H.R. 3073-TO IMPLEMENT THE CALL OF THE PRESIDENT FOR A NATIONAL STRATEGY SEEKING TO PROTECT PEOPLE FROM NUCLEAR WAR AND TO RENDER NUCLEAR WEAPONS OBSOLETE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE, AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, D.C., Thursday, November 10, 1983. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Melvin Price (chairman, Research and Development Subcommittee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MELVIN PRICE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ILLINOIS, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES; CHAIRMAN, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE The CHAIRMAN. The subcommittee will be in order. Today the Research and Development and Investigations Subcommittee will meet in joint session to hear testimony on H.R. 3073. This bill was introduced by Mr. Kramer, a member of the full committee. It has also been introduced in the Senate by Senator Armstrong as S. 2021. The bill encourages the President to implement certain organizational and policy matters with the objective of reducing this country's dependence on a nuclear retaliation strategy. [H.R. 3073 is as follows:] [H.R. 3073, 98th Cong., 1st Sess.] A BILL To implement the call of the President for a national strategy seeking to protect people from nuclear war and to render nuclear weapons obsolete Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the "People Protection Act". SEC. 2. The Congress makes the following findings: (1) The President has called for changes in United States strategic policy that seek to save lives in time of war, rather than to avenge them, and has called for development of defensive capabilities as an alternative to sole reliance on nuclear retaliation. Implementation of this new strategic policy will require organizational changes within the United States Government and will require development of a comprehensive new approach to strategic arms control and strategic policy. (2) Present strategic and arms control policies have proven inadequate in addressing the Soviet strategic threat that has developed since the early 1960's and in protecting the strategic position of the United States and its allies. (3) The United States, despite its present efforts to maintain a survivable and stable deterrent force that can support its present policy of deterrence through retaliation, continues to face an ever-increasing Soviet strategic threat in offensive and defensive weapons, including space-warfare systems that have been demonstrated to be connected to Soviet capabilities for a surprise attack. (4) The United States and its allies face increasing threats from potential nuclear proliferators that can use advanced delivery systems, including ballistic missiles, against which the United States presently has no defenses. (5) In order to protect people and to meet these threats to international security, the United States should reduce its present total dependence on nuclear retaliation, the use of which may cause heavy and unavoidable civilian casualties on all sides in the event of war, through deployment of comprehensive strategic homeland defenses to protect American citizens and territory, and the citizens and territories of its allies. (6) The United States should promote arms control arrangements that (A) seek to significantly reduce, in an equitable, verifiable, and enforceable manner, strategic offensive forces, and (B) encourage the development of comprehensive strategic defenses in order to guarantee such reductions. (7) Adherence by the United States to the 1972 Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, the intended effect of which is to prohibit comprehensive deployment of antiballistic missile defenses to protect national territories, may be inconsistent with United States obligations for the protection of its civilian population in time of war under recognized conventions for the regulation of armed conflict that have been signed by the United States, including the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. SEC. 3. The Congress encourages the President to implement those measures needed to protect people and to reduce dependence on nuclear retaliation strategies and specifically (1) to establish a new agency to consolidate the direct-energy activities of the Armed Forces, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy, with the charter of developing directed-energy technology as quickly as possible; (2) to create within the Armed Forces a new unified space command that would consolidate the space and strategic defense activities of all the Armed Forces into one operational command under the Joint Chiefs of Staff; (3) to establish within the Army a major command for ground-based strategic air defenses and ballistic missile defense and to put such a command under the unified space command called for in paragraph (2); (4) to transfer to the Department of Defense those space-launch vehicles and associated elements that are necessary for the conduct of national military space activities, including the deployment of space-based defense systems; (5) to order the immediate development of a manned space station capable of supporting both national security activities and other activities in space; and (6) to assess (A) the role of strategic defenses as verification safeguards and enforcement mechanisms within current and prospective arms control agreements, including agreements that provide for substantial reductions in strategic offense forces; (B) the consistency of the 1972 Treaty on the Limitation of AntiBallistic Missile Systems with existing international legal conventions for the regulation of armed conflict, including the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 1949; and (C) other organizational changes within the United States Government to implement the President's strategic recommendations. The CHAIRMAN. On March 23, the President called for a change in U.S. strategic policy. Implementation of this policy could require major changes in defense organizations as well as new approaches to strategic arms control. This hearing should provide the members with the impact of these changes. In addition to this hearing, the committee is expecting to have extensive briefings from the administration on the defense technology initiative. I understand that these briefings will be available after the President has had a chance to review the recommendations of the various panels that met this summer. This bill has also been referred jointly to two other committees: Foreign Affairs and Science and Technology. We have a large number of witnesses today. The members would appreciate a brief summary of each witness' written testimony. Each of you will be allowed to submit your entire testimony for the record. On behalf of Mr. Nichols, chairman of the Investigations Subcommittee, I would like to thank each of you for coming here today. The sponsors of this bill, Senator Armstrong and Mr. Kramer will begin the hearing this morning. STATEMENT OF HON. KEN KRAMER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO Mr. KRAMER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me first, if I might, express my deep appreciation to you and Chairman Nichols and Mr. Dickinson-and to the fine members of committee's staff, Tony Battista and Carl Bayer and John Lally-for your cooperation in making these hearings possible. If I might, according to your desire, Mr. Chairman, summarize my statement and exclude some of the more specific and detailed information that is included in the written copy. The CHAIRMAN. Your full statement will be included in the record. Mr. KRAMER. On March 23, President Reagan issued a historic challenge to the American people and our scientific leaders to "turn their great talents . . . to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering . . . nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete." The President's speech was a call for a "Peace Race", offering a vision of hope; the prospect of an opportunity to give ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and all generations to come the priceless gift of a world freed of the specter of nuclear war that has haunted our planet for the last 38 years. He has questioned the morality of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, which requires that the U.S. Government abandon its obligation to protect its citizens from attack, leaving them hostage under the threat of nuclear holocaust. In issuing his call, President Reagan has elevated the question of how best to achieve and maintain peace to the top of the national agenda, and in so doing has set the context for future debate on the subject. Make no doubt about it, the peace race challenge envisioned in the President's defensive technologies initiative is a spectacularly ambitious one. Quite simply, it will require a scientific, technical, military, and organizational undertaking that will dwarf anything ever before mounted by the human race. A colossal "Manhattan Project for Peace." Clearly, it will take our best minds and a bipartisan commitment from the Congress if we are to succeed. However, the goal, bringing a halt to the arms race and ridding the world of nuclear weapons, is so important that we simply cannot afford to miss this opportunity. The United States can achieve remarkable and totally unanticipated technological breakthroughs if there is a driving national commitment to do so, as was so dramatically demonstrated when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin-who we are fortunate to have here as a witness-set foot on the Moon only 8 years after President Kennedy set the goal for this Nation. Thus, I am optimistic that we too can develop the type of defensive technologies President Reagan referred to in his March 23 speech if only we will commit ourselves to that task. However, whereas President Kennedy could look to NASA and a ready-made contingent of conceptual thinkers, planners, and engineers to get his man-on-the-Moon project off the ground, President Reagan does not enjoy a similar luxury today. Implementation of the President's vision requires an entirely new organizational infrastructure, both in the operational and research and development spheres. It is this vital need that the People Protection Act seeks to address. In brief, this bill, H.R. 3073, which has now also been introduced in the Senate by Senator William L. Armstrong as S. 2021, who I'm honored and privileged to have with me here this morning as a witness, would do the following things: One, restructure the Air Force Space Command as an all-service, unified command that ultimately would have full responsibility for the deployment and operation of all space-defense systems. Two, create a new Army command, as a component of the unified space command, which would be responsible for the groundbased aspects of a comprehensive multitiered strategic defense. Three, establish a directed energy weapons systems agency to consolidate our research and development work on laser, particlebeam, microwave, and other promising technologies. Four, transfer to the Department of Defense those space shuttles which are required for national security missions. Five, provide for the immediate development of a manned space station, and Six, overhaul our strategic and arms control policies to place primary emphasis on strategic defense rather than strategic offense. I am very pleased to learn that many of the recommendations of the defensive technology study team, which has come to be known as the Fletcher Commission, the future security strategy group and the senior interagency group on defense policy reportedly closely parallel the major provisions of the People Protection Act. We have provided a chart to show comparisons between some of the provisions of the bill which we've just referred to and some of the recommendations of the Fletcher panel. In order to put any new defensive system developed under the new initiative into effective operation, the United States needs a viable deployment and operations organization for space defense. Creation of a unified, all-service space command would admirably serve that purpose, as the Fletcher Commission has reportedly recognized in its recommendation that the Joint Chiefs of Staff be directed to develop the management scheme for a multitiered space defense program. Currently, virtually none of our space systems are assigned to a unified or specified command, the only commands which by law can conduct military operations, including support operations. This means that most space systems do not fall within the operational command structure, that they are not directly responsive to the President and the other national command authorities. In the near term, a unified command would serve to remedy this potentially dangerous situation. In the longer term, a unified space command would be in charge of the comprehensive and strategic defensive weapons systems envisioned by President Reagan in his March 23 speech. It would thus have full responsibility for defending the American people, our homeland, our forces around the globe, and our allies from strategic attack from any quarter. Fortunately, such a command can build on the existing Air Force Space Command, which became operational in September 1982. As one who sought to draw attention to the need for such a command throughout the 97th Congress, having introduced legislation in December 1981 to create this organization, I have long argued that this new Air Force command should play a key role in bringing about a new American strategic posture built around strategic defenses. The Air Force command is particularly well positioned to be the implementing focus of a new strategic homeland defense policy. Included within its present mission are space surveillance and missile early warning, which have been transferred to it from NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. It has also been charged with responsibility for all military shuttle and satellite operations. The unified command can also build on the Navy's new Naval Space Command. Given the vulnerability of U.S. naval forces to Soviet space reconnaissance and targeting and the Navy's increasing dependence on space systems, inclusion of the Navy is essential. Finally, the fact that the President has proposed a total homeland defense posture including defenses that can stop cruise missiles, bombers, and ballistic missiles, means that the new unified command should include an Army component command along the lines of that branch's former air defense and ballistic missile defense command. The President's new defensive proposals are of such breadth that they will require a multitiered approach to homeland defense. A space tier that seeks to destroy enemy missiles in all phases of their flight until their reentry and which may eventually also be able to destroy enemy aircraft and cruise missiles as well, and a ground-based tier that could be deployed first around critical installations on the ground and which could serve as a backstop to the space tier. By putting the new Army command under the unified space command to operate the ground-based tier, we will have in place all the organizational elements of a multitier defensive system. Let us now consider the need for a directed energy systems agency, a need recognized by the Fletcher Commission in its recommendation that a single senior official with his own money be put in charge of all strategic defensive technology R&D. Today the American directed energy weapons effort runs far behind its Soviet counterpart in funding and top-level commitment. It is split up among the uniformed services and the Departments of Defense and Energy, competing for a limited pool of funds with more traditional technologies and with forces having powerful protectors and constituents. Fragmentation and the lack of focus on mission objectives has relegated the American directed energy program to a marginal status. |