Since former Secretary of Defense Les Aspin has discussed the changed nuclear threat, I will provide some additional information regarding the danger of proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and their delivery systems, in particular ballistic missiles. While it is difficult to know exactly how many countries have or are developing such weapons, we believe that at least 24 countries have chemical-weapon programs, 10 countries have biological-weapon programs, and at least 10 countries are interested in nuclear-weapon development.
The spread of such mass-destruction weapons must be considered in tandem with the simultaneous proliferation of their means of delivery. My organization is especially concerned with the ballistic missile, which from the 1940s until recently was an invulnerable weapon. If the weapon was delivered, it hit its target, and there was absolutely nothing that NATO, the CIS, or any other organization could do about it.
The combination of missiles and mass-destruction weapons is one of the emerging dangers of the post-Cold War era. As one U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official recently noted, the potential mass-destruction capabilities of some countries is comparable to, and in some cases more lethal than, the 1960 Soviet threat. The ballistic missile is clearly becoming the weapon of choice for nations otherwise unable to attack their enemies at long range. The 1988 Iran-Iraq war, called the War of the Cities; Operation Desert Storm; and the current fighting in Yemen demonstrate that missiles will increasingly pose a threat to military forces and civilian population centers.
Of particular concern to us are the missile programs in Iran, Syria, Libya, and, especially, North Korea. We know that the North Koreans are developing new missiles: to quote the U.S. Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, "We can confirm that the North Koreans are developing two additional missiles with ranges greater than the 1000 km. missile that flew last year. These new missiles could put at risk all of Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, and, if exported to the Middle East, could threaten Europe as well." We have similar concerns about a number of other countries that have missiles and weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. While individual programs may vary in their pace and level of accomplishment, the proliferation of such weapons is ominous and requires both our individual and combined efforts in response.
In March 1993, then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin initiated a comprehensive review of the nation's defense strategy, called the "Bottom-Up Review." This important effort provided the framework for shifting America's focus toward the new dangers of the post-Cold War era. One element of the Bottom-Up Review is the Counter-Proliferation Initiative, which includes missile defense, political and other mechanisms for controlling the nuclear threat. This has led to a revamping of the ballistic missile defense program.
Currently, the U.S. looks at counter-proliferation in two ways. The first is as a prevention approach to block weapons of mass destruction from getting into the hands of potential aggressors. Les Aspin has discussed some of the ways that we can act in this regard; we should redouble our efforts in several of them, including arms control, international pressure, and denial (i.e., denying the potential aggressor access to the technology, hardware, and delivery systems he needs for nuclear weapons). We also should emphasize dissuasion: negotiating and discussing diplomatically with potential aggressors the reasons why having mass-destruction capabilities would not be to their advantage.
Deterrence is also important. Some suggest that Saddam Hussein was deterred to some extent by our coalition's overwhelming capability--deterred from using chemical weapons that he actually had. Deterrence can work. But we have to find that magic formula that will insure that the aggressor knows what the results of his utilizing these kinds of systems would be and convince him it would not be to his advantage to utilize them. As Les Aspin has mentioned, however, it would be very hard to deter a terrorist group.
We do have one mechanism, called "counter-force," that we can use before a weapon is launched. Counter-force involves the use of offensive weapons, special operating forces, infantry, or whatever is necessary to find a weapon in its stockpile, while it is being fabricated, or while it is moving across a bridge in order to knock that weapon out before it is launched. Most of our Alliance countries have offensive means such as fighter planes, bombers, and weapons of various kinds that we can use to go after the launch capability of an enemy.
From my standpoint, the cornerstone of counter-proliferation, when all other measures fail, is active defense. We need to have some mechanism to stop an "incoming" nuclear delivery system when a weapon is coming our way. We do not want necessarily to go after the nation that launched the system but, in all cases, we want to go after the system itself and shoot it out of the sky.
Before getting into the specifics of active defense, I would like to underscore one point, which goes back to some statements that President Yeltsin made a couple of years ago. If we really want to have global protection and global defense, no one nation will be able to provide it. The challenge is so great that all of us must work together. Indeed, if a country has the technology for nuclear weapons, it can easily get the technology for missile delivery since it is a 1950s kind of technology. On the other hand, providing active defense against that kind of system, especially when there is a surprise attack, requires a very sophisticated, very expensive response.
Let me now describe the U.S. active defense program. The Bottom-Up Review directed me to concentrate on theater missile defense. This turned the strategic defense element of my program into a technology program. But because the SCUD-like threat now exists, my mission is to focus on combating that threat since NATO, the nations of the former Soviet Union, and others are going to be facing it in the future.
