The Fat’s In The Fire: Only Assertive Presidential Leadership Can Secure Both B-2 and SDI

(Washington, D.C.): In an act of desperation, key members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have threatened to help truncate the B-2 bomber program if sufficient funds are not approved by their colleagues to permit continued, urgent development of space-based strategic defenses. While a power play to save both programs is fully warranted, unless President Bush brings his considerable popula-rity immediately to bear, this particular approach may simply serve to preclude the U.S. from having the vital capabilities offered by either of these weapons systems.

As predicted in the attached op.ed. by Center for Security Policy director Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., published in the 1 July 1991 editions of the Washington Times, five senators voted last week to terminate the B-2 in Armed Services Committee action on the FY1992 defense authorization bill. They were retaliating for the threatened gutting of the Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS) proposed by Sens. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and John Warner (R-VA). The Nunn-Warner approach envisions continued adherence to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prohibits territorial defenses of the United States, together with some deployment of ground-based interceptors — to the extent permitted by the present or a modified version of the Treaty.

The motives of the proponents of the Nunn-Warner approach are far from clear. Some are transparently seeking to kill off the Strategic Defense Initiative piecemeal — space-based portions today, ground-based elements tomorrow. Others, naively unmindful of their cosponsors’ true agenda, have persuaded themselves that this proposal will at least produce half-a-loaf for SDI and that that is better than none. Tragically, in so doing, they wittingly or unwittingly ignore a fatal inconsistency inherent in this approach: It seems to recognize the critical need for strategic defensesthe fielding of effective defenses. against ballistic missile attack even as it insists that deployment of such defensive systems can only occur if they conform to the terms of a treaty designed to preclude

Fortunately, President Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney have written the Committee, putting its members on notice that a defense bill that does not include funding for both the B-2 and the GPALS system — including its space-based "Brilliant Pebbles" component — will be vetoed. These letters (copies of which are attached) have prompted contemptuous responses from both Sens. Nunn and Warner to the effect that a veto threat is not sufficient to ensure congressional support for large-scale, multi-year development and procurement programs.

The Center for Security Policy believes that the Bush Administration should regard such statements as a throwing down of the proverbial gauntlet. In the aftermath of the Gulf war, there is absolutely no question that the American people can be energized and mobilized on behalf of state-of-the-art American technical defensive prowess. The nation should not have to choose between an immensely powerful conventional and nuclear force-projection system like the B-2 and affordable, global defenses against ballistic missile strikes. Whether the American people are compelled to settle for only one — or worse yet, neither — of these capabilities will be the clearest test yet of Mr. Bush’s claim to presidential leadership.