Tectonic Shifts Signal Important New Alignments on Missile Defense, Hope for Real Progress Toward Protecting America

(Washington, D.C.): As intensive hearings get underway today in the House National Security
Committee concerning the options for defending against ballistic missile attack, a number of
noteworthy changes are occurring in the political and policy landscape. The following
developments suggest that the recent defeat of the Contract With America’s commitment to
protect the people of the United States — as well as their forces and allies overseas — against
such attack is but a temporary setback and that this Congress will nonetheless take crucial
steps toward defending America:

• In recent weeks, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger — a prime-mover behind the
  1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which effectively precludes the United States from having a
  missile defense of its territory — has made clear to Members of Congress his view that that
  treaty was crafted in a very different era and that it has outlived its usefulness.
• At a conference in Washington sponsored last week by the Nixon Presidential Library,
  William Hyland — one of Dr. Kissinger’s top aides in government and a totem of the foreign
  policy establishment as the long-time editor of Foreign Affairs magazine — took issue with
  President Clinton’s criticism of those he brands as neo-isolationists determined to “squander
  our resources on Star Wars.” Noting that he was not sympathetic to the idea of missile
  defenses during the 1980s, Mr. Hyland observed that “today it is a totally different
  proposition.” He added, “I can’t imagine why we should be against it.” He warned that if the
  Congress continues to ignore the need for missile defenses out of some sort of “vindictiveness”
  toward Ronald Reagan, a disaster may befall the United States and “the question will be asked:
  why did we not do anything about it?”
• At the same meeting, Dr. James Schlesinger — who served, among other senior positions, as
  a former Secretary of Energy in Jimmy Carter’s Cabinet and who was a prominent critic of the
  idea of providing an “astrodome” defense against a massive Soviet nuclear attack — announced
  that he agreed with Bill Hyland about “Star Wars.” Secretary Schlesinger observed that the
  current international “situation is entirely different than that of the Cold War.”
• On 27 February, Ed McGaffigan — a senior aide to an influential member of the Senate
  Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) — made an astounding statement at a
  Washington conference on commercial remote sensing satellite technology. He contended that
  the widespread availability of such satellites would have such serious implications for U.S.
  military operations as to necessitate the deployment of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons affording
  the United States the capability to control outer space and preclude the use of these systems as
  real-time intelligence collection assets. When it was observed that the development and
  deployment of such ASAT systems had been blocked in the past by legislators like his Senator
  — and that space-control weapons would likely have inherent anti-ballistic missile capability —
  Mr. McGaffigan nonetheless opined that it was “inevitable” that ASATs would be fielded.
• In a closed-door meeting on 6 March, eleven Republican Senators — including Majority
  Leader Robert Dole and the chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services
  Committees — served notice on the Clinton Administration: There are fundamental
  disagreements between the executive and legislative branches over the value of the ABM
  Treaty under present and prospective international circumstances of global
  proliferation. Consequently, any effort to “enhance the viability” of the ABM Treaty by
  multilateralizing its signatories or by expanding its scope (i.e., by imposing new limitations on
  currently unconstrained, “theater” missile defenses) would not enjoy congressional support.
  The stage now seems set for legislative action to bar such steps, at least unless and until the
  Senate has been given an opportunity formally to consider and provide its advice on such
  significant, and ill-advised, changes in the ABM Treaty.
• Rep. Curt Weldon (a long-time and distinguished member of the Center for Security Policy’s
  Board of Advisors) and Rep. Duncan Hunter — the chairmen, respectively, of the House
  National Security Committee’s Research and Development and Military Procurement
  Subcommittees — have announced the creation of a bipartisan Congressional Missile Defense
  Caucus. The purpose of this caucus will be to organize Members of Congress determined to
  correct the United States’ present inability to provide effective protection against missile
  attack. It will also facilitate the efforts of groups, organizations and individuals who share that
  commitment to educate and otherwise assist legislators in their deliberations in this area.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy welcomes these signs of portentous shifts in the tectonic plates of
the national security policy world. According to the findings of recent national polls
independently conducted by the Luntz Research Company and the Opinion Research Corporation
and the results of a focus group (which was observed by Rep. Floyd Spence, the National
Security Committee’s chairman), these developments closely track with the American people’s
desire to be defended against missile attack — once they learn that no such defense is in place
today.

The Center encourages members of the House National Security Committee starting with today’s
hearing — and others who are committed to defending America — to redouble their efforts to
ensure that the growing danger of ballistic missile attack is understood properly and responded to
forthwith.