2/19/88

SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

Statement

Mr. Chairman,

I would like to take this opportunity to sketch briefly
the main tasks facing the Atlantic Alliance.

Any discussion of the state of NATO must begin with
the recognition that it represents one of the great success
stories of the post-war period. For forty years Europe
has known no wars--the longest period of peace since the
creation of the modern state system. While it is never
possible to prove conclusively why something has not happened,
the Western democracies have every reason to take pride
in their collective achievement.

Success however breeds two contradictory dangers: on
the one hand complacency and on the other a restless tinkering
that takes the achievement for granted and seeks to combine
it with basically irreconcilable objectives.

a substantial

The need to build up NATO's conventional capability has been passionately affirmed for a long time; for an equal period the target has proved elusive. The United States will not reintroduce the draft; its allies have heretofore given <u>priority</u> to domestic concerns over a <u>defense build-up</u>.

This is partly because our European allies have less <u>confidence</u> in conventional defense than some <u>systems</u> analysts. History teaches them that deterrence with conventional weapons is a chancy enterprise. Europeans have seen wars break out for hundreds of years between armies that were thought to be evenly matched. (Even at the outset of World War II the French army was considered to be--and in fact was--superior in numbers and equipment to the German army.) In conventional war, leadership, concentration of force, and tactics, play a role which make <u>comparative</u> systems

extermination of civilians, they are convinced that governments
~~will be humiliated~~
can be kept from nuclear adventures, only by committing them

to the most gruesome strategy.

However, statesmanship and morality both demand that so long as nuclear weapons exist and nuclear war is at least <u>conceivable</u>, governments seek ways to limit their use and to <u>terminate such a war before it turns into a world holocaust.</u>

In a world of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, it is reckless to teach that any nuclear incident must automatically escalate into a cataclysm. If the worst happens--for whatever reason--governments have an obligation to humanity and to history to limit the consequences. Only nihilists or abstract ideologues can shirk that duty.

A resolution of the problem is inhibited because in nearly every country the consensus on defense and foreign policy has broken down. As a result, national security policy is too often overwhelmed by domestic politics. This could not happen but

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# The Future of the Atlantic Alliance

A single statement can do no more than outline directions. A complete policy must be made to emerge out of a detailed debate within the United States as well as within the Alliance. But restoration of the unity of the Atlantic Alliance must be a prime objective; without it a continuation of current East-West negotiations will lead to the unravelling of all that has been achieved by forty years of bipartisan foreign policy.

## A. A Coherent NATO Strategy

The ambiguities that have beset NATO for forty years--some of which have been outlined above--must be overcome. On the part of the United States it requires an end to the rhetoric that America's goal in East-West negotiation is the total elimination of all nuclear weapons. Such a goal is neither possible nor desirable and Western leaders do their best to掩蓋this truth. Publics a disservice if they shrink from facing

CYJ

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Technology would have imposed a reconsideration of existing strategy in any event; the destructiveness of weapons was bound sooner or later to break the cocoon in which we suppressed the consciousness of our Promethean power. But the public outcry has had the healthy result of forcing governments into considerations that they should in fact have initiated; of coming to grips with the awesomeness of the choices into which they have slid because of their reluctance to face, and tell their publics, the implications of their own design.

At the same time our European allies have an obligation to face strategic and technological realities. Too many of them create the impression that deterrence can be separated from defense. But the reality is that deterrence is the product of the threat and credibility. If credibility is zero even the most devastating threat will amount to nothing.

Europe has a right to insist that the United States use **all** the means necessary to stop Soviet aggression. It has no

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it also caused every offensive system to be subjected to
extended scrutiny lest it somehow "destabilize" the military
equation. Never before in history had military policy been
judged by such criteria; the Soviets for their part have had
no such inhibitions in their unilateral weapons decisions.

