(00:00:00) Thank you very much for the welcome. I'm pleased to be here any thought of a defenses of our country always leads to the the Second Amendment to our Constitution, which says that well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Well up in the territory where I live the founding fathers would have been proud to hear the sounds over the last few days minnesotans have been involved in their annual musketry exercise and I'd say from the number of deer that I saw on campers and Pickups coming down here this morning that that the Marksmanship had probably passed muster. I wasn't sure last Saturday morning because my wife and I were eating breakfast Just Before Sunrise and I told her that I'd been on battlefields that were a lot quieter than that and I feared that a lot of those shots might be like some of those that I've seen on the battlefields that is addressed to whom it may concern and not particularly well-aimed, but I think the deer harvest shows that to Minnesota Marksmanship has been Vindicated. Speaking of Minnesota Marksmanship. I heard them Marksmanship story the other day that I thought I had exchanged with you for years and years all my stories were Minnesota stories that is stories about those marvelous people of Scandinavian extraction that populated much of our state but when my appointment to be chairman of the JCS was announced the first telephone call I got was from Oswald Hoffman a long time Lutheran our speaker and an old friend and he warned me that previous chairman had gotten into very serious trouble by tellin ethnic stories about living ethnic groups, and he urged that I stopped telling Scandinavian stories immediately. So after some consultation we decided that perhaps stories about the Hittites might be appropriate. And of course you historians will recall that the Hittites reached the height of their civilization about 1450 BC and then passed from the earth about 700 BC. So it seems fairly safe and this story is about a hittite hunter named Olie. Who got picked up by the Minnesota DNR up in Crow Wing County for shooting Lutz? Well the agent explain to only that shooting loons was a very serious offence in Minnesota because it was the state bird and Not only was it protected in the state, but it was protected nationally as well. And he could be in very serious trouble and all he explains the agent that he didn't know it was against the law and he was very sorry that he done this and he certainly wouldn't do it again. So the agent said well despite the fact that the penalties could be very severe because of your explanation. I'm not going to do anything about this if you will promise that you'll never shoot loons again. And all he said oh, yeah, he says a promise. He will never shoot another loon. But he said I want you to know that I never wasted them. I always ate them. And the agent said now only I want you to know this has absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand. But just out of curiosity. What does a loon taste like And all he said well, he says he tell you it's very difficult to describe but he said the actually it much different from them whooping cranes. Well, I would tell you that despite all these problems. It's truly an exciting time to be alive in this world a few years ago. Toby said I was on that long-range strategy commission a group of so-called the Strategic thinkers trying to devise a military strategy to take the United States into the 21st century. It had a lot of smart people on it. There. There were three Nobel laureates people like Sam Huntington and Kissinger Brzezinski Joshua lederberg and Armstrong and a few ordinary Souls like me sort of to keep Things on the table in our report, we boldly predicted dramatic changes in the security situation for the United States in the years ahead. And we included a prediction of a Sharp do munition of the influence of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Now we when we publish the report we were quickly derided for for our boldness in making those predictions. Now for honesty sake, I must tell you that we predicted that the changes would take place sometime over the next 25 years. And of course the changes began to explode on us in less than two years time and the past few years have been years of astounding and accelerating change and for us in the west not only accelerating change but exhilarating change if you watch the same television shows that I watch Last Christmas with East berliners coming through the holes in the wall near the Brandenburg gate and going into West Berlin churches. And one of the Network's had a cut of a television camera going inside the church and here were these people have been separated for for 40 years singing o do free Alicia together for the whole world to hear if you weren't thrilled by that. You're not Thrilla belie think short time later. I got letters from From American soldiers in the 11th armored Cavalry Regiment, which is one of the Border regiments we have in West Germany and these soldiers told me Tales of East Germans coming through the new Gates or apertures in the fence and embracing American soldiers and thanking them for being there all these years and for ensuring their freedom. Certainly, those are exhilarating experiences. But as we've discovered in the past exhilaration won't take us very far into the future. Certainly Saddam Hussein brought that home to us a few months ago as we look out at budget deficits trade imbalances the looming of new security problems in the Persian Gulf and South Asia and Africa other parts