Date: 1982-12-16
Speaker: ROBERT C. BYRD (democrat)
Chamber: S

Mr. President. the Nations strategic posture in relation to the Soviet Union has been the subject of mounting confusion over the last few months. The need to modernize our strategic arsenal. particularly our landbased ICBMs and our bomber forces. has been apparent for some time. Yet. the decisions which have been made by the President. at the recommendation of Secretary of Defense Weinberger. have led to uncertainty and serious controversy. This confusion has been generated partly by overly alarmist presentations and rhetoric by the administration regarding the strategic balance. It has been accompanied by what now appears to be an illadvised formulation for basing the MX missile. A torrent of criticism. even ridicule. has greeted the Dense Pack basing plan announced by the President on Novem ber 22d of this year. It has been revealed that the plan has been recommended. not only over the very serious reservations of the chairman of the blueribbon commission created to examine basing options. but also over the objections of a majority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The result is that the Congress is being placed in the position of having to secondguess. to reevaluate the administrations recommendations in the strategic area. Some may question how technically capable Congress is of fully evaluating the various options presented to us by the executive branch. Yet. it appears that we have little choice. The ineptitude shown by the administration in formulating a rational defense plan for the Nation has contributed greatly to the nearly complete unraveling of the national consensus for higher levels of defense effort. which the administration enjoyed 2 years ago. We have seen a squandering of enormous faith and good will toward major increases in defense spending. It is becoming increasingly difficult now. I am afraid. to retain the confidence of the American people and the Senate in the ability of the Department of Defense to fashion an appropriate. costeffective series of priorities in the defense area. The President recently made a televised presentation to the American people on the Nations defense posture. The sweeping implication of the presentation was that we have become inferior to the Soviet Union. and are slipping further behind in all defense categories. Such a proposition is subject to dispute. It is true that the Soviets have more missiles (1.398) than does the United States (1.052). These strategic missiles have substantially more throwweight and twice the number of reentry vehicles than do ours. Specifically. the Soviets now are fielding some 5.500 reentry vehicles. while the United States has 2.150. While this imbalance in landbased missilry is worrisome and needs correction. it should not obscure the fact that the United States has a decided advantage over the U.S.S.R. In bombers in terms of numbers. payload. and penetration capability. Further. we are modernizing our bomber force with Stealth techniques. thus assuring our lead in this area for the foreseeable future. Furthermore. the United States has a decided advantage over the U.S.S.R. in submarinelaunched ballistic missilesthe most survivable leg of the triad. We have substantially more reentry vehicles in this prong of the triad. 5.400 of them. with greater accuracy than the Soviets. who possess 1.900 such vehicles. Also. our submarines are far quieter and more difficult to detect than are the Soviets. In addition. we are now placing cruise missiles into our operational inventory. far ahead of the Soviets. The sum total of strategic reentry vehicles Indicates that the strategic balance is. indeed. one of rough parity. The United States has a total of some 7.650 strategic reentry vehicles. the Soviets some 7.400. Despite this parity. modernization of the landbased missile leg of the strategic triad is essential. Abandonment of the landbased leg would not leave the Nation with a Dyad providing acceptable deterrence against Soviet aggression. Instead. it would allow Soviet targeting to proceed against the bomber leg. throwing that prong of the arsenal into question as well. There is. therefore. a continuing need to enhance U.S.-landbased ICBM survivability. Although it is probably Ipossible to ever achieve invulnerability for U.S. ICBMs- indeed. pursuing the illusory goal of invulnerability would simply push the arms race to new heights without any resolutionit is imperative to first. complicate Soviet target planning. second. raise the level of uncertainty over Soviet ability to achieve a knockout of our landbased forces In a massive surprise attack. and third. force continued large Soviet investments directed at putting our ICBMs at risk. The MX is an attempt to reach these landmissile enhancement objectives. Abandoning the MX without formulating another solution to growing Minuteman missile vulnerability is unacceptable. The difficulties in reaching an agreeable MX basing method over the last few years may be a result of improper sizing of the missile. The difficulties might be alleviated with development of a smaller missile allowing easier deception and mobility techniques. A number of alternatives to the MX have been proposed over the last several years by various Senators. In the event that the Senate is unable to arrive at a consensus over an acceptable basing mode for the MX. an evaluation of several other missile proposals should be made available by the Department of Defense. Such studies should be mandated now so that they are available during the same timeframe that we are examining Dense Pack and other MX deployment options. Thus. I am particularly pleased to cosponsor the study amendment which is being offered by Senators NuNN and Exox. which requires a complete evaluation of alternative MX basing modes and missile designs by DOD. This would frame the Nations strategic debate in a very responsible and comprehensive way next spring. and I think it would begin to remove much of the confusion which now is fogging