Tag Archives: Defense Budget & Expenditures

Why Bush Is Right to Reject a Defective B.W.C. Protocol

(Washington, D.C.): President Bush’s most recent profile in courage came with the announcement last week that the United States would not sign onto a protocol that was supposed to make the wholly unverifiable and unenforceable Biological Weapons Convention somewhat more verifiable and enforceable. He took this step in spite of the enormous pressure he is under to accede to international accords — irrespective of their incompatibility with the Nation’s security, economic well-being and/or sovereignty — lest he be denounced for acting unilaterally or, worse yet, as an “isolationist.”

The Wall Street Journal did a signal service last Friday by publishing its own lead editorial together with an excellent op.ed. article by a member of the Center for Security Policy’s National Security Advisory Council, Dr. Fred Ikl. These essays explain the compelling reasons why Mr. Bush acted as he did. As they make clear, the American people — and, indeed, all those whose security and prosperity depends far more on this country’s military and economic strength rooted in its constitutionally mandated representational government than on any number of international accords — owe him a debt of gratitude for rejecting mindless multilateralism and providing the leadership we all need.

The Bug Debate

Wall Street Journal, 27 July 2001

George W. Bush is the peace-through-treaties club crazy. First he refuses to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, then he nixes Kyoto, and lately he’s refused to genuflect before the ABM Treaty. This week, it’s germ warfare. Beyond the wailing and gnashing, the germ-warfare treaty, like the others, has a story behind it that serious people should know.

The U.S. has not opted out of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which obligates its 143 signatories to repudiate biological weapons of mass destruction. The original convention included no verification clause. For now, nobody knows, nor has any means of finding out, who’s cheating.

Trouble is, we still won’t know who’s cheating even if we adopt the whole 210-page U.N. protocol intended to give the convention teeth, and that’s what the Bush Administration just rejected. The straight-shooting Mr. Bush is begging off the protocol for one good reason: It won’t work. As Fred Ikle writes nearby, bio-weapons are notoriously difficult to detect. Lest we forget, germs are small. They are naturally occurring, and their cultivation is largely indistinguishable from business-as-usual at an ordinary pharmaceutical plant.

To test the verification measures that the U.N. protocol commends, in the 1990s the U.S. conducted a series of painstakingly realistic mock inspections of American vaccine production facilities, university labs and bio-defense sites. The inspectors were pros — industrial microbiologists, bio-defense experts, toxicology and virology scientists.

The results were shambolic. Merely careless record-keeping errors seemed to disguise unspeakable wickedness. Above-board vaccine manufacture looked to eminently qualified inspectors like nefarious microbe production. Setting off such false alarms in real life, inspections designed as “confidence-building” would only aggravate mistrust.

In a similar exercise organized by the Stimson Center, a pro-arms-control D.C. think tank, two prominent infectious-disease experts with extensive experience in Iraq and Russia examined a laboratory in New York State. The lab had been deliberately contaminated with artificial anthrax cultures. Dubious records were planted, and the chief technician was even instructed to “act nervous.” The examiners completely missed the anthrax. But they did raise the alarm over numerous irregularities that were perfectly innocent. And this lab was rigged to be discovered. North Koreans might not be so obliging.

Because the West, especially the U.S., maintains the vast majority of high-tech bio-labs, most inspections would take place in the very countries — let’s get real here — least likely to cook up toil and trouble in their basements. Meantime, the protocol would summon snowstorms of paperwork to report on all the premises and equipment that could conceivably be used for sinister purposes. Again, declaration requirements would fall disproportionately on Western nations, with the larger defense programs.

Worse, these declarations would be voluntary. Yet only states with nothing to hide would have any motivation to report honestly. What government is likely to file, “Hey, we just whipped up a big batch of cholera, come on over”?

Moreover, countries subject to random inspections would get a two-week warning, could limit what visitors see and could ban biological sampling. Even a state accused of a breach would get 108 hours to tidy up for guests, and could also limit access and prohibit sampling. Breweries and antibiotics factories would be exempt from inspection, yet both provide the requisite kit to breed nasty bugs.

The regime on the table is significantly less rigorous than the no-notice inspections to which UNSCOM subjected Iraq, the most intrusive and protracted arms-control effort ever attempted. Yet every UNSCOM inspector has bemoaned the fact that they failed to discover the extent of Iraqi bio-weapons programs, which in their heyday manufactured 8,000 liters of anthrax — enough spores to eradicate the entire human race.

Are ineffectual inspections better than none? Clearly not. Readily eluded verification procedures only induce a false sense of security and turn arms control into farce. States that successfully flout the convention could hide behind the U.N.’s Good Housekeeping seal, allowing Iraq, for example, to justify the lifting of sanctions, even with its bio-weapons back in production.

Germ warfare is centuries old. In the 1300s, the Tartars catapulted dead bodies over fortified city walls in the Ukraine to introduce bubonic plague to their enemies. Renowned as “the poor man’s nuclear arsenal,” microbes and toxins are cheap, easy to make and easier to hide. One-billionth of a grain of anthrax can kill a man; a quantity the size of a five-pound bag of sugar could wipe out New York City. We simply do not have the technology to detect that sack of anthrax, and there’s no use pretending we do.

A less ambitious protocol might accomplish more. Thorough disease reporting internationally would enable epidemiologists to identify anomalous outbreaks that might have resulted from military experiments, for example.

President Bush could have endorsed a superficially virtuous treaty and smiled for the cameras. Bill Clinton was often given to cosmetic gestures, like his all-talk tour of Africa, that appeared caring, but produced little tangible benefit. Valuing results over rhetoric, Mr. Bush seems to appreciate that it’s a whole lot harder to do good than to look good.

The New Germ Warfare Treaty Is a Fraud

by Fred C. Ikle

Wall Street Journal, 27 July 2001

For more than six years, during many pleasant sessions at Lake Geneva, some 50 nations — including such stalwart arms control violators as North Korea and Iraq — have been drafting a treaty that would allegedly make an existing ban on biological weapons verifiable and enforceable. The Bush administration has reviewed this 200-page draft and concluded that it is incurably flawed. Not surprisingly, the diplomats who fear for their handiwork are complaining.

This scuttled treaty is known as the BWC Protocol, since it purports to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 that bans the use, stockpiling and production of bacteriological weapons. Anyone who has studied the protocol has to wonder whether it has ever been analyzed properly by those arms control experts who now criticize the U.S. rejection.

Have any of the foreign ministers who are now complaining found out what this draft treaty actually says? If so, they would have discovered that the Geneva negotiations kept coasting in a fantasy land where the realities of pharmacological production processes and advances in biotechnology do not exist, and where the many dismal failures of other, much less difficult international inspection efforts have never occurred.

In particular, a conscientious foreign minister would make the following shocking discoveries.

First, the development of biological weapons is one of the most difficult things to detect since the lethal agents can easily be hidden, and the manufacturing facilities are essentially undistinguishable from legitimate pharmaceutical or research installationsTo manage this impossible job, the protocol would set up a large international organization that would have people on its staff from such nations as North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Cuba. These nations would use their representatives in the decision-making councils of the organization to obstruct and oppose any finding that declared one of their nations guilty of a violation. And they would order their technical staff members of this organization to advise the germ-warriors back home how best to fool the inspectors. (This is what the Iraqis who worked for the international agency that enforces the nuclear non-proliferation treaty did.)

So how does this protocol propose to handle the verification problem? It demands that the parties to the treaty declare all their plants, factories, and laboratories where legitimate work goes on, if these facilities could theoretically be used to make bio-weapons. Hence, the U.S., European nations, and Japan will have to declare hundreds of pharmaceutical plants, vaccine laboratories, and medical research centers which would then be pointlessly inspected, wasting our tax dollars and creating rich opportunities for industrial espionage.

We have seen how Saddam Hussein can shield his bio-weapons plants from international inspectors. He surely would not “declare” them. He would not even admit the “challenge inspection” the protocol envisages for undeclared sites. When the United Nations presence in Iraq still had some muscle — far more muscle indeed than this protocol would ever provide — Saddam simply told the inspectors that his palaces and other sites were off limits. He suffered no penalty.

The proponents of the protocol praise it as a “legally binding” treaty. “Legally binding” has different meanings. In case of North Korea’s recent violations of nuclear agreements, “legally binding” apparently meant that North Korea had to be rewarded, not penalized; while we were the ones who became legally bound to pay hundreds of millions of dollars annually so that these violations would temporarily cease.

Anyhow, law-abiding nations do not violate treaties they ratified. Hence, to abide by the Biological Weapons Convention they do not need this protocol that is merely supposed to strengthen the convention. Conversely, nations that are willing to violate the 1972 convention by preparing for germ warfare will surely be willing to violate the protocol as well. So what on earth do the defenders of this protocol mean when they praise it as being “legally binding?”

President Clinton told Congress this protocol would “enforce” the ban on bio-weapons. Perhaps his thought was that if the international organization actually certified a violation (instead of whitewashing it), such a verdict would lead to proper punishment. On this point, too, recent history has been forgotten. A treaty has been in force since 1925 prohibiting the use of poison gas (as well as bio-weapons). Undeterred by that treaty, Saddam used poison gas against Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war. After a U.N. inspection team had verified this attack and brought back horrific videotapes of the injured Iranians, arms control specialists were miffed that their benign assumptions had been so crudely disproved by Saddam. But they quickly regained their faith in treaties and organized a huge international conference in Paris in January 1989 — to “strengthen” the 1925 treaty.

