THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD PERLE, RESIDENT FELLOW, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,
PROLIFERATION, AND FEDERAL SERVICES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 12, 1997
Mr. Perle. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I am
particularly glad to be here for those very reasons. Scoop had
a particular affection for this Subcommittee. He believed it
had perhaps a unique contribution to make to international
security, and that it could do this best by exploring the
intellectual underpinnings of our national security policy. He
was a lot less interested in legislating than in educating in
this Subcommittee, and I hope, although it has been mentioned,
Mr. Chairman, I can digress long enough to join in remembering
a former staff director of this Subcommittee, Dorothy Fosdick.
Dorothy died last week at the age of 83. She directed the
Subcommittee staff for nearly 20 years, I think, and was its
guiding force through hundreds of hearings like this one today.
She was, as senators who knew her know, a tremendously
energetic, intelligent and conscientious public servant, who
fought with skill and tenacity for American strength of purpose
and of arms throughout the Cold War, and happily Dickie lived
to see that titanic struggle end with the Western victory to
which she so abundantly contributed.
One of the issues on which Dickie, as she was known
throughout the Senate, worked long and hard was the subject of
today's hearing, nuclear weapons, and I have little doubt that
she would have organized a hearing on today's subject out of a
deep concern, which I share, that the United States not embrace
even as a long-term goal the objective of eliminating all
nuclear weapons.
Mr. Chairman, I have read the joint statement by my friend
General Goodpaster and General Lee Butler. I have known General
Goodpaster for many years and hold him in the highest regard,
and Dickie was a friend of his as well, an admirer. And while I
know General Butler less well, I certainly credit his
intelligence and experience. So it is despite my personal
respect for these men that I disagree sharply with their advice
as to the desirability of eliminating all nuclear weapons, and
I must say that as I listened to General Goodpaster I began to
wonder whether he might disagree in some sense with that
advice, too. He made such a persuasive case for the utility of
nuclear weapons in the world we are now living in, but more of
that later.
They have made the judgment that our security would be
enhanced by the elimination all nuclear weapons. I believe on
the contrary, that our security would be profoundly undermined
by the elimination of all nuclear weapons, even if agreements
providing for this could be negotiated and universally
ratified. In the real world, there is no serious possibility of
an agreement eliminating all nuclear weapons in the foreseeable
future, and we all agree on that. Generals Goodpaster and
Butler seem to recognize this even in their prepared statement
when they say, ``The phased withdrawal and destruction of
nuclear weapons from all countries' arsenals would take many
years, probably decades, to accomplish.'' And General
Goodpaster reiterated that this morning.
Elsewhere in their joint statement, however, the generals
acknowledge that, ``No one can say today whether or when this
final goal will prove feasible.'' Nevertheless, despite the
uncertainty about whether the course they recommend will prove
feasible, they urge now to undertake a serious commitment to
it. I should have thought that embarking on a policy, the
feasibility of which cannot be shown, is a most doubtful and
risky way to shape our future security. If you cannot be sure
it is feasible, maybe you should wait until you are sure it is
feasible before embracing it.
Before outlining why I think it would be dangerous and
unwise to embrace a goal of admitted uncertain feasibility but
certain grave risks, let me say two things about a second
statement with the same theme issued by a long list of flag
officers from several countries the day after the Goodpaster-
Butler joint statement, and I trust these statements were
worked in coordination with one another. This second statement
is longer but no sounder. And unlike the Goodpaster-Butler
statement, which is unquestionably sincere but debatable, the
second statement is tinged with hypocrisy reminiscent of the
Cold War. The ``Statement on Nuclear Weapons by International
Generals and Admirals,'' the title to the statement to which I
refer, which advocates immediate reductions in nuclear weapons
stockpiles on the way to the eventual elimination of all
nuclear weapons, has been signed among others by a number of
very senior retired Russian officers, including the vice-
chairman of the Duma International Affairs Committee and the
chairman of the Duma Defense Committee.
Now, unless I am mistaken, and it was confirmed in earlier
testimony, the Duma has thus far refused to ratify the START II
Treaty which calls for significant reductions in the U.S. and
Russian nuclear arsenals, reductions that would still leave in
place numbers of weapons that the signers of the statement
consider exceedingly large. I would suggest that General Boris
Gromov's time and that of his colleague General Lev Rokhlin
might be profitably used to line up the votes in their Duma
committees necessary to ratify START II rather than propagating
high-sounding declarations about a nuclear-weapons free world.
And let me just in passing remind the Subcommittee that it was
one of the persistent themes of Soviet propaganda through the
whole of the Cold War that complete and total disarmament was
the highly desirable objective, while they built a massive
nuclear force. There is tremendous room for hypocrisy in
conjunction with utopian statements.
Second, while the statement is signed by generals and
admirals from several countries and appears to derive its
authority from the military credentials of the signers, it is
like the statement from Generals Goodpaster and Butler a
political rather than a military utterance reflecting political
rather than military judgments. There is nothing wrong with
political judgments, and some military men make them
intelligently and effectively. But in an effort to inflate the
authority with which the many signers of this statement make
their political judgments, the signers refer to their
``intimate and perhaps unique knowledge of the present security
and insecurity of our countries and peoples.''
This is followed immediately by a flood of political
judgments about the Cuban missile crisis, various treaties and
U.N. actions, the efficacy and credibility of deterrence and
arms control, the likely behavior of rogue States and
terrorists and the like. Now, I go out of my way to mention
this, Mr. Chairman, because officials responsible for nuclear
weapons policy, in my judgment, should not accord undue weight
to the opinions of military men when they address topics that
are quintessentially political in nature. This is true in
general. It is doubly true when the stars are not on their
uniforms but in their eyes.
Mr. Chairman, there are at least five important reasons why
we should categorically reject and unapologetically reject the
argument that the elimination of all nuclear weapons is a wise
goal or would be a wise goal for the United States. First,
there is no way to verify compliance with a treaty banning all
nuclear weapons, not now, not tomorrow, not ever. The weapons
are too small and the space in which they can be hidden too
vast to allow for confident monitoring. Walt Slocombe earlier
answering a question from Senator Levin said, well, it is not
against the laws of physics. The idea that we could detect a
hidden nuclear weapon on territory the size say of Russia is
against the laws of physics, if I can put it that way. So this
is not a problem we will eventually solve.
Second, the elimination of our last remaining nuclear
weapon in light of the near certainty that others would cheat
and hold some weapons back would be an act of supreme folly.
For what possible benefit would we be wise to take such a huge
risk? If one or more nations did cheat, we would by a single
wildly imprudent act place this country in grave peril. No
president, no prime minister, and certainly no dictator would
ever do such a thing. Every State able to do so would cheat,
but we perhaps alone would not. The United States would not
undertake solemn treaty obligations equal in force to the
supreme law of our land while secretly carrying out violations.
The actual real world result would be the unilateral nuclear
disarmament of the United States.
General Butler in a speech to the Stimson Center expressed
indignation that his views might have been unfairly
characterized as implying unilateral disarmament, but I do not
see how at the end of the day giving up the last American
weapon could be regarded as anything other than an act of
unilateral disarmament. Ask yourself would the 18 general
officers from Russia, who have signed the statement, accept
that the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom,
India, Israel, and whoever else has nuclear weapons at the
time, would all turn over their last remaining weapon? These
skeptical Russian generals, the last Chinese weapon? And if
they would not, how would they seek to hedge against one or
more of the others hiding some of their own nuclear weapons?
Why they would hold back some of their own, of course. Fear of
the actions of others would be quite sufficient to cause
cheating on a grand scale.
Third, even if the impossible happened, and everyone turned
in his last weapon, how long would it be before the continuing
technical and scientific know-how and industrial capacity in
the former nuclear weapons statements was mobilized to
reestablish one or more nuclear powers? If one assumes a future
serene world in which sovereign States with nuclear weapons
give them up in confidence that their potential adversaries
have done the same, how dangerous would the weapons be in the
first place? And if the world was still a dangerous place, how
could one safely assume that the weapons would be given up?
The point is you cannot separate the meaning and
implications of the weapons from the international political
context. It is a common error, especially on the part of
military and arms control professionals, to attribute to
weapons themselves the properties that, in fact, derive from
the political situation in which they are fielded. That, Mr.
Chairman, is what strikes me as profoundly wrong about
Secretary Perry's statement, quoted approvingly by General
Goodpaster this morning. ``Fewer weapons in fewer hands makes
the world safer.'' Now, does that mean fewer weapons in
American hands makes the world safer or fewer weapons in all
hands combined makes the world safer? I think the world would
be safer if there were fewer weapons, and they were all in
American hands frankly.
So the point is not that there is a relationship between
safety and the number of weapons. There is a relationship
between safety and a great many other factors, and the
political context and who has the weapons and what their
political purpose is and what their strategy and doctrine is
goes to the heart of the issue. And silly formulations that the
fewer the number of weapons or that zero is the ideal State and
anything above zero is worse than the ideal State only confuses
us about all the many issues we have to resolve about the
appropriate size and structure and doctrine and tactics
concerning our nuclear forces.
Setting aside the concern that Russian nuclear weapons
could fall into unauthorized hands, and that is a very real
problem, are we anything like as concerned today about
thousands of Russian nuclear weapons as we were during the Cold
War? Of course not. Just as Canadians and Mexicans never feared
America's vast arsenal of nuclear weapons because the political
context among us was benign, our concern about Russia's weapons
and presumably their concern about ours is sharply and
appropriately diminished with the end of the Cold War.
It is ironic, Mr. Chairman, that just when things are
looking up with the end of the Cold War, along comes an
international group of retired flag officers prepared to say
that nuclear weapons, ``represent a clear and present danger to
the very existence of humanity.'' I think they are far less
dangerous today obviously than they were during the Cold War,
and that would be true even if there were more of them. In
fact, there are fewer. General Goodpaster referred to the 7,000
nuclear weapons under his command. It is ironic that we should
be testifying under these circumstances since I worked long and
hard as chairman of the NATO Committee to reduce the number of
nuclear weapons I inherited from General Goodpaster and his
successes, and we succeeded in doing that.
Fourth, the elimination of nuclear weapons or even a
commitment to eliminate them in the future would be a major
encouragement to potential proliferators. Consider the daunting
challenge faced by a non-nuclear State that today wishes to
acquire nuclear weapons. They must mobilize very substantial
financial and technical resources behind a clandestine program.
If caught, as the Israelis caught the Iraqis in 1981, they may
be attacked and their facilities destroyed. If they succeed,
they may wind up with a handful of weapons. These would pose a
serious threat to us and to others, to be sure, but the United
States possesses many thousands of such weapons and other
nuclear weapon States have hundreds or thousands.
Surely, a State with a handful of nuclear weapons would
take seriously the substantial nuclear arsenals of the major
nuclear powers. Now imagine that we and others are about to
give up our last remaining nuclear weapons or that we have
committed to do so in the future. The mere handful that a
successful proliferator might manage to acquire suddenly looks
like an arsenal bestowing great power status. Is that a
situation we wish to create or encourage? I know it is popular
to argue that the disarmament of the main nuclear powers is
essential to discourage proliferation, and Senator Levin had
some important questions about that. I think the truth is just
the opposite. Does anyone seriously believe the Indians would
not have developed nuclear weapons if the United States had
committed to total nuclear disarmament? Or that the Pakistanis
would forebear if we with or without the Indians promise to
eliminate all nuclear weapons or actually did so?
Our possession of nuclear weapons does far more to
discourage proliferation than to encourage it since it
reassures our friends and allies that the protection we afford
them is ultimately backed up by nuclear weapons, and I was
delighted to see that Walt Slocombe and I are in agreement on
this point.
Fifth, the elimination of all nuclear weapons would end our
possession of our deterrent force that has contributed
significantly to the peace among nuclear powers that has
prevailed since World War II, and General Goodpaster reaffirmed
that in his remarks. It is certainly true that the Cold War
gave rise to tensions and disputes that might well have led to
war between East and West. That no such war occurred is a
result of the delicate balance of power that prevailed among
nuclear weapon States. At crucial periods during the Cold War,
our nuclear deterrent served to balance Soviet superiority of
conventional forces in a divided Europe, and there is good
reason why General Goodpaster was happy to have those 7,000
weapons. He knew what he faced in the way of a conventional
threat from the Warsaw Pact. And while conventional weapons
have improved dramatically, and we are less dependent on
nuclear weapons than at any time since their invention, they
still exert a sobering influence that cannot be achieved by
other means.
Mr. Chairman, I happen to believe that the U.S. stockpile
of nuclear weapons is larger than is necessary for deterrence
and could be safely reduced, and in this I agree with Walt
Slocombe and in spirit anyway with General Goodpaster. I would
urge that we decommission those nuclear weapons no longer
necessary for deterrence as we develop further the precision
systems capable of military efficacy equal to nuclear weapons.
This seems to me just prudent defense planning, especially
since the credibility of the use of nuclear weapons in
situations that can be handled without them is close to zero.
Even here, though, I would not wish to be understood as
endorsing the admirals and generals when they too call for
cutting back on present and planned stockpiles of nuclear
weapons, and the reason for distancing my view from theirs is
the underlying logic of our respective positions. I want a
minimum nuclear force, not because nuclear weapons are
inherently dangerous and should be eliminated, but because they
can serve our security interests if they are deployed in
numbers and according to a doctrine that is realistic and
carefully conceived. That is a very different standard than the
standard that zero is best and anything other than zero is less
desirable. As General Butler knows, that is certainly not what
we had when he headed the Strategic Air Command.
In place of a deliberate strategy combining nuclear and
non-nuclear weapons in a way that took account of the
credibility and effectiveness of their use, we had a strategic
war plan that called for massive retaliation, mutual assured
destruction, in response to a variety of contingencies, many of
which would in the real world never have been authorized.
Even the major war scenarios entailed the use of nuclear
weapons on a scale that was wholly incredible. I believe that
what we now hear from General Butler is a distressed reaction
to the ludicrous strategy he was sent to Omaha to superintend,
and I hope thoughtful observers will conclude that further
reductions in nuclear arsenals need not be accompanied by an
apocalyptic utopian vision for their total elimination.
Mr. Chairman, I have tried to suggest three things this
morning: that nuclear weapons cannot be safely eliminated now;
that they have served and can continue to serve our security
interests if managed properly; and that the goal of eliminating
them entirely in some distant hazy utopia is a dangerous and
unwise goal. If I might add a last point, it is to endorse the
urgent need to proceed with the development of a defense
against ballistic missiles, an idea that arises directly out of
the concerns expressed in the statement of admirals and
generals, but is, curiously, wholly absent from their
considerations.
I once had occasion privately to discuss the idea of
eliminating all nuclear weapons with President Reagan. I said I
thought the Soviets would cheat and probably others as well. So
do I, he said. That is why it could be done only after we had a
fully effective SDI in place. And I think Senator Stevens
captured that logic in the question he put to Walt Slocombe.
Until then, Mr. Chairman, let us not rush to embrace goals that
would make sense only in a world that does not exist. Thank
you.
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