from Maine mentioned the people of Israel, he was talking about a theater missile defense system which virtually every person in this body has strongly supported. We are not talking about theater missiles. We are talking about headed toward an antiballistic missile system in direct contravention of our word as a nation with our name on a treaty that either means something or it does not.

Oh, the arrogance in this bill drives me crazy. First, we will say where the demarcation line is between whether something is a theater missile or an antiballistic missile system. We will decide. And if the Russians do not like it, as we used to say when I was a kid, they can take it or lump it. We will deploy on multiple sites. And if the Russians think that violates the treaty, which it clearly does, they can take it or lump it.

This bill says `the Senate.' Now, you think about the President of the United States, who negotiates treaties and who is talking to the Russians right now about trying to resolve some of these ABM questions. What does this bill say? The Senate--not the President--the Senate will appoint a group of Senators to review `continuing value and validity of the ABM Treaty.' We will decide whether it has any value, whether it has any continuing validity. That would be insulting enough. What else do they say? This committee will recommend policy guidance, and the President--Mr. President, you will `cease all efforts to modify, clarify or otherwise alter this treaty,' et cetera, et cetera. The arrogance of a bill that says to the President, `Stop it. Quit trying to work something out. We will decide whether this treaty has value or not.'

The arguments on the other side about how this bill does not abrogate the treaty, all it does is set out a whole host of things which lead unalterably toward a flagrant violation of the treaty and abrogation of the treaty. No self-respecting nation--and Russia is one--will sit idly by while we construe the treaty any way we want to. And they are expected to sit idly by and say, `Yes, yes, yes.'

I have never heard as much third-grade sophistry in my life as I heard when the Senator from Michigan offered his amendment. On June 21, President Yeltsin submitted the START II Treaty, not negotiated by Bill Clinton, negotiated by George Bush--a good treaty. It should be ratified by both sides immediately. George Bush should say he wants it put on his epitaph that he negotiated START II. So when President Yeltsin appointed his Foreign Minister, Andrey Kozynev, and his Defense Minister, Pavel Grachev, then the President of the Russian party, to negotiate with the Duma and ratify START II, a spokesman for the Duma said:

The ratification process would undoubtedly be influenced by progress in the attainment of a Russian-American agreement on the delineation of the strategic and tactical antimissile defense system. The observance of the 1972 ABM Treaty depends on this.

The role of this treaty remains unchanged in creating conditions for cutting down strategic offensive weapons.

Can you blame Russia? Be fair-minded for about 10 seconds. That is unusual around here. But try it. Be fair-minded for about 10 seconds. If the roles were reversed, if the Russians were passing laws to abrogate the ABM Treaty, would we ratify START II? We would take it to the men's room, is what we would do with it.

Well, Mr. President, both nations have saved billions of dollars by not building antiballistic missile systems. We have a lot of Senators, I say, who just can hardly handle the end of the cold war. How many times have I stood at this desk trying to keep this Nation from spending $2 billion resurrecting a bunch of old rusty buckets called battleships. Two billion dollars. Where are they? In mothballs right where everybody knew they were going. Two billion dollars already gone.

I stood here pleading with this body, `Don't buy all these D-5 missiles, you can't possibly use that many.' And the Star Wars battle which I thought was over.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

[Page: S11269]

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 additional minutes.

Mr. BUMPERS. All I heard was, `The chiefs want it, the Secretary wants it,' and now the chiefs do not want this. They did not even want the $7 billion that was added in committee, and they certainly do not want all this language in the bill. Chairman Shalikashvili does not want it. Nobody wants it except the Armed Services Committee.

Our bombers are not on alert. Our cities are not targeted. For the first time in 40 years the American people can get a decent night's sleep. So what are we going to do? We are going to say, `Wake up, remember the good old days when you couldn't sleep at night for fear of a nuclear war? They are going to bring it back to you in spades.'

There are a lot of things wrong with this bill. I said this morning, and I say again, in my 21 years in the Senate, this is, by far, the worst defense bill that has ever been presented on this floor.

Oh, the arrogance of power. Every great nation that has indulged in the arrogance of power, as this bill does, has lived to regret it. The Senator from New Hampshire said we have not violated the ABM Treaty `yet,' `we're just going to interpret it any way we want to and we are going to build a system and we will decide where the demarcation line is.' Do you think the Russians are going to take something that they feel is prejudicial to their security? The last guy to underestimate Russia was Adolf Hitler. They are on their hunkers, but I will tell you, they will starve their people before they will be humiliated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. BUMPERS. I ask for 1 additional minute.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 1 minute.

Mr. BUMPERS. I have watched on Discovery Channel for the past 2 months and on PBS all these battles of World War II, a lot of them the Russians against the Germans. Twenty-two million Russians died. They starved to death by the thousands at Leningrad and in Stalingrad.

I am not suggesting we be afraid of Russia. I am suggesting that the world will be eminently better off if the two superpowers of this world can agree. The American people really do not understand the details of this. Do you know what the American people do? They elect you and me to do responsible things. They elect us expecting that we will know something about it and that we will protect the American people.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield to Senator Chafee 10 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I am deeply concerned over this bill's provision affecting the ABM Treaty, and I would like to discuss my support for the Levin amendment. Let me give a little bit of history.

The ABM Treaty was agreed to 20 years ago. What does it do? We hear a lot about the ABM Treaty, but what does it do? What is the key part of it? The thrust of it was to prevent the United States or the Soviet Union from gaining the ability to unilaterally --that is one side alone--to launch a ballistic missile attack against the other without the possibility of retribution. In other words, the whole purpose of the treaty was to prevent either side from employing a defensive system to shoot down incoming missiles, because that would, in effect, encourage one side to launch an attack knowing that they would be protected from any retaliation.

Since that time, the geopolitical situation in the world has changed. The Soviet Union no longer exists and the Warsaw Pact has collapsed. There has also been rapid technological advances that could not have been predicted at the time that the ABM Treaty was signed.

Given these dramatic changes, I certainly understand the interest to take a look at this ABM Treaty. It has been 20 years. It is appropriate to have modifications and to look at it again. But, the point I want to make is, the changes to this treaty, or any other treaty, for that matter, must be negotiated by the President of the United States, in consultation with his military and diplomatic advisers and, obviously, with confirmation by the Senate.

Such changes should not be dictated by the legislature, either the House or the Senate.

Let us look at what S. 1026 does in regard to the ABM Treaty. This is what it says:

It is the policy of the United States to deploy a multiple-site national missile defense system.

The ABM Treaty says each nation can only have one ABM site, one site in each nation. This says `No, no, we are changing that policy.'

It is the policy of the United States to deploy a multiple-site national missile defense system.

That policy is clearly in violation of the ABM Treaty. We are going to hear arguments back and forth, does that mandate that there be multiple sites? It can be argued both ways, and it obviously is an arguable point. But there is no question but we are declaring that it is the policy of the United States to have multiple sites.

Whether that is a mandate or not, I do not know, but certainly I do not want any part of it. We have gotten along with the ABM Treaty for 20 years. If we want changes, let us negotiate them. Let us not have them emerge from this Senate dictating in a way or declaring it is a policy to have these multiple sites.

What else does the bill we are debating today do? It prohibits `any missile defense or air defense system or system upgrade or system component that has not been flight tested in a unilateral,' and here we go ahead and define what is an ABM qualifying flight test.

Next, it goes on--here is an important point, Mr. President--it states the sense of Congress that:

. . . the President should cease all efforts to modify, clarify, or otherwise alter U.S. obligations under the ABM Treaty pending the outcome of a Senate review.

Look, who is in charge around here? Is it the Senate of the United States, or is it the President under his constitutional powers? We say, no, he cannot do anything until we have a Senate review of the treaty. How long is that going to last? It could last 3 years; it could last 10 years. During all of that time, the President's hands would be tied. I really do not think that is what we want.

The provisions of this bill constitute an unwarranted usurpation of Presidential authority to conduct foreign policy on the most sensitive of national security matters.

Mr. President, Congress simply should not be in the business of dictating to the President how to interpret, how to implement, or how to renegotiate a binding treaty of the United States. As a Republican Senator, I would never impose those kinds of conditions on a Republican President, and as a Republican Senator, I do not suggest that they should be imposed on a Democratic President.

Secretary of Defense William Perry has warned that these provisions would jeopardize Russian implementation of the Reagan and the Bush--who are they? Republican Presidents--Reagan-Bush negotiated START I and START II Treaties. These treaties involve the destruction of thousands of nuclear warheads.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Shalikashvili has similarly cautioned that the bill's ABM provisions should probably impact our broadened security relationship with Russia. I do not argue with the premise that the United States ought to pursue missile defense technologies in order to deter potential aggressors who have made substantial progress in this field. Yes, we ought to do some work in that area.

I also do not oppose appropriate modifications of the 20-year-old ABM Treaty that are negotiated by the President. But this bill simply goes too far. Congress must not legislate such specific modifications to the treaty.

So, Mr. President, I am in support of the Levin amendment and urge my colleagues to support it.

So I want to thank the Chair and thank the Senator from Michigan.

[Page: S11270]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, the amendment by the Senator from Michigan attempts to hold on to the cold war status quo that we have come to know as mutual assured destruction. But is the cold war not over?

Mr. President, the United States should not be reluctant to reassess the continuing value and validity of the ABM Treaty. The Defense authorization bill does not advocate abrogation of the ABM Treaty, but it does firmly acknowledge that the strategic and political circumstances that led to the ABM Treaty have changed.

The Levin amendment is a backward rather than a forward looking amendment. We should be looking forward and attempting to foster a new form of strategic stability that is not based on mutual assured destruction. Think about it--5 years after the end of the cold war, with all the political changes that have occurred, the United States and Russia have not fundamentally altered the strategic posture that so characterized the cold war.

