TESTIMONY
OF
LARRY M. WORTZEL, Ph.D.
VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR
THE KATHRYN AND SHELBY CULLOM DAVIS
INSTITUTE
FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
BEFORE THE
HOUSE
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
REGARDING
COMBATING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
March
17, 2004
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Mr.
Chairman and distinguished members of the
Committee, thank you for inviting me to
address the threats posed by the
proliferation of nuclear, biological,
chemical, and radiological weapons and the
means to deliver them.
The
dangers posed to the American people and our
allies by such weapons have multiplied
significantly in the past few years.
Military measures such as deterrence and
political means like arms control, which
proved reasonably effective during the Cold
War, are more difficult in a world with
multiple actors that have, seek, and may use
such weapons. The existence of non-state
actors that function on a global scale, such
as al-Qaeda, that may gain access to weapons
of mass destruction significantly changes
the habitual calculus of deterrence and arms
control, particularly because for the
terrorists neither regime survival nor the
survival of a state is involved in their
decision calculus. Indeed, even personal
survival is often not a consideration.
In
today's threat environment a successful
policy for combating weapons of mass
destruction addresses the most serious
danger to the peace of the world and the
security of the United States. As President
Bush pointed out in a White House fact sheet
on February 11, 2004, chemical, biological,
or nuclear weapons in the hands of
terrorists or rogue regimes could bring
catastrophic harm to America and to the
international community.
Diplomatic measures and
nonproliferation regimes alone will never be
sufficient to curb these dangerous threats;
they lack the threat of force. The approach
taken by the President in the Proliferation
Security Initiative adds another tool to the
toolbox as a means between holding meetings
and declaring war. A successful policy for
combating the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, however, depends on using the
following four tools in a balanced and
concerted way: deterrence, defense,
offensive operations, and arms control
(including export controls).
Proliferation Security Initiative
The Proliferation Security
Initiative, despite the fact that it was
launched less than a year ago, has been
quite successful in encouraging
international cooperation on interdicting
illicit trafficking of weapons. It is a
creative approach that works to develop
cooperation among like-minded states in a
manner that allows each to enforce its
customs and security programs within its own
sovereign territory. Moreover, the PSI has
the attraction of being a new international
regime into which nations opt of their own
volition, without some attempt to create a
new external bureaucracy that limits
national sovereignty or subordinates it to a
supra-national organization. As the Bush
Administration works to maintain momentum,
the PSI should be driven by the following
four principles:
-
The PSI should seek a
healthy competition with the treaty-based
(NPT, BWC, CWC) non-proliferation regimes.
-
It should avoid creating an
international bureaucracy.
-
It should seek to harness
the power of sovereign states, not create
an internationally based alternative power
center.
-
It should avoid quid pro
quo deals in which non-proliferation
obligations are obtained at the expense of
accepting technology and trade obligations
that undermine the non-proliferation goal.
As attractive as this new
approach may be, it has limitations. Ships
or aircraft that attempt to transport
weapons of mass destruction, delivery means,
or the technologies to manufacture such
deadly weapons must pass through or stop at
the customs territories of the cooperating
nations. Any nation of terrorist group that
attempts to move such things could simply
operate through the territory of a
non-cooperating state. Still, other means of
arms control are necessary to complement
this important initiative.
Deterrence
Deterrence through
conventional military strength and a strong
nuclear force has been the principal means
of dissuading a potential adversary from
attacking the United States. The strategy of
mutually assured destruction, as frightening
as it might be, was an effective way to
deter the Soviet Union during the Cold War,
and it continues to be a necessary tool to
deter potential adversaries. China too, with
its "minimum deterrent strategy" understands
that a nuclear strike against U.S. forces
and bases in East Asia, American allies, or
the United States will invite swift,
decisive retaliation. China's minimum
deterrent strategy was designed to have the
ability to inflict damage on an aggressor
able to wage a nuclear war. Beijing is
shifting its strategy to one of limited
deterrence based on what Alistair I.