This conference turned into the most revolting appeasement in the entire history of arms control. In deference to Saddam, the assembled delegates never mentioned the clear-cut, uncontestable U.N. verification that proved Iraq had used poison gas. Not one of the assembled diplomats dared to hold up photographs of the hideously injured Iranians so that at least the media could report the truth. Not one of the delegates had the courage to call for sanctions against Iraq. This is the kind of “enforcement” that the new protocol would provide. Indeed, the 200-page draft does not include a single meaningful enforcement provision.

Any foreign minister who goes to the trouble of actually studying the treaty should, if he has any integrity, pick up the phone and call Secretary of State Colin Powell. And this is what he should say: “You have my full support, Colin, we must ditch this treaty, it is a malignant, fraudulent draft.”

Dr. No,’ Meet President Yes’

(Washington, D.C.): Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold what amounts to a pep rally for the campaign its chairman, Sen. Joe Biden, is mounting to oppose President Bush’s efforts to defend America against ballistic missile attack. As the lead editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, makes clear Sen. Biden is “Dr. No” with respect to pursuing development, test and deployment of missile defenses incompatible with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The Journal editorial echoes a call issued yesterday by the Center for Security Policy for President Bush to ensure that the Joe Bidens of the world are not able to infer, interpret or otherwise impute to the somewhat nebulous understanding reached on Sunday by Mr. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin a U.S. commitment not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, as Sen. Biden put it on Sunday, “anytime soon.”

Fortunately, shortly after the Center urged Mr. Bush to confirm that he is, in fact, “President Yes” when it comes to his determination to deploy missile defenses as soon as technologically possible (as required, by the way, by law), “W.” did just that in remarks at a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He emphasized in particular that the discussions he has directed take place with the Russians are not to going to be of an open-ended nature and that America will be defended, with or without the Kremlin’s assent:

…I have told President Putin that time matters; that I want to reach an accord sooner, rather than later; that I’m interested in getting something done with him. That’s my first priority. The American people, our friends and allies, and others should take me for my word when I said in the campaign, and since being the President, that I will consult with our friends and allies, that I will work with Russia.

But make no mistake about it, I think it’s important to move beyond the ABM Treaty. I would rather others come with us, but I feel so strongly and passionately on the subject about how to keep the peace in the 21st Century, that we’ll move beyond, if need be….

…It’s a treaty, of course, that — from which either party can withdraw with ample notice. And I can understand why he wants time. And I’m going to give him some time. But I also want to emphasize to you that time is of the essence. It is time to move beyond. It is time to begin the research and development, which we have yet to do — the research and development, constrained by the ABM Treaty, to determine that which is feasible….

…And since I feel so strongly, if we can’t reach agreement, we’re going to implement. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what I told the American people we’re going to do. It’s what I’ve explained to our allies that we’re going to do.

Further evidence that the President’s determination to proceed is having a salutary effect at home, as well as abroad, is to be found in today’s New York Times article headlined “Democrats Try to Work Up a Shield Plan of Their Own.” According to the Times, a group of former Clinton national security officials are working with “centrist” Democratic Members of Congress to come up with a damage-control plan. It seems that many in the Democratic Party are finding it increasingly uncomfortable — read, untenable — to be simply “issu[ing] critiques of Mr. Bush’s plan” a la “Dr. No” Biden.

Unfortunately, the Democratic plan seems to be basically a “bait-and-switch” scheme — serve up a different, less capable missile defense program that could “defend the country against very limited attacks from small nations like North Korea or Iran, but that would not be extensive enough to undermine the deterrent power of Russia or China’s nuclear arsenals.” Sounds a lot like what these “experts” tried to do when they were in office during the Clinton years. The product was billions of dollars expended in a desultory development of the so-called National Missile Defense (NMD) program, a hugely expensive system that would not defend all of the United States or any of its allies and would take years to bring on-line.

Whether opponents of missile defense are honest about their stance or disingenuous about it, as long as Mr. Bush remains “President Yes” — pressing forward with the perfection and deployment of militarily efficacious and cost-effective defenses — he will prevail with overwhelming support not only from the American people, but from the majority of their elected representatives of both parties.

A Putin Set’-Up on Missile Defense?

(Washington, D.C.): At the press conference George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin held after their meeting Sunday in Genoa, the career-KGB-officer-turned-Kremlin-leader announced that he and his American counterpart have reached an understanding that “the issue [of] offensive arms and [the] issue of defensive arms will be discussed as a set.” Although President Bush was clearly delighted by this announcement, there is a considerable danger that what Mr. Putin has in mind is less a “set” of discussions that will clear the way for American missile defenses than a “set-up” designed to ensure that goal is never realized.

What’s a Discussion’

The problem is that Mr. Bush appears to have opened the door not to “discussions” but to negotiations of a kind he has, heretofore, wisely eschewed. They not only hold out the prospect that the United States will again once again make the mistake of portraying the size, composition and status of its nuclear arsenal as things that can usefully be — indeed, need to be — defined in bilateral agreements with Moscow. (To his credit, Senator Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, warned on Sunday talk shows that the result could be too-deep cuts in U.S. nuclear forces.)

What is more, negotiating with the Russians on missile defense assures that, at best, there will be needless and undesirable delay in the development and deployment of missile defenses. After all, unless otherwise stated, the presumption will be that the primary impediment to such activity — the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty — is going to remain in force until such time as a new, substitute arrangement is jointly agreed and promulgated. Predictably, Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware and an inveterate opponent of the deployment of U.S. missile defenses, greeted the Bush-Putin announcement by declaring it implies “the Administration won’t break out of the [ABM] Treaty anytime soon.”

Worse even than untoward delay in the deployment of missile defenses is the prospect that the negotiating “set” Putin has in mind will enable him to interfere with U.S. choices about the type, timing and robustness of American anti-missile systems. This could translate into a de facto veto over the sort of “layered” and “effective” defense President Bush has repeatedly pledged to field for the American people, their armed forces deployed overseas and their allies.

Either of these outcomes, to say nothing of a combination of the two, would probably prove deadly for the effort to field U.S. missile defenses “anytime soon.” The job of getting the funding required to prepare and deploy competent systems will only get harder as the mid-term and 2004 presidential elections approach. Mr. Bush’s political opponents — who at the moment perceive no risk to giving preference to protecting the ABM Treaty rather than the Nation — will be emboldened by any delay.

Some, like Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, have already made known their determination to deny President Bush funds for developmental and testing activities deemed incompatible with the ABM Treaty. As long as Mr. Bush permits the Treaty to bind the United States, he will find himself unable to ready the most militarily efficacious and cost- effective anti-missile systems possible.

Insult will be added to injury if the result of all this is not only to give Putin the leverage over U.S. missile defense programs that he has sought ever since the Bush II team came to office, but to recreate the image that Russia is a co-equal superpower. Ironically, this would breathe fresh life into the very bipolar, Cold War-era dynamic that President Bush has gone to such great lengths to insist has ended. (It is a measure of Putin’s cynicism that he has embraced some of Mr. Bush’s rhetoric on this score even as he tries to maneuver the “world’s only superpower” into behaving as though, if not acknowledging that, in Russia it still has a peer.)

Enter Dr. Rice

The only hope that the United States may yet avoid the trap being “set” by the Russians for its missile defense program is that, after the Bush-Putin meeting, Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice briefed the press about the American understanding of the “discussions” to which her boss agreed. According to the New York Times, Dr. Rice “made clear…that [the] discussions will not be formal negotiations over detailed arms control limits. Rather, she said, they will be more like consultations among allies in which each side simply tells the other what programs they have in mind. It is our view that these are more like defense planning talks, that you look at what is required for each side to insure itself.'”

Such a formulation has the advantage of being consistent with Mr. Bush’s longstanding approach to these matters. It would amount to consultations that would neither tarry nor disrupt an accelerated missile defense development and test program. It also would enable the United States to adjust its strategic offensive forces as we see fit, not according to a force structure that roughly mirrors whatever strategic arsenal Moscow can afford.

Of course, by engaging in discussions with the Russians that are not, repeat not, negotiations, and that hew to the American agenda, the United States can also undercut opposition at home and abroad to Mr. Bush’s missile defense initiative. It will be hard for the Carl Levins of the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate and left-wing allied leaders to be holier than the Kremlin when it comes to opposing the ABM Treaty’s demise.

Yet, it is for precisely these reasons that the Bush team would be wise to expect the Russians to try to spring their trap. Within hours of the Genoa press conference, Vladimir Putin was making known his view that there had, in fact, been “no principle breakthrough” on the missile defense question. When Dr. Rice visits Moscow this week, she will doubtless be sharply pressed to accede to the Kremlin’s terms of reference for the upcoming meetings lest bilateral ties be “set” back, a body-blow to the image of competence and savoir faire that President Bush is working to cultivate.

The Bottom Line

Mr. Bush can spare himself — and the program for defending America in which he has properly invested so much personal political capital — considerable aggravation, if not worse, by promptly affirming that Dr. Rice’s characterization of the “way ahead” tracks with his own. He should say that it is still the case, notwithstanding the undertakings at Genoa, that the United States will be engaged in activities inconsistent with the ABM Treaty “within a matter of months, not years.”

