Why Offense Needs Defense

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Why Offense Needs DefenseAuthor(s): Caspar W. WeinbergerSource: Foreign Policy, No. 68 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 3-18Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148728 .

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WHY OFFENSE NEEDS DEFENSE

by Caspar W. Weinberger

In his 1896 treatise What Is Art? Leo Tolstoy wrote:

I know that most men-not only those considered clever, but even those who really are clever and capable of understanding the most difficult scientific, mathematical or philosophic problems-can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty--conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.

Today, the United States faces many chal-

lenges as the leader of the free world. But one of the most pressing challenges must be confronted on the intellectual level. It involves America's will-

ingness to question its assumptions in light of the

practical results they have had in the world. Amer- ica needs to ask if conventional wisdom is always wise.

In the realm of U.S. defense strategy, it is nec-

essary to move away from partisan politics and toward a serious evaluation of our strategy's basic tenets, especially since the advent of the idea of mutual assured destruction in the 1960s. For

nearly 20 years the United States has narrowed its options significantly by always saying no to the possession of defensive systems.

It is time that America examine the results of that decision. Obviously, elements of that overall

strategy, such as the basic U.S. commitment to nuclear deterrence and the NATO strategy of flexible response, retain proven value. But by exam-

ining its strategic principles in an intellectually honest manner, the United States can reaffirm those tenets that still apply and revise any that have become outdated. The notion that abandon- ment of defenses has been stabilizing is one that deserves particular attention.

History provides a fascinating parallel to the current controversy over whether defense should

CASPAR W. WEINBERGER is secretary of defense. 3.



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be considered part of U.S. nuclear strategy. In 1934 a British parliamentary debate, not unlike the present debate over the Strategic Defense Ini- tiative (SDI), took place on the need for research in air defense technology. At that time, there was a

growing concern about Nazi Germany's efforts to rearm itself. Many people believed that the potential destructiveness of bombing civilian populations from airplanes had been demonstrated

clearly in World War I and that no defense ever could be built to meet such an attack in the future. One proposed solution was to build a bomber force that would act as a deterrent by jeopardiz- ing Germany's own population.

However, Winston Churchill, then a member of Parliament and later prime minister, spoke in favor of air defense, saying, "If anything can be discovered that will put the earth on better terms

against this novel form of attack, this lamentable and hateful form of attack-attack by spreading terror throughout civil populations-anything that can give us relief or aid in this matter will be a

blessing to us all." He went on to argue that until defenses were devised, deterrence would rest com-

pletely on Great Britain's ability to retaliate: "The fact remains that pending some new discovery, the only direct measure of defense upon a great scale is the certainty of being able to inflict simul-

taneously upon the enemy as great damage as he can inflict upon ourselves."

Churchill's remarks reflected a sense both of realism and of hope. He was acutely aware of the

technological limitations of his time. Yet he rec-

ognized the merit in seeking a deterrent that did not rely solely on offensive retaliation.

Since Churchill's time, technology has yielded the most destructive weapons ever known. In- deed, the advent of nuclear weapons has revolu- tionized the way people think about war, for its

consequence is, quite possibly, the destruction of the world. The many challenges faced are as much

technological as intellectual-yet the two go hand in hand. I firmly believe that human beings possess the necessary genius to solve today's most pressing strategic problem: radically reducing and eventually eliminating the threat of nuclear war. But before technological solutions can be found, policymakers must be willing to consider again strategic concepts previously rejected.

Too often, those responsible for pondering how 4.



Weinberger

best to maintain peace and security are accused of

seeking to fight a war. As the British historian Michael Howard pointed out in The Causes of War in 1983, "It takes only one generation of successful peacekeeping to engender the belief, among those not concerned with its mechanisms, that

peace is a natural condition threatened only by those professionally involved in preparations for war." And in 1954, B. H. Liddell Hart, one of this century's foremost students of military science, observed in Strategy:

The common assumption that atomic power has cancelled out strategy is ill-founded and misleading. By carrying destructiveness to a "suicidal" extreme, atomic power is stimulat- ing and accelerating a reversion to the indirect methods that are the essence of strategy-since they endow warfare with intelligent properties that raise it above the brute application of force.