This is not the place for an analysis of arms control
theory which included many valuable insights. However, arms
control, to be effective, requires an unusually delicate
understanding of the elements of strategy. Nations had
often suffered catastrophe in the past even when they fancied
themselves superior; negotiating equality with an adversary
calls for an unprecedentedly sophisticated analysis. The
measurement of equality has been maddeningly complicated by the
novelty of the weapons, by the asymmetry in the design of the
weapons system of the two sides and in their geostrategic
positions. Thus even were the Soviets ready for a serious
study, negotiations would be difficult because the weapons

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long run, consultation works only when those being consulted have a capacity for independent action. Then each side takes the other seriously; then each side knows that the other's consent has to be won. Otherwise consultation becomes "briefing." Agreement reflects not conviction but acquiescence for want of an alternative.

Moreover, military dependence on another nation has a cumulative impact. When dependence no longer results from wartime destruction but from a policy choice, made under conditions of relative prosperity, it can breed guilt, self-hatred and a compulsion to display independence of the U.S. wherever doing so is safe, especially with regard to some Third World issues and certain aspects of East-West relations.

For all these reasons the United States has a positive interest in encouraging the evolution of a more autonomous European voice in security matters.

During the entire postwar period it has been an axiom of

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CYJ

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American policy that for all the temporary irritation it
might cause us, a strong, United Europe was an essential
component of the Atlantic partnership. We have applied that
principle *with dedication and imagination*, insofar as it
depended on American actions, in all areas except security.
With respect to defense, the U.S. has been indifferent at
best--at least since the failure of the European Defense
*in 1954*
Community--to any sort of Europeanization. Many *in this
country* seemed to fear that a militarily unified Europe might
give less emphasis to transatlantic relations or might botch
its defense effort and thus weaken the common security. *The*
opposite is almost certainly the case.

No In the economic field, integration was bound to lead to
transatlantic competition, even to some discrimination. What
defines a Common Market, after all, is that its external
barriers are higher than its internal ones. In the field of
defense, by contrast, increased European responsibility and

CVC

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member of the communist hierarchy?

Even assuming this (his) intentions are conciliatory, he can be expected to go only so far by himself. Reality no doubt imposes at least a respite on Soviet foreign adventurism, perhaps even an end to it no matter who governs in Moscow. But Gorbachev, as any prudent leader, is unlikely to court unnecessary domestic problems. He will not volunteer changes in political and strategic arrangements that powerful factions within his bureaucracy would find unpalatable. Obviously, he will push those programs most advantageous to his own country.

I do not know how Gorbachev would react if presented with a comprehensive program that would reduce nuclear and conventional weapons simultaneously. Or how he would respond to a serious attempt to discuss the U.S.-Soviet role in the world a decade or so ahead of us. I am convinced that he has the intelligence and imagination to make a significant and

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constructive response. And if he refused, we would at least
understand the nature of the challenge better than we do now.

The failure to test Gorbachev seriously may be the great
missed opportunity of this period.

Conflicts Outside the NATO Area.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a response
to the fear of Soviet aggression against Europe. At that time,
40 years ago, the United States had a huge nuclear superiority
and was dominant economically, while Europe was only
beginning its recovery from the war. Conflicts outside
Europe were produced by the process of decolonization; the
Soviet role in them was relatively minor. The United States,
reluctant to be involved in colonial wars, insisted that the
obligations of the Atlantic Treaty did not extend outside of
Europe. Indeed, it reserved the right to oppose its allies in
dealings with the Third world, and during the Suez crisis of 1956,
it went so far as to threaten Britain and France with economic

2/19/88

Statement

Mr. Chairman,

Success however breeds two contradictory dangers: on
the one hand complacency and on the other a restless tinkering
that takes the achievement for granted and seeks to combine
it with other, basically irreconcilable objectives.

2

The Atlantic Alliance faces both dangers: complacency
in the reluctance to come to grips with the major political
and technological changes that have occurred; tinkering
in the restless quest for formulae that would undermine
the cohesiveness of the Western democracies.

Part of the cause for this state of affairs lies in
the failure to resolve contradictions that have beset the
alliance since its early days. These contradictions were
tolerable so long as the democracies possessed a vast
military superiority. But the growth of nuclear stockpiles
on both sides and the at best nuclear parity requires that
they be dealt with now if the West is not to undermine its
security.