In short, notice needs to be given to Vladimir Putin, the allies and Senate Democrats: The only thing that is really “set” is Mr. Bush’s mind with respect to fulfilling the law of the land that requires him to deploy effective U.S. missile defenses “as soon as technologically possible.”

Friends Don’t Let Friends Underfund Defense

(Washington, D.C.): Today’s Washington Post features a column by Robert Kagan that constructively challenges the adequacy of the Bush Administration funding for the Department of Defense. That such harsh criticism is not only warranted but constructive is assured by Mr. Kagan’s citation of no less an authority than President Bush’s Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, who has courageously — and correctly — declared repeatedly in congressional testimony that it is “reckless to press our luck or gamble with our children’s future’ by spending only 3 percent of America’s gross national product on defense.” As the Kagan column points out, 3 percent of GDP is all the President’s FY2002 budget proposes to spend on national defense.

Messrs. Wolfowitz and Kagan persuasively argue instead for a real and sustained increase in defense spending over and above the levels approved to date by the Bush Office of Management and Budget. If history is any guide, doing less invites future defense costs that will make the present shortfalls pale by comparison. An American military perceived to be hollow invites aggression by others, often leading to conflicts that entail U.S. expenditures on the armed forces many times the amounts that, had they been spent beforehand, may well have deterred the adversary from acting in the first place.

Particularly noteworthy is Mr. Kagan’s cautionary closing note for Republicans: They cannot take for granted the political support they have long enjoyed from those in and out of uniform who subscribe to the Reagan philosophy of “peace through strength.” While fu ture success at the polls is hardly the only — to say nothing of the most important — reason for ensuring America’s military has the equipment, trained personnel and power projection capability required to defend the Nation’s world-wide interests in the 21st Century, the GOP risks disaster in coming elections if it permits others to be perceived (however unjustifiably) as more committed to assuring the robustness of the United States’ armed forces.

Indefensible Defense Budget

By Robert Kagan

The Washington Post, 20 July 2001

President Bush’s defense budget is inadequate and reckless. Who says so? His own deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz. In little-noticed testimony before Congress last week, Wolfowitz said it was “reckless to press our luck or gamble with our children’s future” by spending only 3 percent of America’s gross national product on defense. Bush’s proposed defense budget of $329 billion puts defense spending at 3 percent. As Republicans liked to point out during the Clinton years, it hasn’t been that low since Pearl Harbor.

Wolfowitz’s gutsy whistle-blowing follows a losing battle with the White House. According to administration sources, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked the White House last month for a $35 billion increase over the Clinton defense budget. The Office of Management and Budget sliced his request in half. This week Rumsfeld said he would need at least another $18 billion next year, but OMB has said he won’t get more than $10 billion.

So much for Vice President Dick Cheney’s campaign promise to the military: “Help is on the way.” Tax rebate checks are on the way. Real help for the military is not. Last year Cheney warned that defense budget “shortfalls” in the Clinton era were forcing the military to cut back on training and exercises and creating dangerous “shortages of spare parts and equipment.” But this week Rumsfeld frankly told Congress that Bush’s budget “does not get us well.” Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry Shelton was even more blunt: “We’re not going to be able to make significant inroads into fixing the modernization and the transformation and the infrastructure at three cents on the dollar. . . . I don’t believe that we’ll be able to sustain our long-term readiness under these conditions.” All of which led Democratic Rep. Norman Dicks to ask why, if both Rumsfeld and Shelton “know that the country is underfunding the defense budget,” they couldn’t “convince the president and OMB . . . that we’ve got to have a significant increase, or we’re going to let America’s military capability deteriorate?”

Rumsfeld had no answer, but it’s a good question. Serious defense experts of all political hues agree that even Rumsfeld’s original $35 billion request was low. Jimmy Carter’s defense secretary, Harold Brown, and former defense secretary James Schlesinger have argued in these pages for an increase of at least $50 billion a year, and former Clinton Pentagon officials agree. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines say they need $32 billion this year just to keep planes flying, tanks rolling and troops training. Never mind buying new weapons systems to replace those that are now a quarter-century old. As one Pentagon official put it, President Bush’s $18 billion is barely enough “to keep us treading water.” With $9 billion set aside for military housing, health and pay increases, Bush’s budget gives Rumsfeld too little to repair the military’s readiness problems, much less to modernize and “transform” it to fight the wars of the future.

So now what? Rumsfeld says he’ll try to make up for the inadequacies of the president’s budget by increasing “efficiency” at the Pentagon. But even if he eliminates all the waste — improbable — and persuades Congress to close more military bases — highly improbable — he’ll be lucky to eke out a few billion dollars. Shelton is more candid: If your armed forces don’t have the capability to carry out their missions, he told Congress this week, you can either increase the capabilities or decrease the missions. Whether Bush realizes it or not, he has chosen the latter course.

In fact, Bush’s inadequate defense budget will soon start driving his foreign policy, if it hasn’t already. The first casualty may be the American role in Europe. Last month Bush promised to enlarge NATO and to keep U.S. troops in the Balkans as long as necessary. But Rumsfeld’s top adviser, Stephen Cambone, has bluntly warned the Army that it will lose two or more divisions under the new budget. Most of those cuts will come in Europe, which will make the U.S. presence in the Balkans increasingly difficult to sustain and raise doubts about Bush’s commitment to NATO, much less to an enlarged NATO.

That’s just the beginning. Bush officials say they intend to shift America’s strategic focus to Asia. Fine. With what? The Navy, which had almost 600 ships in the 1980s, now has 310, but Rumsfeld warns that lack of money is driving the number down to an “unacceptable” 230. The chief of naval operations says stocks of precision- guided munitions — the wonder-weapon of choice in Kosovo and Iraq — are “below the current war fighting requirement,” which poses a “major risk” to U.S. forces. The Air Force says the number of aircraft readily available for use in combat has been steadily declining due to shortages of spare parts and maintenance. Add it all up and Bush’s stated commitments to defend Taiwan and get tough with Saddam Hussein start to look pretty hollow. Maybe Bush’s soft approach to Iraq since February has been driven by the fear that he literally can’t afford another conflict. Or, to be more precise, he doesn’t want to afford it.

Remember when Republicans were more trustworthy on defense and national security than Democrats? This Bush presidency may change all that. After years of berating Clinton, Republicans are suddenly mute — what defense budget crisis? — while Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are hung out to dry.

The writer, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post.

The End of The Beginning’ For The Deployment of Missile Defenses?

(Washington, D.C.): Saturday night’s impressive intercept of a simulated ballistic missile warhead high over the Pacific Ocean may not mark the beginning of the end of the opposition to American deployment of effective anti-missile defenses. But, as Winston Churchill might have put it, this latest evidence that the United States does indeed have the technical ability and the means to thwart missile blackmail — and worse — should mark “the end of the beginning” of the effort to defend America from this growing scourge.

Whether that will prove to be the case depends, of course, on more than a single flight test, albeit a make-or-break one. It will now fall to the Bush Administration to build on the momentum imparted by this test to firm up its substantive positions and rhetoric with respect to the only real, remaining impediment to defending this country: the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union.

Time to Move Beyond’ the ABM Treaty

Actually, President Bush and his subordinates have done a commendable job, by and large, in speaking the truth about the ABM Treaty. They have stated publicly that it is a “relic of the Cold War,” fashioned during an unrecognizably different period when the USSR was still a going concern and an intractable foe of, and virtually the sole threat to, the Free World.

The Bush team has also accurately described the ABM Treaty as an insuperable obstacle to the development and fielding of effective anti-missile systems for the territory of the United States. That was, after all, its express purpose and proven effect. (If any further evidence were needed, consider Russian charges that even Saturday’s test — an experiment specifically designed to be consistent with the ABM Treaty — contributes to a situation “which threatens all international treaties in the sphere of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.”)

To its credit, the Bush Administration has properly and repeatedly stated that, as a result, America has to “move beyond” the Treaty. It has even served notice that it would have to do so “within months, not years.”

A Veto for Moscow?

What is urgently needed now, however, is a far more coherent and disciplined position on the underlying issue: What role, if any, will Russia have in the Bush Administration’s movement “beyond the ABM Treaty”?

Unfortunately, Administration spokesmen last week seemed all over the lot on the issue. In an interview with the Washington Post, Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed the view that the U.S. “needs an understanding, an agreement, a treaty — something with the Russians that allows us to move forward with our missile defense programs.” Such a formulation at the very least implies that we would not be able to “move forward” without Moscow’s assent. Yet, in remarks last week at the National Press Club, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice firmly eschewed the idea that explicit Russian permission, let alone a formal accord codifying a new, post-ABM Treaty bilateral relationship, was required.

Meanwhile, at a Frontiers of Freedom Institute symposium on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated flatly that the United States would not “violate” the ABM Treaty and that he expected an understanding to be reached with Moscow. Unfortunately, the nuances of the Pentagon chief’s formulation may have been lost on many. Importantly, he also noted that the ABM Treaty expressly provides for either parties’ withdrawal on six-months’ notice. Consequently, at such time as we need relief from the Treaty, in the absence of any new understandings with Russia, the United States would not violate the ABM Treaty — because it would simply withdraw from it.

What Treaty?

