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NATO DEFENSE AND THE INF TREATY

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1988

U.S. SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,
Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:07 p.m., in room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Sam Nunn (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Nunn, Stennis, Levin, Glenn, Shelby, Warner, Cohen, Quayle, Wilson, Symms, and McCain.

Staff present: Arnold L. Punaro, staff director; Carl M. Smith, staff director for the minority; Jeffrey H. Smith, general counsel; Patrick A. Tucker, minority counsel; Kathryn E. Bognovitz, special assistant; Gerald K. Bankus, Robert G. Bell, Robert F. Bott, Brian D. Dalley, Richard D. Finn, Jr., Judith A. Freedman, John J. Hamre, George K. Johnson, Jr., Ronald P. Kelly, James R. Locher III, David S. Lyles, Michael J. McCord, T. Kirk McConnell, and Norman G. Mosher, professional staff members; Colleen M. Getz, research assistant; Barbara B. Brown, Barbara Gallo, Lori M. Jackson, Mary J. Kampo, Pamela G. Powell, and Mickle Jan Wise, staff assistants.

Also present: Jeffrey B. Subko, assistant to Senator Exxon; Gregory J. Weaver, assistant to Senator Levin; William J. Lynn, assistant to Senator Kennedy; Donald A. Mitchell, assistant to Senator Glenn; Terremco Lynch, assistant to Senator Shelby; William J. Wight, assistant to Senator Warner; James M. Bodner, assistant to Senator Cohen; Mark J. Albrecht, assistant to Senator Wilson; Lorne Craner, assistant to Senator McCain; and Anthony H. Cordesman, assistant to Senator McCain.

OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR SAM NUNN, CHAIRMAN

Chairman NUNN. This afternoon our committee conducts our 21st hearing on NATO defense and the INF Treaty. After our recent focus on the specifics of the treaty, the committee will renew this afternoon our attention on the broader issues of strategy and capabilities for NATO defenses, especially in the post-INF environment.

We are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Henry Kissinger as our witness. He needs no introduction to this committee or to any other committee of the Congress. Dr. Kissinger has written extensively on the issues that are the focus of this committee's inquiry.

We are delighted he has taken time from his busy schedule to share his expertise and experience. This committee also appreciates the special effort Dr. Kissinger made to submit his prepared

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statement early yesterday afternoon. Copies were immediately made available to the committee membership. We have had an opportunity to read and study the statement in advance, at least some of us have.

Dr. Kissinger, we are in session until about 3:30 or 4 o'clock this morning. We had half of our membership on the Democratic side that were going through procedural motions and the Republican side were trying to avoid arrest by the sergeant at arms.

We had a very different kind of evening, and only history can judge which side was using its time to the greatest advantage.

Senator Cohen.

Senator COHEN, I WAS JUST GOING TO POINT OUT THAT SECRETARY KISSINGER HAS EXPERIENCED GESTAPO-LIKE TACTICS IN THE PAST. WE EXPERIENCED THEM LAST EVENING AT THE HAND OF THE SERGEANT AT ARMS.

Chairman NUNN. To the best of my knowledge, no Republican Senators were apprehended, let alone arrested.

Senator WARNER. Senator Packwood was.

Chairman NUNN. So there was some success. [Laughter.]

We are delighted to have you here today, and we would welcome any kind of summary you would like to make of your statement or whatever time you would like to take. We are indebted to you for coming and taking your time to address these crucial issues, and we look forward to your statement, plus questions and answers afterward.

Before I go to Senator Warner. I would like to submit Senator Dixon's statement for the record.

[The prepared statement of Senator Alan J. Dixon follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT BY SENATOR ALAN J. DIXON

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to welcome Dr. Henry Kissinger before this committee today. Dr. Kissinger will provide expert testimony on the INF Treaty and the strategy and capabilities for NATO's defense.

I was very impressed with the statement Dr. Kissinger has provided to the committee. It was a thoughtful assessment of the political implications of the INF Treaty to the future of the NATO alliance. I share some of Dr. Kissinger's concerns, especially about the dangerous imbalance of conventional forces in Europe, the need for modernization of forces in Europe and for our NATO allies to assume more responsibility for their own defense.

I respect Dr. Kissinger's reservations about the INF Treaty, although I believe in the need for arms control to secure world peace. We must do our best to reassure our allies of our continuing commitment to European defense, while encouraging them to do more on their own behalf.

