Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Force Holds Hearing on FY2004 Defense Authorization

FDCH TRANSCRIPTS
Congressional Hearings
Apr. 8, 2003
Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Force Holds Hearing on FY2004 Defense Authorization

REED:

Thank you very much. Thank you gentlemen for your testimony. Ambassador Brooks, I was listening closely as you talked about the request for repeal of the ban on the production of low-yield nuclear weapons and your rationale seems to be to want to sweep away the artificial intellectual constraints. But it strikes me that if that was the only thing that was at issue here, you would request modification of the statutory language, not an outright ban. For example, the language, you could simply have said, it shall be the policy of the United States to not produce a (inaudible) by a low- yield nuclear weapon including a precision, low-yield nuclear weapon. Is that accurate?

BROOKS:

It is accurate that that would eliminate one of the concerns that I have with the language. The language now does have we fear a potential chilling effect on R&D and as you have described the possible modification, it might not. So speaking narrowly for the prospect of trying to get a robust advance concept program working, language like that might be entirely suitable. My view, the administration's view is that the ban on the particular class of weapons is a mistake, because it substitutes sort of a mechanical limitation for a broad examination.

We have low-yield weapons now. Is there a logic to saying that we can have older low-yield weapons, but that we know now that we aren't going to ever want to produce new low-yield weapons. Now to some extent, I admit we are talking about—since, I'm not going to develop or produce anything without the permission of the Congress and if the Congress decided to give me permission, it could modify the ban you talk about in the future. To some extent we are talking about an important signal, but I believe that it is wrong as a matter of principle to set forth arbitrary restrictions on even the development of weapons, but I freely concede the point that I'd be much better off in terms of my immediate concern for intellectual development with modification.

REED:

Well, I think Mr. Ambassador, you're right. This is a very important conversation. It sends a very strong signal and the signal that you tried communicating I thought was that this is just a technical issue about the breadth of research, but yet this repeal goes far beyond that. It would signal to many people that we're not only researching but we have a legislative authority, at least not the legislative prohibition to produce new weapons, new yield weapons and that would be an interesting signal around the globe in terms of many issues. Other countries looking at what we do, the proliferation issues, not discouraging disarmament efforts that we're trying to encourage.

So I find it puzzling that if it's simply a narrow research-based intellectual inquiry base, that such a ban would be urged by the administration and as for the arbitrary nature of setting one class of weapons aside, I think that goes to the—an issue about this weapon, a low-yield weapon might be less of a threshold to use than a larger one. That may be common sense or it may be wrong, but I think that most people feel.

BROOKS:

Yes sir and I understand that and here you have the paradox we have faced in this country for the last 60 years, that on the one hand, the more that you can see that the weapon is directly relevant to something you might want to do, on the one hand, the more effective a deterrent it is. And on the other, the more the argument that you make comes into play. I think that's an inherent part of the dilemma of nuclear weapons. What signal will we be sending?

One signal we may be sending is that we are no longer going to constrain ourselves by a reliance on a type of retaliation that was appropriate for the Soviet Union, that in fact since deterrence depends on what the adversary values, we are going to hold open the possibility of a deterrent that is adapted to a future adversary. In my view, that doesn't lower the nuclear threshold. Nuclear threshold is awesomely high but we know we're engaged today in an exercise in Iraq which demonstrates that the overwhelming power of the United States is not always enough to ensure rational behavior on the part of other countries. And so there is a possibility that in the future, one may need to have capabilities that we don't have now.

REED:

Excuse me (inaudible) are you suggesting that in the Iraq situation, we would have, if we had a low-yield nuclear devise...

BROOKS:

No I am not and thank you for the opportunity to avoid a misunderstanding (ph). I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting that it is important to realize that people we try to deter by and large don't think like us and therefore we may need a variety of capabilities to deter them. That's the point that we had in the time of the Soviet Union and that's the point that we have now. I was not meaning to suggest that nuclear weapons have any particular relevance to the Iraq situation because I don't think they do.

REED:

Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I just and while I might not be able to stay and perhaps Senator Nelson might follow up, is that as we look around, where would we use these types of weapons? We're currently engaged in a conflict with Iraq and I think Mr. Ambassador, you're quite right. We've said that's probably, we wouldn't even contemplate the use of such a weapon, a low-yield weapon in Iraq. So I just wonder why are we making an effort to take away all the restrictions, not just research and development leading up to it, but all the restrictions with respect to low-yield (ph) weapons and my time has expired. Thank you Mr. (inaudible)

ALLARD:

(inaudible)

REED:

No, I will yield back (inaudible)