All Senators should agree that the ABM Treaty is technically and geopolitically outdated. While the treaty requires the United States and Russia to remain vulnerable to each other's threats, it has the effect of requiring the United States to remain vulnerable to threats posed by other countries. Countries like North Korea are developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, while missile and nuclear technologies are practically available on the open market. Let me quote former Deputy Secretary of Defense and current Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch:

The 1972 ABM Teaty does not conform with either the changed geopolitical circumstances or the new technological opportunities of today. We should not be reluctant to negotiate treaty modifications that acknowledge the new realities, provided we retain the essential stabilizing purpose of the treaty.

It has also become clear that vulnerability to missile attack neither stabilizes nor enhances deterrence. The Persian Gulf war demonstrated this clearly. Israel, a country with an extremely credible retaliatory threat, came under repeated attack during the war. For a variety of complicated reasons Israel simply did not retaliate. Perhaps most ironic, the reason that Saddam Hussein launched missiles at Israel was precisely to provoke retaliation. Secretary of Defense Perry recognized this point in a recent speech: `The bad news is that in this era, deterrence may not provide even the cold comfort it did during the cold war. We may be facing terrorists or rogue regimes with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons at the same time in the future, and they may not buy into our deterrence theory. Indeed, they may be madder than MAD.' And yet, the amendment of the Senator from Michigan seems to deny that things have changed.

On the subject of change, let me quote Secretary Perry again: `We now have the opportunity to create a new relationship, based not on MAD, not on mutual assured destruction, but rather on another acronym, MAS, or mutual assured safety.' This is precisely what the Missile Defense Act of 1995 calls for. Its language almost mirrors Secretary Perry's statement.

We must not allow a 20-year-old treaty to prevent the United States from responding to legitimate and growing security threats. Stated simply, the ABM Treaty as it now stands prevents the United States from deploying a national missile defense system that could protect all Americans against even a limited ballistic missile attack. The authorization bill says that it is time to begin changing this. There is a real and growing threat. It will take us 8 years to develop the system called for in the bill. By that time the United States could face a variety of new and unpredictable threats, including a North Korean ICBM.

I would also point out that the ABM Treaty was meant to be a living document. Article XIII recognizes the possibility that changed circumstances would require the treaty to be modified. Articles XIV and XV provide the procedures for making such changes. The argument that this bill violates the treaty is simply false. All the means for achieving the policies and goals in the Missile Defense Act of 1995 are contained in the ABM Treaty itself.

We should also remember that the ABM Treaty was originally a multiple-site treaty. For those who so resist any change to the treaty, I would remind them that the Senate voted to amend the treaty in 1974. It did not upset the Russians then and it should not upset them today if we restore the treaty's multiple-site aspect.

In fact, the Russians have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to amend the treaty in ways that are fully compatible with the Missile Defense Act of 1995. Deployment of a multiple-site national missile defense system should not be viewed by the Russians as threatening or in any way undermining their confidence in deterrence.

There is no substantive reason why a U.S. policy to develop such a system should undermine START II, as has been argued by the Senator from Michigan. START II has plenty of problems, but the ABM Treaty should not be one of them. Allowing the Russians to use the ABM Treaty as a distraction from the real problems would be a major mistake. Among other things, it would lead Russia to believe that it has a veto over a wide range of United States national security policies. Remember that they have linked START II ratification to things like U.S. NATO policy. Is the Senator from Michigan suggesting that we hold our NATO policy hostage to START II as well?

Mr. President, let me conclude by saying that we should not try to reaffirm the cold war on the floor of the Senate 5 years after its demise. We should welcome the opportunity to establish a more normal relationship with Russia that is not a mutual hostage relationship. We should pursue what Secretary Perry termed mutual assured safety and reject the Levin amendment with its embrace of mutual assured destruction.

Mr. PELL addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield the Senator from Rhode Island 10 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.

Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I strongly support the Senator from Michigan and my other colleagues in their effort to amend the missile defense sections of the defense authorization bill.

The amendment would strike from the bill language that mandates action that would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The ABM Treaty, approved overwhelmingly by the Senate following extensive and thorough hearings by the Committee on Foreign Relations, has served in the intervening years as the centerpiece of modern arms control. The treaty has served to guarantee that neither side could threaten to neutralize the offensive forces of the other, with the result that we had years of strategic stability followed currently by major reductions in the strategic offensive arms of both sides. Various attacks have been made upon it over the years, largely by people who would prefer an unbridled strategic offensive arms race, but the treaty's benefits have been so clear that these assaults have been repelled.

The present favorable strategic arms environment has been achieved under the umbrella of the ABM Treaty. It probably would have been impossible to reach the present situation in which we are moving away from heavy dependence on strategic defensive arms were it not for the ABM Treaty.

The amendment also corrects an additional problem with the bill in that it unilaterally interprets the ABM Treaty's meaning for theater missile defenses. The bill would arbitrarily impose a demarcation line between theater and strategic missile defenses that would tie the President's hands as he is trying to negotiate this very matter with the Russians. It is those negotiations that should determine the outcome, not some arbitrary judgment in an authorization bill.

Secretary of Defense Perry noted to Senator Nunn his strong opposition to these provisions. He said, `Unless these provisions are eliminated or significantly modified they threaten to undermine fundamental national security interests of the United States.'

Secretary of State Christopher wrote me yesterday to point out that the provisions under discussion here `raise serious constitutional foreign policy and national security concerns.'

[Page: S11271]

Further, such actions would immediately call into question the U.S. commitment to the ABM Treaty, and have a negative impact on U.S.-Russian relations, Russian implementation of the START I Treaty, and Russian ratification of the START II Treaty. This would leave thousands of warheads in place that otherwise would be removed from deployment under the two Treaties, including all MIRVed ICBMs such as the Russian heavy SS-18.

There is no need now to take actions that would lead us to violate the Treaty and threaten the stabilizing reductions we would otherwise achieve--and place strategic stability at risk. We have established a treaty-compliant approach to theater missile defense that will enable us to meet threats we may face in the foreseeable future--and one that preserves all the benefits of the ABM , START and START II Treaties.

Mr. President, the Missile Defense Act portion of the bill, sections 233-235 simply does not warrant approval by the U.S. Senate. The policy it sets forth is neither realistic nor wise. It gives a sense of urgency that is not justified by any known facts.

There is no obvious danger from theater-range missiles that must be countered. As we all know, the Patriot missile system proved to be both highly effective and appropriate to the threat we faced in Desert Storm. An effort is now under way to upgrade the Patriot system over time to meet the threat in future years.

It is quite easy to overstate the missile threat this country might conceivably face, but it is important to understand that the missile technology control regime [MTCR] has done much to reduce the potential threat we will face from ballistic missiles. At present there are very few nations who have even the potential to mount new missile threats against us that could not be handled by planned systems. The provision states the policy that the United States should deploy a missile system that is highly effective against ballistic missile attacks on the United States, to be augmented over time to provide a defense against larger and more sophisticated ballistic missile threats. This proposal seems to me highly unrealistic.

Few Members of this body can seriously believe that any deployed missile system could be highly effective against any limited missile attack, much less a larger attack. While it is true that, under certain circumstances, ballistic missile defenses could shoot down incoming ballistic missile warheads, I would not wish to place a wager that no warheads would get through to bring on havoc and destruction nor would I want to risk my family or any other American lives on the supposition that any reasonable level of spending for a multiple site national missile defense system would do much of anything other than squander major parts of the national treasure.

The bill specifies that we should seek a cooperative transition to a regime that does not feature mutual assured destruction and the offense-only form of deterrence as the basis for strategic stability. This provision of the bill gives the impression that we do not understand what mutual assured destruction meant for our security during the cold war. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty essentially guarantees that neither side can develop the sort of ballistic missile defenses that would prevent the other side from effectively attacking in a nuclear confrontation. The fact of assured destruction of a mutual nature kept both sides at bay.

Since the cold war has ended, the United States and Russia have embarked upon cooperative ventures that are moving us away from the confrontations of the past. We are working with them to dismantle their weapons, to ensure the safe storage of nuclear weapons material, and to implement such agreements as START I and, prospectively, START II. If, as envisioned in this bill, the United States were to violate or abrogate the ABM Treaty, the people on both sides rather than the treaty structure itself would be victimized. Moreover, such action could sabotage the current movement toward greater cooperation and throw us back to an era of confrontation as it jeopardized prospects for continued reductions in the START process and beyond.

Under the provisions of this bill, the Secretary of Defense is directed to develop an affordable and operationally effective national defense system with an initial operational capability by the end of 2003. If all goes well, that time is just about when the major reduction of the American and former Soviet nuclear arsenals by two-thirds is to have been completed.

I doubt that any Member can contemplate a situation in which the United States would go at top speed toward deployment of a national missile defense system and the Russian response would be passive acceptance. They might well match our system. They might well deploy a larger, more capable system. They might well bring to an end the reductions that are so clearly in our own national interests. They might well engage in other activities of a bellicose nature that we would find hard to bear. And that would require reactions on our part. It could well incite an action/reaction phase in our national defense activities that would be ruinously expensive and that would, in the end, increase the dangers to us rather than permitting the present continuous reduction in the strategic nuclear threat.

To me it is important that we stop to think what it is we are doing if we follow this path. In response to an uncertain threat, a threat that has not yet materialized, and a threat that might well be handled through diplomatic efforts, we would be preparing to obligate tens of billions of dollars. We would do this in the mistaken belief that we would somehow be better protected. Whereas the truth of the matter is that, even if we were able to afford and to deploy an effective national defense structure, our potential adversaries would still have the option of sending nuclear weapons our way by air, by land, or by sea. At some point in the future if some despot were to contemplate attacking the United States with a nuclear weapon under the misbegotten notion that he would teach us a lesson, it is hard to imagine that he would be deterred if informed that we had a new national missile defense.