A number of witnesses have put forward proposals for the modification of the Treaty. We must look closely at the treaty and examine the negotiation record to ensure that this is a good treaty that will achieve the desired objectives. I assure this witness and the others before him that the committee will carefully weigh all testimony presented before making its recommendation to the Foreign Relations Committee and the full Senate.

I look forward to Dr. Kissinger's testimony and his contribution to this debate. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Senator Warner.

Senator WARNER. Thank you.

I have had an opportunity just a few moments ago to visit with our distinguished visitor, who I have known and worked with for many years. We welcome you.

Chairman NUNN. Dr. Kissinger.

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STATEMENT OF DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE AND ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

Dr. KISSINGER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee. I appreciate this opportunity to appear here. I have admired the work of this committee greatly.

I will not read my entire statement or even any parts of it, but with your permission let me summarize its key points. I began with a discussion of the problems that strategic doctrine has faced within the NATO alliance since its beginning.

When NATO was formed, it relied in effect on the doctrine of massive retaliation, that is to say that any Soviet attack on Europe would be met with an overwhelming nuclear response. And in terms of the technology of that period, that made sense because we had direct an atomic monopoly and the a huge nuclear superiority.

In a somewhat anomalous way, we nevertheless also sent substantial conventional forces to Europe, even though in terms of the strategic doctrine that would not have been necessary. The reason for the deployment of conventional forces in Europe was political, rather than military, in the fifties.

That is to say our European allies had had enough experience in their own history of the precariousness of alliances to want a more tangible guarantee than the assurance of the American leadership that we would in fact come to their assistance, and therefore they wanted a tripwire or enough of a force to guarantee that Americans would be involved in combat and therefore make it more likely that nuclear weapons would in fact be used.

And that was also, at least inarticulately, the reason for their own conventional buildup.

Now, ever since then NATO has been beset by this ambivalence, to have a military establishment on the continent large enough to raise the risks for the Soviets, but not so large as to give the United States an ultimate alternative to nuclear retaliation.

That state of affairs became more and more precarious as the Soviet nuclear stockpile developed and as our American weapons decisions with respect to our strategic forces moved more and more away from discriminating targeting and a counterforce strategy.

In these circumstances, NATO has had an inconsistency that it has not ever resolved. There has been a conventional buildup, but it is arguable that it has not been as fast as the Soviet conventional buildup. And the link of the conventional defense of NATO to the nuclear defense of NATO has been a subject of argument, or at any rate has been in the back of the minds of the NATO—has been in the back of the NATO disputes.

It is for that reason that, regardless of any of the disputes about INF and other current issues, a re-examination of NATO doctrine is necessary. And the committee, with all due respect, is doing a very useful service in focusing attention on this problem.

My own view is that wherever one draws the dividing line between conventional and nuclear defense, the argument that is made by so many, that a nuclear defense must of necessity be total and aimed at the most cataclysmic strategy, is one that cannot be sustained indefinitely.

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I think the political leadership of the alliance has an obligation to limit the consequences of nuclear war should it break out, and I do not think it is possible to keep relying on a threat that involves the certainty of suicide. Our allies have a right to ask of us that we risk what is necessary for their defense, but they can have no interest in the consequences of some of the strategies that are being proposed.

Now, all of these disputes which have been in here and in NATO and have been going on for a long time, and not only in this administration—they have been going on for 20 years at least—have been accentuated by the INF agreement and the debate that it has generated.

I want to make clear that, even though I have had the gravest reservations about that agreement, even though I believe that we started at the wrong end of the nuclear spectrum in the negotiations, I do not think that my concerns can be cured by non-ratification. Whatever damage this agreement has done in the political field, it has already done.

And we would pay an exorbitant price if the Senate by a minority larger than a third but less than half, which is what would be the situation, would refuse to ratify the agreement.

Having said this, however, I would like to point out why I think the agreement has raised a whole new set of issues. I believe that the INF deployment, whatever its original justification had been, operationally performed the function of linking the nuclear defense of Europe to the strategic retaliatory capacity of the United States, in the following way.

As the credibility of the American nuclear threat declined on the basis of calculations, the location of weapons that would be in the direct line of a Soviet advance provided a reassurance of a certain automaticity of response.

The Soviets had to calculate that we would not permit these weapons to be overrun without using them, and that therefore some delegations would probably have taken place, whether or not this was the case. The Soviets would therefore have had to attack those weapons if they wanted to launch an attack on Europe.

