S.O.S. — Save Our Submarines: Latest Revelation About Chinese Espionage Underscores Need to Retain Full Trident Force

(Washington, D.C.): As the Senate and House Armed Services Committees consider
changes to
the Fiscal Year 2000 defense authorization bill this week, action is possible on one singularly
dubious idea: Cutting the Navy’s Trident submarine force from 18 boats to 14.

The decision to terminate the use of these four modern submarines as ballistic missile
carriers —
and possibly to retire them altogether — was taken as part of the START II Treaty, which was
signed with Russia during the Bush Administration and ratified by the U.S. Senate under
President Clinton. Since the Russian Duma has yet to act on that accord, however, it has not
entered into force. As a result, pursuant to a provision carried over each year in the defense
authorization bill, the Navy has been enjoined from reducing the Trident force.

One of the insidious effects of arms control on the U.S. military is the expectation that
defense
budgets and programs will be brought into line with arms control agreements, no matter
what.
Thus, even though the START II Treaty has not been ratified by Russia and may never
be, the
Pentagon budgeteers have assumed that the four oldest Trident boats would be taken off-line by
now. Finding money to support there continued service as ballistic missile submarines was
exceedingly difficult even before President Clinton decided to launch a hugely expensive war
with Serbia. 1 The superficial appeal of saving billions of
dollars by eliminating weapon
platforms that we had long ago expected to retire by acceding to Pentagon pleas for relief from
the law prohibiting such a step has been tempting to lawmakers who should know better. 2

We Need More Survivable Platforms, Not Less

An article written by William J. Broad which appeared in Tuesday’s New York
Times offers an
excellent example of why, under present and foreseeable circumstances — including the absence
of a START II Treaty in force, the idea of reducing the number of ballistic missile-carrying
Tridents is a bad idea. Entitled “U.S. Loses Hold on Submarine-Exposing Radar Technique,” the
article reveals that “secrets that China stole in 1997 about a space radar that can expose
submerged submarines could aid it in finding subs from commercial satellites or
airplanes,
and might also help it hide its own under sea weapons.” (Emphasis added.)

The spread of such technology threatens to directly undermine the most survivable and single
largest leg of the United States’ strategic deterrent — its Ohio-class Trident submarines.

Another example of the spread of technology that could jeopardize the survivability of the
U.S.
sea-based deterrent was described late last year by Peter Leitner, a senior strategic trade advisor
at the Department of Defense. In the Winter 1998 edition of World Affairs, 3 Dr. Leitner wrote:

In 1995,…the PRC sought and obtained sophisticated micro-bathymetry equipment from the
United States, along with 6,000 meter capable video and side-scan sonar systems. 4 This
equipment may easily be misapplied by the PRC to help advance its meager [anti-submarine
warfare] capability in supports of its attempts to develop a “blue-water” navy. This equipment
can also be used to help the PRC locate undersea bastions, even within the U.S. [exclusive
economic zone] for their missile launching submarines.

Further Changes Coming in the Strategic Environment

Whether these technology acquisitions have a deleterious impact on the survivability of the
U.S.
Trident nuclear submarine force in the near-term or simply over the longer term, the fact is that
the trend is in the wrong direction. When combined with the spread of other technologies —
notably, those that could increase the accuracy and lethality of China’s nuclear forces — it is
obvious that the strategic environment in which we live is changing for the worse.

This is especially true given the present, serious uncertainties about Russia’s future course.
While it is to be hoped that democratic and economic reforms will finally take hold and that a
“new” Russia will emerge, this outcome appears more remote all the time. Despite the crushing
economic crisis that has dealt a stiff blow to some sectors of the military, Russia continues to
maintain and modernize its formidable nuclear forces. The re-emergence of an intensely
adversarial regime in Moscow is a future for which the United States must remain prepared.

The Bottom Line

Cuts to the Trident submarine force are premature at a minimum, a costly mistake at worst.
The
unpredictability of the global strategic environment argues for caution. At an absolute minimum,
reductions in the Trident force should be postponed — as presently required by law — until Russia
ratifies START II. It makes no sense unilaterally to reduce the force when the strategic
environment upon which planned cuts have in the past been predicated (i.e., one in which there
will be equivalent Russian force reductions) has yet to emerge.

1 See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
‘Peace in our time’ (No. 99-D 55, 6
May 1999).

2 See Cash-starved Joint Chiefs, Left-Wing Allies
Add Impetus to Clinton’s Unilateral
Denuclearization Agenda (No. 98-D 190,
23 November 1998).

3 See Broadening the Lens: Peter Leitner’s
Revelations on ’60 Minutes,’ Capitol Hill Indict
Clinton Technology Insecurity (No. 98-D
101, 6 June 1998) and Profile In Courage: Peter
Leitner Blows The Whistle On Clinton’s Dangerous Export Decontrol Policies
(No. 97-P 82,
19 June 1997).

4Dr. Leitner added: “Ostensibly, the equipment will be used for
manganese nodule exploration
within the Clarion/Clipperton fracture zone.” Two factors belie such a benign application of this
technology: First, the PRC is self-sufficient in the production of the metals derived from such
nodules; second, the value of these technologies for applications that may cause potential harm to
U.S. national security clearly goes beyond that derived from resource exploration.