of the world our own domestic agonies over drugs education inadequacy inadequacies, the realities that the dollars of the peace dividend of probably already been spent the exhilaration of winning the Cold War and I would assert to you that we did win. It is short-lived and some real thought is necessary to move a sensibly into the future. It's proper that we use the past is an orientation point for the future but I must say that at this time it's even difficult to get a good reading of the past much of the Curious aspects of some of the commentary that's being written. Today is the suggestion that the past was markedly different than we perceived it to be and that perhaps our leaders were misled and that the poor state of the Soviet economy today tells us that there was no real Soviet threat after all we really made a great mistake through all these years. And I would just say to you that those revisionist have forgotten the exhaustion and Devastation of Europe and East Asia in 1945. They've forgotten about the swallowing of the Baltic states and the subjugation of Eastern Europe the Berlin blockade the Berlin Wall the how Korea was split how the Korean War started they've forgotten the exploitation and sometimes the creation of troubles and places such as Ethiopia and Egypt and Colombia and Indonesia Angola Mozambique Cuba Vietnam and Afghanistan. and however history judges the last 45 years, it's the The decisions that were made by the people who have shaped the world today that perception of the threat was very real to them and it led us to a security Arrangement that found its bedrock in the contention that free nations of the world could band together to make themselves safer and perhaps save a few dollars in the process those post-war alliances were soon expanded to include our World War Two enemies. So Germany and Japan and those alliances have led the world through what is nearly the first half century of the nuclear age without a nuclear war. And they have prevented World War 3 for the last 50 years now. They didn't prevent all war. We've had an average of 15 to 20 going on on any given day through most of that period But the big war the cataclysmic event that we had to prevent was in fact prevent it in Europe that hotbed of War for the 19th. And the first half of the 20th Century's has been at peace for longer than any time since the Reformation the cost is not been cheap over 80,000 Americans have been casualties in some of the small Wars that were part of the Cold War and for we Americans we spent an average of about seven and a half percent of our GNP over that period to prevent the big war. But those cost pale into insignificance if we began to imagine the cost of the war we prevented. Now in the time available, I'd like to talk a little bit about the defense needs of the future and raise some questions, which seemed to me to be important. I'll not touch on all the points that are even important to me and certainly I won't touch on all the points that are important to you, but I'd like to outline some thoughts on defenses for the future and perhaps in the in the question period we can get into some of your concerns Now Toby told you everything there is to know about me except the scar on my my left leg. So I'd like to ask a few questions so I know something about you how many have served in the military (00:12:08) services? (00:12:12) Okay, good. How many are native (00:12:13) minnesotans? Okay. (00:12:21) All right. Good. I fought next to the next next door to the Brazilians and World War II. The first Brazilian casualty was no farther away from me than Jean sit when he was hit. a lot of thought has been underway and how to shape our defenses for the years ahead and a lot of good writing has been printed and a lot of important work is underway, and they're also a lot of very important lessons from our experiences in in the 20th century and certainly if we can collect the right thoughts and the right lessons and then mustard the needed support we ought to be able to assure the nation's security for the years ahead. But just to ensure that we don't start on the exercise without the proper degree of humility. We should remind ourselves that we have never gotten it right in the past and we are unlikely to get it exactly right this time around but at least we ought to be able to prevent some of the major mistakes we've made in the past. For the past 40 years our potential enemy has been clearly identified. We spent a lot of money counting his airplanes is ships. His tanks is missiles. We've evaluated the accuracy of his weapons and the caliber of the training of his forces. We've learned to use computer War Games to model the war we might have to fight with them and we've used it for everything from designing weapons to deciding how much food to buy we've used a lot of numbers with great Precision to evaluate everything from nuclear strikes to how much rations the Infantry should have. In fact, we've probably been fiddling around inside the probable error of the knowledge that we had for much of the time but we took a lot of comfort from the numbers, even when they told us we were likely to lose the war we were going to fight But now when the Iron Curtain looks as Lacey as Grandma's lace doilies and the Warsaw Pact mucilage has turned to water those very precise methods don't seem to be very useful anymore some conclude that because we don't see a measurable enemy other than Saddam Hussein who has looked at as being transitory problem that we really don't have a defense problem and there are other cries for paying a large peace dividend and dollars. It sounds like the Prelude to making some of the mistakes we've made several other times in this century. My dad was an infantry squad leader in World War 1 he died in the fall of 1942 while I was on my way to the invasion of North Africa. Sometime after we got to Africa. I got a note from sympathy note from a World War One buddy of my father and he said in the note. Mr. Wilson sent your dad and me to France to fight the war to end all wars. Apparently we didn't do a very good job because you fellows are having to fight again. I hope you do better than we did. Good luck and then signed it now. I've often thought that both her Monroe's the author of the letter and my dad would have been very disappointed to realize that we were getting the tar kicked out of Us in North Africa because we were armed pretty much as as they were when they left France to 25 years earlier and we've been trained to fight just about as they had been trained to fight when they were in France. In the next three years, we built the largest most modern military force the world had ever seen. We won World War II and the soon as we did. We promptly disbanded those forces less than five years later. We were sending our forces to fight in Korea and our forces were less well trained and less well-armed than the troops of that illegitimate little 13 million strong Communist dictatorship that we were facing. Now the mistakes of the 70s weren't quite as glaring but I personally believe they were more serious. And I think we should not make those mistakes again. Now there I said earlier. There are some important writings that have already taken place in there to sort of fundamental documents. For those of you who are are genuinely interested in pursuing the subject that I'd recommend one is secretary Cheney's defense program of this past year and the layout for the five years ahead that was submitted to the Congress and the second is a series of hearings. That was that were conducted by Senator Nan in the Senate armed services committee last spring Sam Nunn and some very statesmanlike work led the Senate armed services committee through a long series of hearings examining the Where Do We Go From Here question, and certainly there's far more detail in there than we can get into today. Then he gave for speeches on the floor in March and April. There are 12 sets of hearing records. So those of you who don't want to spend more than a few nights reading it. I would recommend just reading the floor speeches in the April 19th and 20th speeches. He laid out his views of a new military strategy in the first budget steps toward achieving that strategy and in a way they're in many ways. Even though Sam Nunn and Dick Cheney wouldn't agree in many ways. There's much parallelism between the two sets of documents. No, not everyone will agree with what either Sam Nunn or Dick Cheney has proposed and I find myself quarreling with some of the details on both sides, but the general outline is a very sensible starting point for whatever the nation is going to do in the years ahead. now as we look at our strategy in the forces for the future, it's important to remember that the world situation has changed faster than we can sensibly adjust our forces consequently the roadmap for the years ahead is going to take us into the future on a series of continuing adjustments both in size and structure of forces and in the capabilities of those forces and we're going to have to balance those with operational and budgetary decisions to make today's forces fit tomorrow's problems or rather probably make yesterday's forces fit tomorrow's problems the practices of the past 40 years with this Precision gaming exercise and laying out very precise requirements to the Congress won't work and we're likely to fiddle around with a lot of unnecessary wheel spinning trying to Devise enemies that our forces will face and I would say to you that just as Saddam Hussein appeared a couple of months ago. The enemies will appear in due time. And what we have to do is get on with building a force that has enough flexibility to meet an uncertain future. We can look at the world today and and draw some general conclusions will know that whoever those enemies might be they are they are will most probably be equipped with modern jet airplanes and modern tanks. And we also know that the number of nations in the world that can build and dispatch nuclear weapons is growing unfortunately, but that is in fact the case and we know that whatever International agreement we get on chemical weapons that we cannot verify it and that chemical weapons are they they weapon of mass Poor Man's weapon of mass mass destruction, and we are likely to see them almost anywhere. There are some other important political historical generalities that I'd like to point out. We need to remember that the post-war planning both after World War 1 and after World War II was in fact, very good fact, if you read the history books and look at the plans that the presidents in both those areas laid out. They were very sensible plans, but for a variety of reasons to support to carry out those plans fizzled and the forces were soon far too small and less well-supported than any of the post war planners and vision. Another subtle lesson comes from the experience of presidents caught with with almost insurmountable political hurdles in trying to make some modest military Readiness improvements to meet the situation that arises and making improvements for deterrent purposes taking the nation to war ought to be a big political hurdle for the leadership of this country. But making prudent defense moves and improvements required by changing situations shouldn't be a big political hurdle and the design of the forces that we have and the support system that we have can have a major influence on that point. The third short of historical lesson that we should draw on is the success of the last 50 years of Our Mutual Security (00:22:12) Arrangements (00:22:14) free nations of the world can band together and make themselves safer and make the world generally a safer and more desirable place for the whole world of nation-states and they might even save a few dollars while they're doing it and the and I personally believe that the military Arrangements in our alliances of the immediate past will require massive change to adjust to the future, but we ought to work to keep those alliances intact and healthy the cooperation we've fostered will be very useful in the years ahead. Now I want to get a little technical here for a few minutes because our strategy for the past 50 years is in has been built around those alliances, but there have been some key elements that we have that we have contributed first a nuclear deterrent Force secondly deployed forces to strengthen both the political mucilage and the military health of those alliances third a central reserve of both active forces and Reserve component forces in this country to be used to reinforce alliances or go wherever else in the world our interest might be threatened then we've tried to use good intelligence could command and control and good Mobility to tie those forces together. And we've tried to stay technologically ahead with our weapons and we've integrated such things as Battlefield nuclear weapons to compensate for numerical inferiority. And for the past 16 years, we've manned that force with volunteers. now the whole debate about what sort of military and defense establishment will have will revolve around those particular elements what sort of nuclear forces will we have if any what sort of forces will we have deployed overseas if any what sort of a central Reserve will we have and how will it be constructed of active forces or Reserve forces or what combination of the two and then will we keep it modern technologically and then lastly how will we manage it? And I'd like to just take you through a few of those points and maybe ask you a few questions. It seems to me as we look out today that a modern safe secure flexible nuclear deterrent force will continue to be a key element of our defenses. We won't be able to wish away nuclear weapons. God will not let us uninvent them. And as I said before the number of nations that have them are growing, but we can certainly do with far fewer than we have today. The 50% start talks reduction is a good starting Place Paul. Nitsa has suggested dumping start and go to start to immediately for much larger reductions in that may not be a bad idea. But for us who have to construct the forces and for all of us who have to pay the bill for the forces the question is how should they be constituted? It seems to be that for the time being that the three-part force that is a bomber force a land-based missile force and sea-based missile Force makes sense and that we should continue to pursue defense against nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. But we need to have an integrated strategy of arms control and force building and we need a modern safe secure force and we need to remember that we want to keep the cost low and we want to be able to continue to pay that cost through the years ahead. Now you said geez, he didn't say anything about the B2. No, I didn't say anything about the B2 with maybe we'll talk about it in the question period they are conventional forces certainly are an important element of of our defenses in the future. There will be major reductions in our conventional forces major reductions have already been announced but I would suggest to you that the size of those reductions will probably pale in light of the reductions. We will actually take once we get whacking away with our budget the structure of the deployed forces will have to be worked out with our allies, but I hope we can work it out sensibly and I hope it is a unique American contribution that that makes a solid self-evident contribution to Alliance defense. The structure of our Central Reserve forces will be one of the great challenges the active-duty armed forces in the central Reserve will be much smaller than the active duty Armed Forces today. We are not going to bring forces back from Europe and build new post camps and stations in this country for them. The taxpayers won't stand for it. And I don't think any anybody in congress would and it would be foolish to suggest it but the questions will arise on how we integrate the active duty forces with the reserve component Treasures. I personally think that this is the greatest challenge we have to face today and building our defenses for the future. It's a politically unpopular thing to propose. There's a lot of volatility to it. The active duty forces would be opposed to it Reserve National Guard will probably be opposed to it, but I am convinced that the potential Payoff and cost savings for the taxpayers are potentially enormous and that we should get on with that particular task. The force will be smaller much smaller than it is now. Mr. Cheney has proposed a program that takes us down to four percent of gross national product per defense by 1994 if that equates to roughly to the forces, that means that the forces will be 33% smaller than they are today, but they'll probably be smaller than that because you don't translate dollars into that direct ratio. It's a lot easier to say put more Reliance on the reserve components than it is to make it work in the last 20 years. We've put a lot more Reliance on reserve components. We have some very good National Guard and Reserve units today. But we have we're not inhibited by lack of room for improvement and we have a great opportunity to make some improvements there now. The whole issue of modernizing the equipment of the armed forces that a time when budgets are going down is one that opposes great problems, but I would tell you that except for a few minor vulnerabilities. Our forces are very modern today and we can probably skip a generation of modernization for the armed forces and put our effort into research and development looking for a bounding leap in the next generation of equipment. We can extend the life of present major platforms with improvements and Fire Control and terminal ballistics Target acquisition and command and control We should pay attention to a few of those forces and keep the modern no matter what the world situation is the Strategic nuclear force. There are some others are submarine and anti-submarine forces ought to be the best in the world. We have to ensure that they remain sold our air force and Naval aviators ought to be able to have the combination of equipment weaponry and training to be able to control the air wherever we needed in our army and Marine Ground Forces should be able to deal with forces with equipped with modern armored and they should have the antiaircraft protection to be able to operate on any Battlefield. Now unfortunately the world we see is the world which will require little different equipment than we have today are heavy forces are too heavy to be moved easily. They were built for a war in Central Europe are light forces probably aren't tough enough to paste the Situation's they're likely to have to face but we can't run down to the store and buy lighter and more easily transportable equipment today and the taxpayer wouldn't stand for it. Anyway, so we'll have to make do with what we have for the years ahead which means that we have to pay attention to strategic Mobility. We will need to think through the short-range nuclear weapon question. We will likely withdraw most of those from Europe and the question is will we keep any in the force? It's a it's a question where you could argue both sides of that issue, but it seems to me in the world that we can foresee. It would be unwise to get rid of all of them our whole headquarters and support structure needs a thorough re-examination that we should be looking for great productivity increases and reduce Manning in both those areas. Perhaps one of the most important military questions as well as political and social questions is how will we man the force of the future for the first half of the Cold War we use compulsory military service and it had the effect of pushing volunteers into the reserve components and compulsory service people into the active forces in the past 17 years. We've man both parts of the forest with all volunteers. The way we deal with the reductions in force in the days ahead will have much to do with with the popularity of armed service service in the armed services of this country in the years ahead. And I'd like to just take a little poll here. How many of you would be for moving back to compulsory military service? Okay, how many would be for moving back to compulsory military service for the reserve components alone and let the active force be volunteers? How many would do it the other way around compulsory military service for the active force and let the reserve components be volunteers? Okay. Well, we're split with all three of those possibilities, but certainly these are important questions that we as Citizens and taxpayers will have to deal with in the years ahead. The real fundamental question for America is not in the details of our Force structure or its Weaponry, but rather will we have learned the lessons of the past nine tenths of this century and provide adequate defenses to carry us through an uncertain future in the years ahead Les aspin, the chairman of the house armed services committee said the worst thing the nation can do is provide too little for defense in the second worst thing we can do is provide too much for defense now Les aspin is very smart guy and I count him as a friend usually disagree with him. But because he says some really outrageous things but I decided that perhaps he had said something profound when he said this the real question is what's the difference between too little and too much generally in this country. The argument is about one half of one percent of GNP. That is the difference between the highest proposed defense budget and the lowest proposed defense. is one half of one percent of GNP now if you take the assumption that the highest is too much and the lowest is too little you can work out a little formula for what is the price of too little and I would suggest to you that if that difference is one half of one percent and you take the example of World War Two where it cost us roughly 50% of GMP for three consecutive years and then about 30 percent for to other years. You can see that you could spend the too much number for somewhere between 90 and 230 years and still save yourself money by spending too much. If in fact the too much would save you a war. Now, you statisticians will say my numbers are too simplistic and I agree. They are you strategist will say there's no guarantee that the highest is enough or that the lowest is too little and I would agree with that. But at least it gives you some measure about the value of the argument that we have each year in this country. I would say to you that the important thing for us is making sure that the peace dividend is in fact peace that we do enough to maintain the peace. Whatever that is. That's the real peace dividend. We're in the seventh year of declining budgets for percent of GNP by 1994 is a real peace dividend in dollars. If it does, in fact maintain the peace, it's a hundred billion dollars a year compounded by the growth rate of the economy. So it is a fair dividend bigger than the than the package the Congress produced here a few weeks ago. The important thing I believe for us is some steadiness as we look at these defense issues over the years ahead and I just tell you it another little Minnesota story about steadiness only and Lena had been married for about 50 years and the old he died and Lena was following the casket to the graveyard like a good hittite housewife one one of the pallbearers slipped and the casket drop to the ground and popped opened and only rose up out of it. Apparently not dead after all needless to say it broke up the funeral Olli and Lena went back. The farm and live together for another 10 years when only so to speak died again. The funeral was re convoked Lena was again marching behind the casket on the way to the cemetery and she could be heard to say softly but clearly steady boys steady if I if I were to If I were to leave you with one watch forward for the wrestling with the problems of defenses of the future, it would be steady boys steady. I think we have time for some questions. So we Well in answer the answer to the first question is was somewhat implied in your in your question and that is certainly any defense against terrorists involves good intelligence to begin with and then a whole bunch of other steps that that we probably don't have time to go into here today. I happen to have just been appointed to a joint commission of the defense policy board and defense science board that is has been commissioned to answer that question. So I'd like to defer on the answer to that first question until we finished our work. (00:38:09) The (00:38:10) second question do I see any place for United Nations security forces. I think that that this is one of the exciting things that's happening in the world today that perhaps now there is an opportunity to move the United Nations into doing what the designers had in mind in the first place when we find we're not lining up the security Council on the pro us pro-soviet side. We have there are what eight important United Nations resolutions on the the Kuwait Iraq situation and certainly it provides the international mucilage 44 what's being done there today? Yes. I do see an opportunity. The short answer to that is yes, but there's an important longer answer to it in relation to the American armed forces which with which most familiar it seems to me that we have we've made some important changes over recent years and one of those changes is been an evolving change perhaps from the time of Alexander. The Great aunt on through World War One Humanity was treated as a sort of a homogeneous quantity like grain and Mass on the battlefield was achieved by massing Humanity. And you just pushed enough of it in the in the right direction. What you thought was the Strategic Direction until you overwhelm the enemy maybe you didn't choose the right place and it didn't work or maybe you didn't choose the right numbers and it didn't work (00:39:50) but (00:39:51) the and the and the Ridiculousness of that concept was perhaps achieved in battles of the psalm and some of those that you cited since that time and World War II was an evolutionary period where we did part of that but we changed and we recognize that humans were far more important and perhaps that our latest battle experience in Vietnam that if I hear it an infantry Soldier say I'm asking what he is and he says, I'm only a Rifleman. I know I found an outfit with bad leadership. So it is that that change has much to do with the change of the future. Secondly, we've spent a tremendous amount of money in training in devising training techniques, and we've learned to train American units in the fashion that we feel quite confident will will obviate these horrible first day battle losses that have occurred in the past. And if any of you ever get a chance to go out and see the training at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, we've four years. We've the two best Soviet regiments in the world have been stationed there. They've been American regiments that our people have practiced against or go to the Marines at Twentynine Palms or the air force that at Red Flag exercise down out of Las Vegas and you'll see With tremendous effort that we go to to teach our people how to avoid getting killed on the battlefield and still do the job that that needs to be done. Now, I would also say to you that we are we are not we have not made illegal human fallibility. We will not outlawed it won't disappear. And as I used to tell people when I was on active duty that when you have a force of 2.2 million active people and 1.1 million reservists, no matter how dumb it is or how heinous it is. Somebody's out there doing it while we speak. And about once a week, it turns out to be a general or an admiral but what you do is continue to work and train and try and choose the right people. But but you're not going to do away with human fallibility and there will be some great errors on on the battlefield in any War the future and and not all of it is due to stupidity or ineptness or lack of training much of it is due to the fact that the commander sees only a small part of the Mosaic and the historian sees the whole Mosaic or at least he thinks he does and and reconstructs it so it's a lot easier to reconstruct those errors after the war particularly when you have seconds or minutes to make a decision, which will be argued for hundreds of years. It doesn't excuse it and we should try to prevent those mistakes, but we won't prevent them (00:43:11) all. (00:43:13) Well, I think it is important that we put Eisenhower's comments in context President Eisenhower made those comments in his farewell address and and I would point out to you that at that time from my we had from a population of that is 70 million fewer than we have today. We had 50% more people under arms than we had at the height of the Cold War or the Vietnam War in President Eisenhower's time. We had a Navy of nine hundred ships and Air Force of about Nine thousand planes as I recall and we had an army that is almost 50% larger than the active Army was at the height of the Cold War President Eisenhower said also in that same address that we must defend ourselves and we must do what is necessary to defend ourselves in the few days earlier. He had submitted a budget to the Congress that asked for ten percent of GNP for defense. So what president and President Eisenhower said this is the minimum required and that was at a time when we had absolute nuclear superiority. So I would tell you that it is important that we take President Eisenhower's whole address and look at his view of the world and it puts it into more context and seems to me if we look at it today. Even at the height of the Cold War. Our defense efforts were only about two-thirds what they were at the height of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administration's in terms of Manpower in the armed forces or percent of GNP for defense or workers and defense Industries or whatever happened to be so I'd say we've taken his warning the fairly. Well, we've made substantial reductions we continue to make those reductions where in the were in the seventh the straight year of reducing our defense budget in real terms. So we've taken his warning. This doesn't mean we shouldn't do what you suggest look for ways to reduce International tension and reduce the armaments. Oh II would agree to you that it's a waste of their money, but they will they will make those decisions by themselves. And if you say okay this country don't sell any armaments to third world countries. Somebody else is going to sell them to them at the same time. Well, I'm not sure I'm the right guy to ask answer the question. What is the political resolve? I think the American people have to answer that one can draw a little bit of the answer from the fact that I didn't see the deployment to the Middle East being made an issue in any of the election races, maybe some of you know some that were it was made an issue but I didn't see that being an issue there at all. And it seems to me that the president has laid out for objectives and you laid the three of them and the other one was moved (00:46:28) toward (00:46:30) sensible. Peace in the Middle East and those are sensible objectives. Now, what's what we've got at Quinlan over here who's an expert in that part of the world for me to talk about it in his presence is nonsense, but I will anyway It seems to be that right now. We're going we're having a little show-and-tell over there with Saddam Hussein got himself into something that he probably wishes. He hadn't gotten himself into at the same time. He's looking for a way out of it which will continue to keep him in power and have him appear to be a hero to his own people and to the and to the other countries in the region from whom he draws support and the objective of the rest of the world and particularly those Nations involved in in opposing it was to get him out peacefully if at all possible, but have him look like the bomb that he really is while doing so so it will whether it will be resolved peaceably or not. I can't answer that question that question is in the minds of others, but I think that we in the other Allied Nations Doing the right thing squeeze him economically squeeze them diplomatically and I would expect to see us begin to squeeze him militarily here in the days ahead in the passion that puts the onus of starting the war on him, please that would be my (00:48:06) solution. (00:48:07) So And it you there? I think they the suggestion that if he gets out but still survives as head of his government makes us a loser. I think is a is an erroneous suggestion. There are other ways. He will not win if he gets out of Kuwait he has he has already become a loser and his power base is beginning to erode now how we deal with the development of nuclear weapons and chemical weapons and use of those in that part of the world is another issue and goes beyond it, but it's something with which we must deal and that's what I tried to say in my talk about building our own defenses for the future. We have to recognize that those dangers exist and are likely to grow rather than be reduced. Thank you, General Vesey for your comments and thank you all for joining us today.