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Michael Krepon, President, The Stimson Center

Ballistic Missile Defense
30 May 1996 - House Government Reform and Oversight
Subcommittee on National Security

Mr. Chairman and Members of this Subcommittee:

I welcome the opportunity to testify today on the subject of missile defenses. The topic of today's hearing is, of course, extremely timely and important. How do we best protect the citizens of our country from the dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction, while spending tax dollars sparingly and wisely?

To answer this question, we must first note that, in many important respects, succeeding administrations have made significant gains in combating and reducing the dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction:

• Extraordinary nuclear arms reduction treaties have been negotiated that are dramatically reducing deployed forces. Entire categories of weapons have been entirely destroyed or decommissioned.
• All but a very few countries have now stopped producing weapon- grade fissionable material.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has recently been extended indefinitely. Companion treaties exist for other weapons of mass destruction, although the Biological Weapons Convention requires a verification protocol, and the Chemical Weapons Convention has vet to enter into force, as it awaits the Senate's and Duma's consent to ratification.

Many states of proliferation concern have either joined the NPT or embraced equivalent constraints in recent years, most notably Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Ukraine, Kazakstan, Belarus, and Algeria.

• Most countries able to export missile and nuclear technologies have agreed not to supply states that do not adhere to non-proliferation norms.- Countries that once had ballistic missile programs of concern, such as Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa, have now agreed to adhere to the guidelines of the Missile Technology. Control Regime.
• North Korea's dangerous nuclear program has apparently been frozen, and its export of medium-range ballistic missiles to countries of proliferation concern could place in grave jeopardy foreign financing of desperately needed nuclear power reactors for civilian use.
• Saddam Hussein's programs to produce weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered. Captured weapons and key equipment have been dismantled and destroyed. Periodic inspections continue on Iraqi soil.
• A truly comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that will reinforce other efforts to devalue dangerous nuclear weapons is within reach.

This is only a partial, but quite impressive, list of accomplishments over the past decade. On the other hand, significant concerns remain, and some problems have become more troubling in recent years.

• U.S. relations with both Russia and China have deteriorated and could worsen. This is unlikely to result in ballistic missile attacks against the United States, but could easily translate into more, or more serious, transactions with states of proliferation concern.
• There are quite large and dispersed stockpiles of nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. While much progress has been made to secure these stocks, some facilities remain poorly guarded and must be inviting targets for those who wish to acquire the means of spreading nuclear terror.
• Recent gains in states such as North Korea and Iraq are not set in concrete. Reverses could occur at any time. Other states, such as Iran, Libya and Syria, stubbornly remain outside of international norms. While these states are unlikely to acquire intercontinental ballistic missiles, they have other means of causing harm. - While most regions are moving away from proliferation, South Asia is moving in the wrong direction.
• Chemical and biological weapons are easier to acquire than nuclear weapons. The first use of crude chemical weapons as an instrument of urban terror by a subnational group occurred one year ago in Japan--a very disturbing precedent.

What, then, is the balance sheet? It's important to acknowledge, at least in my view, that we're making significant progress in some areas, while other parts of the problem remain quite troubling. We face both positive and negative trend lines. One positive trend line relates to ballistic missile threats to the United States, which have decreased markedly in recent years. The most important area of concern--again, in my view--remains the potential for seepage of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union, and the use of that material by a subnational or terrorist group.

Overall, it appears that advances in non-proliferation over the past decade clearly outweigh setbacks. Many key states have joined non- proliferation regimes, and only one state has tried (unsuccessfully) to leave. Efforts are underway to strengthen these regimes. Troubling nuclear weapon programs have decreased in number. While short-range ballistic missile and crude cruise missile programs have spread, sophisticated and longer-range missile programs remain few in number. The best judgment of the U.S. intelligence community--both during Mr. Woolsey's tenure and at present-is that new potentially hostile states are not likely to develop their own intermediate- or longer-range ballistic missiles over the next fifteen years. All of this is welcome news.

There is no room for complacency, however. The illicit purchase of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union constitutes a clear and present danger to U.S. and international security. The acquisition and use of chemical and biological weapons by states, subnational groups, or terrorists also constitute a clear and present danger to U.S. and international security. Unlike threats from intermediate- and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles that may be fifteen years away, the threats posed by terrorist acts involving nuclear, chemical and biological material are here and now.

Thus, the sense of urgency that some Members of Congress have placed on defending against North Korean missiles that may or may not be able to reach the Aleutian Islands appears misplaced. Is this really the best use of taxpayer dollars? It is far from clear why a state facing the threat of extinction would engage in a multibillion dollar, fifteen year-long crash effort to deploy the much-discussed Taepo Dong II missile. This missile would require an impoverished North Korean state to master new tasks of missile staging, guidance, and weaponization. Even if, somehow, the North Korean government could master these tasks sufficiently to deploy a 4,000 kilometer missile--a fourfold increase in range from the existing No Dong missile--it would still land 1,000 kilometers short of Honolulu and 2,000 kilometers short of Anchorage. Nor is Pyongyang likely to be able to purchase intermediate- or intercontinental-range missiles from another state. Given the dangerously unpredictable state of the wobbly North Korean regime, any seller would immediately become vulnerable to the buyer.