## NATO Strategy

The present NATO deployment of five American divisions
and supporting air and naval forces evolved in the 1950s, when
NATO's doctrine was massive retaliation--to react to

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aggression with an immediate and overwhelming nuclear blow
against Soviet territory. Massive retaliation paradoxically
required that the total forces on the Continent be kept
below the level required for conventional defense. NATO did
not wish to tempt Soviet conventional aggression by doing anything
to suggest that a Western response would be limited to non-
nuclear means. Hence the American conventional deployment in
Europe reflected political, not military criteria: it was
intended to give us no choice about nuclear retaliation and to
leave the Soviets no doubt that this would be the consequence of
even a conventional war. European conventional forces
represented a similar political decision: they too were
conceived as a trip wire for our nuclear riposte. From the
birth of NATO a full conventional defense has been part
neither of its strategy nor of its efforts.

This situation became anomalous when the growth of Soviet
strategic forces deprived general nuclear war of much of its

4

credibility. Yet NATO deployment has been essentially
unaffected by the change. NATO has improved its conventional
defenses but has not closed the gap in such forces. As the
current NATO commander made clear recently, even counting
the five American divisions that have remained in Europe, the
alliance is still unprepared to withstand a major Soviet
ground attack for more than a few days. European ambivalence
continues 35 years after NATO's creation. Our allies remain
unwilling to develop forces strong enough to provide an
alternative to nuclear weapons and yet much of their public
opinion shies away from even thinking about the practicalities
of nuclear deterrence.

The Atlantic Alliance is thus for the foreseeable future
dependent on nuclear deterrence of some kind or other. To
be sure NATO should be in a position where it is not forced
to resort to use nuclear weapons at an early stage of a

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CJD

conflict. Hopefully it will become strong enough so that it
can repel any level of conventional attack by conventional
means. The need to build up NATO's conventional capability
has been passionately affirmed for a long time; for an equal
period the target has proved elusive. The United States will
not reintroduce the draft; its allies have heretofore given
priority to domestic concerns over a defense build-up.

This is partly because our European allies have less
confidence in conventional defense than some systems
analysts. History teaches them that deterrence with
conventional weapons is a chancy enterprise. Europeans have
seen wars break out for hundreds of years between armies
that were thought to be evenly matched. (Even at the outset
of World War II the French army was considered to be--and in
fact was--superior in numbers and equipment to the German
army.) In conventional war, leadership, concentration of
force, and tactics, play a role which make comparative systems

6

analysis calculations a hazardous guide to deterrence. It
can be no accident that <u>all</u> wars in the postwar period have
occurred where there were <u>no</u> American forces and <u>no</u>
nuclear weapons; during that period Europe under American
nuclear protection has enjoyed the longest period of peace
in its history.

NATO has never solved its perennial problem: the
proper mix between conventional and nuclear forces and the
appropriate strategy for the use of nuclear weapons albeit
as a last resort. The question of how nuclear weapons should
be used without destroying mankind remains unavoidable.

Concensus on this subject has yet to be achieved. Some
experts--though declining in numbers--still want to treat
nuclear weapons as "conventional". Another, larger group--
ironically composed in its majority by individuals generally
advocating humane and "progressive" domestic policies--have
insisted that nuclear war must necessarily involve the deliberate

7

extermination of civilians; they are convinced that governments
can be kept from nuclear adventures only by committing them
to the most gruesome strategy.

However, statesmanship and morality both demand that so
long as nuclear weapons exist and nuclear war is at least
conceivable, governments seek ways to limit their use and to
terminate such a war *before* it turns into a world holocaust.

8

for two comforting illusions. Europe chooses to believe that in
the end America will either prevent aggression or resist
it with its ultimate weapon employed in the most destructive
manner if it has no other choice. America chooses the
illusion that with intensive consultations Europe will be
induced to increase its defense contribution in the conventional
field. Neither expectation is realistic--the European one
slightly more so than the American.

If present trends continue we run the risk that we are
left with a precarious combination of the formal NATO
doctrine of flexible response which, however, now--unlike
when it was first developed--has to be applied under conditions
of nuclear stalemate, growing nuclear pacifism and continued
inadequacies in conventional forces. Left with no coherent
defense policy we will ourselves have crippled our capacity
for military response while sitting on the most destructive
stockpile of weapons the world has seen and against an

9

adversary whose political and economic system seems to have
lost all vitality.