Johnston, of Harvard University, has
identified as a new war-fighting doctrine
that includes both counterforce target and
countervalue targets (missiles and the
general population) in an adversary's
homeland.
Deterrence works in cases
in which leaders value the survival of their
nation, its population, and its
institutions, if not their own survival.
Officials who accompanied then-Secretary of
State Madeline Albright to North Korea
report that even Kim Chong‑il-who may not
value his people very much but certainly
values his own survival and that of his
regime-understands that a nuclear attack on
the United States would invite certain
destruction. Indeed, North Korea has been
effectively deterred since the Korean
Armistice was signed in 1953, which is why
President Bush is able to address the threat
from Pyongyang in a patient manner with the
cooperation of the other four nations with
an interest in peace and security in
Northeast Asia.
Defense
It is
imperative that the United States develop
effective ballistic missile defenses and
deploy them as quickly as possible. Defenses
minimize the effects of the potential use of
weapons of mass destruction and make the
threat of their delivery by missile by rogue
states or enemies with minimal delivery
means less credible. Such defenses would be
more effective if combined with a broad
architecture involving allies and friends.
Thus, cooperation with Israel and NATO
nations on ballistic missile defense
programs is important, as are Britain's
intent to upgrade the Fylingdales radar and
the declarations by Australia and Canada of
their willingness to cooperate. The December
17, 2003, decision by the Diet of Japan to
move forward to develop ballistic missile
defenses with the United States is also a
welcome policy.
Effective missile defenses may even help
dissuade potential adversaries from
developing a long-range ballistic missile
capability to begin with. The fact is that
the United States adhered to a policy of
purposeful vulnerability toward ballistic
missiles until recently. This provided an
attractive incentive for nations to develop
a missile
capability to exploit this obvious hole in
the nation's defense. A 10,000 kilometer
missile will be far less valuable to
North Korea or Iran if the United States can
effectively defend against it. This should
translate into those nations being far less
concerned about investing their scarce
resources into those capabilities.
Of course, weapons of mass
destruction can be delivered by many other
means than just ballistic missile. Effective
means of cruise missile defense are already
available, and the Coast Guard and Navy are
putting into place a maritime surveillance
and security program to lessen the
likelihood of such an attack. The other
measures that the Department of Homeland
Security is putting in place to protect the
American people are equally important means
of defense. Border protection, ensuring that
we know what foreign persons are in our
country and why, and the Container Security
Initiative to prevent use of a shipping
container to transport a weapon of mass
destruction, are all defensive measures that
make America safer.
Consequence management and
the ability to minimize the effects of any
weapons of mass destruction that may be used
against the American people or our forces
abroad are also important defensive
measures. The old emphasis on civil defense
in case of nuclear attack during the Cold
War has shifted to a broad system of
consequence management as part of a homeland
security system. Thoughtful study has taught
us that local responders are the most likely
to have to handle any use of nuclear,
radiological, biological, or chemical
weapons against the American people. A
systematic way of ensuring that local first
responders are prepared for such an
eventuality is one of the most serious
responsibilities of the Department of
Homeland Security.
Offense
Preemption has always been
an option for addressing a circumstance
where the risk of attack is growing. As
early as April 2002, The Heritage Foundation
suggested in its publication Issues 2002
that the Bush Administration adopt a
policy of preempting imminent attacks by
terrorists or states when there is certain
knowledge that weapons of mass destruction
may be used or that an attack is imminent.
The right to do so is not a new principle in
international law. It has been an inherent
right for centuries that nations need not
suffer an attack before they can lawfully
defend themselves against imminent danger of
attack. Making this an explicit strategy and
policy highlights this option because of the
unique threats posed by rogue states or
terrorists who may be armed with weapons of
mass destruction. A policy of preemption
requires "certain knowledge." Imagine if you
will that it is December 6, 1941, and United
States ships and aircraft observe the
assembled Japanese fleet launching armed
aircraft off the shores of Hawaii. No
rational person would argue that attacking
those Japanese aircraft and ships before
they reached American shores would have
violated international law.