Certainly, possessing nuclear capabilities and

thinking strategically should not be confused with the desire to fight a nuclear war. Just the opposite is true. A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. But America faces an adversary with a different strategic outlook from its own- an adversary that, while understanding the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, still plans to fight and win should either a nuclear or a conventional war break out.

This difference in strategic approach was evi- dent in Soviet Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky's 1963 book Military Strategy. He and his collaborators made it clear that a nuclear war would most likely have to be fought. Indeed, because of such a pos- sibility, planning for all contingencies was accom-

plished in a very calculated way. In light of tech-

nological developments since the nuclear revolu- tion in military affairs, high-ranking Soviet officers like Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, chief of the Soviet General Staff, and Colonel General M. A. Gare- yev, chief of the military science directorate of the General Staff, have revised some of Soko- lovsky's emphasis on early use of nuclear weapons. They now believe that it is possible to defeat the West through a nonnuclear offensive but have by no means ceased planning to prevail on the conventional or nuclear level "should imperialism unleash" a new war.

Although many contend that strategy does not apply to nuclear warfare in the same way it does

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to conventional warfare, recent history suggests that how one thinks about nuclear war decisively affects force deployments, force structure, weapons acquisition, and, above all, arms reduction agreements. The United States and the Soviet Union indeed have avoided war on the grand scale, even though preserving the peace has required a constant effort by the West to maintain its deterrent force and resolve. But no one can say with absolute certainty why these efforts have been successful thus far. Whatever the reason, Amer- ica must continually search for better, more stable ways to keep the peace. This means thinking strategically.

Heretical Questions It is clear now that many of the assumptions

that have guided U.S. nuclear and conventional

strategy over the past 25 years were not shared by the Soviets. Instead, the Soviet armed forces rec-

ognized the various levels of American military strategy and proceeded to search for ways to defeat it. In the case of NATO, U.S. military strategy must include a willingness to counter the enor- mous Soviet conventional advantage with the threat to use nuclear weapons should Western efforts to stop the conventional attack fail. The Soviet military is working to counter this with an

integrated nuclear and conventional strategy and a build-up of nuclear and conventional offensive forces. By modernizing these forces, developing a new doctrine to guide their strategy, and taking arms control positions advantageous to them, the Soviets have demonstrated how they think strategically-about real contingencies in a real conflict. Only by recognizing that America, too, must actively pursue an effective military strategy in

peacetime can the United States hope to maintain a stable deterrent on all levels.

In his 1946 book The Absolute Weapon, the nuclear theorist Bernard Brodie called into question the most fundamental principles of strategy: "Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose." Such a role for a military establishment was revolutionary, to say the least. Brodie posited the notion that if the United States threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear destruction, the Soviet leadership would

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be deterred and, consequently, the terrible destruction threatened would never come about. He formulated his theory of deterrence at a time when the United States clearly occupied a position of strategic superiority and when atomic bombs were few. Such an approach may have seemed satis-

factory under those conditions, but those conditions have changed. What has not changed is the

proper focus Brodie placed on preventing a nuclear war. Every American president in the nuclear age has considered this the primary objec- tive of nuclear strategy.