INF

These trends have been magnified by the INF agreement
and the manner in which it came about. This is not the
occasion to analyze the merits of what in terms of NATO
reality will be an accomplished fact. If the Senate were to
refuse ratification, domestic pressures in all European
countries would force the withdrawal of these missiles. The
current choice is between unilateral withdrawal or the quid
pro quo envisaged in the agreement.

To understand the impact of this state of affairs some
discussion of the background of INF is important. The
formal justification for INF as a counterbalance to the
Soviet SS-20's was always superficial. The ultimate justifi-
cation was to prevent the nuclear blackmail of Europe
by linking the strategic defense of Europe with that of the

10

United States. With intermediate range American weapons in Europe the Soviets could not threaten Europe selectively; any nuclear attack and any successful conventional attack would trigger an American counterblow from European installations.

The Soviets would have to calculate even in case of conventional attack that we would use our missiles before they were overrun.

Hence the Soviets would have to attack the missiles if they used even conventional weapons in Europe; that in turn would trigger our strategic forces.

In that sense the American offer of intermediate range missiles was a selfless act on behalf of the Alliance. If we needed intermediate range weapons for purely _American_ purposes at all we could have deployed them more easily and with much less controversy on ships or on airbased stand-off weapons.

INF in short was a symbolic reassurance for defense minded Europeans that America would use its nuclear capability

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on behalf of Europe's survival.

To be sure, this point of view was never unanimous.

A significant portion of European opinion always believed that Europe should rely less on the United States and instead mediate between East and West. In the end these missiles were introduced only after riots and demonstrations that shook the domestic tranquility of many countries for months. It is impossible to understand the European reaction to the forthcoming INF agreement without considering what the current leaders went through when the missiles were installed. And the fact that the agreement was supported by some American hard-liners with arguments first advanced by the opponents of missile deployment has added to the psychological havoc.

The NATO crisis can thus be summed up as follows:

— The apparent change in a military doctrine pursued by the past five administrations places the predominant burden

12

of nuclear defense on weapons based in the United States
or at sea. This is occurring at a time when congressional
budgetary pressures have put in doubt plans to develop new
weapons necessary for a more flexible strategy.

-- In the process, many Europeans are convinced a gap
is being created that in time will enable the Soviet Union
to threaten Europe while sparing the United States. In
technical terms, the defenses of the two sides of the Atlantic
will be "decoupled."

-- This fear is all the greater because the Soviet
conventional superiority has not been reduced. Because of that
imbalance, administration invocations of its horror of
nuclear war send a shudder through the Europeans, who worry
that America may recoil before its nuclear commitments.

-- This has created also a problem with modernization
of NATO's short-range nuclear weapons. The Atlanticists in
The Federal Republic have been traumatized by the removal of
intermediate range weapons, US and German. The critics

13

of US policy feel confined in their view. Both now tend to
unite against a scheme that can be represented as making
Europe a nuclear battlefield. Sentiment is therefore being
generated for the removal of these missiles--the third
zero option.

On the other hand, the denuclearization of the Federal
Republic would create profound splits in the Alliance whose
nuclear armed members would be asked to assume risks on behalf
of the Federal Republic which that country is not prepared
to run for itself. A nuclear free zone logically implies the
adoption of a "no first use" concept, because otherwise the
zone would still be under nuclear threat from weapons outside.
And once the alliance has proclaimed that it would not use
nuclear weapons first, it is committed to accepting defeat with
conventional weapons rather than escalating to nuclear war.
The neutralization of Central Europe, the goal of Soviet policy
for 40 years, will then be nearly complete.

14

A single statement can do no more than outline directions. A complete policy must in any event emerge out of a detailed debate within the United States as well as within the Alliance. But restoration of the unity of the Atlantic Alliance must be a prime objective; without it a continuation of current East-West negotiations will lead to the unravelling of all that has been achieved by forty years of bipartisan foreign policy.

The ambiguities that have beset NATO for forty years--some of which have been outlined above--must be overcome. On the part of the United States it requires an end to the rhetoric that America's goal in East-West negotiation is the total elimination of all nuclear weapons. Such a goal is neither possible nor desirable and Western leaders do their publics a disservice if they shrink from facing this truth.