The failure of the
American intelligence community to
accurately portray the scope, nature and
location of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program is a serious matter that
Congress is investigating. Because a policy
of preemption is so dependent on accurate
intelligence, the international community
will question the legitimacy of any future
preemptive action by the United States (or
any other nation), but the explicit
statement of such a policy serves as a
notice to terrorists and rogue states that
they cannot prepare an attack against
America with impunity. Given the potential
scope of such an attack, preemption becomes
a more important tool.
The
President is justified in applying
preemptive military force to fight the war
on terrorism. Failure to do so in spite of a
threat of imminent attack would be to ignore
the lessons learned from September 11
regarding the nature of the threats against
America in the 21st century.
-
Deterrence alone is not
sufficient to suppress aggression. Both
Osama bin Laden and the Taliban could have
predicted that the United States would
respond to their attacks; yet, they acted
anyway.
-
Attacks can occur with
little or no warning. The emergence of
global communications, advances in
technology, and the globalization of
terrorism have significantly decreased the
time it takes not only for a potential
threat to be identified, but also for that
threat to emerge as an act of aggression.
-
The use of a weapon of mass
destruction is reasonably likely. On
September 11, Americans were killed on a
massive scale. Hostile entities
increasingly view weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) as political assets.
-
A deadly synergy is created
when hostile state and non-state agents
conspire. While hostile states continue to
threaten America and its interests, the
threat of non-state actors, such as al-Qaeda,
is growing. The danger increases when
states and non-state actors work together.
States have resources-including territory,
finances, an international diplomatic
presence, and trade-that non-state actors
do not have. On the other hand, non-state
actors are able to operate globally and
can act largely undetected.
-
The future envisioned by
America's enemies is incompatible with
U.S. security. Prior to September 11,
"soft diplomacy"-including multilateral
arms control, aid incentives, and appeals
to reason-was the preferred approach in
dealing with hostile regimes. On September
11, however, the idea that such hostile
regimes and the United States could
simultaneously pursue their respective
interests lost all credibility. It was
clear that America's enemies were willing
to use unprovoked violence to achieve
their objectives.
Other offensive measures
include the development of new warheads that
will penetrate hardened facilities and
special warheads that may be effective in
wiping out stocks of biological agents.
Although it would be ideal to develop such
new weapons without nuclear testing, most
experts do not believe it is possible to
build a totally new nuclear weapon
otherwise. If testing is required at some
future time to ensure the security of the
American people, then the President should
not hesitate to do so.
Arms Control
Arms control is only one of
the four essential non-proliferation
(counter-proliferation) tools, but it has
been a principal tool for years. Its
strength is that it shrinks the universe of
threats, allowing the U.S. to concentrate
its efforts with its military tools.
International arms control treaties obtain
their legitimacy (or should) from a proven
track record of contributing to the
realization of non-proliferation or
disarmament goals.
The United States has
responsibilities that are established in a
number of arms control treaties dealing with
WMD, as well as other treaties and
agreements, some examples of which are:
Nuclear Suppliers Group; Australia Group,
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,
Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,
Chemical Weapons Convention, Threshold Test
Ban Treaty, Plutonium Production Reactor
Agreement, Conventional Armed Forces in
Europe Treaty, and Vienna Document 1999 of
the Negotiations on Confidence and Security
Building Measures. Arms control is an
important pillar in the control of WMD, but
its success depends on the cooperation of
all parties to agreements and treaties.
The weakness of depending
too heavily on arms control alone is that an
unbalanced policy will weaken the other
tools for combating the spread of weapons.
Still, the International Atomic Energy
Agency has been helpful in the case of Iran,
as has diplomacy from the European Union
that patiently withheld economic assistance
and expanded trade from Iran without
cooperation with the IAEA. The G-8 agreement
to commit up to $20 billion in a global
partnership against proliferation is also an
important step in arms control.
