think that is worth hearing out. But nonetheless, I think there are serious problems and let me highlight just two or three of those.

The first is that you have to have essentially a perfect defense against bombers as well, unless you have a system such as this which is totally deployed in space. Otherwise, cruise missiles and bombers can come in ahead of time and simply destroy the ground-based elements of your ABM, leaving you defenseless.

The second is that you have a serious problem of a period of instability while you are trying to get these things deployed and the strategic relationship between the two sides. There is a period where there is great uncertainty, and there would be great risk.

The risk is that there is simply no way to protect the allies in Europe with these systems because the types of attack that you have to protect them against are not affected at all by any of these ABM systems, so you would have a tremendous political problem within the NATO Alliance. You can protect the American public, but you are not able to protect our European allies in any way.

So I think all of these are problems that have to be dealt with. Finally, let me turn to the question of our broader arms control policy, because I believe this is absolutely important. I see absolutely no possibility of moving forward on ASAT treaties unless we are able first to put together some kind of a workable arms control regime that covers the most important weapons and the most important threats; namely the strategic retaliatory forces and the intermediate range nuclear forces of the two sides, the forces that are subject to negotiation today in Geneva.

I think this is an appropriate and important time to have these hearings because the Scowcroft Commission has just issued its report, which covers not only the MX but this broader issue of how our arms control policy should proceed.

In my opinion, they have made a major contribution in suggesting a movement away from past approaches and a movement toward aggregate limits on nuclear warheads. I would commend this report, the entire report, to your attention. I believe it is the most important statement on nuclear policy that has been made in a decade and deserves your attention.

I further believe that the present arms control approach that is being pursued, while no one can say for sure whether they will succeed or not, are unlikely to succeed. I think we would need to move to a different approach that does not have the complications associated with the START approach and the INF approach that today are under discussion in Geneva, and I think the aggregate warhead limit approach that the Scowcroft Commission has suggested is the right way to go.

In my prepared statement I have gone through some of the reasons for that and in some earlier writings have developed those thoughts even further. But I believe that if we could first reach an agreement that limited the total number of warheads in these important categories of intermediate and strategic forces, which by coincidence are essentially equal today in the Soviet Union and the United States, about 12,000 each, that we would then have an atmosphere in which important but in some sense secondary issues, such as ASAT, could proceed forward.

Thank you very much.

[Mr. Lodal's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAN M. LODAL

I am pleased to appear before the committee today. By way of background, let me explain my involvement in the issues before you. For 2 years, from 1973 through 1975, I was a senior staff member and Director of Program Analysis for the National Security Council. In this capacity, I was responsible to Secretary Kissinger for staff work on arms control and defense program matters. I travelled with Secretary Kissinger on nine diplomatic trips, participated in three summit meetings with the Soviet leadership, and spent almost 200 hours in direct face-to-face negotiations with senior Soviet leaders, including Mr. Brezhnev, Mr. Gromyko, Mr. Dobrynin, and other senior officials. Since that time. I have written numerous articles on the subjects of arms control and defense policy. I maintain an active interest in these matters and continue to participate in panels sponsored by organizations such as The Council on Foreign Relations and the Carnegie Endowment for Interational Peace.

I would like to cover three subjects in my statement:

The desirability and feasibility of negotiating an agreement on ASAT weapons as proposed in Senate Resolution 43.

The relationship of such efforts to potential anti-ballistic missile programs and the ABM Treaty.

The overall context of our ongoing arms control negotiations and the relationship of strategic arms limitations and intermediate nuclear force limitations to ASAT negotiations.

SENATE RESOLUTION 43

In principle, I fully support efforts to negotiate both a ban on anti-satellite weapons and, in the future, a ban on further weapons in space. Keeping war out of space has always been an objective of U.S. arms control policy. The Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 banned nuclear explosions in space. The Outer Space Treaty later banned weapons of mass destruction in space. The ABM Treaty of 1973 banned deployment of space-based ABMs. The negotiations proposed by Senate Resolution 43 would be only one additional step in the long and continuous history of these efforts.

At the same time, I would reemphasize some of the difficulties our nation will face as we attempt to reach such agreements. You have heard most of these points from witness who appeared last September, but I will highlight a few: First, I would reiterate the importance of protecting our space-based systems, even if a treaty can be negotiated. We must take adequate countermeasures and maintain backup for essential systems in any case. It would be impossible to negotiate a treaty that effectively prohibited a Soviet breakout, after which they would quickly threaten, at least on a small scale, many of our crucial space-based reconnaissance and control systems. We must never put ourselves in a position of relying exclusively on Soviet agreement and good will to preserve these essential capabilities.