15

Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons have been produced by
the superpowers; hundreds by medium-sized countries;
dozens by recent and possibly new entrants into the nuclear
club. No scheme of disarmament could account for all
these weapons. Nations would insist on residual forces to
protect themselves against cheating, or against the fact
that the factories that produced the weapons would remain, or,
should by some improbable chance these too be destroyed, against
the knowledge in the minds of men from which these factories
and weapons sprang in the first place. Mankind cannot unlearn
the secret of the atom. In other words, we are doomed to some
kind of deterrence, equilibrium, or balance at some level and
in some form. For the immediate future--even assuming
forseeable reductions--that level will be quite high; the real
issue before us will be the nature of deterrence, and its
components. That problem is neither new nor the exclusive
result of East-West negotiations.
discovery of newly concerned groups in all our countries.

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Technology would have imposed a reconsideration of existing strategy in any event; the destructiveness of weapons was bound sooner or later to break the cocoon in which we were suppressed. The Promethean power. But the public had the healthy result of forcing governments into considerations that they should in fact have initiated; of coming to grips with the awesomeness of the choices into which they have slid because of their reluctance to face, and tell their publics, the implications of their own design.

At the same time our European allies have an obligation to face strategic and technological realities. Too many of them create the impression that deterrence can be separated from defense. But the reality is that deterrence is the product of the threat and credibility. If credibility is zero even the most devastating threat will amount to nothing. Europe has a right to insist that the United States use all the means necessary to stop Soviet aggression. It has no

17

right--and can have no interest--in a strategy that has the end of all civilized life as its inevitable corollary.

It is therefore urgent to end the unworthy debate over which side of the Atlantic is seeking to escape what responsibilities. The responsibilities ought to be taken for granted. What is needed is a doctrine that defines flexible response in concrete terms.

## B. <u>Arms Control Policy</u>

The very idea of arms control is novel, if not revolutionary. Developed in its present form in the 1950's it strove explicitly for stability by reducing the incentive for surprise attack not through arms but through agreement. The historically extraordinary notion emerged that a country's vulnerability was a strategic asset; with the civil populations of both sides at risk--so the argument ran--neither side would dare to launch its weapons. Arms control theory contributed--in the West--to an aversion to defensive weapons;

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of the two sides are designed by different criteria and
serve different strategic ends.

Since its early days, arms control theory has developed
a life of its own. It used to be argued that arms
negotiations should be an essential complement to broader
strategic and foreign policies. Today the tail comes closer
to wagging the dog. Care must be taken lest esoteric,
abstract arms control becomes its own purpose and defeats
any relationship to defense. In the end, agreements must
justify themselves not by slogans like "verification" or
"reduction" but in what concrete way they contribute to the
defense of the free world. It is not obvious that the agreements
negotiated or in process inevitably meet this test.
Especially the subject of verification needs a new look.

### c. A Larger Role for Europe.

When in the early days of NATO the United States had
first an atomic monopoly and then a huge superiority it was

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consistent policy here to which we will stick, and in which
we will have to say that we cannot keep forces there without
nuclear protection.

The trouble is that now any policy we adopt becomes very
risky for a leader to identify himself with. I believe that
if Germany starts pursuing a purely national course or
largely course, NATO will change its character completely or
substantially. And Europe will become an area of great
political disquiet.

But I fear the tendencies are there. That was the reason
why I was opposed to INF from the beginning. That was my
major reason. None of the analytical arguments carried much
weight with me one way or the other.

ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
20 F ST., N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20001 (202) 628-9300

62

Senator Quayle: The INF Treaty gives up the ground-based cruise missiles. What is your viewpoint on the potential military application of the conventional cruise missile?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, I was a part of this panel on discriminate deterrence, which believed that the accurate cruise missiles, in whatever basing mode, are one of the methods of the countermeasures to Soviet conventional pressure on Europe. And so I would regret any limitation that made it more difficult to resort to that weapon.

Senator Quayle: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Quayle. Senator Stennis?

Senator Stennis: Dr. Kissinger, It would not take a great deal for this group to again hear your comments, your wisdom, your understanding, your counsel and advice that I saw more of in other critical days and experiences of our government.