Export controls for
technologies with application for weapons of
mass destruction and delivery means are also
important arms control measures. The United
States should pursue such controls with
friends and allies.
Cooperative Threat
Reduction is also an important component of
arms control. The Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program is a congressionally
mandated program to assist the former Soviet
republics in securing and eliminating their
WMD stockpiles. It also works to strengthen
security at Russian nuclear weapons
transportation and storage facilities;
controls or eliminates strategic bombers,
submarines, and missiles; and provides
employment for Russian WMD scientists;
including those from former biological
weapons research facilities. It is a
reasonably successful set of measures that
are effective in eliminating threats at a
reasonable cost to the American people. In
the end, however, arms control measures must
be verifiable. And verifiability cannot be
part of a guessing game where the United
States, or the United Nations, try to pick a
spot where a WMD program is located while
the nation maintaining that program plays
"hide and seek."
The success of the
programs with the former Soviet states is
built on the foundation of years of arms
control cooperation and mutual security
building. Even in an era of mistrust, such
as the Cold War, there were programs to
build confidence and security, and these
helped cooperation later.
The lessons of this
cooperation should not be lost on North
Korea. Pyongyang faces some serious choices.
It can continue to be a failed state with a
criminal economy working on weapons of mass
destruction, or it can integrate itself into
the international system economically and
politically. The multilateral approach to
North Korea taken by President Bush, coupled
with patient diplomacy and the withholding
of fuel and financial aid until North Korea
agrees to a complete, verifiable,
irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear
programs is the correct approach. Some are
skeptical of the word "irreversible" in this
formula, arguing that so long as technology
is available and scientists retain the
knowledge to restart a program, it cannot be
irreversible. But the verifiability of the
program makes it far more difficult to
reverse. I believe that the United States is
prepared to respond to a serious decision by
North Korea to end its nuclear program and
that Congress would fund certain forms of
economic and technical assistance as a means
to help North Korea, but the blackmail
payments of previous attempts at threat
reduction with Pyongyang and the games of
"hide and seek" cannot start again.
Verifiability must be the standard against
which arms control is measured.
Dictatorial Regimes and
Regime Change
The United States seeks to
promote democracy, economic freedom, and
human rights around the world and advance
these ideals through a variety of programs.
Seeking regime change in dictatorships or in
state sponsors of terrorism is no fault.
Regime change may come about in a wide
variety ways and through the application of
a wide variety of tools including popular
action by the citizens of a state,
sanctions, covert actions, public diplomacy,
and moral suasion. This does not mean that
regime change must be imminent or immediate,
or that it is a hostile policy. Nor does it
have to be a policy effected through
military means. But the mere threat of
regime change may lead to positive outcomes
in the non-proliferation area. Libya is now
divesting itself of its weapons of mass
destruction, which is likely the result of
that regime's fear of being removed from
power.
The U.S. cannot depend solely
on arms control negotiations to "solve" the
problem because the regimes most likely to
seek WMD are the ones least likely to abide
by legal commitments. Iraq, Iran, and North
Korea immediately come to mind as such
nations. Inspectors cannot inspect what they
cannot find, and unless a nation is willing
to turn its programs over to outside
inspectors to investigate, as Libya
apparently has, the threat of regime change
is still useful leverage.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman and
distinguished members of the Committee,
thank you for holding this hearing. The
threat of weapons of mass destruction and
their proliferation is a complicated matter
that cannot be addressed with one simple
approach, whether that approach is arms
control or deterrence. The United States has
a number of tools available in the form of
verifiable cooperative threat reduction,
multilateral export controls, arms control
treaties and regimes, deterrence, offensive
action when attack is imminent, active and
passive defenses, working to change hostile
regimes, and ballistic missile defenses.
Other arrangements might look at financial
activity in the banking systems of
cooperating nations to address another
aspect of the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction. It is important that the
defensive programs and incident mitigation
programs of the Department of Homeland
Security and the Department of Defense
continue. Your attention to the subject,
support for such approaches, and active
oversight of these matters makes America a
safer place.