But even a 90-percent effective attack would have elicited a counterblow that, standing by itself, would have produced exorbitant damage. The Soviets could not cure that problem except by simultaneously attacking the American strategic forces in the United States. In other words, they were put into the position where they could extricate themselves from their dilemmas only by the initiation of general nuclear war, which was a risk out of proportion to any objective to be achieved.

That organic link has been severed to some considerable extent by the INF agreement, and it cannot be cured by arguments of counting warheads on both sides.

It has had the second difficulty that those groups in Europe, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany, who have in the entire postwar period stood for a close alliance with the United States have been somewhat demoralized by this agreement, pushing the political spectrum more in a neutralist direction and driving some of them in a more nationalist direction.

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This is revealed in the debate that is now going on with respect to the so-called third zero option, the modernization of the alliance weapons. And I mention these issues not because I want to keep carping on a treaty that I consider to be an accomplished fact, but because I believe we have to understand what the problems are that need to be cured in the alliance.

Now, let me sum up very quickly the arguments, the directions in which I believe we ought to attempt to go. One, we need a coherent NATO strategy which deals with the issue of the relationship between conventional and nuclear defense and between the various kinds of nuclear defense. In this respect, I want to warn against two tendencies, one on this side of the Atlantic, the other on the European side of the Atlantic.

On the American side of the Atlantic, it is not—I would warn against the constant reiteration by the Administration and other spokesmen that the goal of American arms control policy is the total elimination of nuclear weapons. That is an unachievable objective. It is not even a desirable objective.

So many weapons have been produced that no conceivable verification system could reassure us against weapons that might be hidden in the Soviet Union. Then there is the problem of third country nuclear capabilities, so that very soon any such negotiation would get us right back to where we are in one way or another anyway, namely to a level of nuclear force that we consider compatible with our security.

On the European side, I would warn against the tendencies towards the third zero option, because the larger evolution of that is toward the denuclearization of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Chairman NUNN. Senator Warner suggests we all go vote, because we all want to hear what you have to say and we have a vote on. And we will be back in about 5 or 10 minutes.

We will recess briefly.

[Recess.]

Chairman NUNN. Dr. Kissinger, we apologize for the necessary break, but we had to go vote. I hope we can get a few minutes now without a vote, but why do we not start back where you were.

Dr. KISSINGER. I had reached the point where I wanted to—where I warned against the tendencies that are developing in Europe, especially in the Federal Republic, in the direction of the so-called third zero option, the removal of short range nuclear missiles from Europe, which would gradually move in the direction of the denuclearization at least of the Federal Republic of Germany.

I believe this would have the gravest consequences for the future of the alliance. The denuclearization of the Federal Republic would almost inevitably produce a proposal for the no first use of nuclear weapons, because there would be no benefit from denuclearizing if weapons based outside the territory could be used on the territory. And I have noticed that the French President already felt obliged to make a public statement to the effect that French weapons would not be used on German territory.

On the other hand, the no first use doctrine implies that NATO would prefer to be defeated with conventional weapons to using nuclear weapons, and when we have reached the point where the distinction between whether one accepts defeat or not depends on the

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nature of weapons used, one has in effect abandoned the nuclear
guarantee and the link between Europe and the United States.

So these are two dangerous tendencies that have developed
partly as a result of the INF Treaty. With respect—and these link
us explicitly to the problems of arms control as it confronts the At-
lantic alliance.

When I first started out working on arms control in academic
life, its advocates were saying that some place ought to be left in
the considerations of strategy for arms control because the new
weapons were unprecedentedly destructive.

I feel now we are reaching a point where one has to ask for some
space to be left in arms control theory for security policy, and
where we run the risk that arms control theory, arms control, be-
comes an end in itself.

I have had the opportunity to read the testimony before this
committee, for example, of Professor Kaiser, an old friend of mine
and a fine man. But I have noticed that, in the attempt to vindi-
cate the modernization of short range weapons, proposals are being
made that get us down the same road as the INF again, that is
that in order to modernize INF he proposes withdrawing all the
nuclear artillery, and then links the INF reductions to convention-
al reductions.

And before we know it, we will be engaged in an arms control
exercise that loses any relationship to a coherent NATO strategy.
And this is by a man who would agree with every premise that I
have stated and whom I consider one of the pillars of defense
policy, certainly within the Social Democratic Party.

So this should not be taken as a criticism of him, but rather as
an indication that even the most thoughtful observers are now
having great difficulty relating arms control and security policy
and the need for developing this.