The nature of war always has encompassed ter-

rifying prospects. Consider the policy of the Assy- rian army in about 700 B.C.: Every man, woman, and child in captured cities usually was killed. This policy of terror made potential adversaries think twice before attacking or even opposing the

Assyrians. Hundreds of years later, between A.D. 1200 and 1400, the world faced the terror of the

Mongols, when Genghis Khan and his Tartar vas- sals ravaged every major region of the known world except western Europe. During World War II, aggressive Axis policies led to the deliberate

slaughter of millions. But devastation also came from the acts of those fighting for freedom. The Allied response to aggression, including the fire-

bombing of Dresden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and

Tokyo, resulted in greater destruction than had ever been known. In the Tokyo raids alone, more than 83,000 people were killed and more than 40,000 wounded-total casualties comparable to those later wrought by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Today the destructive power of the nuclear arsenals has reached an almost unimaginable magnitude. This dramatically changes the conse-

quences of war. However, it does not change the fundamental nature of war, which is a political and social phenomenon. Wherever there is war, there is terror and destruction. Given the potential magnitude of a nuclear war, America has a

greater responsibility than ever before to prevent war. But to prevent war, it must take into account human nature and the lessons of history.

Looking back at the 1950s, it is necessary today to ask the heretical questions: Did the quantum leap in the destructiveness of the weapons of war change any of the fundamental principles of strategy? And is it not necessary to think strategically

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to deter? History is littered with the destruction and devastation wrought by nations that never intended to fight another war as horrible as the last. In the end, the real question becomes, How is such a declared intent interpreted by a potential adversary, given the existence of the capability to

wage war? That the Soviet Union has been deterred from initiating nuclear war does not on the face of it mean that the Soviet leadership is operating under the same assumptions as the new

generation of American nuclear strategists.

The destructive power of the nuclear arsenals does not change the fundamental nature of war.

As the 1950s came to a close, the United States was still embroiled in a debate over how to avoid nuclear war. If the legacy of the 1950s was the

emergence of a new approach toward strategy, the legacy of the 1960s might be described as the U.S. attempt to educate the Soviet Union to its

way of thinking about the unthinkable. Indeed, a host of new ideas and concepts were carefully incorporated into the American nuclear lexicon. Consider the list: flexible response, escalation control, assured destruction, strategic stability, and escalation ladder, to name a few.

In a world of American nuclear pre-eminence, Soviet students of the United States were obliged at least to listen, even if somewhat incredulously. As is now known from Soviet military literature of the period, the Soviet decision makers paid scrupulous attention to American pronounce- ments, but they continued to operate under a different set of assumptions. One of the U.S. as-

sumptions not shared by the Soviet Union, and whose profound effects are still being felt today, involved the idea of deterrence based solely on offensive retaliatory capabilities. Then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara firmly believed that if both the United States and the Soviet Union

possessed a secure second-strike capability with- out defenses, this represented the most stable situation that could be hoped for in a nuclear age.

During the now famous encounter with then Soviet President Aleksei Kosygin at Glassboro, New Jersey, in June 1967, McNamara expressed frustration at not being able to convince Kosygin

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to take a similar view to America's and abandon the quest for a defense against nuclear missiles.

Kosygin reportedly remarked: "We are defending Mother Russia-that's moral. You are increasing your offensive forces-that's immoral." Appar- ently, one of the most basic and ancient principles of strategy-the need for a mix of offensive and defensive capabilities to deter potential enemies- had been discarded in American strategic thinking then and replaced by concepts preached by the new American nuclear strategists.

Certainly, part of the logic that guided Amer- ican policymakers reflected the problems associ- ated with the development of technologies for defense against ballistic missiles. Given the lead that the United States possessed in nuclear weaponry, the inclination toward a purely offensive deterrent strategy can be understood. In hindsight, however, the consequences of abandoning the more traditional approach to strategy can be eas-

ily discerned. On the one hand, the Soviet Union proceeded

to explore and develop defensive technologies; on the other, the United States allowed what offensive advantage it possessed in nuclear technology to erode while making no attempt to acquire defensive technologies. It made little effort even to conduct research. McNamara, in full good faith, intentionally allowed this to happen. As early as

January 1967, in testimony before a Senate committee, he justified his reasoning for not pursuing strategic defense:

We believe the Soviet Union has essentially the same requirement for a deterrent or "Assured Destruction" force as the U.S. Therefore, deployment by the U.S. of an ABM [antiballistic missile] defense which would degrade the destruction capability of the Soviets' offensive force to an unacceptable level would lead to expansion of that force. This would leave us no better off than we were before.