Mr. President, this has been a rather difficult year in which many of us have tried to come to grips with the fact that our national deficits are alarming and must be curbed. We are required by the Constitution, to `establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.' If we lose sight of the several objectives that must be met, we risk the very well-being of our country. I remember well that a distinguished predecessor, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, was fond of pointing out to the committee that the key to a sound defense is a strong economy.

A key to a sound government is a demonstrated ability to keep various activities in proper focus and proper order, so that the whole Nation, not just the defense industry, would benefit.

It will not profit us if we sink further in educational quality, if we deny more of our young people the opportunity of a good education at the elementary and secondary levels and reduce the quality of our institutions of higher education, if we increase the misery of those who have no homes and who are hungry all in the interest of saving money, only to turn around and waste it on unnecessary defenses. It does not seem a wise idea to this Senator.

It is easy to say that one is for strong defenses. All of us are pledged to support strong defenses and we will do so. But the United States will stand first among nations because it continues to be strong in all of its endeavors, keeps proper balances, and meets other standards of a great, modern nation.

Mr. President, the strategic arms competition between the United States and the former Soviet Union has dwindled away. The ABM Treaty is serving as a very stabilizing force in this promising environment. Further reductions should be achievable.

It would be extremely foolish to place all of this in jeopardy. It makes no sense to give the Russians cause to back away from their START commitments or to engage in a dangerous strategic defensive arms race. It makes no sense--when so many human needs are so obvious throughout our Nation--to jeopardize what has been achieved in controlling and reducing strategic arms and to spend billions for dubious purposes when there are so many other desperate calls upon our resources.

Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin] for his initiative. I am happy to be a cosponsor of his amendment. I hope that the Senate will once again prove its wisdom with regard to the ABM issue and vote overwhelmingly in favor of this amendment.

In conclusion, I am reminded of the question as to how we will be remembered in history, as succeeding generations look back at us, just as we often have looked back on ancient history from the floor of the Senate. I hope that we can be like Athens and not like Sparta--meaning put more emphasis on the civilian side of our economy, the economic side and the education side, and less on the military side. I yield the floor.

[Page: S11272]

Mr. DOLE. I thank the Chair.

I would like to commend the members of the Armed Services Committee who, under the able leadership of the distinguished chairman, Senator Thurmond, and the distinguished Senator from Georgia [Mr. Nunn], have done a first rate job on the defense authorization bill. In particular, I would like to congratulate the Armed Service Committee for the forward-looking Missile Defense Act contained in this bill.

The Missile Defense Act is unique because it does not just authorize appropriations for individual programs, it also provides a strategic logic--principles, premises, and policies--thereby integrating these programs into a coherent and comprehensive approach.

In my view, the approach adopted in this bill is very compelling on four important points.

First, this legislation firmly establishes the critical imperative of defending the United States of America from ballistic missiles. Morally, rationally, and constitutionally this must be our top priority.

Why is this important now? Very simply because the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them is dramatically increasing. I would like to commend the distinguished junior Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl] for highlighting this threat, as well as the need to defend America against it, in his amendment.

The Missile Defense Act notes that weapons can be acquired by our potential adversaries far more quickly than they can produce them indigenously.

Mr. President, we cannot wait around for years until this threat is literally on our doorstep. We must prepare now.

And so, I am very pleased with the national missile defense architecture established in the Missile Defense Act. This architecture includes ground-based interceptors, fixed ground-based radars and space-based sensors. The bill establishes a deployment goal of 2003 and provides an additional $300 million to support that goal. In my view, that is a good start, but frankly for something as important as defending our citizens, I would like to see an increase to ensure that we will be able to meet the 2003 date.

Second, the Armed Services Committee's bill deals with the thorny ABM Treaty questions through an intelligent two-step approach:

Step 1: It addresses what missile defenses are covered by the ABM Treaty, namely by establishing the following standard: Those actually tested against a ballistic missile with a range of over 3,500 kilometers and a reentry velocity of over 5 kilometers per second. This is the standard proposed by both Presidents Bush and Clinton. The point is that we should not drag theater systems into a treaty which was never intended to cover them.

Step 2: Contrary to wild administration accusations, the bill reviews where we go next with regard to the ABM Treaty. I think we need to set straight what this bill does and does not do.

It does not set us on a collision course with the ABM Treaty by mandating abrogation.

Indeed, it does not mandate any particular outcome.

It does recognize that an effective multiple site defense of the United States is inconsistent with the treaty as things stand today. The key here is that an effective defense requires multiple sites.

It does call for a year of careful consideration of these matters before we decide how to proceed on the ABM Treaty. The bottom line is that the bill recognizes what we all should be aware of--that mutual assured destruction, the doctrine underlying the ABM Treaty is not a suitable basis for stability in a multipolar world, nor for an improving relationship with Russia. Our goal should be, as outlined in this legislation, to seek a cooperative--and I stress cooperative--transition to a more suitable regime to this post-cold-war era.

The third aspect of this bill that is noteworthy is that it establishes a cruise missile defense initiative. In view of the fact that potential adversaries now have access, in varying degrees, to the technologies necessary to build effective cruise missiles, this measure is on the mark and reflects considerable foresight. It is my understanding that in addressing cruise missiles, the committee has in no way detracted from the emphasis placed on ballistic missiles which are a current and rapidly growing threat.

Finally, I would like to commend the establishment of a theater missile defense core program. The rationale behind theater missile defense is to deny a potential adversary the option of escalating by attacking or just threatening to attack U.S. Forces, coalition partners, or vital interests. The key elements of this core program are three systems already being pursued by the Clinton administration--namely Patriot-3, Navy lower tier, and THAAD--as well as one critical addition: Navy upper tier. The committee has wisely added $170 million to Navy upper tier.

Mr. President, just imagine trying to put together the Desert Storm Coalition if Saddam Hussein could have credibly threatened London, Rome, Istanbul, or Cairo with ballistic missiles. We cannot allow our political and military flexibility to be hindered. Therefore, our objective must be to prevent placing our forces, or those of our allies, needlessly in harm's way--with systems such as THAAD and Navy lower tier.

Furthermore, the United States must have the ability to project a regional ballistic missile defense capability where and when we need it. Navy upper tier give us that capability.

Mr. President, I would also like to note that the bill does save some money by terminating the boost phase intercept program and adding a lesser amount to explore fulfilling the same mission with an unmanned air vehicle [UAV], in conjunction with Israel. Given Israel's expertise in UAV's and its keen interest in a boost phase interceptor, this makes sense to me.

In addition I would like to emphasize that the programs and approach contained in the Missile Defense Act should be viewed as an integral part of our counter-proliferation strategy. If our adversaries know that their hard-gained missiles will be of no use against America and its allies, they may well be dissuaded from acquiring them in the first place.

Before I conclude, I would like to address the issue of how much all of this costs. It costs $3.4 billion. This is a substantial price tag, but does not represent even 2 percent of the total Department of Defense budget. More importantly, however, in considering the costs associated with missile defense, we need to keep in mind how the threat to our Nation's security and to our interests has changed.

For two centuries, oceans protected us. Now technology gives even relatively weak adversaries the hope of attacking or blackmailing the United States. This bill takes concrete steps

to protect us and sends the clear message that we will defend our homeland with our superior technology. Moreover, America has, and will continue to have, vital interests around the globe which must be protected, as well.

Therefore, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to reject the measure offered by the Senator from Michigan--or any other amendment which would weaken or threaten the Missile Defense Act.

Just let me indicate, having visited briefly with the chairman, that it is his hope, and it will happen, we will be here late tonight, and hopefully during this next vote we can line up serious amendments. Last night sort of fizzled out. Nothing very serious happened after 8:30. So tonight we would hope to have amendments up until a late hour and then conclude action on this measure tomorrow.

This is a very big amendment. It has taken a long time. It is now 5 1/2 hours into this one amendment and I think that should be, with 30 minutes to go, that should be enough time on this amendment. But this is a very substantial amendment. It is one of the more important amendments. It certainly deserves a lot of consideration.

But, again, I would just say to my colleagues in the nicest way I can, that a lot of people want to have an August recess and they would like to have it start in August. We are trying to work that out, and much will depend on the cooperation of our colleagues.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

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First I ask unanimous consent Senator Nunn be added as a cosponsor of the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, it has been said that this language in the bill is not inconsistent with the ABM Treaty. I just want to simply read the language. It speaks for itself. The ABM Treaty says that the parties undertake to deploy an ABM at no more than one site. The bill says it is the policy of the United States to deploy a multiple site defense system.

It also has been said, quoting here Mr. Deutch, that we should be willing to modify the ABM Treaty. And we surely should. Those negotiations are taking place right now. I believe we should try to modify the ABM Treaty. I would like to see a negotiated capability to deploy defenses--a negotiated capability to deploy defenses. The current Missile Defense Act provides that as something we should seek to obtain through negotiations.

But what does the bill say about negotiations and modifying the treaty? The bill says it is the sense of the Senate that the President should cease all efforts to modify the United States' obligations under the ABM Treaty. So, on the one hand, people are saying we should be willing to modify--indeed we should. We should be willing to negotiate to change it--indeed we should. And, on the other hand, there is a sense of the Senate that the President should cease until the Senate is done with its study, which will happen sometime next year. And then there is a prohibition on the spending of funds. Which, the way I think I read it, and any reasonable interpretation, is that the President may not change the demarcation line that is set forth in this bill through negotiations.