It is worth noting that even this step would be unnecessary in the event the Administration adopted the legal analysis of its newly confirmed Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith. Several years ago, Mr. Feith (who formerly served as the Chairman of the Center for Security Policy’s Board of Directors) and former Justice Department attorney George Miron definitively established that, under international legal practice and precedent, the ABM Treaty could no longer be legally binding on the United States after the other signatory, the Soviet Union, was formally disestablished.

Another analysis by retired intelligence officer William Lee makes clear moreover, that — even if the Treaty were still in effect — the fact that first the USSR and subsequently Russia deployed and maintained a prohibited territorial defense against ballistic missile attack would offer grounds to declare the Treaty null and void.
Bite the Bullet

Understandably, Mr. Bush and his subordinates would prefer to avoid the domestic and international repercussions that might attend a formal, unilateral American announcement that the ABM Treaty regime is no longer operative. Yet, by being inexact on this point — and, worse yet, by suggesting (at least intermittently) that the U.S. will remain bound by that accord unless the Russians give us license to leave it — the Administration plays into the hands of those who insist this obsolete treaty is “the cornerstone of strategic stability” and that its termination will, as the Washington Post editorialized on July 16, “detract from global stability.” Foreign critics will be emboldened to intensify their opposition to American missile defenses; opponents at home will try to deny the Administration’s requests for funding associated with development and testing, to say nothing of deployment, they consider incompatible with the ABM Treaty.

Like it or not, the Russian question can be finessed no longer. President Bush will meet this weekend with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Italy; Dr. Rice will be visiting Moscow; and Secretaries Powell and Rumsfeld will shortly begin conversations with their opposite numbers. And in each of these settings, the Kremlin’s representatives can be expected to press sharply not only for clarity, but for advantage.

Specifically, Putin and Company will demand a veto over America’s missile defense program. For their own reasons, others — from Russia’s strategic partner, China, to their rogue state clients to left- wing allied governments to Senate Democrats — are anxious to see the Kremlin succeed. At a minimum, the Kremlin will insist on undertakings concerning ill-advised sharing of U.S. missile defense technology, potentially reckless cuts in American strategic forces and/or a commitment to negotiate the unachievable, namely, amendments to the ABM Treaty acceptable to Russia yet compatible with U.S. missile defense requirements.

The Bottom Line

Short of a deadly, missile-delivered attack on someplace we care about, Mr. Bush is unlikely ever to be in a stronger position to take the necessary step of terminating the ABM Treaty regime than he is now, in the wake of Saturday’s successful test. Unfortunately, if he fails to take that step under present circumstances, the President risks fostering conditions likely to ensure that he — or a successor — is obliged to do so after a devastating attack occurs, one that might otherwise have been deterred or prevented.

The Bush Missile Defense Plan: Good As Far As It Goes — But It Doesn’t Go Far Enough

(Washington, D.C.): Today, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and the Director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director, Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, unveiled the Bush Administration’s long-awaited missile defense plan before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The plan is, in short, a comprehensive effort to develop and test the array of promising technologies capable of destroying ballistic missiles of varying ranges in the boost, mid-course and terminal phases.

Deja Vu All Over Again

As such, it is reminiscent of the wide-ranging R&D program launched by President Reagan shortly after he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. If fully funded, and unimpeded by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty’s constraints, this businesslike approach would indubitably produce effective, layered defenses over the next decade or so.

There is, unfortunately, real reason to be concerned about whether the requested funds — over $8.3 billion in Fiscal Year 2002 alone — will be forthcoming. Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, have made clear their determination to impede the development and deployment of missile defenses incompatible with the ABM Treaty, which is to say all effective anti-missile systems. Regrettably, given serious funding shortfalls in other defense areas, they may well be able to cite support from military leaders for shifting funds earmarked for missile defense to other areas.

In addition, the Administration is walking a very fine line with respect to the ABM Treaty. At a Capitol Hill symposium on missile defense convened today by Frontiers of Freedom, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld forcefully declared that “the United States does not violate treaties” and will not do so with respect to the ban on U.S. and Soviet territorial missile defenses. He hastened to add, however, that while the Bush team hoped and expected to arrive at some understanding with the Russians that would dispense with the existing treaty, if that proves impossible, the United States would have to exercise its right to withdraw from that accord.

It remains to be seen whether domestic and foreign opponents of U.S. missile defenses will hear both parts of that statement, or just the promise not to violate the ABM Treaty. The Administration clearly should also expect congressional efforts to deny funding for development and testing activities that constitute possible violations.

The Bottom Line

President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld are to be commended for their efforts to address the threat of ballistic missile attack in the face of non-trivial technical, funding and diplomatic obstacles inherited from their predecessors. The program they have laid out is an important start but one that may well fall short of its goal of defending America, its forces overseas and allies unless augmented in several respects.

Consequently, President Bush should complement his plan with the following additional steps:

  • Immediately establish that the Navy’s 60-odd ships equipped with the Aegis fleet air defense system will, henceforth, be part of the Nation’s missile defense infrastructure. While their present capabilities to intercept ballistic missiles are, unfortunately, quite limited, the existing ships, launchers, missiles, sensors, communications systems and people who operate them constitute a huge leg-up on the task of fielding the sort of anti-missile systems we need.
  • Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld should make clear that every effort will be made to evolve the present Aegis cruisers and destroyers as rapidly as possible so as to maximize their effectiveness. For this purpose, a program office should be established at once comparable in scope, authority and priority to that the Navy has used for most of the past five decades to manage its Fleet Ballistic Missile program. This office should then be charged with achieving the most capable possible sea-based systems for performing on an integrated basis boost, mid-course and terminal defense.
  • The United States should give notice now that it is exercising its right to withdraw from the treaty. The fact that there will be a fixed end-point to the pre-deployment period for missile defenses (i.e., six-months) will encourage constructive conversations with the Russians. We will know shortly whether a new, mutually satisfactory “strategic framework” is, in fact, an option — or whether we will have to “move beyond” the ABM Treaty on a unilateral basis.

Testing President Bush

(Washington, D.C.): Saturday’s New York Times reported that “President Bush has resolved to let the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) languish in the Senate, where its supporters concede they do not have the votes to revive it.” If correct, this disclosure represents good news and bad news.

A Defective, Unacceptable Treaty

The good news is that, as President, George W. Bush is hewing to the same line he took with respect to the CTBT as a candidate for the White House: The treaty’s permanent, “zero- yield” ban on all underground nuclear testing is unverifiable and incompatible with American security. A majority of the United States Senate reached the same conclusion in 1999 when it voted to reject ratification of President Clinton’s test ban treaty — the most stunning repudiation of an arms control accord in history.

The bad news is that, according to the Times, Mr. Bush has been persuaded by State Department lawyers that “a President cannot withdraw a treaty from the Senate once it has been presented for approval.” They evidently assert that “Senate rules require a two-thirds vote to ratify the treaty…or to send the CTBT back to Mr. Bush for disposal.”

What is at Stake

This is ridiculous. The Senate has spoken on this treaty, with seventeen more votes than the 34 needed to block ratification being cast against it. That should be a sufficient basis for Mr. Bush to serve notice that he considers the CTBT to be ineligible for further consideration and effectively if not, strictly speaking, mechanically — withdrawn from the Senate’s docket.

Unfortunately, this is not an academic point. Every Senate Democrat voted for the CTBT, a troubling testament to their caucus’ discipline — even at the expense of national security. All other things being equal, Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden may well be tempted to score political points with their base at Mr. Bush’s expense by resuscitating the CTBT. Their calculation could be that, even if the votes are still not there for this defective accord, the Democratic Party can make inroads with moderates and independents if it can tag President Bush as recklessly enamored of nuclear weapons and a serial eviscerator of treaties (along with the Kyoto Protocol and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty).

Deep Reductions’

The danger is that Mr. Bush will be further encouraged by such political maneuvering to translate one of his campaign pledges into worrisome presidential direction. During a major foreign policy address at the Citadel and subsequently, the then-Texas Governor declared his willingness to make deep and unilateral reductions in U.S. nuclear forces.

During its first six-months in office, the Bush Administration has been actively considering how responsibly to implement that and related proposals. There seems little doubt that the President will indeed shortly unveil a plan that goes well beyond the elimination of the MX intercontinental ballistic missile and the reduction by one-third of the B-1 bomber force unveiled two weeks ago.

The trouble is that, the smaller the size of our nuclear arsenal, the more important it becomes that the remaining weapons are safe, reliable and effective as a deterrent. Those currently in the inventory are either at or approaching the end of their design life.

Unfortunately, we have no scientifically rigorous and certain way of ensuring the safety and viability of nuclear weapons without at least realistic, low-yield underground explosive tests. What is more, making long-overdue efforts to replace those weapons with nuclear devices appropriate to the 21st Century (for example, capable of holding at risk deep-underground bunkers favored by the Third World dictators who we most worry about deterring in the present era) will, moreover, require some developmental testing.

Thus, while the exact size, and strategic implications, of the Bush strategic stockpile can only be guessed at just now, one thing is already clear: If the President fails to make clear that the down-sizing and restructuring of the American strategic deterrent must be accompanied by the maintenance and modernization of those forces that will be retained — and, of necessity, a resumption of limited underground nuclear testing — he will be missing the best opportunity we are likely ever to have to explain the need for and to secure popular support of those initiatives.

This will, of course, require abandonment of the moratorium on nuclear testing forced upon President Bush the Elder in 1992 and affirmed by his son even as the latter denounced the CTBT. Accordingly, Mr. Bush and his representatives must stop pledging to perpetuate that arrangement as was done, for example, most recently by NATO foreign ministers at their meeting in May in Budapest. Their final communique read, in part, “As long as the CTBT has not entered into force, we urge all states to maintain existing moratoria on nuclear testing.”

To be sure, this language represents a significant improvement over the previous formulation favored by the Clinton Administration — namely, “We remain committed to an early entry into force of the CTBT and, in the meanwhile, urge all states to refrain from any acts which would defeat its object and purpose.” Still, it is not enough for Mr. Bush to replace his predecessor’s efforts to pretend that the Senate had not rejected the CTBT with an open-ended commitment to continue to deny this country a diagnostic and developmental tool essential to the maintenance of the sort of deterrent we need today — and of which we will likely have even greater in the years ahead.

The Bottom Line

By coupling his decision to reduce the number of nuclear weapons the United States will retain with an announcement that the Nation will resume the testing needed to ensure that its deterrent remains safe, reliable and competent, George W. Bush can secure a two-fer: First, he can take, under the most favorable circumstances imaginable, a step that his adversaries at home and abroad would dearly like to make politically costly for him. And two, he can thereby act constructively to “defeat the object and purpose of the CTBT” — and thus establish beyond a doubt that America will not be precluded from doing what it must for its national security, and that of others around the world who rely upon our nuclear umbrella.

V-22: A discussion on the way ahead

(Washington, D.C.): In the aftermath of the report by a Blue-Ribbon Commission asked by the Defense Department to evaluate the V-22 Osprey program, the Center for Security Policy brought together on 22 May more than 120 senior military officers, a leading Member of Congress and congressional staffers, policy and industry professionals to consider the case for the V-22 Osprey and tiltrotor technology.

This half-day Roundtable on “The Way Ahead for the V-22” was held at the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, D.C. and featured a brief keynote address by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James L. Jones, III. Gen. Jones’ comments were followed by a review of “Requirements and the Road Ahead” for the V-22 program led by two senior commanders: the Chief of Staff of U.S. European Command, Lieutenant General Dan Petrosky, and the Commander of the Air Force Special Operations Command, Lieutenant General Maxwell Bailey.

The Roundtable then turned to consideration of “The Status and Potential of Tilt-rotor Technology,” led by Terry Stinson, the Chairman and CEO of Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., and Pat Finneran, the Vice President for Navy-Marine Programs for Boeing Aircraft and Missiles. They addressed the manufacturers’ plans for restructuring the program so as to rectify shortfalls identified by the Blue-Ribbon Commission and to resume cost-effective production rates as soon as possible. Messrs. Stinson and Finneran were joined by Dennis Eckenrod, a Chief Pilot with American Airlines, who shed important light on the potential value of the tilt-rotor technology being perfected in the V-22 program to the Nation’s civil aviation and other industries.

In the final portion of the program, Representative Curt Weldon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s Readiness Subcommittee, provided an assessment of congressional attitudes towards the V-22 in the wake of the program’s difficulties addressed by the Blue-Ribbon Commission and its recommended fixes. He was followed by concluding speaker, General Charles Holland, the Commander of Special Operations Command, who added his own personal endorsement of the Osprey, affirming and reinforcing the remarks made earlier by Gen. Bailey.

While no effort was made to secure a consensus, the sentiment of those present appeared to be strongly in favor of realizing the potential of the V-22 and tiltrotor technology for both military and civilian applications. Highlights of the discussion included the following:

General Jones Makes the Case for the Osprey

Gen. Jones affirmed the Marine Corps’ positive view of the Blue Ribbon Commission’s findings on the V-22 and his judgment that the tilt-rotor technology used in the V-22 is mature and that manufacture and deployment of the aircraft is doable. His remarks included the following:



  • “I’ve been involved in this program in one shape or form since about 1987, either as an advocate or as an emissary for previous commandants who have tried to bring this technology forward. It was certainly a painful moment for me, and I think all of us who care about how we do things in this town, particularly bringing new technology–particularly aviation technology–forward, to have such devastating setbacks.”


  • “For me, there were three central questions that needed to be answered. The first one was, simply, the maturity of the technology as a concept: Was it doable? Is it mature enough? And if the answer to that question is Yes, then the second question is: Is it robust enough? Has it been thoroughly tested? And is it ready for the operational rigors of shipboard life in the Armed Forces, and in the Marine Corps in specific? And then, if those two questions are answered in the affirmative, or some variation thereof, then the third question is: What’s the best way to bring this technology forward and put it in the inventory? What’s the most affordable way to do that?”


  • “The judgment of the panel is in. [M]y sensing was that the answer to the first question was: Yes, the technology is mature. It is something that is doable. But there were some difficulties with the second question, as to its robustness and as to the thoroughness of the testing and perhaps some of the way we were producing and acquiring the V-22s that have come off the line so far. We accept that….With regard to the third question, once we get through the first two, then I think we really do need to pose the question as to what is the best way to acquire the technology at the most affordable unit cost, and simply get on with it.

Panel One: “Requirements and the Road Ahead” for the V-22 Osprey

The Roundtable then turned to a discussion focused on concrete military needs and the best way to address these needs. It featured a real-life series of scenarios outlined by EUCOM’s Lt. Gen. Daniel Petrosky, Chief of Staff, U.S. European Command and similar comments from AFSOCOM’s General Bailey. Key points that were made in the course of this portion of the program included the following:



  • As we look to the future, and the world we find ourselves in, and the things that we believe and know that we’re being asked to do today and are likely to be asked to do in the future, the potential for tiltrotor technology is just as an incredible potential force-multiplier.


  • From a pilot’s standpoint and from an imagination of what this kind of aircraft can do for us in an objective area, when you need to get in and out quickly in a hostile condition, this airplane has just got almost unbounded potential. For example, you’re two miles out from a helicopter landing zone, flying 230 knots as an airplane. Eighteen seconds later, you have slowed that aircraft to hover speed and can sit down in the landing zone to quickly on- or off-load the maximum things on the aircraft. Eighteen seconds later, you’re going 230 knots as an aircraft again on your escape. And if you’ve tried to put that in a situation where you’ve got guys under fire, and it’s important to get in and out quickly, the potential to have that kind of responsiveness is just unbounded. These are things that we really can’t do today.


  • The birth of our modern-day Special Operations Command…was really the debacle that we had at “Desert One.” And the “Desert One” scenario was so much more complicated by our inability to move long distances and present ourselves directly into the objective area during a single period of darkness. It was a very complex mission. It required us going out in the middle of the desert with C-130s, followed by helicopters and trans-loading. And then part of the mission that we never had a chance to execute was moving to an all-day hide site, with the entire force; putting everybody to bed; dispersing the helicopters; and coming back out and repeating that situation the next night, to include removal of the hostages and then the extracting of the force.

    If you had CV-22 type technology, could have been done with a single in-and-out pass — albeit with helicopter refueling with C-130 type assets — moving directly into the objective area, and then being able to extract during that, again, single period of darkness.



  • We had a mission a couple of years ago where we had a long-range non-combatant evacuation order. And one of the things that really cost us getting to the battle on time was we have to break down the aircraft. You’ve got to break it down. It takes 18 hours to break down our current MH-53s, an additional 12 hours to build them up, and then a functional check flight before you know that it’s safe to fly. And so, with a self-deployable airplane, of course, you eliminate all of that. And then, again, our ability to then with a single aircraft be able to range the world and operate independently of runways is just something that is going to bring us capabilities that we don’t have today.


  • [W]e’re very, very comfortable that once we get back into our testing, that we’re going to be able to field a safe airplane….As we look at the safety features — and that has gotten the bulk of the play in the efforts to bring the aircraft on — it is equally important to us that all the reliability and maintainability features be built into it. Because the way that we operate, and trying to cut ourselves off a lengthy logistics tail, if we don’t build those into it, then it’s going to be not as effective as we believe that we need to do it in the future.


  • Tiltrotor technology, some people will talk about it being experimental. But of course, we’ve been flying successful tiltrotor technology since 1992. I’m not sure that that would be considered skipping a generation. It seems to me that what we’re talking about with this aircraft is bringing a proven technology in — more than skipping; how about operationalizing? Operationalizing technology that we know can make a difference today; not something that will make a difference a generation from now.


  • There were about 17 different studies, seven of which…were DOD-sponsored studies. One…was [conducted by] the Lawrence Livermore, which was an incursion in to the Bekaa [SPELLING?] Valley, where we had a Marine expeditionary force at various distances in the Mediterranean, and their ability to respond to a blocking force to take out, in this case, a Syrian [unit] using Soviet tactics at the time, coming down through that valley. And it literally made the difference between winning or losing the battle, because of the time necessary to get the reinforcements into that blocking force.


  • Phil Coyle: “I’m Phil Coyle, former director of operational testing and evaluation in the Pentagon. From a test point of view…there’s good news/bad news. The good news is: The V-22 program did a nice job of live fire testing…being shot at. And indeed, it’s a robust aircraft from that point of view; and my former office said so. The chem-bio protection, however, was a weak area in testing. And they shouldn’t be smashed together. So while the V-22 has some strengths with regard to vulnerability, it also has some weaknesses….Just so I won’t be misunderstood here, I think Undersecretary Aldrich made the correct decision [in approving continued development of the V- 22]. But the V-22 was supposed to be more reliable than the helicopters it might replace, easier and cheaper to maintain than the helicopters it might replace; and it simply isn’t yet.

    “One of the things that I’ve advocated since I left the department, advocated in the press, is a sustained reliability test, to demonstrate that the accident rate is not as bad as it would appear to be from the recent crashes. You could get the idea from the recent crashes that the accident rate is like one every 800 to 1,000 hours. The program may want to argue that that’s an accident of statistics…. And the only way to really get through that is, after all the hardware and software and hydraulics problems, electronic problems, after all of those things have been fixed [is] to do some kind of sustained reliability test, to show that it’s not as bad any more after all those things have been fixed. Obviously, if you do an 800-hour test and stop, it won’t prove that.


Panel Two: Tiltrotor Technology – Status and Potential

Highlights of the discussion of this topic included the following:



  • Terry Stinson: “The need for V-22 type technology is probably more necessary today than it was when the V-22 concept originated a number of years ago. It continues to validate the type of capabilities that the V-22 represents, and that’s things like global reach, battle space awareness, inherent survivability. And, yes, as we talked about earlier in this discussion, we will have unprecedented reliability and supportability when the V-22 goes into full-rate production.”

    “We remain convinced and confident of the tiltrotor technology. It is a mature technology. It is a safe technology. And the V-22 Osprey is a sound and solid aircraft that will, in fact, become the tactical platform of choice for the Marine Corps, for Special Operations, and other services and selected allies around the world.”

    “We’ve been flying tiltrotors for 45 years. So when people talk about tiltrotor technology being new, it’s nearly a half a century that we’ve had tiltrotors in one fashion or the other that have been flying. We began with Bell’s first tiltrotor, the XV-3, which flew from 1956 to 1962. We then had the XV-15, which flew in 1977 and is flying today. And of course, to the MV-22, flying since 1989; and the CV-22, that is currently operating at Edwards Air Force Base. We truly know tiltrotors, and know that they are sound aircraft–Revolutionary, no question about it; but sound. We’ve got over 6,500 flight hours in tiltrotors. And all of the people who have flown the tiltrotors have immediately appreciated the revolutionary aspects of the aircraft.”

    “You don’t have to stretch your thinking very far in terms of getting to quantities that become so low that from an industrial base point of view you start irreparably damaging the ability to respond to the technology of this aircraft. And I think that the numbers that we’re talking about right now–Pat and I have a common mind on that. We know the numbers that we think we have to have in order to be able to maintain the industrial base, the technology base, and so on… You go below that, and pretty soon you’ve got a lot of people dropping out–a lot of people being part of our team, the subcontractor base, and so on.”

    “To a lot of the critics who have said, Let’s just put it on the shelf for two or three years and do some more studies, and then start it back up again,’ my response to that is that some of us may not in fact be willing to start it back up again. And some of the technology would not be recaptured.”



  • Pat Finneran: “Over the past 18 months, we, with our industry partners, have identified more than 400 cost-reduction initiatives. Implementing these initiatives will provide aircraft that are more affordable — not just in acquisition, but in total ownership cost — allowing our customers to acquire more capability for the limited funding that they have. Precedence for effective cost reduction like the FA-18 E/F can provide us the proven processes to use in bringing these costs down.”

    “In the near future, we see potential for additional Air Force requirements beyond V-22 for special operations. There is a clear role in the execution of the expeditionary force concept of operations for a long-range, multi-mission, verticle take-off and landing-capable transport like the V-22. Such missions might include forward-base reconstitution, force protection, combat rescue, Medivac, air ahead clearance, humanitarian relief, even AEW and EW or airborne command and control.”

    “We also think that Air and Army National Guard units could incorporate V-22 detachments in their homeland defense; particularly in their roles of disaster relief, rescue and, as we talked about earlier, the response to weapons of mass destruction.”

    “The V-22 is also a candidate for the Navy, for combat rescue, SEAL support, and long-range logistics missions. We also believe, as the United States Army progresses in its transformation toward a lighter, more maneuverable force, that they will find an important place for V-22 in support of air assault, logistics, and Medivac missions.”


    • Commercial Application of V-22 Technology


  • Dennis Eckenrod: “[Transportation Secretary] Norm Moneta [has said]: In the year 2000, 600 million passengers flew on U.S. airlines. That’s a 50-percent increase [over the past] nine years. It’s expected to hit one billion by the year 2010.’ Now, that statement pretty much says it all.

    “Today we’ve been talking about the V-22 and its ability to perform in battle; and we have a different war that we’re looking at here at the airline industry. And that’s one of capacity….The American people have discovered flying; they want the product. The problem is, they don’t want new runways; they don’t want the noise that the airplanes produce taking off and landing at the different airports. And so it puts us in somewhat of a conundrum, in the sense that they want their product, but they don’t want anything that comes with it.”

    “The nation’s air traffic system is [in] critical [condition] — the congestion, the delays, the noise, etc. This airplane fills the bill. It’s a quiet aircraft as it transitions to forward flight….And from our perspective as an airline, needless to say, the benefits are something that we could really use; in the sense that the noise footprint on the airplane is so small, if we can transition from vertical flight to forward flight inside the airport boundary and get the altitude that we need to pass over the populated areas adjacent to the airports, we’ve solved several problems. Environmentally and politically, we have created a real plus for the airline industry.”

    “One of the very interesting things about the tiltrotor is, out to a 600-mile radius, not having the constraints of the taxiways and the runways, we have done some studies using the official airline guide to a 600-mile radius around the DFW Airport. We can actually beat our standard airliner to destination. The reason being, there is no delay involved in that taxiway or waiting for a runway.”

    “If you draw a 600-mile radius around [the Dallas-Fort Worth] airport, 41 percent of our flights are less than 600 miles; Chicago, 65 percent. Newark is 98 percent that go less than 600 miles. So those numbers: Pretty much 50 percent of the flying that we do is less than 600 miles in most airports in the United States.


Panel Three: Other Perspectives

Highlights of the concluding panel featuring Congressman Curt Weldon and Gen. Charles R. Holland included the following:



  • Rep. Weldon: “[W]e had ten members of Congress [at a congressional hearing in Pennsylvania on 21 May]. And Rep. Bob Brady asked a very revealing question, and it was very simple in terms of the content. He [asked two Marines — a field grade officer and a non-commissioned officer — involved in the V-22 program]: You both have families, right?’ And they said, Yes, Congressman.]’ If you were in a hostile situation today, and you had a CH-46 and a 53 and the V-22, which one would you have the most confidence in putting your family in, your wife and your kids, to get them out?’ And both of them, without hesitation, said, The V-22.'”

    “[W]e don’t have a problem with the technology today; we have a problem with perception. And you know, in this city sometimes, if not often, perception overtakes substance….The perception is…fueled by superficial articles that have said, “This plane is unsafe, this plane should not be flown, this plane is being rushed into production,” all of which is garbage.”

    “[W]here we are today is, as you heard yesterday, the Administration is going to request the basic minimum buy this next year, which I assume will be one per month, 12, which is what the Marine Corps says they can live with and what the contractors say they can live with. I would say there may be an attempt to plus that up slightly, as you’ve done in the past. But given the budget train wreck that we’re in the midst of right now–And it’s so bad, and I can’t convey this enough to you. I just finished chairing a hearing for two hours, and I focused on this again. We have such a readiness issue and a problem that if we don’t get an emergency supplemental done by June, by the end of June, we’re going to have the services begin to shut down training by July 1st. There’s no choice. We’re out of money.”



  • General Holland: “Within Special Operations, always our main concern is time. Time can be an enemy, or time can be a friend. If you can operate inside the decision cycle of the enemy, then time is your friend. If, because of the weapons system you bring to bear, you do not have time to get to the target in time, and the enemy is able to amass the people or equipment prior to us arriving, then we in Special Operations, being a small, light, lean force, then do not do very well at all.”

    “[W]hen you talk about range, when you talk about deployability, when you talk about the one period of darkness–It becomes a very compelling reason why tiltrotor technology and a platform such as the CV-22 would be very beneficial to our command.”

    “[F]rom what I have heard from the blue-ribbon panel, the fact is that industry can meet that challenge. And given that industry meets that challenge, then I feel that tiltrotor technology and the CV-22 will definitely keep us a step ahead at Special Operations Command in meeting not only those missions that I just discussed, but also those missions involved with counter-terrorism and the weapons of mass destruction, where this platform can really revolutionize the way that we do business within our command.”


    • Discussion of the Commercial Opportunities for Tiltrotor Technology


  • If you could plug in an airplane like a tiltrotor that can double the capacity of some of our large airports, and has a small enough noise footprint to go into general aviation airports… [y]ou can go back and add air traffic opportunities to the small towns, and you can decongest the airport so that it can carry the capacity it needs to carry. Right now, all the short-haul aircraft are imported into this country from other countries. They’re not built in this country at all. That’s part of the balance of payments issue that we have.

    The chance of getting there without the military validating the technology is slim to none… But I think that to reach the state that we’re talking about here, where you’re talking a multiple number of tiltrotors — you’re talking ten passengers, 40 passengers, a hundred passengers — that’s what it’s going to take to fix the problem we’re talking about.

    Economically, we need to look at this thing several ways. First of all, we’re talking about building V-22s at one a month. That’s not an economic rate for building airplanes. Even if you got the economic rate, the rate people are talking about is four a month. Well, Boeing builds 737s at the rate of 25 to 30 airplanes a month. That’s why the economics is there. And if the marketplace for this type of machine comes along, then building them at a higher rate is what’s going to drive the cost of the airplane down. It’s going to make a big difference in what it costs us to build the airplane.



  • Dennis Eckenrod: “There is a history here. If you go back to the KC-135/707, American Airlines flew the first coast-to-coast flight in a 707. The KC-135 program drove that. The DC-3/C-47 [the military was also the driving force behind] these aircraft. And the great thing about having the military and the civil world have the same sort of aircraft is, of course, the parts supply. And in case of a large conflict, you’ve got immediate access to parts and equipment.”

Bear over the Barrel’: Putin’s Threats re: U.S. Missile Defenses are Strategically Hollow, Economically Unaffordable

(Washington, D.C.): Opponents at home and abroad of President Bush’s plan to deploy U.S. missile defenses are betting heavily on Russian President Vladimir Putin to help them carry the day. Thus, Putin’s every utterance about his determination to build new missiles or add warheads to old ones are given prominent treatment in Democratic congressional circles, allied capitals and talkfests featuring pundits and others in the domestic and international media elite.

The only problem is — as complementary essays published in recent days by Columbia University professor Padma Desai and former Clinton CIA Director R. James Woolsey make clear — there is no there. Putin’s Russia simply cannot afford to undertake the “arms race” he threatens. Even if the Russians could, it would make absolutely no difference strategically.

The latter point, lucidly made by Mr. Woolsey, is further underscored by Putin’s latest, bizarre gambit aimed, apparently, at not giving too much offense to his new friend, George W. Bush. On Friday, according to an Associated Press item featured today by globalsecuritynews.com, the Russian President announced, “I want to say that if such a response [i.e., a Russian missile and/or warhead build-up] does take place, it will not be aimed against the creators of the NMD system.” He added that Russia’s plans “should not worry anyone” given this fact.

In short, there is no better time than the present for the United States to be deploying missile defenses. Get on with it.

Putin’s bluff: Russia’s economic problems leave it with no alternative but to accept US plans for a missile defence system

By Padma Desai

The Financial Times, 21 June 2001

Many US security specialists thought Vladimir Putin would use Saturday’s summit with George W. Bush to air his outright rejection of US plans to develop a national missile defence. They were surprised when it did not happen. But they have only themselves to blame: if they had not lost sight of Russia’s plight, they would have predicted the mildness of Mr Putin’s disapproval long ago.

The Russian bear is trapped between a failing economy and pressing defence needs on the non-nuclear front. Russia’s president has little choice other than to accept NMD, even if he tries to secure some concessions along the way.

Mr Putin’s post-summit threat to push ahead with deployment of multiple nuclear warheads in response to a unilateral US decision on NMD is therefore little more than noise and cheap bargaining. Mr Bush has the bear over a barrel.

The failure of US security analysts to recognise the importance of economic factors in undermining Mr Putin’s opposition to NMD is particularly puzzling when one considers that the Bush administration is front-loaded with many veterans of Ronald Reagan’s “bust-their-budget” war against the “evil empire”. They believe, not implausibly, that Mikhail Gorbachev was pushed – even if willingly – into the dissolution of the Soviet Union and into glasnost and perestroika because the failing Soviet economy was incapable of sustaining an enhanced arms race.

Drawing a parallel between the economic circumstances of Mr Gorbachev’s Soviet Union and Mr Putin’s Russia is hard to resist. As it did a decade and a half ago, Russia suffers from severe economic stress. It is true that the growth rate was 8 per cent last year – but it is expected to fall to half that in 2001. Few of the reforms needed to attract foreign investment are in place and infrastructure is crumbling. The country’s economic transition is deeply troubled.

As if that were not enough, Russia’s dependence on foreign assistance continues to be acute, a fact that is not helped by the US’s Republican administration, which is reluctant to give Moscow a “free ride.” The 1998 Cox Commission of the Congress, dominated by Republicans, viscerally denounced the Clinton-Gore approach of ready financial support as naive and wrong. Realpolitik, rather than active engagement and quid pro quo generosity, is likely to be the new order of the day.

A close look at the Russian budget is also revealing. The budget is at last expected to be in balance this year. But this good news reflects the massive increase in oil revenues because of high oil prices and that is unlikely to last. Government expenditure in 2001 is planned at $ 42 billion; one out of every four roubles – rising to one out of three by 2003 – is earmarked for debt repayment. By contrast, only a paltry $5 billion is allocated for defence. If defence expenditures are re-evaluated at purchasing power parity -a dubious procedure in itself – they rise but are still tiny compared with US defence spending at Dollars $330 billion.

Worse for Russia, priorities within this small defence budget have shifted to reflect the country’s growing concerns about neighbours such as Tajikistan and Georgia to the south – partly a consequence of the costly mistakes in Chechnya. After a prolonged internal debate in which Igor Sergeev, the former defence minister, argued for renovation of Russia’s nuclear capabilities while Anatoly Kvashnin, the current joint chief of staff, fought for building conventional forces, Mr Kvashnin gained the upper hand.

There is no doubt that Mr Putin must dread the prospect of NMD eventually destroying the utility of Russia’s nuclear stockpiles and turning the US into a hyperpower with first-strike capability without fear of retaliation. But the Russian leader has no alternative. After all, he needs US financial support; his budget cannot possibly find the necessary resources to begin a nuclear arms race; and his immediate defence needs are focused on the country’s difficult neighbours.

Mr Putin cannot even threaten nuclear proliferation because such a tactic could backfire through the actions of some Islamic states on Russia’s periphery. To assuage Russia, the Bush administration has suggested buying surface-to-air missiles for possible deployment in Europe. It may even buy transport planes and submarines, which Russians produce well – as we know from the use of the Russian transport plane to bring the disassembled US spy plane back from China. An economically crippled Russia, with her conventional defence needs, cannot but look favourably on these sweeteners.

If NMD is to be stopped, the onus will not be carried by Russia. Instead, it will fall on the Europeans, as well as by the Democrats and others within the US itself. The war over NMD will be fought not in Moscow but within the west.

The writer is professor of comparative economic systems and director of the Center for Transition Economies at Columbia University

Putin’s Futile Warhead-Rattling

By R. James Woolsey

The Washington Post, 26 June 2001

In his recent marathon press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to show both a velvet glove — nobody here but us free enterprise democrats, folks — and a barely concealed mailed fist: In essence, if you Americans deploy ballistic missile defenses we will put multiple warheads on our new ICBMs.

Some European and American observers have already declared that Putin has now trumped every card in the American hand. What could be worse, they ask, than more Russian strategic warheads? Destabilizing! Arms race! Stop Bush from provoking this horror!

Whoa.

The proper riposte to Putin’s threat is the one given earlier this year by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when Russia’s current defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, similarly told him that Russia would deploy more strategic warheads if the United States pursued defenses. Essentially, Rumsfeld shrugged.

Exactly right. If Putin wants to waste his rubles convincing the world that his nostalgia for the Cold War knows no bounds, it’s his problem, not ours. The number of Russian strategic warheads was a central concern for us only in the historical context of the Cold War and the threat the Soviets then posed to Europe. Fixation on such numbers today is a demonstration of short-term memory loss — about everything that’s happened since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today we have two serious problems with Russia’s nuclear forces, but neither has anything to do with the number of their strategic warheads.

First, Russian warning systems are thoroughly decrepit and riddled with gaps. Some of their radars are not even in Russia, due to the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the satellites in their warning network are starting to fail. In 1995 President Boris Yeltsin was falsely alerted because the wheezing Russian warning system mistakenly took the launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket (of which they had been notified) for a possible missile launch from a U.S. submarine. The Russians need help filling these gaps in their warning systems, and two years ago we agreed to do so — by forming a joint U.S.-Russian warning center in Moscow that would use data from both countries — but the Russians continue to delay its implementation.

Second, although Russian strategic warheads are well-guarded, large numbers of small tactical nuclear warheads and huge amounts of fissionable material usable for bombs are not, and these create a serious stockpile security problem. Nunn-Lugar funds from the United States have helped secure about two-thirds of this mess from theft and smuggling and could help secure the rest, but again Russian stalling (much of it from President Putin’s old outfit, the domestic successor to the KGB) is holding up progress.

The numbers of Russian strategic warheads don’t cause, or even exacerbate, either the warning or the stockpile problems. The warning gaps have to be fixed whether the Russians have 1,000 strategic warheads or 5,000 — the accidental launch of even one would be an incredible disaster — and this risk is basically unaffected by warhead numbers. The stockpile security problem is also independent of strategic warhead numbers. It is fissionable material and small tactical warheads that are in danger of being stolen or sold, not the well-guarded strategic systems.

So why the excitement about Putin’s strategic warhead brandishing? It’s been said that the most common form of mistake is forgetting what it is you’re trying to accomplish. This is what has happened to those who have started fluttering about Putin’s threat.

During the Cold War there was indeed a reason we cared about the number of warheads on Soviet strategic ballistic missiles. More than 20 armored and mechanized Soviet divisions were poised only a few days’ march from the Low Countries and the English Channel. We needed to be sure that, in a crisis, our allies would hold firm. and thus we could brook no doubts about our steadfastness. We wanted them, and the Soviets, to have no doubt that if necessary we would use our strategic forces to defend Europe.

The bulk of our deterrent was in our silo-based ICBMs, and they were crucial to us because of their unique accuracy and reliable communications, and because, unlike the bomber force, the Soviets had no defenses against them. We were deeply concerned that if the Soviets could credibly threaten to strike first and destroy our ICBMs with a small number of their own ICBMs carrying multiple warheads — while retaining the bulk of their strategic forces in reserve — our allies would doubt our resolve.

Our ballistic missile submarine force was steadily modernized over the years, but most of us were unwilling to rely on it alone. Consequently in the arms control negotiations of the ’70s and ’80s, we bargained hard to limit Soviet warhead numbers, to protect our ICBMs from attack.

Today’s world bears not the faintest resemblance to that of the Cold War. Brussels indeed stands naked to invaders, but it is to a golden horde of antitrust lobbyists. Some of our allies doubt our resolve, but their concern is our fetish for CO2-emitting SUVs. Missiles are still the heart of our nuclear deterrent, but the bulk of them are on Trident submarines; added numbers of strategic warheads, by anyone, do not make them vulnerable.

It is reported that President Bush may soon show he is not obsessed by strategic warhead numbers by unilaterally reducing ours. We should also keep trying to get the Russians to let us help them solve their real strategic problems — decrepit warning and unsecured stockpiles. And if part of the administration’s defense plan against rogue states includes boost phase intercept — being able to shoot down offensive missiles very early in their flight — the system would incidentally also defend Russia.

If, in spite of all this, Putin keeps threatening to add to Russia’s strategic warhead numbers, we have two things to communicate to him. First, as an act of kindness we could point out that he’d get substantially more military utility out of battleships, the political currency of 1920s arms control. But if he ignores that friendly suggestion, then it’s time for the shrug.

The writer, an attorney and a former CIA director, was ambassador, delegate or adviser in five U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations.

Honesty is the Best Policy: Bush Must Do With The A.B.M. Treaty as He Has Done to the Kyoto Protocol

(Washington, D.C.): In an extraordinary op.ed. article published last week in the Washington Post, syndicated columnist Robert Samuelson breaks ranks with virtually every other journalist on the planet. In contrast with the conventional wisdom that global warming is an imminent catastrophe that can and must be remedied by U.S. adherence to the Kyoto Protocol, Samuelson declares forthrightly that “we don’t know” whether climate change portends, literally, a planetary melt-down. He actually commends President George W. Bush for renouncing the Protocol on the grounds that its required reductions were arbitrary, not based on science and, if implemented, would likely be gravely injurious to the U.S. economy.

Even more extraordinary, Samuelson assails those in power at home and abroad (and, by implication, his colleagues in the media) whom he says have engaged in a systematic distortion of the facts regarding global warming and Kyoto. In his view, this explains their vehement antipathy towards, and condemnation of, Mr. Bush:

Bush has discarded all the convenient deceits. He has brought more honesty to the global warming debate in four months than Bill Clinton did in eight years — and this, paradoxically, is why he is so harshly condemned. He must be discredited because if he’s correct, then almost everyone else has been playing fast and loose with the facts.

The Samuelson essay is noteworthy in its own right. It is even more valuable, however, insofar as the paradigm it describes (i.e., that of an American president whose straightforward view of the facts is seen as an affront to elites in Europe and his own country) also applies to another delusional international accord — the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty — that should be dealt with in the same way as Mr. Bush has treated Kyoto.

Like the Global Climate Change protocol, the ABM Treaty is a fraud. The other party was liquidated a decade ago; first the Soviet Union and then Russia massively violated its terms; and it clearly disserves American interests in the post-Cold War world. Mr. Bush, who has talked about “setting aside” and “going beyond” the ABM Treaty must now act in the same forthright and legally efficacious way he did with respect to the Kyoto Protocol: Announce that the United States will no longer be bound by it, and begin deploying the kind of effective missile defenses it prohibits within at most six-months’ time.

The Kyoto Delusion

By Robert J. Samuelson

The Washington Post, 21 June 2001

The education of George W. Bush on global warming is simply summarized: Honesty may not be the best policy. Greenhouse politics have long blended exaggeration and deception. Although global warming may or may not be an inevitable calamity (we don’t know), politicians everywhere treat it as one. Doing otherwise would offend environmental lobbies and the public, which has been conditioned to see it as a certain disaster. But the same politicians won’t do anything that would dramatically reduce global warming, because the obvious remedy — steep increases in energy prices — would be immensely unpopular.

By rejecting the Kyoto protocol, which would commit 38 industrial countries to control greenhouse emissions, Bush has discarded the convenient deceits. He has brought more honesty to the global warming debate in four months than Bill Clinton did in eight years — and this, paradoxically, is why he is so harshly condemned. He must be discredited because if he’s correct, then almost everyone else has been playing fast and loose with the facts.

Bush says that the Kyoto commitments were “arbitrary and not based on science.” True. Under Kyoto, the United States would cut its greenhouse gas emissions 7 percent below their 1990 levels by the years 2008 to 2012. Japan’s target is 6 percent, the European Union’s 8 percent. Russia gets to maintain its 1990 level, and Australia is allowed an 8 percent increase. Developing countries (Brazil, China, India) aren’t covered. These targets reflect pragmatic diplomacy and little else.

Because so many countries are excluded, it’s also true — as Bush indicates — that even if Kyoto worked as planned, the effect on greenhouse gases would be almost trivial. In 1990, says the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, totaled 5.8 billion tons of “carbon equivalent.” The EIA predicts that if nothing is done, emissions will rise 34 percent to 7.8 billion tons by 2010. With Kyoto, the increase would be only 26 percent to 7.3 billion tons. The reductions of industrialized countries would be more than offset by increases from developing countries.

Finally, Bush is correct when he says that reaching the Kyoto target would involve substantial economic costs for Americans. Strong U.S. economic growth has raised emissions well above their 1990 level. To hit the Kyoto target would require a cut of 30 percent or more of projected emissions. Under the Clinton administration, the EIA estimated that complying could raise electricity prices 86 percent and gasoline prices 53 percent. Higher prices are needed to induce consumers and businesses to use less energy (the source of most greenhouse gases) and switch to fuels (from coal to natural gas) that have lower emissions.

Europeans boast they’ve done better, implying that America’s poor showing reflects a lack of will. By 1998, the 15 countries of the European Union had reduced greenhouse emissions 2.5 percent below the 1990 level. But the comparison is bogus, because Europe’s performance reflects different circumstances — and luck. Through 1998, only three countries (Germany, Britain and Luxembourg) had reduced their emissions, and these improvements were mostly fortunate accidents. The shutdown of inefficient and heavy-polluting factories in eastern Germany cut emissions. And in Britain, plentiful North Sea gas propelled a shift from coal. Generally speaking, slow population and economic growth — meaning fewer cars, homes and offices — helps Europe comply with Kyoto. From 1990 to 2010, the European Union’s population is projected to rise 6 percent compared with a 20 percent U.S. increase.

The Clinton administration expressed alarm about global warming even while delaying effective action. Under Kyoto, countries can buy “rights” to emit greenhouse gases from other countries where — in theory — reductions could be more cheaply achieved. Called “emissions trading,” this approach was championed by Clinton. But as David Victor of the Council on Foreign Relations argues in his book “The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol,” the scheme is an unworkable sham. Some countries — notably Russia and Ukraine — got emissions targets well above their needs. So they could sell excess emission “rights” to Americans. The result: The United States wouldn’t cut its emissions and neither would Russia or Ukraine. Because Europeans distrusted this and other U.S. proposals, the final negotiations over Kyoto deadlocked last year.

As Bush says, we know that global temperatures are rising — but we don’t know the speed or the ultimate consequences. On all counts, his candor seems more commendable than the simplifications and evasions of his critics. And yet, his policy has stigmatized him as an environmental outlaw and earned him ill will in Europe and Japan. These are high costs. What went wrong? Just this: People say they like honesty in politicians, but on global warming, the evidence is the opposite. People prefer delusion. Kyoto responded to this urge. People want to hear that “something” is being done when little is being done and, in all likelihood, little can be done.

Barring technological breakthroughs — ways of producing cheap energy with few emissions or capturing today’s emissions — it’s hard to see how the world can deal with global warming. Developing countries sensibly insist on the right to reduce poverty through economic growth, which means more energy use and emissions. (Much is made of China’s recent drop in emissions; this is probably a one-time decline, reflecting the shutdown of inefficient factories. In 1999 China had eight cars per 1,000 people compared with 767 per 1,000 for the United States. Does anyone really believe that more cars, computers and consumer goods will cut China’s emissions?) Meanwhile, industrialized countries won’t reduce emissions if it means reducing living standards. There is a natural stalemate.

Because this message is unwanted, politicians don’t deliver it. Someone who defies conventional wisdom needs to explain his views well enough to bring public opinion to his side. Bush has, so far, failed at this critical task. Ironically, he might have fared better if he had stuck with Clinton’s clever deceptions.