The Joint Chiefs Of Staff On SDI: Death Of A Thousand Cuts?

The Center for Security Policy today deplored comments by an unnamed senior representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported in The Washington Post. This official suggested that the JCS are prepared to see the United States forego realistic testing of strategic defenses as part of an "informal" understanding with the Soviet Union designed to facilitate the completion of a START Treaty.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, said, "If an accurate representation of the Chiefs’ view, these comments would be but the latest indication of the uniformed military’s opposition to the realization of the promise of SDI. They are of a piece with other signs that the Chiefs are increasingly unwilling to ensure that SDI receives adequate resources. This attitude — which we hope is not shared by the new Chairman, General Colin Powell — reflects a shortsighted, parochial attachment to current military technologies, fear of gainsaying wrongheaded congressional opinion and a dangerously misguided commitment to the ABM Treaty."

Gaffney noted, "The Joint Chiefs’ lack of foresight with respect to the essential role defenses must play if U.S. strategic deterrence is to remain effective in the future, with or without START, is especially regrettable. It invites Congress further to savage the budget requests for research and development into strategic defenses. It also encourages U.S. acquiescence in the Soviet Union’s continuing campaign to inhibit our efforts to reduce American strategic vulnerability."

The Center believes that the Secretary of Defense and the President must promptly serve notice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congress and the Soviet Union that the United States remains committed to the vigorous pursuit of promising SDI technologies — including realistic testing — and the deployment of strategic defenses as soon as those technologies are ready.

The Center has repeatedly expressed its strong opposition to sacrificing SDI — either explicitly or implicitly — in order to secure Soviet agreement to a START accord. As the Center’s recent paper, The Soviet Wyoming Formula on START Would Kill SDI, makes clear, this is particularly true given the likelihood that the emerging START treaty will not do nearly as much for U.S. security interests as would a deployed SDI system.