But the reading of this bill leaves, I think, only one conclusion, and that is that the treaty says multiple sites are not allowed. The bill says we will deploy--it is our policy to deploy multiple sites. I cannot think of a clearer conflict, and it should not be fudged or papered over, because I think it was the obvious intent of the sponsors of that language.

I yield the floor. I also ask unanimous consent that Senators Daschle and Kerry be added as cosponsors.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Who yields time?

Mr. THURMOND. I yield 5 minutes to the able Senator from Alabama [Mr. Heflin].

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of providing a system to protect the citizens of the United States from ballistic missile attack.

There are two parts to the Levin amendment. The first provision strikes the goal of the Missile Defense Act of 1995--a multiple site deployment designed to protect the United States. The second provision strikes the demarcation provision for theater defenses.

My concern is with the first provision of this amendment. I support deployment. I fully believe the goal of the Missile Defense Act must be to deploy defenses to protect the United States as soon as possible. As I stated many times before, I strongly believe we should act within the ABM Treaty and deploy a single site defense immediately. I also believe it is important that the administration begin serious treaty negotiations to allow the deployment of additional ABM sites. This means that the long-range goal of our negotiations with the Russians must be a multiple site, ground-based deployment.

A statement of a national policy to deploy a multiple site defense system to protect the United States is far from violating the ABM Treaty. Many of my colleagues have called this language different things, such as a statement to plan to breach or an anticipatory breach of the ABM Treaty.

By anticipatory breach I assume they mean that something like `conspiracy to agree to commit a breach of the ABM Treaty.' A breach does not ripen until it actually occurs.

The treaty clearly defines what constitutes a breach. Deploying multiple missile defense sites today would be a breach. Stating a goal of deploying multiple sites would only be a breach if there is no legal way to perform such a deployment within the confines of the treaty. Fortunately, there are two legal ways. The first is a new protocol to the treaty. This may be possible to negotiate. You do not know until you try. Remember, the original treaty allowed two sites. It was a subsequent agreement that limited us to just one site. A second option is to actually withdraw from the treaty. It is our legal right to withdraw with 60-days notice. In summary, Mr. President, while there are legal methods to deploy multiple sites within the framework of the ABM Treaty, there can be no anticipatory breach.

I further support replacing the stated goal in the committee version of the bill with a new goal calling for the deployment of a treaty compliance system coupled with immediate negotiation for additional sites. This was a goal of the bipartisan Missile Defense Act of 1991. Unfortunately, in striking out the goal of a multiple site deployment, Senator Levin's amendment also strikes out the only statement that the goal of the United States is to protect our people from a nuclear missile attack. To me, this is unacceptable.

As for demarcation provisions, I share many of Senator Levin's concerns. I believe we should leave the President the flexibility to negotiate modifications to the treaty as required with the guarantee of a Senate ratification to safeguard against unacceptable provisions.

I regret that the two distinct separate provisions are in the same amendment.

Mr. President, unless there can be some compromise--and I hope that there can be some compromise--on the goal of the Missile Defense Act I will have to vote against the Levin amendment.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, if anyone else has an amendment, we would like for them to come forth now. We are ready to go forward with this bill.

I would like for both sides to notify their Members on the hotline that we are ready to vote on this bill.

In the meantime, 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. LOTT. 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. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call not be counted against the remaining time we have left in view of the fact we only have about 4 or 5 minutes at the most left.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. EXON. 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. EXON. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Nebraska has about 5 1/2 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 6 1/2 minutes.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I rise as a cosponsor of the amendment to eliminate numerous objectionable provisions on missile defense contained in the pending authorization bill. There was no more contentious issue in the Armed Services Committee markup of this bill than the issue of missile defense. The committee was divided 11 to 10 on numerous unsuccessful votes to amend the missile defense language. There is a good reason for the controversy surrounding this section of the bill. No single issue is more deserving of amendment than this one.

The committee bill is nothing short of a power grab on the part of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The slim majority that approved the missile defense provisions in the bill is not satisfied with simply making foreign policy; it wants to override the foreign policy position of the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief and the person in which the Constitution vests the power to make foreign policy.

The committee bill in its present form moves to end our Nation's 23-year participation in the ABM Treaty and move aggressively to deploying multiple missile defense sites throughout the United States. More specifically, it defines our national missile defense policy in terms that not only abrogate our Nation's treaty obligations but also sets in motion a disastrous course of events that will profoundly threaten our national security. That is right, Mr. President, contrary to how it is being advertised by the proponents, the national missile defense system called for in this bill will harm, not enhance, our national security.

By voting our intention to break out of the ABM Treaty, we will be feeding the paranoid rhetoric of the militaristic, conservative wing of the Russian Duma looking to place Russia back in an adversarial relationship with the United States. Members of this body must not ignore the sobering consequences of breaking out of the ABM Treaty and strengthening the hand of Russian extremists. Not only will withdrawing from the ABM Treaty endanger our new alliance with Russia, it will likely sink future ratification of the START II Treaty and further implementation of the START I Treaty. The language in this bill is a dagger pointed at the heart of a whole array of arms control agreements, least of which is the ABM Treaty. It will imperil a whole generation of arms control agreements which will in turn have far-reaching consequences both domestically and internationally. It will hasten the return to a time of bigger Defense budgets, an arms race in space, larger nuclear arsenals and a general erosion of global security.

To best describe what type of national missile defense system is envisioned by this bill, I will read directly from section 233 of the bill. It states:

It is the policy of the United States to deploy a multiple-site national missile defense system that (a) is highly effective against limited ballistic missile attacks on the territory of the United States, and (b) will be augmented over time to provide a layered defense against larger and more sophisticated ballistic missile threats.

This is no different from the flawed star wars concept pushed by

President Reagan during the height of the cold war. In their rush to revive this concept of a shield against a Soviet missile attack, the committee majority is willing to trample the ABM Treaty along with START I and START II, and the START agreements that were contemplated to follow.

As a Nation, we have spent $35 billion in taxpayers' money on ballistic missile defense since 1983. The costs of implementing the type of system envisioned in the bill could easily reach or exceed that amount. No one knows for sure. A CBO report in March of this year, prepared at my request, estimates that a single site--not a multiple site, but a single site--system could cost $29 billion to complete. Additional sites necessary to provide the protective umbrella called for in the bill would cost an additional $19 billion, for a grand total of $48 billion. Is this the fiscal commitment we are ready to endorse? I think not. By voting for the missile defense provisions in the bill, that is exactly the road the Senate will be supporting--$48 billion for a Star Wars system all over again.

By the way, it may not work as advertised. After already spending $35 billion, there is no high degree of confidence that we can operationally deploy the technology capable of intercepting a large and sophisticated strike against the United States by the year 2003. I call it ridiculous. The technology is far from proven and like the Maginot Line following World War I may be the wrong defense against the emerging threat, easily circumvented by a terrorist nuclear attack employing a delivery means other than a ballistic missile.

Mr. President, Senator Levin and others have already spoken to the numerous flaws contained in this bill language. I simply ask each Senator to read the language in the bill closely before voting on the amendment. The words speak for themselves. The only proper action is to support the Levin amendment and strike the objectionable sections of this bill that have been outlined by many of us who have studied this issue.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield back any remaining time assigned to me by Senator Levin.

Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from Michigan.

I wish to thank the Senator from Nebraska, who, I might add, as a member of this committee, has fought against what seems to be the most perverse development in our military budget and planning in the last 4 years. The idea that now of all times in our history we need to overturn what was a centerpiece of two successive Republican Presidents seems to me to be a little bit bizarre. But, Mr. President, to state the obvious, I rise in support of the amendment of the senior Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin.

Mr. President, the so-called National Missile Defense Act of 1995 is a hodgepodge of contradictory provisions that, if implemented, would jeopardize our national security beyond anything that I have witnessed since I have been in the U.S. Senate. The bill before us represents a frontal assault on the ABM Treaty. I heard yesterday some sort of, how can I phrase it, interesting questions posed by some of our Republican friends--asking Senators, `Are you for missile defense? Are you for mutual assured destruction?' I would point out that the reason why we are where we are and we are dismantling missiles and we are diminishing the prospect of nuclear confrontation by super or former superpowers is because the policy of mutual assured destruction has worked pretty darn well. But I will get back to that in a minute.

This bill represents a flat, frontal assault on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. First, it would force us to violate the ABM Treaty by mandating dangerous unilateral infractions of that treaty. Then, it would jettison the entire treaty by requiring the development of a national missile defense system by the year 2003. In a final strange and, I think, unexplainable twist, it goes on to call for a select committee to review a treaty that is effectively being declared null and void by the very same bill.

Now, either the folks who wrote this into the bill do not understand what our nuclear strategy has been thus far--and I know they do--or this is incredibly poor draftsmanship or there is a perverse game being played here.

The first two parts of what is before us--not the amendment, but absent the amendment--by definition, destroy the ABM Treaty. Then the third part is to set up a select committee to review the treaty that we are legislatively destroying.

Now, I assume that may be because there is not enough work or enough committee assignments for Senators. They want to have other committees because maybe they get additional staff. I do not know. But, I mean, why in the devil do you need the third part if you are doing away with the first two parts? But at any rate, taken together, these provisions would simply eviscerate the ABM Treaty, which has provided the basis for our strategic arms reductions over the past 20 years. The most likely immediate consequence of gutting the ABM Treaty would be that the Russian Duma, their Congress, would refuse to approve the START II Treaty, which is, quite frankly, a jewel in the crown of President Bush's, and prior to that President Reagan's, foreign policy initiatives. With START II unratified, the hopes for further strategic arms reduction would be dashed--which, I might add, I think is the real purpose of this initiative by the majority. They did not like START II to begin with. They did not like START I. They do not like the idea of our having to talk about further reductions in the amount of nuclear warheads that exist in the world.

