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NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 1996
(Senate - August 03, 1995)

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment to strike the missile defense provisions in the bill, because, if passed as is, I think this language will greatly complicate the work of our military and of our diplomats in the years ahead. I have been interested to hear that one of the reasons we have this in the bill, apparently, is because we have sent a number of letters, or some Members have sent a number of letters to the President, and did not get a response. They either got no response or one they did not like, so they decided to put it in legislation.

I can only say that I think taking that kind of action, when the leadership, in negotiating treaties and in seeing they are adhered to, is a function of the executive branch, does not ring very strongly with me, because I can remember--I could probably go back to the files and bring out a dozen or more letters I wrote during the Reagan administration, during those 8 years and during the 4 years of the Bush administration, and I may have gotten responses to some of those but certainly not to all of them. That did not mean to me that I took over what the constitutional powers of the President are and put into law things that would have tried to put my view into law, as opposed to what treaty requirements were or what treaties had been negotiated.

I say further that I think we are, obviously, talking a lot here about the demarcation between theater missile defense and national missile defense. That is a legitimate thing to try and work out. But to take over and unilaterally on the part of the Congress define language that would change the ABM Treaty or have that potential, I think, is wrong. I think we have to tread very carefully when we do that.

I think this could possibly harm our efforts to proceed with nuclear arms reduction, not just with Russia, when we try and negotiate these things with China, Britain, and France. It will raise new threats to the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, especially its cornerstone, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, NPT. It could establish an extremely undesirable new method for unilaterally reinterpreting treaties, thus setting up a precedent that will obviously be used against us in the years ahead.

I think it could establish programs that would cost us a fortune. It could divert money from military needs that are, in my opinion, much more vital to the country and ultimately leave America substantially no safer as a result. It tramples on the President's constitutional responsibilities as Commander in Chief and as the individual in charge of American foreign policy. In short, I think this would be a very bad mistake for this country.

I would like to begin with a few comments about the general level of partisanship that we have seen from the proponents of these provisions on the ABM Treaty. I hasten to add that I think missile defense should not be a partisan affair. All Americans understand that (a), the national interest may require the deployment of U.S. forces in unstable areas around the world. This bill contains some very undesirable features, I feel, that, if enacted, could greatly complicate the work of our military and our diplomats in the years ahead.

Let me talk about ballistic missile defense. So (a), the national interest may require deployment of U.S. forces in unstable regions around the world; and (b), these forces may be the targets of missile attacks, including missiles delivering weapons of mass destruction; and (c), such forces must be protected. 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.

TITLE 31

Mr. KYL. Will the majority leader yield so I may make an announcement on behalf of Senator Thurmond? This is a very important announcement for all Members of the Senate. Senator Thurmond and Senator Domenici propose to offer a substitute amendment to title 31 of Senate bill 1026. This amendment contains numerous changes. In order to allow all Senators an opportunity to review it, copies of the amendment will be available in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

I thank the majority leader for yielding.

Mr. NUNN. I believe, if I may just add to the statement of my colleague from Arizona, that is the energy section of the bill that has been worked on for 2 or 3 days.

Mr. KYL. That is correct.