A corollary to my first point is that we must be realistic in our expectations for such treaties. There are limits to what we can achieve. We can eliminate the most severe threats to our space systems and the possibility of all-out space wars. While the Soviets could break out of a treaty with some type of antisatellite system, they would not be able to deploy large-scale anti-satellite systems rapidly enough to carry out full-scale space war. Eliminating this possibility would be no mean feat-it would contribute to the stability of a strategic balance and much improve the opportunities for maintaining workable diplomatic relationships with the Eastern bloc.

Many aspects of verification associated with such treaties will not only be difficult, they will be impossible. In such cases, we must be prepared to maintain countermeasures that will ensure our security and not in any way depend upon any treaty agreements we might reach.

The Soviets have not expressed very much interest in these types of agreements, so we should not deceive ourselves about the likelihood of achieving them. In summary, it is my view that the type of agreements urged by the Resolution are desirable and worth pursuing, but the road to achieving them will be difficult. We should not expect this process to lead to any near-term lessening of the need for adequate military programs to protect and deploy our necessary space-based systems.

ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE SYSTEMS

The Resolution calls for an ASAT Treaty as a first step toward prohibiting all space-based weaponry. Perhaps the largest potential for space-based weaponry is that of anti-ballistic missile systems. As you are well aware, President Reagan has recently called for an increased effort to develop such systems.

Both the development and the deployment of space-based ABMs are currently prohibited by the ABM Treaty of 1972. But President Reagan's proposal obviously reopens the question of whether this type of treaty is in the Nation's interest.

In my view, these systems are not in the nation's interest. The development and deployment of such ABM systems by either side would intensify nuclear dangers rather than diminish them. I believe this is true even if the very serious technical problems associated with the development of such systems could be overcome. I do not want to belittle these technical problems-they are immense. Space-based laser systems, for example, would have to improve by about a factor of 1,000 over the present performance when the three major components are considered (laser power, reflecting mirror size, and accuracy of aiming) for them to be effective. But even if these problems could be overcome, these systems should not be deployed.

To begin with, it makes no sense to defend against anti-ballistic missiles unless one can also defend against bombers and cruise missiles. Some Administration spokesmen have argued that nuclear defenses need not be perfect to be useful. But the problem is that a leaky defense, in other words, one that is not perfect, allows the first few weapons through the defense to destroy the defense itself, leaving you once again completely undefended. Thus, the reduction in damage is not proportional to the effectiveness of the defense.

More importantly, there is no way to avoid a serious destabilization of the strategic balance if such defenses are developed and deployed. Even if it were possible to deploy near-perfect defenses eventually (which it is not), the strategic balance would be highly unstable during the many-year process in which these defenses were being deployed and perfected. In other words, there is simply no way to get from here to there.

Finally, it is not possible to defend our allies against nuclear weapons, because the Soviets can attack Europe with numerous systems other than long-range ballistic missiles. Their short-range missiles, aircraft, and battlefield weapons would all be unaffected by any such defense. Thus, were we to deploy one, we would inevitably and irretrievably split the NATO alliance.

In conclusion, I see no reason why the future possibility of space-based ABMS should be permitted to impede movement toward the types of agreements urged by Senate Resolution 43.

START AND INF

I would like to turn now to the question of our Nation's overall arms control policy. I am of course in no position to say whether or not President Reagan's approach to START and INF can lead to workable agreements. But given the Soviet reactions to these proposals to date and the severe unilateral restructuring they would cause the Soviets to undertake of their nucelar forces, I doubt that agreements will be reached.

But there is an even more fundamental problem. We have allowed our arms control process to become so complicated that it has come near to collapsing under its own weight. It is ironic that this has occurred in an Administration which strongly criticized earlier arms control approaches because they tended to "drive" our weapons programs, rather than being a complement to programs we needed for our own security purposes.

The Scowcroft Commission report just issued this week, has, in my opinion, made a major contribution in suggesting a movement away from past approaches and toward aggregate limits on nuclear warheads. In my personal writings, I have long urged such a move. I believe the most productive approach would be to negotiate a simple aggregate limit on all nuclear weapons carried by systems with ranges greater than 1.000 kilometers. By a coincidence of timing, the United States and the Soviet Union currently have approximately the same number of such weapons-about 12.000 each. This limit would include all of the forces under discussion currently in Geneva, plus other important forces not covered by either of these talks such as Backfire bombers and cruise missiles. The approach would have many advantages. It would eliminate the definitional

arguments that have plagued all past and current arms control negotiationsis the Backfire long range or intermediate range? Do Soviet SS-20s in Asia count or not? (There are many similar disagreements.) Within overall warhead limits, each side would be permitted to structure its forces as it saw best to meet its own security needs. It is difficult enough for us to make our own decisions on what forces we should have, much less to negotiate the details of our force program simultaneously with the Soviet Union.