But make no mistake about it that if we pass this, why if you were sitting in the Russian Duma, why if you were a Russian or anyone else for that matter, would you conclude that it is a good idea to follow through with the destruction of your existing nuclear arsenal? Why would you do that? I think I understand. I think that is the underlying purpose of the legislation before us.

This singular achievement of the Bush administration, the START II Treaty, is the basis upon which we moved to even further reductions--and, along with it, the significant enhancement of the security of Americans that we all hoped would be the byproduct of winning the cold war. Now, I do not know what you all are going to tell your kids. I do not know what you are going to tell your family and friends after you tell them how we won the cold war, but there is a greater need for nuclear weapons.

Now they say, well, this is not about nuclear weapons; this is about the ability to prevent our being attacked by nuclear weapons. I will not go into all the science which Senator Nunn and others have talked about here, but the one thing for certain about how you deal with an ABM system is you overwhelm it. You build more offensive systems. It is a lot easier and a lot cheaper to build offensive systems than it is to build defensive systems. As an old bumper sticker from my generation used to say, `One nuclear bomb that gets through could ruin your day.' One hydrogen bomb dropping on Manhattan can ruin your day. So all you have to do, without even having the technology, is overwhelm the system. And it is cheaper to do that.

Now, I know what my friends are thinking. They say, `Boy, we have got the Russians in a great spot. They are broke. Let's take advantage here. They are not going to be able to do this.'

Well, at a minimum, folks, I do not know why they are going to go ahead and destroy what they have, if, in fact, we are going to adopt this policy. The most likely immediate consequence of cutting the ABM Treaty, as I said, will be the elimination of the START regime.

Mr. President, what troubles me most about the provisions on the ABM Treaty is their reckless unilateralism. Article VI-A of the ABM Treaty contains two provisions that have been in place for years. First, it bans both parties from giving ABM systems the capacity to counter strategic ballistic missiles; and, second, it bans testing of such systems in an ABM mode.

The bill before us would effectively collapse these two provisions into one by asserting than an ABM system is actually not an ABM system, unless it has been field tested as a system. In other words, it must have a demonstrated capacity--a demonstrated capacity--of being an ABM system.

Now, there is a reason why when we did the ABM Treaty we insisted that you violate the treaty first, if you demonstrate a capacity to set up a system, or second, if such a system could be deployed in such a capacity even if it has not been tested.

Now, it might be useful at this juncture to cite the case of Krasnoyarsk radar, which we debated for months and months on the floor of the Senate not too many years ago. Some of the same people here were on the floor then pointing out how the Russians were violating the ABM Treaty and we could not do business with them and could not trust them. Now some of the same people are here saying we should do what we told the Russians they could not do.

ABM system and constituted a violation of the ABM Treaty. The Soviets asserted that since the system had never been tested, it was permitted under the ABM Treaty.

Eventually, through the good offices of my conservative friends and some of us who joined them, the Russians tore down the radar. If, in fact, the Armed Services Committee provisions that are contained in the bill prevail, absent being amended by the Senator from Michigan, they would be able to keep the radar.

It would not be a violation of the ABM Treaty. I wonder how many of my friends over there would be saying, `You know, no problem, we understand. We think there should only be one test.'

I wonder what my friend Senator Thurmond would be saying then. I wonder what my friends over on the right would be saying. They would be apoplectic, because although it had not been turned on and demonstrated, it clearly had the inherent capability and, therefore, was in violation of the ABM Treaty.

I would like to point out to my colleagues that there is no legal basis for a unilateral amendment to the ABM Treaty. It seems like I have been fighting this, along with Senator Nunn, Senator Levin, and others, for the last decade. The Reagan administration tried a frontal attack on this in the early eighties saying, `We are going to reinterpret the ABM Treaty.' If you do not like what it says, reinterpret it. Well, we won that fight, and little did I think we would be back here having this fight.

It would be better to come out here and just declare the treaty null and void and have a Senate vote saying it contravenes our national interest to be part of the ABM Treaty any longer. At least we would be honest with the people here. At least we would be telling the truth. But this is a charade.

I point out to my colleagues, again, that there is no legal basis for the unilateral amendment of the ABM Treaty, or any other treaty, for that matter. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties serves as a source of customary international law and provides guidance in this matter. According to its provision, a treaty is to be interpreted in accordance with the ordinary meaning of its terms.

The two prongs of section 6(A) of the ABM Treaty are clear: One is aimed at constraining demonstrated capabilities, and the other is aimed at constraining inherent capabilities. In other words, this provision was intended to prevent testing against strategic missiles and development of systems that have the ability to counter such missiles.

To say that only the testing, or demonstrated capacity, standard is relevant would represent a clear departure from the obligation set forth in the treaty.

A second area in which the provisions of this bill would mandate unilateral action with regard to the ABM Treaty is defining the demarcation line between strategic and theater missiles. The bill before us would arbitrarily set that mark at a peak reentry velocity of 5 kilometers per second and an effective range of 3,500 kilometers. The so-called 5/3,500 threshold may, in fact, be a legitimate demarcation line.

Guess what? The treaty says you negotiate those things. You negotiate them. That is what the existing treaty demands.

Mr. President, these amendments to the ABM Treaty affirm that we will define unilaterally the line between a strategic missile system and a theater missile; and we will declare unilaterally our ballistic missile defenses are in compliance with the ABM Treaty. Forget the fact that the very issues are now being negotiated with the Russians. We are going to do what we want.

As my young 14-year-old daughter's friends often say, `Why don't we get real here?' Let us just declare the treaty null and void and stop this. At least that would have the integrity of allowing others to trust making a treaty with us again. At least it is straightforward, and almost every treaty including the ABM Treaty says if this is not in our national interest, the President can declare it so and we are out.

So let us not wreck the ABM Treaty. Do not wreck this President's or future Presidents' ability to negotiate treaties of consequence with people when we can come along and just redefine them midstream, when we either think the other party is extremely vulnerable or we want to do something that the treaty does not suggest.

I want to ask the rhetorical question: If we did not need an antiballistic missile system when the Soviet Union had over 12,000 nuclear warheads all aimed at the United States or things of vital interest to us, why in the devil do we need it so badly now?

As Senator Nunn explained, such a system is not the thing that is going to prevent a Qadhafi or some Third World screwball from detonating a nuclear weapon in the United States. They will bring it in by ship, smuggle it in, reassemble it in the basement of the World Trade Tower, and blow us up. They are not going to wait until they have an intercontinental ballistic capability to do it.

This is nuts, with all due respect. If there is any lingering doubt about whether the provisions I have referenced are meant to scuttle the ABM Treaty, I hope we disabuse ourselves of that.

The ABM Treaty is based on a very simple, yet powerful premise that has been tested and proven to be valid--and that is that the development of defenses against strategic ballistic missiles is inherently destabilizing. Were the Russians to develop a shield against strategic ballistic missiles, what would be our reaction? We would do the same thing they are likely to do if this provision becomes law--that is, maintain the means to overwhelm those defenses.

Or would we say, `You know, it's good for everybody, that they are now impervious to attack as long as we keep our missiles at the same number. We do not have that capability, but we are going to trust them; we have no problem.' We know we would rush to do that.

Or would we sit here and say, `My Lord, the only thing we know for sure we can do, and do it more cheaply, is build more intercontinental ballistic missiles and theater ballistic missiles, for that matter, so that no matter how many of these brilliant pebbles or whatever else is in the sky, we can just send enough in so that a few will get through.'

But we are going to expect the Russians to say, `Don't worry, we know those good old Americans would never, ever do anything like this to us; therefore, we don't have to worry. We'll continue to dismantle our missiles, and we won't attempt to do the same thing and all will be well.'

One of the first assignments I was sent on abroad was in 1978 on the so-called SALT Treaty. I was asked to take a group of new Members of the Senate to meet with Mr. Brezhnev, then the leader of the Soviet Union. We sat down and negotiated what were referred to as conditions, Senate understandings that we had attached to the SALT Treaty.

In the middle of the conversation, as I was pointing out how we would never do anything bad, Brezhnev looked at me and said through an interpreter: Let me make sure I understand this.

He said, `I would like to remind you that as bad as you think we are, we never dropped a nuclear bomb on anybody. As bad as you think we are, you are not as good as you think you are. You expect us to say we know you would never attack us with nuclear weapons when, in fact'--I am not judging whether it was right or wrong--`you have already demonstrated when your national interests are at stake, you will use atomic weapons.' That is kind of a compelling point.

If we are going to take such a brazen step as trashing a treaty that has helped to lessen the prospect of nuclear Armageddon for over two decades, you would think that there is a good reason behind it. Well, there is none that I can discern.

Instead, we are asked to accept the dubious justifications contained in a couple of paragraphs of this year's Defense authorization bill.

One justification is that mutual assured destruction and its corollary--deterrence--is no longer relevant after the cold war. That is right, folks, traditional deterrence is dead because the bill before us has declared it passe.

Mr. President, you cannot delegislate deterrence. That concept is grounded in the fundamental interaction among States.

In a continued elaboration of flawed logic, the bill goes on to assert that with traditional deterrence dead, both the United States and Russia will be encouraged to reduce their offensive strategic arsenals.

This bizarre line of reasoning reveals a failure to grasp the fundamental counter-intuitive interaction between offense and defense that gave rise to the ABM Treaty in the first place.

As long as we have a potentially adversarial relationship with Russia--in other words, as long as we are not dealing with a Canada, or a France, or a Britain--our sense of security will depend on the confidence we have in our retaliatory capability.