Unfortunately, the Soviets approached their national security from an entirely different point of view, so McNamara found Soviet spending on "sievelike" defensive systems nearly incomprehen- sible. He called it "fanatical" and said it could be explained by "their strong emotional reaction to the need to defend Mother Russia." A better ex- planation is that Soviet deterrence doctrine has never conformed to a purely offensive approach. The United States made the familiar mistake of

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assuming that the Soviets were just like Ameri- cans and thought the same way.

In 1983, when President Ronald Reagan first announced his initiative to develop strategic missile defenses, the idea that active defense might play a constructive role in the strategic equation, and that it might lead to a more stable world, was greeted by many so-called defense experts as noth- ing less than heresy. Indeed, "strategic defense" was not part of the nuclear lexicon and therefore was immediately dismissed by some in Congress and others in the defense community at large. Today, however, the basic principle is rarely challenged except by those who believe that the conventional wisdom will never change. The debate in Congress is not whether the United States should work on strategic defense technologies, but how vigorously.

Curiously enough, in the early 1960s, as the debate over antiballistic missiles began to take shape, Nikolai Talensky, a retired Soviet general major who had been the editor of the military journals Red Star and Military Thought, expressed his views on ABMs in the October 1964 issue of the Soviet journal International Affairs. Talensky noted that "sooner or later, every new means of attack leads to the emergence of a means of defense." He cited such classic examples as the sword and shield and the shell and plate armor. Accord- ing to Talensky, that same law exists in the age of nuclear rockets, despite the radical change in the nature of any possible armed struggle.

In noting the disastrous consequences of nuclear war, Talensky contended that effective ways must be sought to reduce the danger of nuclear rocket attack and, if possible, to neutralize it al- together: "I think that it is theoretically and tech- nically quite possible to counterbalance the absolute weapons of attack with equally absolute weapons of defense." Clearly Talensky recognized the Western paradox of defense through offensive threat alone. He remarked, "Antimissile systems are defensive weapons in the full sense of the word: by their technical nature they go into action only when the rockets of the attacking side take to their flight paths, that is, when the act of aggression has been started."

Talensky's point of view reflects classical So- viet strategic thinking. In the last 10 years alone, the Soviet Union has spent 15 times as much on

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strategic defense as the United States. This effort has given the Kremlin today the advantage of the world's only deployed operational ABM system, the only operational antisatellite system, the most comprehensive, in-depth, and capable air defense system ever deployed, and an organization for passive defense of its leadership, population, and industrial assets-including hardened shelters for 175,000 Communist party and government leaders. In fact, these actions, along with extensive advanced research into new technologies for ballistic missile defense, belie current Soviet rheto- ric. Indeed, as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev lashes out at America's SDI research program, he

ought to bear in mind Talensky's prophetic words:

"Only the side which intends to use its means of attack for aggressive purposes can wish to slow down the creation and improvement of antimissile defense systems."

The democratic West might one day find itself in the same dangerously weak position that the Allies were in when Germany attacked in 1939.

Some 23 years later, certain conditions have

changed; however, many still base their strategic thinking on assumptions that no longer apply. In 1972 the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to limit defensive systems. America actually gave up defensive systems, but the USSR never stopped emphasizing defense as a

strategic principle. It continued research and de-

ployed an antiballistic missile system as allowed by the ABM treaty. It also violated the treaty by constructing a phased-array radar at Krasnoyarsk in Soviet central Asia. In fact, there is overwhelm-

ing evidence that it eventually signed the ABM

treaty not because of a convergence of strategic interests, but because the Soviets feared that the strategic defensive technology the United States actually possessed at the time was more advanced than theirs. The United States, however, aban- doned the idea of defense almost entirely in its strategic thinking, hoping, one supposes, that conditions would never change. It maintained only a low-level and basically ineffective ballistic missile defense research program.

The ABM treaty is a good example of a genuine 11.



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effort-with all the right motivations-to enhance nuclear stability between the United States and the Soviet Union. But the treaty was based

upon at least two assumptions that turned out to be wrong: that both parties would drastically cur- tail defenses and that these limits on defenses would enable both sides to agree to deep reductions in offensive weapons. The preamble to the ABM treaty stated that its underlying premise was "that effective measures to limit antiballistic missile systems would be a substantial factor in curb-

ing the race in strategic offensive arms." More- over, both parties declared "their intention to achieve at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race and to take effective measures toward reductions in strategic arms, nuclear disarmament, and general and complete disarmament." Gerard Smith, then head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and chief U.S.

negotiator of the ABM treaty, made it clear in a unilateral statement appended to the treaty that the United States expected progress in offensive- weapons reductions within 5 years. Clearly the

treaty did not induce the Soviet Union to accept offensive-force reductions in the strategic arms limitation talks.

As the text of the ABM treaty suggests, the im-

portant issue-real reductions in offensive arms- was put off to some future date. That was perhaps the gravest error the United States has made over the past two decades. Another serious mis-

judgment was McNamara's belief that the Soviet Union would be satisfied with the concept of deterrence based on parity once it achieved nuclear equality with the United States. The decade of

neglect, the 1970s, had its roots in these errors of

judgment. They have cost America dearly. And if history teaches anything, it should be possible to look back and recognize a classic pattern: It seems to be easy for a democratic state to be lulled into a false sense of security by a totalitarian state.

The European experience before World War II bears a remarkable resemblance to the present, especially in some of the attitudes that ascribe solely peaceful and defensive intentions to the So- viet Union's military build-up. If it is not careful, the democratic West might one day find itself in the same dangerously weak position that the Al- lies were in when Germany attacked in 1939. But it might not have the time to recover as it did in

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World War II because the West would be facing a strongly defended, nuclear-armed Soviet Union with vast conventional and strategic strength.

It is hard to envision any circumstances more threatening and dangerous to the free world than those in which its populations and military forces remained completely vulnerable to Soviet nuclear missiles while Soviet populations and military assets were substantially protected against retalia-

tory forces. This is exactly the kind of situation that could result if America formulated its strat-

egy in a vacuum, ignoring all the hard-to-explain actions of its most likely adversary, or ascribed to that adversary intentions that fit into America's

approach, but not necessarily the USSR's. Moreover, any success the United States has

had at bringing the Soviets to the negotiating ta- ble has been based on regained U.S. military strength and the will to continue to deter the use of Soviet military might, including American efforts in the area of strategic defense. It is only strength, along with a realistic military strategy, that impresses the Soviet Union.

It is time to place the strategic debate in the

proper context. The issue for the foreseeable future is not how to remain vulnerable to nuclear attack but rather, how to balance U.S. deterrent strategy by shifting more and more to a mix of defensive and offensive arms.

Reagan's Vision

On March 23, 1983, Reagan challenged the scientific community to develop the technology that would allow the United States to move away from a policy of deterrence based solely upon nuclear retaliation and toward one based also upon the

capability actually to defend the United States and its allies:

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?

I know this is a formidable technical task. ... But isn't it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war?

Like Churchill in the 1930s, Reagan challenged the so-called conventional wisdom of his time and

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was met with a great deal of skepticism and even ridicule. But there are lessons and, indeed, par- allels to be drawn from the events surrounding the debate in the 1930s.

In 1932, there was a predominant assumption in Britain that the bomber would always get through; therefore, the idea of a British deterrent bomber force was considered credible and neces-

sary. On the question of defense, many believed it was hopeless to try to defend against a fearful knockout blow from the air. As the German air threat became more real, British vulnerability to air attack became obvious. Consequently, in 1934 the Committee for the Scientific Study of Air Defense, known as the Tizard committee, was formed. A breakthrough in the early warning and detection technology led to the invention of radar. Britain also decided in 1936 to allocate more resources to fighter production, instead of bomb- ers, to provide for a system of air defense.

This decision was almost too late. But because of the leadership and foresight of Churchill, and the indomitable national will he embodied, Brit- ain survived. In time, but barely in time, Britain had developed both offensive and defensive com-

ponents in its strategy. The air defense decision had required great forethought and inventive genius, as well as the resolve to commit scarce resources.

Today, America also must look ahead and mus- ter the courage and commitment that will be re-

quired to secure the president's vision of a more stable world-one based on mutual survival, not mutual destruction. This is an achievable goal, and the administration's highest priority.

I believe not only that strategic defense is possible, but that it represents the greatest hope for the future. Moreover, I view the SDI as the means for creating the conditions that will lead to pro- gressive, deeper arms reductions. The SDI, on the one hand, and significant reductions in offensive nuclear arms, on the other, represent two com- plementary approaches to a more stable world.

Naturally, many claim that efforts by one side or the other to expand and improve defenses will be accompanied by the development of more offensive weapons designed to defeat the new defenses. This would be true if the new defenses

deployed could be countered easily by the proliferation of offensive weapons. However, an ef-

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fective defense, such as the one envisioned by the president, could not be countered in this way. Consequently, such a defense would not encour-

age proliferation of offensive missiles. It is important to remember that the promise of vulnerabil-

ity the United States made in signing the ABM

treaty neither diminished the growth in offensive arms nor convinced the Soviets to abandon their own quest for defenses.

This cycle must be broken. And an advanced

strategic defensive system can be the means. Ef- fective defenses would remove incentives for ballistic missile proliferation. When the president di- rected work to begin on the SDI, that work was not undertaken to threaten the Soviet Union or to

gain military superiority. Rather, the SDI was de-

signed to introduce greater safety and security into the U.S.-Soviet relationship. Effective stra-

tegic defense would pave the way for diminish-

ing, and thereby reducing, the danger posed by nuclear weapons to all countries.

Further, there can be an orderly transition to a defense-oriented world combining deployment of defensive weapons with a compensating reduction of offensive weapons. If both sides agreed to

destroy a certain percentage of their ballistic missiles as they deployed defensive weapons systems, they would be sending each other signals that neither side was seeking a strategic advan-

tage. In the long run, defensive systems combined with equitable and verifiable reductions in conventional forces would permit countries to rid themselves of nuclear weapons. Such a new order would have to be reached over a transition period during which deterrence would continue to rest mainly on the threat of retaliation, simply because there is no other means now to keep the peace.

There is no doubt that SDI research is achieving dramatic results. The United States is rapidly validating a number of technologies and technical

concepts that provide sufficient evidence of the

feasibility of a strategic defense system. Let me cite a number of examples of how much progress has been made in recent months. The first is the result of America's Delta-180 rocket experiments. The Delta-180 mission in September 1986 con- ducted a number of SDI experiments that provided surprisingly positive results. Among the successes was a needed comparison and evaluation of

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different types of sensors and detectors. Forty- two detectors were used, employing various wave- lengths-from infrared to ultraviolet. Informa- tion gained in this experiment shows that objects in space can be found and tracked.

Another Delta-180 experiment was designed to investigate the feasibility of a space-based kinetic- kill vehicle. The components that would represent a space intercept of an object being boosted out of the atmosphere were functionally put together. This experiment's success established firmly the principle that a moving target can be hit with a kinetic weapon from space. Other experiments, such as the full-power test of the chem- ical laser called MIRACL at White Sands, New Mex- ico, have demonstrated the feasibility of a high- power laser system.

Other efforts also have proved extremely successful. America has demonstrated 5-year reliabil- ity of a cryogenic cooler that is essential to the development of space-based detectors. U.S. efforts to harden and miniaturize electronics also have yielded significant progress. Among recent successes are the fabrication of commercially designed memory chips using silicon-on-insulator material, which offers significant promise of meet- ing SDI radiation tolerances, and the successful pilot production of the largest and most complex gallium arsenide integrated circuits ever made.

If both sides agreed to destroy a certain percentage of their ballistic missiles as they deployed defensive weapons systems, they would be sending each other signals that neither side was seeking a strategic advantage.

In part because of these advances, the United States now can look forward to the phased intro- duction of each element of a whole system. This is not a new idea, of course; a phased approach has been an accepted notion since the earliest days of the president's program. But the vision is now much clearer, and the hope greater. The administration perceives opportunities to begin describ- ing technologies and concepts for a first phase of protection against Soviet ballistic missiles. Initial defense most likely would depend on kinetic-

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energy weapons. Later, advanced concepts could include lasers and neutral particle beams. The first phase as envisioned would include both

ground- and space-based components operating to detect, track, and destroy ballistic missiles in the boost and midcourse phases of flight. It would not be a point defense, as some have urged, sim-

ply to protect missile fields. It would be an inte-

gral first phase of the whole tiered defense system designed to protect peoples and continents.

Phase 1 would yield great benefit. It would enhance deterrence by complicating the USSR's ability to gain a decisive advantage by initiating conflict. The uncertainty introduced by the loss of an unknown number of missiles seriously would erode its planners' ability to time an attack and

assign forces adequately. More important, it would severely restrict the confidence level So- viet leaders could have in a first strike designed to disable Western retaliatory forces and essential communication links. While a less than 100 per cent defense, as would necessarily be the case in the first phase, would not stop all Soviet missiles, it would add to the Soviets' doubts that they could

destroy the West, and thus would enhance deterrence and save lives. As subsequent phases of the

system were proved and deployed and arms reduction agreements pursued, additional insur- ance would be added to deterrence as the United States provided increasing protection to itself and its allies.

The perennial question free peoples ask with

regard to defense is, How much is enough? To this there can be no precise answer. A country's security is a function of the degree of risk a country is willing to accept. The less risk America

accepts, the more secure it will be. A country can never be totally secure, but it can run risks that invite aggression. Increased security that reduces risk requires increased costs, and increased costs

require popular support and a determined commitment to pay freedom's price.

In the 1930s, in the face of German rearma- ment, some European countries decided that unilateral restraint and appeasement were enough to keep them safe. The United States also failed to appreciate the need for defense preparedness to avoid war. These misjudgments proved cata- strophic, and the world still bears the scars of that collective naivete. Better allied preparedness might

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well have deterred the Nazis. Instead, more than 40 million lives were lost because the West was not strong enough. Today, more than ever, the Western democracies must join together and take

advantage of the creativity and innovation that freedom spawns.

I know that some Europeans fear that Ameri- ca's pursuit of the SDI will tend to decouple Amer- ica from Europe. This is quite wrong. The secu-

rity of the United States is inseparable from the

security of Europe. Indeed, the security of the free world is a collective responsibility. And to-

gether, the democracies do possess the resources

required to maintain peace. But democracies must always confront a great

paradox. The West has a long tradition of unwill-

ingness to face harsh realities because they are so

repugnant and foreign to its civilized heritage. The lack of preparedness before two world wars

amply illustrates the democratic tendency to play down, and even ignore, potential threats to freedom. But the Western democracies must never

forget how long it takes to regain strength once lost, and how vital it is to keep strong. Small investments each year can relieve them of the need to gamble that they will have enough time to re-

gain strengths already lost. Moreover, by ensur-

ing that their investment of resources is guided by an effective strategy, they make the most of their limited resources. The technological prowess of the West, combined with the innovative application of resources that is possible in free societies, will ensure its survival.

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Why Offense Needs Defense