I want to publicly thank you for the fine contribution you made then and continue to make now. When I heard that you were in the hallway out here, I made plans to get to see you and to hear you.

And it was not just a personal matter, but it is an appreciation and a realization of the very strong, fine, and effective counsel and advice that you have given to us. And you have proven to be so active and able and effective, and I

63

1 would like to thank you again and commend you highly.

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Dr. Kissinger: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
3
think back with great pride to the privilege I had of working
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with you in very critical periods, and the patriotism and
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wisdom that you always exhibited during very difficult
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times.

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Senator Stennis: Thank you.

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The Chairman: Thank you very much, Senator Stennis.
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Senator Wilson?

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Senator Wilson: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Dr.
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Kissinger, It is always good to see you and to listen to
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you.

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The Washington Post this morning carries a story that I
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suppose, if I were to capsule it, would say that you think
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that whatever faults may exist that more damage would result
17
from a failure to ratify this Treaty than to not do so,
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because it would undermine the credibility of American
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foreign policy with our NATO allies.

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Dr. Kissinger: Yes. I do not think that we can
negotiate something over a period of years, submit it with
great passion to the NATO council, use a lot of body language
to convince the Germans to make decisions that would not have
been their first choice, and then say that a third of the
Senate plus one has refused to go along with it, and now we
are going back to the status quo.

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The end result would be that the Europeans would ask us to take our missiles out anyway. So we would get the worst of all worlds.

Senator Wilson: Let me ask you this then. I listened with great interest to my colleague from Michigan, Senator Levin, as he made an inquiry that I was going to make.

And let me make a different one now. Let me just ask you that if you were, were you a Member of the Senate, asked to vote on ratification of this Treaty, what reservations, if any, would you propose in light of the misgivings that you have, but the decision that you have made that the best interests of the United States requires ratification?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, I have not really studied the legal implications of reservations. Let me say what I would like to see happen, and whatever the Senate could contribute to it.

One, I have already indicated that linkage to conventional disarmament in some manner that permits a reasonable debate of where we are going.

Secondly, I would ask the Administration to put forward some strategic doctrine of where we will be from a security point of view after whatever agreement they are putting before us is made, and not on the basis of, look, they have gotten rid of half of their heavy missiles, because the targets of their heavy missiles have shrunk faster than their

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1 heavy missiles, under this projected agreement.

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Third, some indication of where all of this process is going to go. These would be minimum conditions of a conceptual nature that I would put before them. Because, I must tell you, I am deeply worried about what is going to happen to 40 years of bipartisan effort in the NATO field.

And I am worried about this obsession with the personality of a single Soviet leader who has so many other pressures on him, and who could not have reached the top by being a choirboy. I mean, this is not a profession that the gentle choose.

Senator Wilson: You do not think he is the first Dale Carnegie graduate within the Kremlin?

Dr. Kissinger: I would not want us to wind up like Yeltsin.

Senator Wilson: I think that says it. Let me just ask you this.

In light of what you have indicated and in light of the recent reports from Moscow that our negotiators and the Soviet negotiators have been instructed by Secretary Shultz and his counterpart, Mr. Shevardnadze, to return in a month with a draft agreement on the order, I gather, of the Vladivostok agreement, in light of that timetable and your expressed concern that whatever the legal forum, the substance of a reservation speak to the necessity for linkage

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between future arms reduction, specifically strategic arms reduction, and conventional reduction.

How is it possible for us to achieve that within the timeframe that seems to be unfolding? Now, it is true that signing the Treaty is one thing and ratifying it is another. But let us assume that an effort would be made to ratify, and maybe not. Maybe all they are talking about is a framework agreement, although I do not find great comfort in that.

Dr. Kissinger: I would feel a lot happier if the process were more deliberate, because every agreement creates, generates pressures in a new direction.

I have great difficulty, but it may be due to ignorance of what has been negotiated, I have great difficulty visualizing how verification procedures for five or six different categories of strategic weapons can be worked out, that are being reduced by 50 percent to as yet unknown numbers.

When we had such enormous difficulty working out verification procedures for one category of weapon that was being reduced to zero, and in which the danger of violation is much less, but that may simply be, that may simply be a lack of imagination.

But what worries me is the next step. Just as the double zero inevitably produced the triple zero pressures, if you add the non-circumvention clauses to the agreement that

67

inevitably will be added, what will happen as a next step is
pressures at both ends.

In Europe, In Germany they will say, If you can reduce
the risk to yourself in the long-range field, why can we not
reduce the risk to ourselves in the short-range field? The
Soviets will begin working on the French and British nuclear
forces in the next phase of these negotiations, and have
already said that no further reductions are possible unless
the British and French are included.

So we will work ourselves into a situation of potential
conflict with all of our partners, if we are not capable of
elaborating limits to where this process will go, and
strategies of how the resulting forces would be used.

And I really believe that this must be included in the
START discussions, and not just military statements that it
is not altering an existing situation.

Senator Wilson: In a climate of triple zero pressure,
how optimistic are you that force modernizations of a kind
that would be required to offset the conventional superiority
of the Warsaw Pact will take place based upon the history of
modernization after arms control agreements?

Dr. Kissinger: I am very uneasy. I am very uneasy with
the fact that in order to sell force modernization, we
apparently have to hook to it very substantial unilateral
reductions of our nuclear stockpile, according to some of the

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proposals that have been made before this Committee.

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And I just hope we do not slide with respect to the
short-range weapons into the INF dilemma, that in order to
get a modernization we make a proposal that then comes back
and leads to the complete denuclearization.

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How optimistic am I? Well, we have used up our fat in
NATO, and we either are going to face reality or we are going
to have to pay a price. And we are coming close to that
point. We are approaching that point.

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The Chairman: Senator Wilson, I believe your time has
expired. We have all gone around the room. Are there any
other questions for Dr. Kissinger?

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Senator Shelby: Mr. Chairman, I have one brief
question.

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Senator Wilson: Thank you, Dr. Kissinger.

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The Chairman: Senator Shelby?

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Senator Shelby: Dr. Kissinger, you mentioned the forces
that have been unleashed. You know, we did that.

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Dr. Kissinger: No, I think in fairness the Europeans
have been avoiding difficult choices for a long time.

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The German domestic situation is complicated by this
century's tragedies in Germany, by the loss of two wars, and
by the basic insecurities of a people in a divided country
that we did not create, that existed.

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We have perhaps not been very sensitive to the peculiar

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1. situation in Germany. Everything Senator Cohen said is absolutely correct, but was not unforeseeable. That is, that does not make it right.

4. We were perhaps insensitive and thought systems analysis had the same significance in central Europe as it does at the Rand Corporation.

7. Senator Shelby: Would it be part of the message that we are bringing, which is different messages, that the Germans could not figure out what we really wanted or what was our policy?

11. Dr. Kissinger: You know, I do not think because we emerged into international politics really only after World War II, the Germans we met were people like Adanauer, who we thought were normal leaders, and we did not understand that the Adanauer tradition was a very unusual tradition in Germany, and took a very major effort to keep together. And so we did not perhaps understand how fragile it was.

18. But then you cannot expect every American leader to have studied the history of every country we are dealing with.

20. Senator Shelby: But it would be nice, would it not?

21. Dr. Kissinger: Well, in this case, it was a pity. But the history of Germany has been so different from the history of the United States that it is understandable that our people did not always understand what they were really talking about.

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When Senator Cohen talks about the Foreign Minister, Gensche, one has to really see that in a context which is quite different in Germany than it is here. It is a small party maneuvering between the other two parties.

And so one has to understand the domestic politic context in which he makes his proposals.

Senator Shelby: Dr. Kissinger, thank you for appearing here with us. I have certainly gotten a lot out of it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Dr. Kissinger, as usual, you have done a splendid job, and you have given us a great deal to think about, and a lot of cautionary signals you put up, and also some, I think, instructive suggestions.

And so we are very grateful to you. We are going to continue to have hearings, we have got to look at some of the negotiating record and we have got to have closed hearings on some of the details.

We will be in this process for some matter of weeks, if not months. Not in the Committee, but on the floor. We will be having amendments. And we would like to reserve the right to call you from time to time and impose on you for your views.

Dr. Kissinger: Whenever I can, I would be happy to do it.

The Chairman: We are very grateful. Thank you.