up the Nations strategic pro. gram. Given the uncertainties over the basing proposal for the MX. it appears illogical to procure the missile whil.e the evaluation of basing alternatives proceeds. Indeed. it is entirely possible that an alternative to the MX itself will find a consensus over the course of the next year. Therefore. I would congratulate the efforts of the distinguished Senator from South Carolina in fashioning a positive fence around the procurement funds until Congress has had a full opportunity to examine these matters. I would also support efforts to insulate the Senates deliberations in this area from the threat of a filibuster. The Nations strategic posture cannot be allowed to atrophy because of the actions of a small minority in the Senate to frustrate our decisions in this area. Nevertheless. this is a complex and difficult area. and we will need ample time to deliberate the options which present themselves. Our deliberation therefore. should go forward in a timely way. The Senate should not allow itself either to be stampeded or frustrated. Appropriate consideration must be given to the arms control impacts of the administrations strategic recommendations. I fully supported the Presidents initiatives in moving to the negotiating table on both intermediate range weaponry in the European theater and strategic weaponry. We all want those talks to be successful. Without an arms control framework. no U.S.-landbased missile system will be survivable in the long run. Restraint is needed. through an arms control framework. in order to retain a viable landbased system. The administration has maintained that if the Senate does not give it production funds for the MX missile. its hands will be tied in Geneva. Just this week. I welcomed the statements by the President that he would accept a positive fencing arrangement for production money. This is a very welcome position by the administration. I would hope that the administration will no longer thleaten the Congress with jeopardizing the achievement of arms control agreements with the Soviets. I would point out that. first. the administration has not always been an ardent prdmoter of arms talks with the Soviets. It was only after a great deal of pressure from many Senators. as well as the activities at the grassroots. that the administration got serious about arms control negotiations. Second. the administration overlooks the fact that its Dense Pack proposal may reasonably be interpreted as a violation of the SALT II Treaty draftwhich the administration has said that it and the Soviets are both abiding by. Administration officials. such as Messrs. Nitze and Rostow. testified during the hearings on the SALT II Treaty that the vertical multiple protective shelter proposal of the Carter administration was unquestionably a violation of SALT II fixed launcher limits. Now these same officials cannot possibly maintain that Dense Pack. which is clearly a less mobile system than the protective shelter proposal. does not violate SALT II limits. They cannot have it both ways. Furthermore. there are clear indications that. In order for Dense Pack to be a viable system. it will need to have an antiballisticmissile point defense system protecting it. This. of course. would completely render a dead letter the treaty we have signed with the Soviets banning such systems. And so. the administration cannot argue that by holding up the MX basing mode the Senate is hurting our negotiating efforts. while that very proposal belles this Nations commitment to arms control. The administration has also advertised the Dense Pack system as a vital bargaining chip for use in Geneva. Presumably. it could be traded off for something valuable that the Soviets are deploying. But how valuable is a bargaining chip that does not work? The distinguished Senator from Washington . one of the most knowledgeable in this body on these matters. has stated that the Dense Pack basing system would be secure against Soviet attack for perhaps 4 years. The system would cost at least $30 billion. probably substantially more. That is a high price to pay for a 4year lifetoo high. Dr. Charles Townes is reported to have written to Secretary Weinberger. Indicating that Soviet countermeasures to Dense Pack might be developed almost simultaneously with our deployment of the system. How valuable is such a marginal proposal. then. as a bargaining chip? If it is so marginal. a fact which hardly would escape Soviet planners. then what would the Russians really be willing to give up in return? I suppose that if we in the Senate were afraid of being accused of hurting our arms control negotiators in Geneva. we should just go along with any scheme the administration sends up to us. Then we would not. however. be doing our job. It should not be too much to ask for a system that is first. workable. that is. enhances the survivability of our landbased ICBMs. second. cost effective. that it will work for considerably longer than 4 years. that will help build arms control agreements and not put them in jeopardy. and. last. that has been very thoughtfully constructed with the technical problems worked out to an -acceptable range of risk. On none of these counts does the Dense Pack program appear to score very high. The Senate will. indeed. have to get into this program in substantial depth. I am pleased to announce that the Senate Intelligence Committee. at my request. has agreed to do a detailed report on various aspects of the MX basing proposal. including Soviet countermeasures. the question of silo hardening. and the issue of ballistic missile defense. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the letter I recently wrote to both the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee asking for this work be inserted at this point in the RECOIRD. I believe the study will be of substantial assistance to the Senate in sorting out the complicated issues which we will be confronted with early next spring in making a final decision on Dense Pack. The letter follows: