LEADERSHIP: PETE WILSON, REPUBLICAN EXPERTS DEFINE U.S. MISSILE DEFENSE AS KEY NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE FOR ’96

(Washington, D.C.): On Saturday, California Governor Pete
Wilson did something altogether too rare in contemporary American
politics: In Green Bay, Wisconsin, he offered a vision — rooted
in conviction and personal experience — of what the United
States needs, rather than simply play back what local
politicians thought his audience would want to hear. The
centerpiece of Gov. Wilson’s remarks was that President Clinton
should “renounce” the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty which effectively prevents the United States from
defending itself against ballistic missile attack. Instead,
the Governor called for the urgent deployment of effective
missile defenses utilizing the technology that would provide such
defenses in the most rapid and least expensive manner, i.e., by
modifying the Navy’s AEGIS fleet air defense system.

Specifically, Gov. Wilson told Republican officials from 13
Midwestern states:

“We should simply renounce the ABM Treaty which
President Clinton has just told Russian President Yeltsin we
will keep. President Clinton has put national security at
risk by denying this nation the ability to defend against an
accidental or intentional ballistic missile attack.

“Furthermore, if President Clinton is allowed to
proceed with his ‘deal’ negotiated at the recent Moscow
Summit, then he is deliberately diminishing the capacity of
the U.S. Navy’s AEGIS cruisers to provide America and our
allies, quickly and at little cost, a highly mobile and truly
effective global system of defense against missile attack.
This is unconscionable.”

Affirmation from the RNC’s National Policy Forum

The validity — and perspicacity — of Governor Wilson’s
remarks in Green Bay was much in evidence yesterday at a
“megaconference” on “Defending America: The New
Generation of Threats” sponsored by the Republican National
Committee’s National Policy Forum. Speaker after speaker,
including such notables as former Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S.
Senators John Warner of Virginia and Jim Inhofe of
Oklahoma and former Presidential Science Advisor William
Graham, described the threat posed by the United States’
present, absolute vulnerability to missile attack as the most
pressing national security problem of the day. They also
underscored the need for the swiftest possible corrective action.

In the course of the day’s proceedings, these influential
experts and senior representatives from industry noted the
serious impediment to such corrective action posed by the 1972
ABM Treaty. Time and again the point was made that — far from
enhancing U.S. security — this treaty puts the American people
at ever greater risk, as some twenty-five nations, including the
world’s most dangerous rogue states, acquire weapons of mass
destruction and the ballistic missiles with which to deliver
them.

The “megaconference” provided a particularly
stunning indication of the sea-change that is taking place in
Republican thinking on the ABM Treaty: Sens. Warner and Inhofe
reported on a conversation they had had a few days before with
former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a principal author of
that accord. According to Sen. Inhofe, Dr. Kissinger told
them, “There’s something nuts about making a virtue out of
your vulnerability.” Dr. Kissinger has previously argued
that the time has come to revise the ABM Treaty in light of
changed circumstances. This was, however, the first time he has
been publicly cited as questioning the validity of that
agreement’s most fundamental premise — namely, that America’s
utter vulnerability to missile attack was an inherently good
thing, to be perpetuated indefinitely, come what may. It was, of
course, this premise that President Clinton explicitly embraced
in the Moscow summit when he called the ABM Treaty “the
cornerstone of strategic stability.”

‘Team B’ and the House National Security Committee

Among those participating in the NPF
“megaconference” were several members of the Heritage
Foundation’s blue-ribbon Missile Defense Study Group (known as
“Team B”). Their remarks afforded an opportunity to
present Team B’s key recommendation: an initial deployment of a
global anti-missile system could be achieved by giving Navy AEGIS
cruisers an “Upper Tier” configuration. Thanks to the
nearly $50 billion already invested in an infrastructure for
world-wide defense of the fleet against aircraft and other
aerodynamic threats, the Heritage Foundation group determined
that a further investment of just $2-3 billion would enable
the associated platforms, launchers, sensors and missiles to be
adapted to provide effective, large-area anti-missile protection.

In action this week on H.R. 1530, the Fiscal Year 1996
Defense authorization bill, House National Security Committee
voted to allocate $200 million to accelerate development of the
Navy’s Upper Tier system. If spent in such a way as to optimize
this system’s performance — as called for by Governor Wilson and
the Heritage Team B — these funds could allow the United States
to begin fielding a sea-based defense against ballistic missile
attack by 1998.

Unfortunately, in deference largely to Rep. John Spratt
(D-SC) — who relentlessly argues for continued U.S. adherence to
the ABM Treaty at the expense of effective defenses for the
American people and their territory — the Committee’s
increased funding for the Navy Upper Tier and other ballistic
missile defense programs will be spent only for programs deemed
consistent with that 1972 agreement. As a direct result, the
Upper Tier system will be “dumbed-down,” allowing it
only to defend America’s allies and such forces as the U.S. has
deployed overseas, but not the United States itself.

The Bottom Line

After Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess, the full
House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee
are scheduled to take up the FY96 Defense authorization bill. It
is to be hoped that both will do so with a view to correcting the
national security shortfall that Republican leaders like Governor
Wilson, Secretary Weinberger and Ambassador Kirkpatrick have
recognized as the single most critical one the country now faces
— the absence of effective, global anti-missile defenses.

In this connection, the Center for Security Policy welcomes
Sen. Jim Inhofe’s announcement at the National Policy Forum
yesterday that he was committed to lead an effort in the Senate
Armed Services Committee, on which he serves, to defend America.
It also commends the NPF for encouraging the Republican Party to
focus on the real and growing threats facing this country from
ballistic missiles, weapons of mass destruction and related
dangers.

Finally, the Center welcomes the challenge offered by
Governor Wilson to others seeking his Party’s presidential
nomination: Will they make clear, as he has, where they
stand on the vital issue of protecting the American people
against missile attack — and not allowing an obsolete arms
control agreement, forged with a country that no longer exists in
an strategic environment than no longer pertains, to preclude
this country from doing so?