An aggregate warhead limit would focus on the major problem, rather than allowing attention to be diverted to less important problems such as SS-20s taken in isolation, or Pershing IIs taken in isolation. The agreement I have proposed would freeze the total number of nuclear weapons of intermediate and long range. This would represent a major change in the psychology of the arms race. In the future, any new weapons deployed by either side would be accompanied by the destruction of an existing weapon.

I have covered these points in my testimony today for two reasons-first because the Scowcroft Commission report is the most important statement on nuclear policy in a decade or more and deserves your immediate attention, and second because I do not see any possibility of moving forward on secondary arms control agreements such as those urged by the Resolution you are now considering if we are unable to establish an effective and durable arms control regime on the major weapons systems held by the two sides. Thus, I would recommend that your Resolution be modified to endorse the arms control recommendations contained in the Scowcroft Commission report and urge that the Administration move rapidly to adopt them so that the build-up in nuclear weapons could be frozen, a stable agreement reached with the Soviets, and work begun on other issues of supreme importance to the two sides, such as weapons in space.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.

Senator HELMS [presiding]. I have forgotten the order that Senator Pressler specified. Dr. Rathjens, I am told by staff that you are No. 2, so we recognize you and thank you for being here, sir. [Mr. Rathjen's biographical data follows:]

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA OF GEORGE RATHJENS

Dr. Rathjens received Bachelor's and Ph. D. degrees in chemistry from Yale University and the University of California (Berkeley) respectively, and later did post-doctoral work in spectroscopy. He was Chief Scientist and then Deputy Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense (1960-62); was in the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1962–65); and was Director of the Systems Evaluation Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses (1965-68). Since then, he has been Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a sponsor, councillor and past chairman of the Federation of American Scientists; and is chairman of the Council for a Livable World.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE RATHJENS, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY, WEST NEWTON, MASS.

Mr. RATHJENS. Thank you, Senator. I shall skip over parts of my statement. Let me begin with a brief comment on the importance of the military use of space.

Years ago, President Johnson noted that the intelligence information obtained from photosatellites alone had been worth more to us than the cost of our whole space program, and I agree with that. Without such information and that from electronic intercepts as well, we would have had to hedge against uncertainties in Soviet military capabilities by greater efforts ourselves, particularly in the strategic

arms area. We would have done this, but our efforts would have likely led to greater expenditures on their part, and so on. Thus, the arms race would have been much worse without that kind of information. Moreover, important arms control agreements, such as the Limited Test Ban Treaty and the SALT agreements, would not have been possible, considering the difficulties without satellites of verification of compliance. And without satellites, we would have had to live in a world with more expensive, less adequate military communications systems.

Clearly, we have benefited from these uses of space much more than have the Soviets. This is because theirs is a closed society, making it hard for us to obtain information by other means, and because in respect to communications, they can rely more on internal means, whereas we, being the leaders of a global alliance with worldwide commitments, have much greater need for intercontinental capabilities. In wartime, too, we will be more dependent on satellites than they will, and that dependence will very likely increase.

This brings me to the ASAT problem. If all we had to worry about was a system of such limited capabilities as that tested by the Soviets, I would not be much concerned. The prospects, however, are more ominous. The destruction or blinding of satellites is likely to be relatively easy. Their locations will be known to an adversary. They are inherently quite vulnerable, considering the kinds of sensors or communications equipment they carry, and many are so expensive that it is unlikely that great redundancy will be affordable.

Cost-effectiveness considerations suggest, then, that an action-reaction kind of a competition is a very realistic possibility. As one side develops an ASAT capability, the other will, within limits, deploy redundant satellites, take measure that will make its satellites less vulnerable, and develop decoys and other countermeasures.

Moreover, if either acquires any significant ASAT capability, or even threatens to, the other will develop not only countermeasures, but an ASAT capability of its own. Then, its adversary step will develop a better system, and so on.

In the development in the United States of the F-15-based system, which is incidentally, I think, a much more promising and flexible system than that of the Soviets, the competition is already well underway.

There is another side to the story, too. Suppose that ASAT capabilities turn out to be effective enough so that notwithstanding countermeasures, they can actually destroy a number of satellites in war. Such destruction could result in drastic erosion in intelligence and command, control and communication capabilities. This could make it difficult for the leadership of either country to make intelligent decisions, to communicate them to field commanders, and to communicate with the leadership of the other side so as to try to bring about a cessation of hostilities. And the destruction of satellites in the early stages of conflict could lead to rapid and catastrophic escalation.

These considerations lead me to believe that an agreement not to interfere with satellites would be in the interest of both the United States and the Soviet Union, more in ours than in theirs. S. Res. 43