Date: 1981-06-24
Speaker: ROBERT W. DANIEL (republican)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. the comments of the preceding three speakers. the gentleman from Illinois. Chairman PRICE. the ranking minority member of the committee. and Chairman BwNEr. have all touched upon the need for strategic force modernization. It is perhaps the most outstanding need in the things that face us on the committee. I would like to talk briefly with particular reference to modernization of landbased ballistic missiles. Our strategic deterrence depends on maintaining adequate survivability of our strategic forces. Survivable strategic forces are central to our strategic equivalence with the Soviet Union. to our basic military posture and. indeed. to our foreign policy. Therefore. the sustained Soviet buildup in strategic forces and its impact on the survivability of our own forces is a matter of grave concern. In particular. the threatsboth near and far termto our Triad of strategic forces have been growing. Soviet ICBMs. with many thousands of warheads and improved guidance aecuracy. will provide a capability in the early 1980s to destroy the great bulk of our Minuteman force with an expenditure of approximately onethird of their ICBM force. There is also the potential of a large percentage of our bombers being destroyed with an ICBM barrage attack. forexample. even though they got off the ground. they may not escape the area that is barraged. Our airbreathing force must also deal with the growing Soviet air defense threat posed by lookdownshootdown interceptors and advanced surfacetoair missiles currently under development. It is estimated that. through the 1980s. our submarinelaunched ballistic missilesSLBMswill remain sufficiently survivable. But we cannot be sure what antisubmarinewarfare capabilities the Soviets may develop in the 1990s. and thus render our SLBMs vulnerable to an effective attack against them. For these reasons. it is Imperative that we restore the survivability of ICBMs. maintain our SLBM survivability. and enhance our bomber survivability. The longer range of the Trident. C4. missile will make submarines even less vulnerable by expanding the ocean area which would have to be searched to find them. Our cruise missiles. as they achieve an initial operational capability in 1982. will offset Improvements in Soviet air defenses. The most difficult issue to resolve -has been the survivability of the landbased leg of the Triad. A solution that will satisfy otir military needs and have a cost not out of line with past investments in strategic systems is of paramount importance. In fact. the proposed MX missile system will cost less than our currently deployed Minuteman force. The problem of ICBM vulnerability has. indeed. been difficult. A Presidential decision on MX must recognize thp particularly valuable characteristics of ICBMs: reliable command and control. flexibility. responsiveness. independence from strategic or tactical warning for prelaunch survival. low operating costs. and personnel requirements. But the fundamental consideration is a recognition that we do not want to be dependent on any one system. Recognition of that fact calls on us to build up the strength of the leg of the Triad that is temporarily weak. so that shouldat some later timeother parts of our strategic forces become more vulnerable. we will not. then be totally vulnerable. Over the last 10 years. about 30 alternative ICBM basing modes have been investigated in detail The MX missile system with a multiple horizontal protective structure (MPS) emerged as the most reasonable solution to the ICBM survivability problem. Over the past year. some have alleged that without the constraints on the Soviets provided by SALT II. the MX/MPS system cannot provide survivability and thus makes no sense. This is simply not the case. The baseline MX configuration of 200 missiles and 4.600 shelters has been sized against the intelligence communitys projection of the likely Soviet strategic force posture within the bounds of SALT II. Nevertheless. from the outset it was recognized that providing sufficient resiliency in the system to allow and maintain its survivability against a wide range of increased Soviet threats was of paramount importance. Moreover. in addressing this possibility. one must remember that such Soviet threat expansions would require major adjustments in the aggregate U.S. strategic force posture in order to preserve deterrence and strategic parity. A series of credible response options have been developed. both to maintain the effectiveness of MX/MPS system should larger Soviet threats materialize and. equally important. to allow us to make clear our readiness to employ these options. Thus. the Soviets would know in advance that they would be denied any advantage by enlarging their force. This should help dissuade the Soviets from undertaking such costly threat expansions in the first place. The options would involve building additional shelters. deploying more missiles. some combination of these two. and. in the case of very large Soviet threat expansions in what would be a clearly uncontrolled arms competition. the possibility of deploying a specially designed. low altitude ballistic missile defense system that would provide excellent defensive leverage when combined with an MPS system. The implementation of any of these options would obviously result in additional cost above the $33.8 billion. in fiscal year 1980 dollars. required to field the baseline horizontal MPS system. However. the Soviet threat expansions postulated in these cases would be even more costly to them. In any event. should the Soviets elect to greatly expand their ICBM forces we will have to take measures to respond that would necessarily entail additional expense. The MX system offers wellconceived. flexible response options which would help contain these additional costs. The threat to our Minuteman ICBMs and thus to the Nations security is real. The strengths of the Triad should not be abandoned in the face of the Soviet threat. Regaining the survivability of our ICBM force is of the highest priority and meeting this requirement results in a complex basing arrangement. We must continue to assign the highest priority to the fielding of the MX in a survivable horizontal MPS basing configuration at the fastest reasonable pace if we are to maintain essential equivalence with the Soviet Union and to maintain confidence in our deterrent as a whole.