In all of these exercises, I have stressed the importance of
Europe developing a more autonomous and more coherent role
with respect to its own defense. In the United States we have sup-
ported a united Europe in the economic field, but we have been
aloof in the military field, though I noticed with great agreement
the comments made by President Reagan yesterday indicating our
support for a greater European identity in the defense field.

Finally, I devoted some pages to the relation—to the impact of
the new Soviet leadership on East-West relations and U.S.-NATO
relations, and I simply want to make one point. I do not want to
engage in a debate about Gorbachev's real motives and I do not
pretend to know Gorbachev's real motives.

I note simply this fact: No Soviet leader has ever accepted sever-
al of the key policies of his predecessor. So no matter what one as-
sumes about Gorbachev's intentions, we cannot make Western
policy rely on an essentially psychiatric analysis of a single Soviet
leader.

Second, one has to look at history. For 400 years the Russian
empire under czar and commissar has expanded, for any number of
reasons. But to establish a political and security relationship, an
equilibrium, between that empire, that has eleven time zones, and
its much smaller neighbors has been one of the security problems
of Europe and Asia and the Middle East for hundreds of years.

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It cannot be removed by one individual, even if he were to conceive peace in the manner in which Americans conceive it. And there is no indication in either the Russian or Communist history that even a conciliatory Soviet leader would have a necessarily parallel view.

So it is absolutely imperative not only that we develop a strategic doctrine, but that we get some concept of what kind of a world equilibrium we are after, and that we do not lose ourselves in an orgy of personal relationships.

Nor should we assume that the Soviet leadership—that the Soviet economic reforms automatically guarantee a more peaceful foreign policy, since their purpose is to make the Soviet Union strong, not to make the Soviet Union conciliatory.

These are my main points, Mr. Chairman, which I concluded with an appeal, which is not necessary in this committee, for bipartisanship in the treatment of these issues, because if the United States is assumed to be changing its policy or reviewing its policy every 4 to 8 years, if our national interest is never perceived to be settled, then we become a factor of instability.

And I find it painful when I read that a senior member of Chancellor Kohl's party said that they could not go along with the modernization proposals of the administration because they did not know what the next President was going to do and they did not want to expose themselves to American changeability.

I think this is a situation that we need to remedy on this side of the Atlantic no matter who wins the election this year.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kissinger follows:]

OPPOSITE: 207 TO 215 INSERT HERE
PAGES 100 TO 108 INSERT HERE

critics as a means of shifting the risks of nuclear
devastation to Europe.

Competitive avoidance of nuclear risk cannot possibly
be the basis of NATO strategy. It is essential to develop a
strategy that distributes risks equitably but effectiveness
must be the ultimate outcome. This is why the issue of
modernization should become the occasion for a careful and
bipartisan reappraisal of NATO strategy and arms control
policy. Otherwise the Alliance will be left with a
precarious combination of the formal NATO doctrine of
flexible response which, however, now has to be applied
under conditions of nuclear stalemate, growing nuclear
pacifism, a subtle Soviet strategy to separate the US and
Europe -- especially in the nuclear field -- and continued
inadequacies in conventional forces.

INF and NATO Modernization

Divisive trends have been magnified by the INF
agreement. This is not the occasion to analyze the merits
of what will soon be an accomplished fact. If the Senate
were to refuse ratification, domestic pressures in all
European countries would force the withdrawal of these
missiles in any event. 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 a mistake and led directly to the
so-called zero option. The INF weapons were never aimed at
the SS-20's. Their ultimate justification was to prevent
the nuclear blackmail of Europe by linking the strategic
defense of Europe with that of the 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 since the
Soviets would have to calculate that the United States would
use its 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 a
counterblow on Soviet territory. Were the war confined to
Europe this would inflict an unacceptable level of damage on
the Soviet Union. But the Soviets could escape this
challenge only by initiating general nuclear war against US
territory--a decision out of proportion to any likely
objective. Hence the defense of Europe and the US were
"coupled."

INF in short was a reassurance for defense-minded
Europeans that America would use its nuclear capability on
behalf of Europe's survival. But the defense-oriented
leaders in Europe faced bitter opposition. In the end the
INF missiles were introduced only after riots and
demonstrations that shook the domestic tranquility of many
countries for months. It is impossible to understand the
psychological impact of the INF agreement without
considering what the current leaders went through when the
missiles were installed.