Within the spectrum of theater missile defense, the Bottom-Up Review asked me to focus on three areas. The first area is the immediate upgrading of systems like Patriot, which are in the field today, making them all they can be. The second area is the development of new mid-term capabilities, and in this area we are probably spending at least half, if not two-thirds, of our budget. For the midterm (i.e., maturing in the 1990s and in the field in the year 2000), we are planning three core systems: an upgrade to the Patriot; the first maritime ballistic missile defense system, which would be based on the U.S. Aegis cruiser; and THAAD, or Theater High Altitude Area Defense. THAAD is the first system that is designed from the ground up as a ballistic missile defense system and will be the first system that will be able to match the existing theater threat. (We consider the theater threat to be a range from 100 km to over 3000 km; it is well short of a strategic threat and much slower than a strategic threat.) While the reentry vehicle of a theater missile is much easier to see than that of a strategic missile, theater defense is still a tremendous challenge. On the U.S. side, therefore, we will not have a significant theater missile defense capability until around the turn of the century. For some of us, that is unsettling, because things can certainly occur before the turn of the century to threaten our missions.
The final area of focus in theater missile defense is the long term. There, we are seeking more technologically challenging solutions such as a wide-area maritime system that would have a significant range and would be able to defend an ally from over the horizon, as it were, at sea. We are also looking into a boost-phase interceptor--an air-to-air missile that would be delivered by a fighter aircraft and would engage the boost phase. Such an engagement would preclude an enemy entry into friendly air space and would actually cause the enemy booster to crash in the adversary's area rather than in ours. Developing such an interceptor is very challenging technologically, but it is something that we must examine.
The rest of the U.S. missile defense budget will be spent on technologies to support long-range sensing and surveillance, better and cheaper components for our theater missile defense systems, and long-term investments in strategic defense if we feel such defenses need to be employed. Also, Congress has asked me to project both the performance aspects of a strategic defense and the timeline for deployment, because we are worried that a potential adversary with mass-destruction capability might be able to develop a larger missile system that could fly over oceans and strike the United States. For the time being, though, we are focusing on the battlefield area, the NATO area, and the two regional contingencies that are part of our national strategy.
I want to reemphasize the significance of international cooperative research and development. The United States has spent a great deal on ballistic missile defense: approximately $33 billion. And we do not yet have a system. I have asked for an additional $18 billion over the next five years to obtain the modicum of capability mentioned above. As you can see, we need the technologies that are available in Europe, Russia, and elsewhere. Over the past few years, we have had cooperative programs with the United Kingdom (our biggest collaborator), Israel, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and, most recently, Russia.
Cooperation with Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union is definitely interesting, and we are gaining technical information from it. It plays an important role in providing a missile defense capability, but also in synergizing the tremendous military defense capabilities of the two nations in an area that could be beneficial to us all.
With Russia, we are looking at two areas. The first is our ballistic missile defense program, which we feel could be very helpful in supporting arms-control regimes, particularly in the area of advanced sensors--satellite systems, radars, and other such equipment.
Second, the cooperative program with Russia is an important step in maintaining Russian enterprises by funding research and ongoing developmental activity in areas in which both we and Russia are particularly strong. By working cooperatively, we are developing mutually supportive programs that help steer research away from nuclear systems and toward defensive non-nuclear technologies. Through such cooperation, we feel we can improve simultaneously the security of Western powers, Russia, and various other regional powers. We can also improve general political relations and increase the prospects for counter-proliferation and non-proliferation, which are still important elements of our national strategy. The motivation for this cooperation was a 1992 proposal by President Yeltsin that he called Global Protection.
General O'Neill alluded to a variety of discussions about NATO activities and others that we are currently having around the world. These discussions began with the development of the Revised Strategic Concept, which recognized a need to look at missile defenses, among other approaches, in order to respond to the problems of nuclear proliferation.
More recently, we have seen renewed energy for examining a variety of ways to include missile defenses in our overall strategy. At the January 1994 NATO Summit, two groups on proliferation were established to develop the political framework. In addition, the military is actively developing a military requirement, recognizing the threat that may emerge from the Middle East and perhaps North Africa. A mandate has also been given to the Alliance's material research and development people to look at current capabilities, evaluate how they can be improved to provide a first capability in missile defense (with the Patriot system, for example), and, more importantly, begin to determine how we can provide an overall area defense of NATO in the future. The Conference of National Armament Directors has assembled a group to examine how to proceed with all these issues on a cooperative basis. Given the limited resources of the United States and its European partners, we must work together to put a capability into the field.