The North Korean missile threat is regional in nature. It provides ample justification for effective theater missile defenses, but it is a poor justification for national missile defenses. This Committee would better serve the interests of tax payers by focusing on far more pressing problems, such as preventing a repeat of urban terror, such as the tragic incidents at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center in New York. The biggest problem we now face is truck bombs, not intercontinental ballistic missiles. We need better preventive defenses against terrorists who might use BW or CW to disable city centers or subway systems.

During the Cold War, several crash programs to deploy national missile defenses were proposed. Since 1962, the United States Congress has appropriated a total of $99 billion (in FY 1995 dollars) for national missile defenses. No defenses were deployed, and no missiles attacked our shores. Nuclear deterrence worked. Our fearful ability to retaliate with devastating force to any missile attack proved to be our best and most cost-effective defense. Our nation's retaliatory capabilities remain in place. Why would a nation choose to attack us with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles now that the Cold War is over?

While the threat of such an attack is deemed to be quite low by the unanimous judgment of the U.S. intelligence community, the threat posed by short-range ballistic and cruise missiles is significant. Short-range missiles pose a clear and present danger to forward- deployed U.S. forces, allies and friends. The Department of Defense and the defense contractor community have yet to solve this pressing problem. This has to be our top priority in the missile defense field.

National missile defenses constitute the last line of defense against the most sophisticated and improbable threats to the American people. The last line of defense is also a very difficult line to defend. If the front lines of defense are weak, the last line of defense will be porous, no matter how much extra money the Congress authorizes for NMD.

The front lines of defense are the sum total of the non-military means our country employs to reduce the dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction. The front lines of defense include our intelligence efforts, preventive, coalition, and coercive diplomacy., export controls, the Nunn-Lugar program, threat reduction and destruction treaties, and non-proliferation regimes. These front lines of defense have been short-changed in recent years. Spending large sums of money for the last line of defense while short-changing the front lines of defense is extremely unwise, and potentially very dangerous.

The first line of defense against the proliferation of these dangerous weapons and their means of delivery begins with early detection of troubling programs and continuing attention to subnational groups or states of proliferation concern. Once detection has occurred, this line of defense requires intense oversight of commercial transactions as well as the indigenous development, testing, and production of dangerous weapons.

Proliferation is a global problem, requiring cooperation with other nations. Just as the United States cannot be a global policeman, so, too, we cannot be a global traffic cop. If we're going to succeed in combating proliferation, we'll need strong alliances. We need friends that will help isolate adversaries. We need help to convince states not to provide the building blocks of weapons of mass destruction to countries of proliferation concern. We need persuasive and firm diplomacy once detection occurs. Export control regimes don't work on automatic pilot. We need to work on the regional security issues that prompt some states to acquire WMD. Diplomacy isn't a dirty word in the fight against proliferation. It makes little sense to trash the State Department and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency while spending large sums for ballistic missile defenses. By weakening the front lines of defense, we make it that much harder for the last line of defense to succeed.

Global agreements against the acquisition or spread of weapons of mass destruction are essential to combat the proliferation problem. Global agreements set international norms against possession or use of weapons of mass destruction. Norms can be broken, of course, but norms also make international sanctions more feasible. Treaties require teeth in the form of routine and challenge inspections. It makes little sense to oppose ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention or the negotiation of a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention, while promoting defenses against missiles that may carry chemical or biological weapons.

Threat reduction can take many forms. The most direct line of defense against nuclear danger is negotiated, verified reductions in nuclear forces that can, if used, cause incalculable damage to our country. Does it make sense to be for missile defenses and against a START III or START IV treaty? We need greater transparency of nuclear stockpiles. We need to make reductions irreversible. Secretary of Defense Perry talks about "preventive defense." Defense spending that facilitates threat reduction in the former Soviet Union is a wise investment for everyone concerned. Senators Nunn and Lugar paved this road, which now branches off to include interactions between nuclear weapon laboratories. Some argue that these investments are unwise, and that they simply allow the Kremlin to budget more for defense modernization. But spending in Russia for defense modernization-- although at significantly lower levels--will occur in any event; spending to dismantle weapons and increase their physical security is far from assured.

No single one of these front lines of defense is sufficient; all must work in concert to make up for each one's deficiencies. If all of the front lines of defense are breached, then we must rely on properly trained and equipped conventional forces, operating alone when necessary, but preferably in concert with allies and friends. Our forces must be able to respond to attack with devastating force. Only when our forces are unable to deter or defeat the launch of missiles must we then turn to our third and last line of defense: the interception of these missiles or their warheads in flight.

All members of Congress have a solemn responsibility to oversee defense preparedness. To succeed in combating the spread and use of WMD, we need to view the problem whole. We can't simply focus our energy and funding on the last fifteen minutes--or fifteen seconds--of the problem, when ballistic missiles are on their way or when their re-entry vehicles are subject to intercept. We need to strengthen all three lines of defense. If we address the problem whole, in a balanced and prudent way, we can protect taxpayer wallets as well as our country.

At present, I believe that many in Congress are pursuing an unbalanced approach to defending our country. We are spending extremely large sums for the last fifteen minutes of the problem, while short-changing the front lines of defense against weapons of mass destruction. Consider what could be achieved with a fraction of the money this Congress added to the administration's budget for national missile defenses.

• The Department of Energy's budget request to increase nuclear safety and security at Russian facilities is only $95 million. For an additional $25 million, the Congress can vastly increase security at six additional facilities.
• The budget for the Non-Proliferation Treaty's watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been fiat for over a decade. "Safeguard" activities at nuclear facilities now cost $75 million. For an additional U.S. voluntary contribution of ten million dollars, the IAEA could hire fifty new inspectors.
• If the Senate consents to ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the U.S. share to fund verification and other treaty activities will be less than $20 million. For an additional voluntary contribution of $10 million, the United States could provide for another sixty inspections annually under the CWC.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency is only now in the process of assessing its capability to deal with the consequences of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, although the conclusions of this assessment are already apparent: FEMA isn't ready, and the country isn't ready. The budgetary consequences of our national lack of preparedness have not begun to be addressed.
• The government agency. with the best track record in negotiating treaties and creating norms against weapons of mass destruction--the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency--is threatened with extinction, its budget slashed by 30 per cent.
• Last year's budgetary request for Nunn-Lugar funding was cut twenty per cent.

Many other examples could be cited to demonstrate the imbalanced nature of our national efforts to defend against weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton administration has been too stingy, in my view, in supporting the front lines of defense against dangerous weapons. The Congress' added generosity toward the last line of defense and increased stinginess for the front lines make for an extremely unbalanced program.

I believe that the Clinton administration's BMD program has the right priorities. The first order of business must be to field a defense system that actually works on the battlefield against short-to-medium- range ballistic missiles. As Under Secretary of Defense Paul Kaminski recently testified, well over ninety per cent of all ballistic missiles from states of proliferation concern will have short ranges for as far into the future as we can see. Our country lacked an effective missile defense system against these threats during the Gulf war, and it's about time we had one. If it takes more money to field such systems that work, let's do it.

As for more ambitious and costly theater missile defenses, we can afford to go slower and to be more protective of taxpayer wallets. The nature of this threat is extremely limited today, and the intelligence community projects the threat to remain extremely limited for the next fifteen years. It is not at all clear to me why we need separate Army THAAD and Navy Upper Tier programs to address this modest threat. If the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can collaborate on the next generation combat fighter, is it too much to ask for the Army and Navy to develop jointly a theater missile defense system? Alternatively, should we not ask the Pentagon to choose between these largely overlapping programs?

I believe the Clinton administration's plans for a "3 plus 3" program for national missile defenses is on the mark. Pushing NMD faster is unwise on budgetary and programmatic grounds. As Gen. Malcolm O'Neill has recently testified, near-term deployment options are unlikely to evolve into a more effective defense. In other words, if we rush to deployment now, we will spend taxpayer dollars on a system that will have to be replaced almost immediately. In light of the U.S. intelligence community's finding that the threat of an ICBM or SLBM attack on our shores is "remote" and "unlikely," why adopt a crash course to deploy national missile defenses? If the Committee feels that additional funds are warranted for defenses, I urge you to direct these funds to the front lines, rather than to the last fifteen minutes of the problem.

The pursuit of multi-site NMD, as some have suggested, would be an anticipatory breach of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Many in the Congress view the ABM Treaty as a "Cold War relic" that deserves to be placed on the ash heap of history. If the ABM Treaty served no useful purpose, and if the United States needed multi-site defenses against clear and present dangers, I would agree. But the Congress has before it the unanimous assessment of the U.S. intelligence community, the key judgments of which have been free of contention under CIA Director Woolsey as well as under Director John Deutch. As the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Richard N. Cooper, has recently stated, "in the next 15 years no country., other than the major declared nuclear powers will develop a ballistic missile that could threaten the contiguous 48 states or Canada."

Simply put, the ballistic missile threat provides no compelling reason to trash President Nixon's handiwork. There are other fundamental reasons why the ABM Treaty remains useful and necessary. The Treaty constitutes a safety net against the free fall in U.S.-Russian relations. Remove the safety net, and many equations change for the worse, including our ability to field effective defenses. Our relations with Russia, like those with the Soviet Union, will always be uneven: as in the Cold War, we can co-operate in some areas while we strongly disagree on others. If we trash the ABM Treaty, co- operation will be minimal and tensions will be the norm.

The ABM Treaty is not sacrosanct. It should be a living document, like the U.S. Constitution, subject to ongoing interpretation and occasional amendment. This can be done without scrapping the Treaty. Finally, the ABM Treaty is needed because it facilitates the transition from offense to defense. Kill the Treaty, and you kill prospects for reductions far, far below START II levels--the kind of reductions needed for effective defenses. Kill the Treaty and you also kill prospects for the degree of U.S.-Russian cooperation necessary for a transition from offense to defense.