Anything that undermines confidence in retaliatory capability--which is what strategic missile defenses do--will increase the reluctance of one side or the other to reduce offensive strategic forces.

One implicit aspect of the bill's analysis is correct--the Russians do not have the economic means to develop an ABM system on a par with what we are capable of developing with the expenditure of a large portion of our treasure. But they do have a stockpile of surplus warheads which they could deploy to respond to our national missile defense system.

With our planned deployment of a national missile defense system, the Russians, now feeling less certain of their retaliatory capability, will opt for the next best alternative--they will ignore their remaining commitments under Start I and they will refuse to ratify Start II.

It will not end there--they are likely to begin expanding their strategic forces to overcome missile defenses. We will respond by expanding our forces and by developing even more robust missile defenses, and so on. In short, we will restart the spiral of escalating nuclear deployments that marked the worst days of East-West confrontation.

What a cruel irony that would be--after the cold war, when we could have achieved significant reductions in strategic arms--we will instead have created the kind of bankrupting, paranoia-driven arms race that the ABM Treaty sought to prevent, and, indeed, did prevent during the cold war.

Another justification for scuttling the treaty could be called the Barbarians are at the gates argument. According to this line of reasoning, there are numerous rogue States on the verge of acquiring advanced tactical and strategic ballistic missiles. And we urgently need to develop the means to counter this imminent threat to our national security.

This is a crucial matter, and one which deserves more careful analysis than has been employed to date. I know about the estimates that say that some countries are only a decade away from having long range ballistic missile delivery capability. But I question the validity of those analyses.

Many other reputable studies by experts in the field indicate that the nations causing the greatest worry to the Defense Department will not acquire long range delivery systems for the next 20 to 30 years, if ever. Even Defense Department data reveal that 97 percent of the Third World missile threat comes from theater ballistic missiles with a range of 1,000 kilometers or less.

The delivery system of choice of rogue states targeting the United States with weapons of mass destruction will not be ballistic missiles. There are plenty of ways to circumvent defenses without even using missiles. These are the threats on which we should focus our ever-scarcer resources, not on the alarmist scenarios that are being touted by the proponents of national missile defense.

If a national missile defense can be rendered ineffective by an overwhelming Russian attack, and if such a system is many times more capable than what is required to contend with the Third World theater ballistic missile threat, then we are left to ask a basic question--what are we spending tens of billions of dollars to defend ourselves from?

I think that the only logical conclusion is one that is not explicitly stated, but begins to emerge if you read carefully between the lines. The real reason for going on a crash program to develop a national missile defense system is that there are some who don't care that the ABM Treaty will be jettisoned because, in their view, arms reduction per se is not in our national security interest.

If our deployment of a national missile defense causes the Russians to abandon START II, that fits right in with their strategy. Such a move by the Russians will provide the excuse they need to argue for maintaining and perhaps even expanding a large United States strategic arsenal.

I realize that there are others who might vote for a national missile defense system because, upon first glance, it seems to be a way to render strategic ballistic missiles obsolete. I know that not everyone who supports a missile defense wants an arms buildup. Some may honestly believe that a national missile defense is a path to future arms reduction.

But I would hope that those who do want arms reduction will realize the essential paradox of defense and offense where strategic ballistic missiles are concerned. The more you try to defend, the more the other side will buildup. This has been borne out by experience. In this manner, a well-meaning attempt to reduce the effectiveness of strategic weapons by building a robust defense could have the perverse impact of leading to a new and costly arms race.

In closing, I would just like to remind my colleagues who remain skeptical about the usefulness of the ABM Treaty, that the START treaties--in which both sides have agreed to cut their strategic arsenals by a total of two-thirds--were concluded without the United States having deployed a single strategic defensive system.

The ABM Treaty has served the purpose of arms reduction remarkably well. We should seek to build upon its successes, not scuttle it for an ill-defined and perilous course.

Finally, let me say that if Senators are going to stand on the floor and say they are going to vote against the Levin amendment but they support START I and START II, then I respectfully suggest that they go read this legislation. I do not know how you can say that.

If a Senator is going to say, `I support the ABM Treaty but I am against the Levin amendment,' I suggest he or she go read the legislation before us. If a Senator comes to the floor and says, `By the way, I not only do not like the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, I do not support START I, START II, or the ABM Treaty,' then I say vote against this amendment, because then you will be intellectually honest. It is a legitimate position to take. But let us not kid the American people and the world and say we support reducing the number of nuclear weapons, we support START I, we support START II, we are even for a START III, which we are contemplating, and we are for the ABM Treaty but, by the way, we are going to vote for this legislation. You cannot do both and be intellectually honest about it.

So, as they say, pick a team, pick a side, pick a position, but do not pretend you are on both sides because you cannot be against Levin and for the ABM Treaty. You cannot be against Levin and for the START II agreement. You cannot be against Levin and for further reduction in the nuclear arsenals of the major powers in the world.

I thank my colleague from Michigan, and I yield the floor.

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The Missile Defense Act would lead to violations of the ABM Treaty in two crucial ways.

First, it would establish a deployment plan for a national missile defense. If a national ballistic missile defense were deployed, it would blatantly violate the treaty.

Second, before any national missile defense system can be deployed, it must be tested. Fully testing this type of system would violate the ABM Treaty.

The ABM Treaty is the diplomatic foundation of our intercontinental ballistic missile reduction strategy. It was possible to negotiate and ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START, which is currently being implemented, and negotiate START II, which awaits ratification by this Senate and the Russian Duma because of the strategic groundwork laid in the ABM Treaty. Abandoning or violating the ABM Treaty would threaten the strategic ballistic missile reductions under these two treaties which, when implemented, would verifiably eliminate the intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying two-thirds of Russia's nuclear warheads.

Further, abandoning our treaty obligations jeopardizes our future relationship with Russia. The Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations have worked hard to not only strengthen the strategic relationship between our nations, but economic, cultural, and diplomatic relationships as well. We have achieved measurable strategic reductions because of the foundation of trust the ABM Treaty provides. To jeopardize this trust, especially while START II waits precariously for ratification, is simply unwise. If the ABM Treaty is abandoned, the casualty may very well be the future of nuclear arms reductions with Russia.

While it is true that the ABM Treaty was ratified at the height of the cold war and that its outlook is bipolar in nature, the fact remains that the greatest ballistic missile threat to the United States is still located in Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union. The ABM Treaty gives a sense of security to the Russian government which allows them to move forward toward reducing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons under both START and START II.

Even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, has felt it necessary to declare that United States abandonment of the ABM Treaty could harm both the prospects for START II ratification by the Duma and our broader security relationship with Russia. In addition, abandonment of the treaty could threaten the continued dismantlement of nuclear weapons under START. Again, if we abandon our commitments under the ABM Treaty, we stand to lose the verified elimination of thousands of nuclear missiles currently aimed at the U.S. Our national security priority should be to greatly reduce this ICBM threat.

My support of the ABM Treaty does not negate my willingness to see a national ballistic missile defense system studied. We should continue our research and development programs for a national ballistic missile defense system and should always look toward our future defense needs.

Turning to the issue of theater missile defense, I also believe deeply that we must develop and deploy this type of system which does not violate the ABM Treaty. Development and deployment of this type of system is technologically feasible and is permissible under the ABM Treaty. Most of the theater ballistic missile defense systems currently in development and being tested are ABM Treaty compliant. In fact, the joint summit statement from the May Clinton/Yeltsin Summit delineates a set of principles that provides that both sides can deploy effective theater ballistic missile defense systems within the framework of the ABM Treaty.

Because theater ballistic missile defense is entirely possible under the ABM Treaty, is it not the better path to both maintain the ABM Treaty thus protecting the elimination of thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles under START and START II and to develop and deploy a theater ballistic missile defense system that could both protect future theater ballistic missile threats to American shores and current theater ballistic missile threats to American and Allied troops overseas?

Let us continue our research and development programs for a national ballistic missile defense, let us continue to develop and work to deploy a theater ballistic missile defense, but let us oppose abandoning the ABM Treaty and thus lose our opportunity to eliminate thousands of Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles.

It is in our national security interest to continue to support the ABM Treaty until the great threat of Russian ICBMs aimed at the United States is substantially reduced under START and START II. Until this important process is completed, let us work to deploy a theater missile defense system and continue our research towards the development of national ballistic missile defense system.

[Page: S11278]

I commend the Committee's decision to set a course for deployment of a National Missile Defense system to protect all Americans. Development of such a system is long overdue. I believe that such a deployment will actually enhance deterrence. . . The ABM Treaty is unable to help the United States deal with one of the most significant post-Cold War security threats: the proliferation of long-range ballistic missiles. In fact, the ABM Treaty now stands in the way of our ability to respond in an effective manner.

I ask unanimous consent that the entire letter be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the record, as follows:

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, is the leader ready to proceed?

Mr. DASCHLE. Yes.

Mr. LOTT. I will withhold. I understand the Senator from Texas may have some remarks, if the Senator would like to wait, or would he like to proceed?

Mr. DASCHLE. I am prepared to speak, but if the Senator has been on the floor, I am happy to defer to her.

Mr. THURMOND. How much time does the Senator from Texas want?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Two or three minutes.

Mr. THURMOND. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I think there is a fundamental issue here, and that is, as the world changes, is the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress going to continue to meet the challenges of the new world that we face today?

The world has changed since the ABM Treaty. No longer are we a bipolar world. We now know--and it has been published often in newspapers--that there are numerous countries that have nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Do they have the ability to attack the United States with these weapons? We believe that some might.

So the question is: Are we going to unilaterally disarm our ability to defend our shores from a potential attack? That is the issue. We cannot, in any way, limit our capability to meet the challenges of the post cold war, multipolar world that we are living in today.

So I hope that we will not do anything that will lessen our ability to defend our shores. We must have a theater ballistic missile defense. We must continue to go forward to make sure we have the technology to defend ourselves against any incoming missiles, or to defend our armed services in any theater in which they may be fighting. That is the core issue today.

So I hope that our colleagues understand the significance of this argument. This is not, in any way, partisan; it ought not be in any way a matter for discussion, really; it is a matter of priorities and what our leadership role is. I hope that we will put aside partisan views on this issue and look at our responsibility to defend our shores and our future generations.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Democratic leader.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.

Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the Senator from Michigan for the time.

Mr. President, I want to also thank him for offering this amendment, and I commend Senators Exon, Bingaman and Glenn for cosponsoring it. I believe that the vote on this amendment may be one of the most critical votes that we cast this year. There are many provisions in this bill that I, along with many of the people on this side of the aisle--and I suspect beyond the beltway--strongly oppose. However, perhaps the most objectionable provisions in this bill--and potentially the most damaging to the long-term security interests of the United States--are those calling for the United States to deploy multiple-site national missile defenses by the year 2003.

As Senator Levin and others have already pointed out, committing this country to deploying a multisite national missile defense system at this time would have very damaging consequences for our national security. The Levin amendment would retain the strategic policies that have kept this country safe now for a half century.

I strongly support the Levin amendment for several reasons.

First, I am concerned that any effort by the United States to deploy theater missile defenses could jeopardize several important treaties negotiated under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. For instance, the provisions could hold up implementation of the START Treaty; imperil Russian ratification of the START II Treaty, which requires Russia and the United States, as everyone here knows, to reduce their long-range nuclear weapons from 8,500 to 3,500; and possibly impact the conventional forces in Europe Treaty, which calls for the reduction of heavy weapons, such as tanks and combat aircraft throughout NATO and the former Warsaw Pact.

Second, I am concerned that deployment of national missile defenses in the United States could undermine U.S. nonproliferation efforts. For instance, China could withhold support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty if the United States violates or renegotiates the ABM Treaty.

Needless to say, Chinese resistance to the CTB could induce other regional powers to follow suit, thus eroding support for the Nonproliferation Treaty. Moreover, deployment of theater missile defenses would make other nuclear countries, like China, Britain, and France, less willing to enter into future nuclear reduction treaties.

Third, as has been pointed out several times during this debate, nothing in the treaty precludes the Department of Defense and the Ballistic Missile Defense Office from conducting the program as currently planned for at least the next year or two. Let me repeat that. The ABM Treaty will not constrain our ballistic missile defense efforts for at least the next year or two.

Therefore, we have ample time to weigh the threats this Nation faces and debate the appropriate response. We need not march off precipitously on a path that leads us to unilateral abrogation of one treaty, and the probable breaking of several others.

Mr. President, let me make it clear, I am not saying that we should never consider making changes to the ABM Treaty or any other treaty. Circumstances change and security requirements must be modified accordingly.

Even the Constitution, the greatest document drafted by this country, has been modified 26 times. What I am saying is that this is neither the time nor the manner to modify the treaty.

For all these reasons, I strongly support the Levin amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield such time as I have remaining to the author of the amendment, the distinguished Senator from Michigan.

[Page: S11279]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. One minute and eighteen seconds for the Senator from South Carolina, and 6 minutes for the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LOTT. Due to the fact that we only have 1 minute and 18 seconds, we will reserve our time to see if the Senator from Michigan would like to use the balance of his 6 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. I understand the Chair is saying there is 6 minutes remaining. I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. President, the language in the bill which this amendment would correct does three things.

First, the language sets forth a head-on clash with the ABM Treaty. Words have clear meaning by the way they have consequences, too, which we will get to in a moment.

Section 233 says it is the policy of the United States to deploy multiple site national defense missiles. The ABM Treaty prohibits such defenses. You cannot get much clearer than that without a formal abrogation document. What this bill says is the policy to do it is not allowed by the ABM Treaty.

In addition, section 235 of the bill says that to implement the policy established in that earlier section, the Secretary of Defense shall develop an affordable and operationally effective national missile defense system, which will attain initial operational capability by a specified year.

`Shall' and `will;' these are very clear and very strong words.

Second, the bill says that the line between short-range and long-range missile defenses is a specific line. We are doing it by U.S. law.

Now, it is the same demarcation which is being negotiated between Russia and us. What we are doing is usurping the negotiations and transferring them from wherever they are being negotiated to the floor of the U.S. Senate. If the Duma did that, we would not stand for it for one moment--any of us--I hope. So there is a unilateral interpretation of the ABM Treaty in this bill which would be stricken by this amendment.

Third, the bill says it is a sense of the Senate that the President shall not negotiate--these are the words--sense of the Senate the President should cease all efforts to clarify U.S. obligations under the ABM Treaty.

We have heard a lot about the need to modify. By the way, I think most would agree that the ABM Treaty should be modified. At least many of us, including myself.

Here it is said in section 237, that it is the sense of the Senate that the President should cease all efforts to modify, clarify, U.S. obligation. Both words are used--modify and clarify.

On the floor, we hear a lot about we ought to try to modify this treaty, and we should. Section 237 says the President shall cease all efforts to modify or clarify our obligations under the treaty. That section would also be stricken.

Mr. President, this language in this bill which the amendment would strike will dash the hopes of our generation for a new relationship with Russia, following the end of the cold war. That is what Secretary Perry tells us. That is what General Shalikashvili tell us.

This is why Secretary Perry has written us the following:

Certain provisions [in this bill] related to the ABM Treaty would be very damaging to U.S. security interests. By mandating actions that would lead us to violate or disregard U.S. treaty obligations--such as establishing a deployment date of a multiple-site NMD system--the bill would jeopardize Russian implementation of the START I and START II Treaties, which involve the elimination of many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons.

We cannot get much more serious than this. It has never been more important to read words in a bill than it is now because what our Secretary of Defense is telling us; that the elimination of offensive weapons aimed at us is jeopardized if we unilaterally move to trash the ABM Treaty or interpret the ABM Treaty the way this bill does.

That is why this debate is worth 5 hours--indeed, maybe 5 days. That is the seriousness of the language that is in this bill.

Then the Secretary of Defense goes on to say that, `The bill's unwarranted imposition through funding restrictions, of a unilateral . . . demarcation interpretation would similarly jeopardize these reductions . . .'

Now, we have a treaty. Treaties should mean things. They should have significance. When the Russians violated it, we tried to hold them accountable. So, I believe, the Duma will point to our action in saying that this gives them an excuse to, instead of reducing nuclear weapons, to stop those reductions, to keep the numbers where they are, and, indeed, increase them, in order to now deal with these new defenses which this bill commits us to build.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LOTT. We do have at least one more speaker. Could I ask unanimous consent we have 10 additional minutes, 5 on each side?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, does that then supersede whatever time we have left?

Mr. LOTT. It would begin now, when all existing time expires, which is within about 2 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President. We have talked about this now for 3 1/2 hours, and we have got a little bit longer to go.

I think it has been said every argument has been made on both sides by this time. When the Senator from Texas stood up and talked about this being a different world, I have to emphasize that this is a different world than it was back in 1972.

In 1972, we had two superpowers. We had the USSR and the United States, and we had a treaty that took place back then that was controversial at that time, the ABM Treaty between two parties. One of those parties does not even exist anymore. The world is totally different. The threat is not there from the Soviet Union because the Soviet Union is not there anymore.

If we stop and look at the comparison that we have today, we are living under a treaty that says that we can defend ourselves overseas, we can defend ourselves in a theater missile environment, but we cannot defend our own country.

Now, I think we have to look at it and say, is the environment we are in today a more dangerous environment than it was in 1972? I think there is some argument, very persuasive argument, that there is.

We have heard quoted several times on this floor a statement by Jim Woolsey, who is the Security Adviser to President Clinton, said that we know of between 20 and 25 nations that have developed or are developing weapons of mass destruction--either nuclear, chemical, or biological--and they are working on the missile method to deliver those weapons of mass destruction.

I think that a case can be made that the environment we are in today is far more serious, far more dangerous, to our Nation's security than it was when we could identify who the enemy was.

At that time, of course, the enemy was the U.S.S.R.

I will share with you a conversation I had with Dr. Henry Kissinger. We all know he was the architect, back in 1972, of this controversial antiballistic missile treaty. He said at that time he felt it was the right thing to do.

At that time the mutual destruction mentality that we had seemed to make sense. `We only have two countries in the world who are capable of developing and delivering any form of destruction of that nature, so let us just both make ourselves so we are vulnerable to the other one.' Maybe it made sense then. I am not sure that it did.

But the other day, in a private conversation with me--and he said it is fine to quote him--he said: For us to be living under that treaty today is insane. And he said, and this is a direct quote, `It's nuts to make a virtue out of our vulnerability.'

I do not know whether that is in the letter that the distinguished Senator from South Carolina submitted for the Record. I suggest words to that effect are there, but it is a lengthy, two-page letter. In that letter he describes it.

This is the person who was the architect of the ABM Treaty. So all I am saying, Mr. President, is today it is a different world. Today it is a world not with two superpowers but with a superpower, the United States--if we want to call ourselves that--and many other semi-superpowers or quasi-superpowers, any of which, if they have the technology, can deliver weapons of mass destruction to the United States.

I agree with Henry Kissinger; it is nuts to make a virtue out of our vulnerability, which is exactly what we have been doing.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

[Page: S11280]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment offered by the Senator from Michigan. I think this is awfully important. I know it has taken an awful lot of time on the Senate floor today, but I think it is worth the amount of time it has taken. This is an enormously important amendment. This amendment strikes the language in the bill that is brought to the floor by the Armed Services Committee that will abrogate the ABM Treaty. In my judgment, it is reckless to do what is done in this bill in a manner that will abrogate that treaty.