The NATO challenge can thus be summed up as follows:

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serious diplomacy have a lead time longer than the term of
office of a single Presidency. There will always be 2/10
disagreements over tactics; but the fundamental issues must
be settled. It should be the highest priority of a new
Administration and of both sides of the Congress.

Insert offset folio 216 here

Chairman NUNN. Thank you very much, Dr. Kissinger. We will rotate around with our 6-minute rule. I will lead off.

Dr. Kissinger, you say on page 3 of your statement that—I believe it is the second paragraph. You say: "The situation is made more complex because in nearly every NATO country the consensus on defense and foreign policy has broken down."

Could you elaborate on that and tell us what you mean by that?

Dr. KISSINGER. Well, I think—well, let us begin with our country. I believe that we lack right now a clearcut national consensus, of what our defense policy is supposed to accomplish.

But we are better off than, say, the Federal Republic or Great Britain, where were the opposition party to come into office, the most drastic changes in defense policy would follow: In the British case, the abandonment of the nuclear deterrent; in the German case, the adoption of the zero option and various other devices that would run counter to what has heretofore been established NATO doctrine.

In France this is not the case. There seems to be amazing consensus on defense policy. But France is not fully integrated into NATO. So perhaps the sentence was overstated.

But as we saw when the deployment decision had to be made with respect to INF, there are in many European countries significant neutralists and even pacifists current.

Chairman NUNN. One of the points you emphasize, which I strongly agree with, is the United States should be in a position of encouraging more European cooperation and European initiative in the overall NATO, both contributions and policymaking.

How do you view the French-German brigade in that respect and the new council they have created?

Dr. KISSINGER. I view it very favorably. I believe that one of the results of the INF negotiations and of Reykjavik and other events that have happened in the last few years has been that the pro-Western element in the Federal Republic has been cut adrift to some extent. And if one wants to keep them from pursuing substantially nationalistic goals, they must find some home in a relationship beyond Germany's borders.

And I think it is an act of statesmanship on the part of both Chancellor Kohl and the French leadership to have created these organizations.

Now, I know there is some concern in Britain, for example, that this might lead to the alienation of the United States. I think it is

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up to us to make clear that we view it favorably, that we consider a greater European role in European defense as consistent with the Atlantic alliance.

In the defense field, I cannot conceive any attack from the East on Europe in which Europe would not be better off with American assistance than without it. And so I would have enough confidence that the Europeans would see that the same way.

Chairman NUNN. Do you see the need, in light of your feeling about the breakdown of consensus and also your feeling, which is well stated here, about NATO not really having a broad strategy that encompasses both security and arms control, and arms control has become sort of the end in itself rather than the means to a broader end—we do not really know where we are going.

And I detect from your statement that you feel that we do not really have a comprehensive proposal to put on the table before Gorbachev that involves both conventional and nuclear and also the broader issues, and so we in the West have not formulated our own position.

In light of all of that, if I have correctly come close to paraphrasing it, do you believe we need a new Commission of some kind, like the Harmel Commission in the late sixties? Do you believe this should be the subject at the summit conference, with the direct leaders taking the initiative here?

How do you believe the Western alliance—

Dr. KISSINGER. Mr. Chairman, I have not given any concrete thought to how to resolve the problem, but I would certainly favor if one could get a non-partisan Commission like the Harmel Commission to address these issues. Any device that could state the strategy in a coherent manner that then the governments could adopt I would consider highly desirable.

I do not think the existing NATO machinery will generate it by itself, because they have too many current tactical problems to address.

Chairman NUNN. It is also awfully hard for even summit leaders to develop the consensus back in countries like Britain and Germany, where you noted the opposition party is in almost diametric opposition to some of the fundamentals. They are talking some about a Harmel Commission in France. I have heard several of them mention that that might be an approach.

Dr. KISSINGER. I had not heard it, but I think it is an excellent idea.

Chairman NUNN. I think they are reflecting in France about the same view you reflected here, that there has been sort of a breakdown of consensus.

I was amazed. Senator Warner and I were over there a week ago, and I was amazed that, particularly in some of the younger leaders, that they seemingly have, perhaps because of INF but probably because of Reykjavik, INF and the talk about immorality of deterrence and all of those things, eliminating all nuclear weapons—probably a combination as I read it, not just INF.

Dr. KISSINGER. No, no, it is a combination of all these factors.

Chairman NUNN. They are really doing some soul-searching in France now, I think.