(00:00:06) Good afternoon. Can you all hear me? (00:00:12) We like to begin. (00:00:16) I'm Bill Spore. Remember the Minnesota meeting board of (00:00:19) directors. We have a great crowd today. It's a pleasure to welcome you to the second program or this Minnesota meeting season. (00:00:28) We also extend a Welcome (00:00:29) to our radio audience throughout the Midwest (00:00:32) and to thank the law firm of Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly for sponsoring this live broadcast on Minnesota Public (00:00:38) Radio. (00:00:41) The Minnesota meeting has a history of bringing challenging and And Timely discussion of the days most significant political (00:00:48) social and economic issues to the 10th Twin Cities community and today's speech by. Dr. Gerald Jonas is no exception. In the wake of the wrecked Havoc Summit meeting last (00:00:58) month, the Strategic Defense Initiative (00:01:01) has become a crucial factor in public debate over Arms Control. Today's speech by dr. Jonas is the first of a two-part Minnesota meeting program on (00:01:13) SDI. (00:01:15) The second speech space defense The Impossible Dream by dr. Richard. Garwin will be held on Tuesday December 2nd. (00:01:24) We like to thank the 3M Company and first (00:01:26) bank system for (00:01:27) jointly sponsoring this special (00:01:30) two-part program. (00:01:33) Dr. Jonas former Chief scientist for the Strategic Defense Initiative organization and current vice president of the Titan Corporation is a well-known (00:01:41) proponent of SDI. In 1983, he served as chairman of the directed energy (00:01:49) weapons panel for the defense defensive technology study team that prepared the plan that is now being pursued by the (00:01:56) SDI organization his education his (00:02:00) background and experience eminently (00:02:02) qualify him as an expert on this subject. We look forward today to dr. Jonas comments (00:02:09) prospects and (00:02:10) challenges of a space-based defense against nuclear attack. It's a pleasure. Dr. Jonas to have you. (00:02:25) Well, first of all, it's a pleasure to be here. I had no idea when I agreed to speak in Minneapolis. How much of a hotbed of interest there is in this town and regard the SDI. I arrived last night and since since then I've had five separate interviews first with news to with newspapers and to with with radio stations the most challenging interview I had of all was in the car driving in from the from the airport a schoolteacher here in Minneapolis saw that I was coming to town and she called my secretary and asked if I would answer questions of her from her son a ten-year-old boy and his friend who are pursuing a report writing report on SDI and reports due in a week and they saw I was coming to town and if I have to give marks in terms of preparing for the interviews getting together good questions and Attend of a knife to compare their questions with those of the newspapers and the radio stations the to the to 5th grade boys are way ahead and I want to compliment the local school system. And I think those two kids are going to I hope they have a chance to grill. Dr. Garland when he comes to town make that recommendation. Well, one of the problems about the SDI that I find all the time is to somehow put it in perspective and people have a hard time dealing with the historical Evolution. They weren't aware of the situation that existed at the time of the president's speech. It was a real surprise as things have evolved the events have continued to surprise and confuse the public. So there are a lot of misconceptions. There's a lot of controversy that are a lot of claims made and clear. This is this is probably the most controversial military budget that's ever happened military program that's ever happened. It's not the largest in any way but nevertheless it certainly is the most controversial and clearly we see that it's engulfs the leaders of the of the East and Western blocks and continues to be on the front pages. Almost every day. So let's go back a little bit in history and see what was the stage that existed at the time of the president's speech and then I'd like to go through and talk about some of the issues how the program is evolving and then at the very end talk about some of the prospects for the future what may happen on under various possibilities well to begin with when the president came forward with his speech in March of 1983. This was a surprise to many people both inside and outside the government, but the situation that existed at that time was that we had no defense against ballistic missiles something that continues to surprise many many many people and we had no defense for a reason namely we had decided back at the time of the ABM Treaty in the early 70s that we would be more secure. If we and the Soviet Union had no Reliance on protection and both invested in strategic. Offense so that we could threaten to punish one another in this way maintain a stable deterrent and the argument was made then at the time of the treaty and the time and the argument was made to the Senate that if we had no proof no protection on either side if the US had no protection the Soviets had no protection that there would be no motivation for either side. To continue to build up strategic nuclear weapons and in particular there would be no motivation to build up the kinds of weapons that could threaten weapons because the idea is we both have weapons the weapons themselves will be survivable and the weapons can be used to threaten one another. Well, since the treaty was signed the Soviets rapidly increased their offensive strategic weapons in a particularly worrisome category and that is strategic weapons with very high lethality and very high Precision counterforce weapons weapons that can be used to Target weapons. They went from less than a thousand Warheads to over 6,000 Warheads in this period since the ABM Treaty and the president's speech and during that time we continually decrease the capability fact, we did not press forward with this idea of having increasing numbers of weapons of mass destruction. In fact our history going back to the early 60s shows a continual decrease. And the yield of our nuclear weapons is we went from high-yield weapons to weapons of less and less destruction. And in fact, we've actually come down and total numbers of weapons and during that entire time period the Soviet buildup on the offensive weapons has been an extra bowl some people argue that this is not resulted in a lack of parity. But in any case it shows this continual build-up and that the time of the president's speech there was concerned that this build-up would continue in the Soviets had walked away from the arms control negotiations and the prospects for further advances in Arms Control. Any meaningful reductions were rather dim. The other thing that happened at the time of this treaty that we signed in the early 70s was an agreement on both sides that we would move away from Strategic Defense before the treaty. We were spending at the rate of about one to two billion dollars a year in the Strategic Defense Arena after the treaty we dip down to about a half a billion dollars a year and the kind of program that we carried out was a fairly disjointed a Loosely structured program really had no goals. No Central management and it was sort of keeping alive at a very low level disjointed kinds of research in the ballistic missile defense Arena. Well at that time we were spending about two billion dollars a year on Strategic Defense the Soviets were spending about six billion dollars a year. This is all in today's dollars and we thought they would pull that down. They had a substantial air Defence investment civil defense and ballistic missile defense and we argued that it would be meaningless for them. First of all to continue their enormous program in Strategic Air Defense. So we expect that to come First we practically shut that whole program down. And the first thing we were surprised is that they continued their strategic go defense program. In fact their overall investment continued about the six billion dollar level through that entire 10-year period and in fact, they seem to be going ahead with Investments That Could lead to a breakout of the ABM Treaty. They had an operational ballistic missile defense system around Moscow the only operational system and people say well it's only one city we could easily defeat it. It poses no problem to us. But when you talk like that you ignore the operational realities, they continue to maintain the infrastructure the training program, they knew how to maintain and operate and control a ballistic missile defense system. We don't have that haven't had that we tore down and shut down and the people who understood that kind of technology and how to do that went away and went on to do other things. So we had what appeared to be a Soviet commitment to Strategic Defense in a conventional form. We also saw that they were continuing at a rather high level Advanced Technologies. Putting about a billion dollars a year into directed energy weapons whereas our program is running at a few hundred million dollars a year during that entire period and we saw this erosion of our confidence in projecting the Strategic equation into the future granted today looked okay for the immediate future. We still had a credible deterrent but the trends for the long term, we're not particularly favorable and The Joint Chiefs went to the president and informed him that it would be prudent to look a closely again at the idea of a ballistic missile defense. The president went out and instead of calling for an immediate deployment program. He called for a prudent research and technology program a program that would stay within the ballistic missile treaty. But what pursue technologies that could give us the basis for moving to a to a different. To a different kind of strategic posture that might be more apparently useful to our own Safety and Security well in pursuing the program people continually confuse the nature of This research and technology program is they will it work what is its goal and it's difficult to explain a program such as this because if I tell you about a missile defense a missile system, I can tell you about the missile its radar I can describe the system. You know, what is it when people say it won't work. It's difficult for me to say how they know. It won't work when I don't know what it is. And I don't think they know what it is because it is a research and technology program and the goal of the program is to Define it so it's very hard to give you a definitive answer to this to this question when it's still in a in a evolving state in an Ah, next eight to one thing that is clear is the Soviets don't want it to go beyond the embryonic State. They would like to stop it right now and I'll get back to that in a bit. Now. How would we pursue this process? What would be the logical evolution of the process? Well, first of all, we would begin with and we have the gun with the research and Technology Program. The purpose of that program is to provide the basis for a decision. So what's the decision driven program rather than a program which is being carried out based on a decision already made that's very different than many military programs that are being carried out today provide the basis for a decision. The second aspect is it's driven by the Soviet response. And since we don't know how the Soviets are going to response in the program, we have to study the responses as much as studying the Technologies to defend against those responses. So it's a program that is driven by the countermeasures in order to provide the basis for this informative. Decision and besides that this particular program will not lead to a decision that can be made by this President. It's a decision. That would have to be made by a future president and by a future Congress Now as the as the program evolved over the last two years the policy dimensions of the program began to also evolve an investor in it. See I think has most clearly defined the critical issues that Define This research and technology program and put the bounds on it and tell us in the research side of the program what it is that we have to do. Well, there are three criteria that he spoke about that have been super imposed on the technology management criteria that technology has to has to be able to provide in order to have a positive decision. The first one is survivability. The second issue is cost Effectiveness. And the third one is military Effectiveness. Now, why why these criteria? Well, the first one has to do with crisis stability all of these issues deal with a stable process in peacetime a process that would lead to a posture stability as well as crisis stability. First of all crisis stability one, if one had a system that was not survivable a system that could be easily detect attacked and destroyed and you put up such a system in a crisis. It could become a Target and because it is there as a Target, it could lead to an escalation of a crisis. So survivability is a major issue in any kind of a deployment. The second issue has to do with posture stability. We do not want to get into an offense defense arms race where the SDI serves to start that kind of an exchange. What we really want to do is to establish sufficient credibility of defenses. At the Soviet Union also adopts defenses and both sides see the offense of Investments are not a good investment their devalued and so both sides begin to negotiate reductions. In fact, the ideal way to do this is to go in and reduce offenses in a controlled balance and verified way and then begin to build up defenses mutually again in a balanced way. And so the idea of the program is to couple diplomacy and technology in a balanced way to lead to in the end a much more stable to turn posture where neither side has any fear of a first strike neither side really sees the military utility of ballistic missiles and these numbers were reduced down to a very low level. Well, frankly, I wasn't very impressed with the evolution over the last few years on the diplomacy side that the technology is moved along in a way that I think most of us who began in the program really expected but I think that the Diplomatic side moved along much more rapidly than any of us had any hope to expect to the point where it Reykjavik on Sunday the United States and the Soviet Union were talking about eliminating all all ballistic missiles. Absolutely remarkable the Soviets were talking about getting rid of the seventeenth eighteenth nineteen twenty. Twenty-One twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five. We were talking about getting rid of all of our land-based missiles the Minuteman Midget Man MX sea-based ballistic missiles, and we were talking about with the Soviets. We had agreed with the Soviet proposal to differ deployment of the SDI for 10 years. And we were about to come to an agreement that would have been truly revolutionary and then the Soviets threw a monkey wrench in Sunday afternoon still don't understand why but I think there's still a basis there. There were agreements made in the process which are more revolutionary than any technology development. Anybody could conceive it. Well in proceeding down this down this path. We have identified and continue to work on key technological issues which are vital to being able to meet these criteria, which apparently the Soviets are already willing to give us credit for being able to meet these criteria survivability cost Effectiveness in the margin being militarily effective. When these Technologies are still in an early stage of evolution granted were making substantial progress, but I think the Soviets have already come to the conclusion that we will continue to make progress on these Technologies and they apparently are not terribly excited about this future prospect that we have now gone forward with and that is a prospect of very low offensive weapons offense of ballistic missiles on both sides and and heavy Reliance on both sides on very capable strategic defenses. Now one other issue that I should point out and that is the involvement of the Allies this superpower situation cannot be considered or cannot be discussed out of the context of our allies and they play a very important role. And in fact, we in the SDI when I was in the SDI, when our went out of our way to consult continually consult with our allies to try to bring them into the program and to have their involvement and there were two reasons for this one was the issue of the technology the fact that there were technological capabilities outside the United States that could allow us to pursue the project easier faster lower cost with enhanced capabilities and we saw these these capabilities in Europe because of their investments in their active defense programs, although we have pulled gone away from active programs for instance an air defense. This did not happen in Europe air defense sensors battle management intern Afters are characteristically very important in the European context and their research labs and our Industries have capabilities that can be provided. The second issue is that the European saw that the Soviet Investments and short-range missiles the 21s and the 23s as well as the 20 the SS 20s presented an increasing threat to the European conventional defense. The concern here is that the Soviets could begin a conflict by launching these short-range missiles at command posts that are fields and storage Depots. And since we had no ballistic missile defense in Europe, they might be able to have an advantage that would make it difficult for us to mobilize and mount a conventional defense. So the Europeans particularly the German saw the need for Technologies in the areas of sensors battle management interceptors to be able to apply to this short-range ballistic missile defense Arena. And so we saw over this period of time that the Germans and the British and the Israelis subsequently the Japanese have begun to work more closely with us in terms of areas of mutual interest where they see the potential benefit to the fence again, short-range missiles and they also see the applications to Conventional Weapons that these Technologies these Advanced Technologies could allow them to be stronger in a potential future world. Where neither we nor the Soviet Union rely anymore on this nuclear umbrella, which is really now the foundation of the defense of our allies. Well, the program started off and has been building up at a I think it approved and level but below the level that was originally recommended by the study that was put together after the president's speech the program had already this Arena of Strategic Defense before the president speech had already been outlined for a five-year program. Without this initiative at a level of between 10 and 15 billion dollars over that period of time. I mean the realizations of the existing Soviet program the realizations of the Soviet offensive Investments, the increasing understanding of the importance of protection instead of just retaliation had already sunk in and many of our military leaders in the Congress were prepared to invest over this five-year period maybe as much as fifteen billion dollars now the proposal that went from the president of the Congress laid out a program of twenty six billion dollars over the same time period now, what we're finding is the result of the cuts imposed by the Congress that were proceeding at a rate slightly ahead of what would have existed without the president's speech. But in fact not at a rate that much different than we would have expected. Otherwise, what I'm saying is the program has not proceeded as rapidly as many of us thought or many of it many of us had hoped and now there is as a result of this a dilemma. That is faced by the program. The Dilemma is that many important programs that were going on before the SDI was formed programs in surveillance programs in management of information Interceptor Technologies, both conventional and advanced research programs these programs that were swept up and included in the SD. I have now provided a convenient Target. And now that many of these programs are swept up and contained within this this budget line. Now that this budget line has been cut. In fact, it was cut from four point eight billion dollars to 3.2 billion dollars in the continuing resolution that took place at the end of the last fiscal year this cut now has put many important programs in very serious Jeopardy. And so there is a real dilemma in managing the program in the face of these serious budget cuts. And now that the question is, how does the program balance? The opportunities that exist in Innovative and new technologies which are coming along rapidly and require funds to sustain them and promote them and at the same time maintain the mature Technologies, which are necessary to maintain a prudent hedge against the Soviet breakout and within that within the present budget is it's really very difficult for the program and people say isn't the program over Fund in the answer is far from it at this point. Now there's bad news as a result of that and maybe there's good news. The bad news is that as a result of the situation where many programs were swept up many important activities that are needed on their on their own even without an STI. That should be going ahead or in Jeopardy and there is a continual pressure on the research and Technology Program, which practically everyone agrees that this research and technology program should go ahead even this this handout that we got today from the nuclear weapons freeze campaign quotes opponents of the program that That they all approve all of these people are proved a research program. And in fact some of these people actually actually Advocate deployment of defense's of our missile silos. There are people who are claiming to be opponents of the program who say we should deploy defenses of silos now now that is that would really be expensive far more expensive ployment program would be far more expensive than the rate of expenditure that we're now carrying out in the research and technology area. So the concern I have is that we lose sight of the fact that this program has importance to the nation and National Security has many vital aspects that have been brought into the program and that in the face of the very serious national deficit in the budget cuts that have come to pass that we in fact somehow lose interest the American public has a natural tendency to if you don't have instant gratification to lose interest in a program and at the same time the Soviets who have already shown over the last 10 years. Continual solid steady investment in this Arena they keep on and we shut down and I would find that to be a very very bad situation would be very poor in terms of our national security. Now that that's the bad news or potential bad news. I'd hate to see that happen. But there is the possibility of good news and I see the steps that have been taken in Reykjavik being along that direction very positive steps to move us toward offensive arms reduction steps in which we agreed to pursue a prudent research and Technology Program where we have agreed to defer deployment and in the process, we begin to bring these Technologies as we go through that transition, we begin to apply these advancing Technologies to changing the nature of deterrence changing it in the sense that we bring in the benefits of the information revolution into increased surveillance data handling Information Management, so that we can manage incidents crises that we can begin to see a way to handle a transition from To war to stop that to stop that transition to stay at peace, or if a conflict begins to limit the sense of or the pace of a conflict to lowest level of damage to be able to build new technologies for increased information flow and increased understanding so that even before we achieve any kind of a defense against ballistic missiles, we're able to further improve our Safety and Security. Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions. (00:26:03) It's my understanding that the missiles are that the Strategic Defense Initiative would only protect against intercontinental ballistic missiles that leave the atmosphere would have no impact on weapons such as ss-20 and other strategic weapons for example cruise missiles is that true (00:26:22) the the goal of the SDI and the nature of the technology is to provide techniques for intercepting ballistic missiles of all ranges ballistic missiles that go outside the Earth's atmosphere as well as short-range ballistic missiles that fly within the Earth's atmosphere. The emphasis here is on the very short flight times and the rocket-propelled missiles and what they mean in terms of instability and threats to our security. The program is not looking at are breathing threats which by the nature of the particular propulsion system flied much lower velocities and then and do not provide the same kind of almost instantaneous threat and the instabilities that go with that. Now there would more than likely if we proceeded with this kind of a program there would more than likely be additional Investments and enhancements as we move away from strategic offense to Strategic Defense. We would probably change our balance. We would see increasing investments in conventional defense and air defense. (00:27:24) Sir, I read a book by a colonel Bowman recently who claims to have run Star Wars programs are precursors and 76 to 78 for the Pentagon and he raised another point. He says flat out that this is a offensive weapons program disguised as a defensive program and that the real goal is the easier goal of getting weapons into space it can shoot down Soviet Satellites and spacecraft and other space assets and is very alarmed about that. You're on the inside. Could you tell me how true that is? (00:27:58) The nature of a transition in which both sides cooperatively move to lower levels of offensive weapons and build up defensive weapons on both sides would take into account the realities of the application of these weapons to anti-satellite to ni satellite applications. For instance in such a transition. It wouldn't be in our interest. Let's say we both have surveillance capabilities in space. It wouldn't be in our interest to destroy the surveillance capabilities which are essential to our defensive systems because both of us have moved away from the heavy Reliance on retaliation now going One Step Beyond that would be even to share the benefits of these surveillance systems where we have ground stations that accept data from common surveillance platforms. And in this case, they're certainly wouldn't be any incentive on the Soviets part to attacking Our surveillance assets. So we're basically talking about a transition away from the status quo to a different kind of a strategic environment where a sad applications of the kind you describe would be useful to (00:29:11) either side. Dr. Janos you talk about simultaneously progressing with the Strategic Defense Initiative while negotiating reductions of offensive weapons. I'm asking you on what do you base your face since everything points to the in the opposite direction, the history of the arms race is obviously that one country develops a weapon system stimulates. The reaction the Soviets have said over and over again that there will be no arms control agreements. If we insist on proceeding with Star Wars won't the Soviets massively expand their nuclear Arsenal. If we insist on proceeding with Star (00:29:47) Wars, you have it wrong the Soviets insisted that we stay within the app listing missile defense treaty and they agree to reduce ballistic missiles by 50% massive reduction far beyond anything anybody would have conceived of and the president turned that around and said don't stop at 50% Go the whole way and the Soviets said we will agree to this if you would if you would agree not to go beyond the ballistic missile defense treaty if you will continue to carry out your research and Technology. And within those bounds and we agreed on Sunday morning in Reykjavik to do that. So here we see evidence that the SDI has brought us to the table and provided the Catalyst to a massive reduction a reduction. That would nobody would have conceived of otherwise my (00:30:31) promise to the table, but that's as far as we've gotten and they're going to be no reductions. Obviously unless we curtail Star Wars which means staying within the confines of the ABM Treaty which means no (00:30:40) testing we agreed to stay within the confines of the ABM Treaty. (00:30:44) And is that your recommendation that we do not test space-based weapon system (00:30:47) read the treaty the treaty allows for testing and the the requirements of the treaty are well understood and the Soviet Union in the afternoon of the Sunday Reykjavik. In fact went Way Beyond the treaty in terms of what is allowed, but first, they asked us to stay within the bounds of the treaty for 10 years and we agreed and that form the basis of an understanding in the morning. It's unfortunate that they then up the ante in the afternoon. Let me give somebody else. (00:31:15) Chance by just want to add one thing is their interpretation of the tree that the ABM Treaty prohibits testing of space-based anti-missile systems. No, that's not correct. There's a lot of talk about with the launching of missiles that if there were an abundance of them that it would confuse the the defense system, assuming the defense system was able to pick up all those missiles entering our atmosphere wouldn't there be a kind of a nuclear rain that would follow with the destruction of those incoming (00:31:46) missiles? The ideal situation is I mentioned earlier was a large reduction in offensive weapons on both sides, and I'm not sure what that number is. If you will grant that such a thing is possible and I think we're already heading down that path then the place to intercept those remaining missiles that might be launched by a length country or a Madman or some other unforeseeable event those missiles that would be launched would be intercepted in outer space far from the Earth's atmosphere and would have no effect on the on the Earth's environment. even if they explode in outer space (00:32:31) Doctor my understanding is that the general secretary Ric, uh Vic was offered an opportunity to participate free. So to speak in the development of SDI and rejected that out of hand. Would you care to come (00:32:42) inside who offered what (00:32:43) Daniel General Secretary was offered by our president the opportunity to participate in SDI as a freebie. We would share all the technology developed with the Soviet Union. Would you care to comment and why he might have rejected such what seemed to be a generous offer. (00:33:00) Well, I think from the very beginning the president has tried to convince the Soviets that the purpose of the SDI is to increase the Safety and Security of both Nations that there is no intention on our part of achieving military superiority or in somehow creating additional fear and mistrust God knows we have plenty of that already. He's done everything he could to try to convince secretary-general Gorbachev that in fact the purpose of the program is a mutual transition and he's talked about sharing the benefits of an STI. And and the Soviets have been unwilling to even discuss the possibility of any kind of transition period to this different kind of a deterrent posture. They clearly like the status quo. They don't want it to change. (00:33:49) St. I would shift the parity from Mutual assured destruction to Mutual assured defense as you said in your talk, but the nature of the arms race is characterized by neither side being content with parity. It's why we have the arms race. Why should we believe is you imply that either side would be content with mutual assured defense and not look for ways to regain inoffensive Edge. (00:34:12) I would guess that at some point in the evolution of our societies our culture's we will mature we will mature to the point where we are willing to compete our relationship with the Soviet Union will mature to the point were willing to compete in other Arenas that are less damaging potentially threatening to the survival our survival the survival of the planet. I think that kind of a transition is possible and I don't see it is inevitable that we'd want to continue to compete and this particular kind of very destructive weapons. We may decide to compete we know we The Japanese now in the economics of producing Automobiles and you can figure out who's winning that competition and that kind of a competition is the kind of competition. We like to have with the Soviet Union. They have strong belief in their social their form of government and their form of economy. And I think that forms the basis for a competition in a much less threatening form. And I think that kind of a future is possible we ought to strive (00:35:12) for it. And Paul getting back to Paul nitze is Criterion of being cost effective at the margin Richard Garwin hands payers. Another say that the offense will always had have the edge that there's no conceivable way. That won't always be cheaper to build yet more nuclear warheads, and it will be to shoot them down if you (00:35:33) comment. Well, apparently some people think it's cheap and easy to defeat a defense system. And my only question is that if the Soviets believe that then trying to stop us would be the last thing they want to do unless of course, they're very concerned about the health of our economy and they're worried about are damaging our security and they really would like for us to be stronger and healthier and therefore they would like for us to stop the SDI on our own behalf. It seems to me that these simplistic Notions of countermeasures being cheap and easy the Soviets know that it's very difficult to change their ballistic missile capability the because they have a infrastructure that has a great deal of inertia is very difficult to change. They have a difficult economy. They know that these changes would not be cheap and easy. They know these countermeasures would be very difficult in terms of their ability to carry out their offensive strategy. They would lose the certainty of their military Investments and the Soviets would not like to lose that certainty they too would not like to see us introduce uncertainty into their military plans either into their into their strategic long-term strategic Investments or into their near-term military plans. And so they don't believe it would be cheap and easy to carry out these countermeasures and I don't either and I think that's one of the reasons why they are so interested in moving away in not moving away from the particular kind of status quo. (00:37:09) anyone else just want to eat one more question on this matter of being competitive with the Soviet Union. You mentioned that you'd like to see us move towards a competitiveness like we have with Japan. Well isn't one of the things is really making his non-competitive with Japan and would make as non-competitive rest of world is the amount of our GNP this going into defense expenditures. So therefore if we really want to get into a competitiveness we ought to somehow reduce our percentage of Defense going been attentive GNP going to the in the defense and therefore therefore cut back on a Star Wars (00:37:50) program. Well, I think I think the the one of the major issues and National Security and Military investments will be our economic status. Clearly a robust American economy taking a fixed percentage of our GNP 5% or 6% of our GNP with a growing economy and keeping that that budget that percentage of the GNP fixed would in fact A very reasonable sort of investment on the other hand. If we have an economic downturn and we have increasing problems with our national deficit and balance of trade. It would be very difficult to maintain that kind of investment in the face of difficult economic situation. So economics really Drive our ability to make these military Investments. The amount that we're able to spend clearly will depend on what we can afford more and more we're going to be the seeing that we see this now in the downturn in the overall defense Budget on the other hand. If you look if you focus your attention on the SDI and somehow say the SDI drives the defense budget, you're losing sight of the fact that of the entire defense budget of 300 billion dollars roughly 300 billion dollars only about 30 billion of that goes into Street strategic weapons. Only 10 percent of the budget is in strategic weapons and only 1% of the defense budget is in is in SDI. And so it's very hard to understand how arguing whether should be 1.1 percent at one point five percent how that's really a swinger in terms of our national economy and our ability to compete with others in terms of our industrial competitiveness on the other hand. If you look at the nature of this investment in SDI, and you see that it is a program not driven to build and deploy weapon system, but driven to provide the Technologies for making a decision. It is very much front-end loaded in terms of innovative research and Technologies. Now, when you pursue this front end Innovation you find that you have many more opportunities to apply this technology to other areas to spin them off as compared to an actual weapon system where you've actually decided on what kind of materials what kinds of sensors what kinds of computers and at that point. You freeze in the design a system engineer cannot afford Innovation Innovation is now the enemy of reaching your goals in a cost-effective in a timely manner. So the nature of this program is to stimulate those new ideas that then can spin off the economy. That's one out one aspect. And the second one is the particular investment. We're making is still a small percentage of the overall defense budget. So I don't think it's a swinger in a negative sense, but I think it's potentially a swinger in terms of a new technologies now clearly if you talk to European industry or european governments about the SDI. And they see this much money going into avant-garde Technologies. Their reaction is not to see this as an economic problem for the United States. They see it as an economic problem for their own countries. If they don't participate in these same Technologies, they see a technology Gap coming out of this kind of concentrated emphasis and advanced R&D and advanced technology. So I think that's one of the strong motivations for the Europeans to be involved in this not because they see it as an economic drain, but because they see it as potentially an economic boost, but let me not give the wrong impression that the purpose of SDI is to stimulate our economy. That would be that would be entirely erroneous. The purpose of SDI is to provide a technology to change the basis of deterrence and one should not lose sight of that goal. That's really the major goal in the purpose of the (00:41:28) program. Richard Garwin will be with us on the first part of December if he were standing on the opposite side of that stage with you. Could you anticipate his arguments against SDI? And could you then refute them one by one? (00:41:51) I have in fact abated Richard Garwin many times and I know what all of his arguments are and and frankly we've gone back and forth. I think a good spirit and I think some and some of these issues. We agree on other issues. We disagree. I think he would agree with my goal of great reduction and offensive weapons to achieve a thousand something on the order of a thousand were heads on both sides. He would agree that a world with very good defenses on both sides. I think he would agree with this and very low levels of offense would be more stable and and and safer than the world we have today with 10,000 Warheads on each side and no defense on our side and minimal defenses on the Soviet side. I think you would agree with that. I think he's also agree that we should have a prudent research and Technology Program. I think the words they use are that the program should be carefully bounded should be well managed. Should be competent. I certainly would agree with that but there should be a research and technology program and he argues about the level. I think I think he said it should be between 1 and 2 billion dollars a year and my argument should be between three and four billion dollars a year and occasionally I say dick were just arguing about the price. So I think we agree on many of those issues. The one thing that he attacks. (00:43:19) And (00:43:19) he if he were here he would attack the notion of an Astrodome defense impenetrable defense a perfect defense and he would attack this issue you'll notice I did not Advocate that position but it's a very convenient strawman for him to attack and he would do that and he would then say but the president president promised you that nobody would be destroyed in a nuclear war and I think he would he would no matter what I would say he would say but there's no way you can get Perfection. If you can't forget Perfection is nowhere. It's not worth having anything and I would come back and say that we are already down the road to offensive reductions and we've already seen a benefit and he would argue that would Russians won't work. We won't have arms control agreements. And now I think here we're at a point where history will will be written and we'll be able to find out but so far, I think we've done very well in both the technological area and In The Arms Control process. I think he would have a hard time. Saying that we have not proceeded maybe he will say it. Yeah, I think he would have a hard time saying we have not proceeded faster in the ice control area. Then he thought possible than any of us thought (00:44:28) possible. somebody else in discussing the competition between the Soviets and us in the ballistic missiles situation. Is there any reason to suspect that they are also equally competitive in the SDI concept that are they developing SDI weapons themselves. I know they have the (00:45:00) comparable to our Nike missiles around Moscow and Leningrad and some (00:45:03) other places. And what is the situation if you know and can tell us (00:45:07) well, they don't we don't have Nike missiles. We don't have first of all we have no ballistic missile defense system. We have not one. We could not intercept if one missile were launched by the Soviet Union by accident. Just one there's nothing we could do. Not one. The Soviet Union has an operational ballistic missile defense system operating around Moscow. They're upgrading that system. They put an enormous investment in that and that is continuing they've never they never shut it down. They continue to improve it the Soviet involvement in military expenditures has always been evolutionary the minute they have a technology. They get it on the field. They learn by doing they try it out. If it fails they fix it. They don't wait until it's the be-all and end-all and then deploy it they get it out and try it and they learned how to do things in a very pragmatic way. And I think this has been their position in terms of ballistic missiles. Another area where they've made a substantial investment is an air defense and that's continuing that there's been no slowdown in that and then in the third area in the area Advanced Technologies, the Technologies of directed energy weapons lasers and particle beams. They have very substantial programs. Very large facilities facilities that exist various parts of the country one in particular at a facility at a place called sarrish a gun. They have a very large ground-based laser and we've asked them what is the purpose of that ground-based laser? They say they don't have an SDI. They say we do have an STI we say no wait a minute you're doing this research and they say but our research isn't purposeful. And then we say and this is this is true. We say how do you differentiate your research from our research and they say your work is funded by the US Department of Defense. So their definition is purposeful is work funded by the US Department of Defense and presumably their work funded by the politburo is purposeless. So we've asked him what is the purpose of that large facility at sorry shaken and they say medical research. We can only scratch our heads and think maybe they want to cataract surgery on astronauts in orbit. And so it they have a substantial Advance laser program have had for years. We know it's going on they say it's not going on we go back and forth. We've offered them. We offered them open Laboratories. We have said to them come into our Laboratories and see what we're doing do a walk around see what you see. Most of what we do in our Laboratories is published in aviation week. Anyway, New York Times Wall Street Journal and we've said in Return for your coming into our Laboratories. We want to visit your Laboratories. You can imagine their response to that yet. We don't have a Laboratories. So there has been a problem with there being forthcoming in terms of their explaining to us what they're doing what their Investments are what their goals are. Although we're extremely willing to make a reciprocal or we're willing to go forward. In fact, we have been extremely open about this program. This is extremely clearly and unclassified descriptions of what we're doing within the SDI. Videos, I have sort of a two-part question if there were no nuclear weapons in this world. If they're all emanated then in your opinion, would there (00:48:29) be a (00:48:30) pursuit of zesty? I would definitely necessary. The (00:48:33) second part of the question (00:48:34) is would you agree that it would be cheaper for the United States to pursue the first alternative. Well, if there were I would let's try it another way. Let's say there were no ballistic missiles that the needs of the United States and the Soviet Union had any ballistic missiles. In fact, this is what the president offered or I could pick that we'd get rid of our land-based RC based missiles are short-range missiles and they would do the same. And the Soviets were similar to get rid of their missiles at that point the kind of an SDI, we would we would require according to the president would be an insurance policy an insurance policy against cheating an insurance policy against an nth country clearly in that kind of a situation. We have not yet dealt with the fact that the British the French the Chinese. Maybe the Brazilians would have ballistic missiles. What do we do about that? Do we also go through and systematically reduce with our allies and we go through this process their ballistic missiles also and I think that makes sense. But what about now the nth country, you know, the first ballistic missile was tested during the second world war by Von Braun and so ballistic missile technology is very old. There are many people throughout the world who are developing capability, which would allow them to have ballistic missiles that could fly from one part of the world to another part of the world in a very short time and a half an hour and could carry a nuclear warhead could carry a chemical Warhead Could carry other kinds of destructive weapons and the issue is as we proceed to this world where both the United States and Soviet Union move away from their own investments in strategic ballistic missiles. Would they want to have some kind of a defense that's a prudent offense in the face of other threats that might occur and I think the answer is yes, but the nature of that deployment would be different than other kinds of deployments. So the deployment would be affected but the kind of research and technology that you do upfront the kinds of things were doing today would still be the same because we need to have the basis for that decision. What kind of investment we make will depend on the threat that we face when that decisions made and the offer the president made was to defer that deployment for 10 years. (00:50:54) And during that ten-year period hopefully we (00:50:55) could come to other stand other understandings with other people throughout the world and verifiable that they too didn't start building up in and this Arena of (00:51:05) ballistic missiles. for an operational SDI system when and how much (00:51:14) you're with the question of when you deploy and how much do you deploy as I just mentioned is a function of the threat by the countermeasures the threat the kinds of an agreement that can be made when I think the president's already to find those terms with with the offered Reykjavik 10 years notifying before 10 years and how much I could range there are there are estimates that have been the SDI has avoided making estimates of how much based on incomplete information saying look, we don't know we can't say at this point the design of an architecture. We can't say how it could be laid out and there has been a great reluctance on the part of the SDI to make those kinds of those kinds of estimates, but from my view, I think we could proceed with a deployment. Within the framework of our present strategic budget. I don't see the need to go beyond that 10% of our defense budget in strategic defenses that the Investments could be paid for at the expense of offense of Investments as we make that transition to lower and lower offensive weapons and increasing Reliance on defense. So the answer is how much in the answer is no more than we're spending today in that same part of our defense (00:52:29) budget. You may say my question is out of your field, but I question. the amount of money that's going to be spent I Star Wars if your position carries But maybe you could get more support from those of us who don't want so much money going into weapons. If we could see support from people like you for other ways of settling conflict and using weapons at all. If there were some balance in the effort that our country puts out for solving conflict. So the peaceful methods were given some emphasis and not just weapons. Do you have any comments on this sort of (00:53:19) philosophy? Well about half of the money that is projected for this five-year period is in the area of eyes and brains. sensors and computer hardware and computer software Another 10% is in supporting Technologies Advanced Materials energy supplies space transportation. Something like sixty percent cannot be described as weapons. 40% is in interceptors both kinetic energy weapons interceptors and lasers and particle beams directed-energy weapon interceptors. And I think these could be better described as anti weapons rather than weapons. They are very useful against the fragile high-velocity ballistic missile or re-entry vehicle now part of part of the part of this overall technology. The emphasis on supporting Technologies and the eyes and the brains one can argue that that technology is neither weapon, like neither offense of nor defensive weapon like is the kind of improved information gathering that we need just to maintain our national security. Now you might argue then why do you have to invest in interceptors? Why do you have to have techniques for destroying weapons if there are fewer weapons and you would need fewer of these anti weapons and I think that's the dimension of the Arms Control process, but then you say why don't you spend your money on Providing a greater level of understanding on a greater feeling of trust between our two societies. Well, it's possible that if we both we in the Soviet Union have better techniques for collecting and processing information. We both feel less insecure because we have access to early warning systems that are more capable. We begin to understand the limits of offensive technology as the possibility of a surprise a first strike which is one of the most dangerous elements of the present posture that causes the arms race and may result in a use of these weapons in a crisis as we begin to apply these Technologies of the information revolution to managing piece. I think we may in fact be applying these funds to a safer and more secure world and off at the same time you devalue offensive weapons and we can reduce them then we begin to see the way that the budgets for offense. Weapons can come down and again These funds can be used for other applications. So I think that this is a hopeful Direction in terms of maintaining and leading to a safer and more secure (00:56:03) world. Could (00:56:08) you describe a little bit more clearly the capabilities of the current Soviet ABM system, if we accidentally launched one of them could they stop it if we accidentally launched a ballistic missile at Moscow it could be (00:56:22) stopped. That's great. Thank you very much. Dr. Jonas. That's a very thought-provoking discussion on a very important subject before you leave and on behalf of the Minnesota meeting. We have a presentation that involves a Minnesota meeting peace pipe is created by the (00:56:42) Minnesota artist Robert Rose (00:56:44) bear symbolizes for the Native American the sacred bond between the everyday world and the world of the spirit. We like to have you take this with you from Minnesota with all of our thanks for being here today. (00:57:05) Thank you. All for coming will see you December second.