We had a long debate this morning on the subject of funding, $300 million added to the bill for a national missile defense system. That amendment that I brought to the floor to strip the $300 million out lost by a vote of 51 to 48. I hope we will revisit that issue in an appropriate way and we will achieve a different result. That was important.

But this is even more important. I hope the Senate, on this amendment, will understand the dimensions of this amendment offered by the Senator from Michigan. The ABM Treaty is the foundation of the arms agreements which we have reached with the Soviet Union and Russia and others. I think it is critically important that we agree to this amendment this afternoon and strike the language in the bill brought to the floor, that I think jeopardizes, literally jeopardizes, our security by weakening the arms control agreements that are now in place.

I congratulate the Senator from Michigan for a long, hard fight. I hope when the votes are counted we will find, in this circumstance, he prevails--he prevails for the good of this country and for the future of our children.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, could I inquire on the remainder of time on both sides of the aisle?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 1 minute and 33 seconds left on the majority side and 3 minutes and 50 seconds left on Senator Levin's side.

Mr. LOTT. I reserve the remainder of our time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 additional minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the cold war is over. But there are some remnants that remain, including about 8,000 nuclear warheads on Russian soil. Those warheads are being dismantled. They are being dismantled as part of the START I agreement and START II agreement. The dismantling of those warheads is critical to our security.

The Chairman of our Joint Chiefs says that the continuing dismantlement of Russian warheads that threaten us is jeopardized if we undermine the ABM Treaty. Because instead of dismantling warheads, the Russians will now be faced with the threat of defenses, which means they would be tending to increase the warheads in order to overcome those defenses.

So there are a number of treaties which are at issue. There is the ABM Treaty, but there is also a START I Treaty and a START II Treaty.

When General Shalikashvili tells us, as he has in writing, that we must assume that unilateral United States legislation could harm prospects for START II ratification by the Duma, and probably impact our broader security relationship with Russia as well, we should listen.

And when the Secretary of Defense says that the study which is referred to in this bill should be completed before we decide to deploy sites in violation of the ABM Treaty instead of vice versa--we should not be now committing to deploy multisites when they violate a treaty which we are then going to study--so what the Secretary of Defense last said is these serious consequences argue for conducting the proposed Senate review of the ABM Treaty before--underlined--before considering such drastic and far-reaching measures.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time is up. Who yields time?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, has all time expired?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is approximately 1 minute, 31 seconds on your side, approximately 1 minute and 20 seconds on the side of the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I have the authority of the majority leader to use leader time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I understand correctly what the Senator from Michigan said a minute ago--did I hear him say the `threat of defense'? The `threat of defense,' did the Senator say that?

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct. Our having defenses to the Soviets means that instead of getting rid of their offensive weapons, they will need more. That is not what I am saying, though. That is what General Shalikashvili and Secretary Perry are saying, far more important than what this Senator was saying.

Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator, but I just want the American people to think about that terminology. The threat of defense. Maybe that should be the description of what the Levin amendment is all about. Defense--who does it scare in America? Our defense scares the Russians? The MAD era is over, thank God. Let us admit it. Let us let it go. Times have changed. The threat of defense, to me, is not a scary idea.

We are not saying, do it now. We are saying, let us move forward with development, let us have some plans, let us begin some specificity, let us have enough money to really do the job. Let us not have enough money to waste. Let us have enough money to do the job. Let us have enough money to deploy.

Yes, we should be reasonable. We should think it through. But does any Senator here, or any American, think that the Senator from Maine is going to support language that is going to be dangerous and irresponsible? That is ridiculous. The Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner, who has worked on this for years and years and years and was one of the coauthors, with the Senator from Georgia, of the missile defense language of 1991, these are not irresponsible people.

Can we continue to work together to try to move into this new era to move beyond ABM ? Yes. Let us do it rationally and reasonably. But let us do it. What is this absolute infatuation, this clinging to ABM ? It is time to move on.

We have a letter from Dr. Kissinger that has been referred to. But I know a lot of Senators on both sides of the aisle have a lot of respect for Dr. Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger's letter is very telling. I am going to read every word of it because it really sums up where we are today. It is addressed to the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond. It is dated August 3. He also testified before the Armed Services Committee very clearly and very succinctly about what we should do and how we should move into the present and forget the past. This language is about the future, how do we get there and plan to get there. By clinging to ABM , are we trying to, as a matter of fact, stop a movement toward defense and start the movement toward the next generation? I fear that is what is involved.

Here is what Henry Kissinger had to say:

[Page: S11281]

This is a name, this is a voice, although sometime not understandable, one that we all recognize, that has influenced so much of what has happened in this area over the past 30 years, I guess. Yet, he takes such a strong stand. Why are we so afraid of this?

So I think that we should defeat the Levin amendment. I know there are negotiations between the Senator from Maine, Senator Cohen, and Senator Nunn, and perhaps some others for some improvements. I am always willing to look at that. I think we can do that. But first we must defeat the Levin amendment. We must move into the era of reality.

The argument has been made that the Missile Defense Act of 1995 will undermine START II ratification, and perhaps even damage broader United States-Russian relations. This argument is fundamentally rooted in a cold war view of the world. It assumes an adversarial, bipolar relationship between the United States and Russia. Essentially, it projects the United States-Soviet rivalry into the present day by suggesting that missile defenses, even limited defenses, are destablizing.

I do not believe that. Times have changed. Yes, there is some opposition to this, and there are those in the Soviet Union that will argue that the START II Treaty may be in trouble. But if it is, there is plenty of evidence that it is for other reasons: money. We have quotes from the Russians saying they just do not have the money to implement it or for them to be able to tie START II and ABM . We cannot allow that.

They have even tried to link other things to ratification of START II such as expansion of NATO, which they oppose. It is clear that Russia is willing to play the START II card on a number of issues. We must reject this linkage lest we encourage Russia to believe that they possess a veto over U.S. foreign and national security policy.

Of course, we should cooperate with Russia and not disregard their legitimate security concerns. But this is what START II ratification is all about. This agreement is manifestly in both countries interest and should not be held hostage to other issues.

Before we conclude that a U.S. national missile defense program will undermine START II, we should examine what impact such a system would actually have. In reality, the NMD system envisioned by the Missile Defense Act of 1995 would in no way undermine Russian confidence in the effectiveness of their strategic deterrent. Even a multiple-site deployment will not significantly alter Russia's ability to threaten the United States.

Given this, I believe there is no basic rationality to these connections. Even President Yeltsin himself recommended a global defense system shortly after he assumed office. During the Bush administration, there was tentative agreement between the United States and Russia on amending the ABM Treaty to allow for up to five sites and unlimited deployments of sensors, including space-based sensors. Since then, many Russian officials have reconfirmed that a limited NMD deployment would not in any way undermine their deterrent posture.

We must also recall that the ABM Treaty has already been amended once, and that the original treaty did allow for the deployment of more than one site. In fact, I think multiple sites was in the original treaty. During the negotiations that led up to the signing of that treaty in 1972, the Russians were even willing to agree to as many as 5 sites with 100 ABM interceptors each.

So there is a long history here of an understanding really of what ABM means and the recognition that we need or may need and should move toward multiple sites.

But let me begin to conclude with these two points. Why is this legislation needed? The proliferation of ballistic missiles of all ranges, along with weapons of mass destruction, poses an ever-increasing threat to the United States and its interests. I think there is a lot of evidence that shows that, even from administration officials. We must get started now if the United States is to counter these threats in time. Ten years? Is that a rush? There is an orderly plan here.

The administration has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to extend the ABM Treaty to theater missile defense systems which have not and have never been covered, as I understand it, by treaty.

What the legislation does not do is it does not signal a return to star wars. It advocates a modest and affordable program that is technically low risk. It does not violate, as I understand it, or advocate violation of the ABM Treaty. The means to implement the policies and the goals outlined in the Missile Defense Act of 1995 are contained in the ABM Treaty itself.

So I urge that we take this step. Is it a step? Yes. Is it different from last year or 2 years or 3 years ago? Absolutely. Times are different. In order to make that step, though, we must first defeat the Levin amendment.

I yield the floor, Mr. President.

[Page: S11282]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. One minute and twenty seconds.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, just last May our President and the Russian President issued a joint statement following a summit. One of those statements was that the United States and Russia are each committed to the ABM Treaty, a cornerstone of strategic stability.

That is how important the ABM Treaty is to the Russians.

Should they be afraid of our defenses? Should they be threatened by our defenses? Gosh, we do not think so because we are good guys.

The truth of the matter is they are. What is the proof of that? General Shalikashvili's statement and Secretary Perry's statement, which says flatout that if we act in this way to undermine the ABM Treaty, we jeopardize the reduction in START I and START II. So we are not afraid of defenses. We should be afraid of 8,000 Russian warheads which probably now will not be dismantled if we jeopardize a treaty which has provided some strategic stability. That is the threat to us, the 8,000 warheads which are currently being dismantled, reduced under START I and II, which now will probably not be dismantled according to two pretty important folks, Secretary Perry and General Shalikashvili. That is current evidence of what the stakes are here.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

The Senator from South Carolina controls 1 minute 26 seconds.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, has the distinguished Senator from Michigan yielded all time?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, he has.

Mr. LOTT. I believe we are ready to proceed.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, we are willing to yield back any time remaining if they are and we will proceed to a vote.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?

There is a sufficient second.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to table the Levin amendment No. 2088. The yeas and nays are ordered. The clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 49, as follows: