Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs
Issue 29 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 10, 1999
[English]
The Joint Chairman (Senator John B. Stewart (Antigonish -- Guysborough, Lib.)): Honourable senators and members of the House of Commons, this is a joint meeting of the foreign affairs committees of our two houses.
The document that has been circulated is a House of Commons document. It is entitled Canada and the Nuclear Challenge. It was prepared over a period of many months under the leadership of Bill Graham, chair of the committee.
My suggestion is that since this is a House of Commons report, and since many members of the House of Commons committee who participated in the preparation of the report are here, we should insist that the House of Commons take the lead in this meeting, at least initially. When senators wish to address questions to our honoured witnesses, I will see their hands.
Before I turn this over to Bill Graham, I want to say that we in the Senate committee are very pleased that our distinguished witnesses have found it possible to be in Ottawa this day. We are most interested in what they have to say on what is for all of us a most important topic.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre -- Rosedale, Lib.)): In welcoming our witnesses, I would like to draw to the attention of members, of course, and the public watching this on television, the fact that this is a meeting with the Middle Powers Initiative to discuss the contents of our report, "Canada and the Nuclear Challenge: Reducing the Political Value of Nuclear Weapons for the Twenty-first Century."
To sum up the conclusions of that report, very briefly, the international community was correct 30 years ago when it recognized that the only way to deal in the long term with the complex challenge of nuclear weapons was through the type of compromise eventually embodied in the non-proliferation treaty, which includes a commitment to eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. We have to do all we can to support this treaty and the regime built up around it.
That is the fundamental principle of this report, and within it there are many details that seek to address the application of that fundamental principle.
We are very lucky to have with us today four individuals who have been kind enough to tell us that they would like to come and support the basic conclusions of the report through the Middle Powers Initiative.
First, I would like to say how glad we are to welcome Mr. McNamara -- he served as defence secretary under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and was there at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam -- to speak to the actual possibility. Of the people in this room, apart from General Lee Butler, he is perhaps the only one who had the actual opportunity to have the responsibility for the use of nuclear weapons.
Second, we have Ambassador Thomas Graham, who has served in a number of senior diplomatic posts but was the special representative of President Clinton for arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament.
Third, we have with us General Lee Butler, who served in a number of senior U.S. military positions, retiring as commander of U.S. strategic command with the responsibility for all nuclear deterrent forces.
As you will recall, members, General Butler was good enough to write to the committee.
We've reproduced, General Butler, as you know, a copy of your letter calling upon the committee to take up the challenge of this and reach beyond the bounds of conventional thinking. I hope, sir, you will agree that we sought to do that in the report and achieved and met your challenge.
Finally, we have with us Dr. Thomas Graham, who is with the Rockefeller Foundation. He has been instrumental in educating the public and helping in this area.
They are joined by Senator Roche, who, as we all know, has been an inspiration in matters of nuclear disarmament in our country.
Gentlemen, welcome before the joint committee. I would perhaps ask if you would be good enough to restrict your comments to around ten minutes each in your introductions, because then we would have time for questions. I know the members will be very anxious to question you.
Mr. McNamara, will you be the one to lead off?
You will find, by the way, that the microphones go on automatically. You do not have to touch the button. That is one of the few technological things we have that work around here, actually.
Voices: Oh, oh
Mr. Thomas Graham, Member, United States Delegation, Middle Powers Initiative: Mr. Chairman, I think it is good that it all goes automatically; otherwise, I might push the wrong button.
Voices: Oh, oh.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): We'll ask you to leave the room if you do that.
Mr. Graham: You are wise.
Mr. Chairman, I first would like to mention that I have here a letter written to me from General Andrew J. Goodpaster, former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, military assistant to President Eisenhower, and commandant of West Point.
In this letter, at my request, he addresses your report and makes comments on it. He attaches to his letter a paper that he himself prepared on the general subject of the report.
If there is no objection, I would like to enter this letter and the attached paper by General Goodpaster into the record of this meeting.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you very much, Ambassador Graham. We will have that circulated to the members.
Mr. Graham: It is an honour to be invited to address this joint meeting of these two distinguished committees on the subject of the report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, entitled Canada and the Nuclear Challenge: Reducing the Political Value of Nuclear Weapons for the Twenty-first Century.
The standing committee, in this report, has made an important contribution to the security of Canada, the security of the United States, the NATO allies, and the entire world community. This report addresses one of the central issues for international peace and stability in the years that lie ahead.
Nuclear weapons were given an exceedingly high political value during the Cold War. The Cold War passed into history nearly a decade ago, and yet this high political value remains.
For example, the Prime Minister of India, after the nuclear weapons test last May, said in effect that India is a big country now that they have the bomb.
That is not the kind of psychology we want to encourage if the nuclear non-proliferation treaty regime is to succeed.
Many states see a direct link between the status of a country and whether or not it possesses nuclear weapons. To paraphrase the 1991 NATO Strategic Concept document, nuclear weapons are the "essential link" between North America and Europe, the "supreme guarantor" of NATO security, and "unique" to peace.
If we, as the world community, do not find a way to reduce the political significance of nuclear weapons, and if we cannot break the link between the status of a country and possession of nuclear weapons, the long-term viability of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the NPT, will be in serious jeopardy. These weapons will simply be too attractive politically, and the 1945-era technology on which they are based too simple, for many states in the world to continue to forswear them. Widespread nuclear proliferation is the likely result.
The NPT regime is indeed in trouble. In 1995, at the time of the indefinite extension of the NPT, to which Canada contributed greatly, the NPT parties, including the nuclear weapon states, committed themselves to a statement of principles and objectives for non-proliferation that called for, among other things, vigorous pursuit of nuclear weapon reductions.
This statement was an integral part of the extension decision, yet we are likely to reach the 2000 review conference with no further progress in negotiated nuclear weapon reductions.
As well, as a central underpinning of the now permanent NPT, the five nuclear weapon states, pursuant to a resolution of the United Nations Security Council, committed themselves never to use or to threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states party to the NPT, now some 181 countries -- virtually the entire world.
The only exception to this commitment was if one of those states attacked a nuclear weapon state in alliance with another nuclear weapon state. There was no exception for chemical or biological weapons. This commitment, referred to as a "negative security assurance," was found to be legally binding by the World Court the next year in its 1996 decision, yet this commitment is potentially challenged by the NATO first-use option.
So how do we strengthen the NPT regime, our principal defence against the most serious threat that faces us? How do we reduce the political value of nuclear weapons?
The report of the standing committee has shown the way with its 15 recommendations. Beyond this, it is imperative for the five nuclear weapon states to move to levels of nuclear weapons as low as possible, consistent with security and stability.
START II is stalled in the Duma. It may never come into force. The United States and Russia needed to move past START II and attempt to negotiate an agreement to a reduction to, say, 1,000 strategic weapons, a level the Russians soon will be at anyway, for financial reasons. This agreement could contain a commitment to a further reduction to 1,000 total weapons.
Once this level is reached, the stage would be set for a five-power negotiation to ensue, which would address the arsenals of the five nuclear weapon states, with account taken of India, Pakistan, and Israel.
An appropriate end point of the negotiation could be 300 weapons each for the United States and Russia; 50 each for the United Kingdom, France and China; and India, Pakistan, and Israel going to zero, joining the NPT, but retaining their fissile material on their territories, under International Atomic Energy safeguards -- as did South Africa -- as a hedge against failure of the agreement.
This would be the residual level until the world has changed sufficiently to permit the negotiation of a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.
However, there is a second part to this effort to reduce the political value of nuclear weapons. The five nuclear weapon states should agree to limit the role of nuclear weapons to the core deterrence function of simply deterring their use by others. Nuclear weapons should not be given other roles, such as deterring chemical and biological weapons, either overtly or implicitly. To do so would be at least inconsistent with, and likely would be a violation of, the centrally important 1995 negative security assurances, which support the NPT, and to which I referred earlier. This means the five nuclear weapon states should declare they would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in future conflicts.
Generally in this regard, the language I referred to earlier in the 1991 NATO Strategic Concept document seems singularly out of place. It extols the value of nuclear weapons rather than downplays their significance. It contributes to the high political value of nuclear weapons, and hopefully will be revised at the April summit.
Beyond this, of the greatest current importance in the effort to lower the political value of nuclear weapons and strengthen the NPT regime would be for NATO to decide to limit the role of nuclear weapons to the core deterrence function of deterring their use by others -- in other words, a pledge by NATO that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into future conflicts, that it will adopt a no-first-use policy.
The rationale for the current policy of retaining the option to use nuclear weapons first -- the conventional strength of the Warsaw Pact -- has long since passed into history. Hopefully, on the concept of a NATO policy of no-first-use, there will be a commitment to a serious study by NATO as part of a review to commence after the April summit.
Widespread nuclear weapon proliferation would place security beyond the reach of any nation. No amount of retaliatory power will protect human civilization from the miscalculations, accidents, and misdeeds that nuclear arms, in the hands of many, would make possible. The prevention of nuclear weapon proliferation must be our highest priority.
In the report of the standing committee, Canada has shown us the way toward the road we must follow. I commend all of the 15 recommendations, and I hope the Government of Canada, to the extent possible, will decide to act upon them.
Mr. Robert S. McNamara, Member, United States Delegation, Middle Powers Initiative: I am very grateful to you for your invitation to present my views to the Government of Canada on the report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The report lies before you, entitled "Canada and the Nuclear Challenge: Reducing the Political Value of Nuclear Weapons for the Twenty-first Century."
In a word, I believe the report is superb, absolutely superb, and I strongly support each of its 15 recommendations.
In particular, I urge that you act to implement recommendation 15. I will read it:
The committee recommends that the Government of Canada argue forcefully within NATO that the present re-examination and update as necessary of the Alliance Strategic Concept should include its nuclear component.
Above all else, it should include that nuclear component, but I would go further and suggest that the NATO review should examine specific alternatives to the present policy of nuclear deterrence.
NATO's policy provides for first use of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. It opposes the de-alerting procedures, referred to in recommendation 5 of the report, and it does not support recommendation 6. It states:
...the nuclear-weapon States to demonstrate their unequivocal commitment to enter into and conclude negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons.
The recommendation of the report, particularly when supplemented by my proposals to strengthen them, run directly counter to current U.S. nuclear policy. Therefore, I see no chance whatsoever that those recommendations will be accepted by NATO, unless Canada, at a minimum, obtains the full, unqualified backing of the majority of NATO's other non-nuclear-weapon states.
With their strong support, buttressed by a skilful public education campaign conducted in the major print and electronic media, before and during NATO's 50th anniversary celebrations in Washington in April, it might be possible to persuade the three NATO nuclear powers -- Britain, France, and the United States -- to permit a study of the type you propose to be undertaken.
In the few minutes remaining to me, I'll try to explain very briefly why I urge that action leading to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons be initiated immediately. In sum, initiation of the use of nuclear weapons by NATO would be militarily unnecessary, morally wrong, and politically indefensible, and yet maintenance of that capability carries with it enormous risks -- enormous risks; literally the destruction of nations.
I recognize that most political scientists and security experts oppose introducing moral considerations into discussions of international relations and defence policy. I'll admit that in many situations those moral considerations provide ambiguous guidance, at best, but surely the human race, and in particular your nation and mine, should be prepared to accept that it is totally immoral -- totally immoral -- for one nation, no matter what the provocation, to believe it, through its leader, acting alone, has the right to initiate action that will destroy another nation.
Would it not be even more morally unacceptable if such actions by one belligerent would destroy not only the other belligerent but through the spread of radioactive fallout non-belligerent nations across the globe as well? And yet that would have been the result -- we shouldn't close our eyes to this -- if either Russia or NATO had implemented the nuclear strategy that each had followed for 40 years. Certainly it was being followed during my seven years as Secretary of Defence. It will be the result if NATO implements its current NATO strategy, a strategy supported today, as I understand it, by Canada.
Moving beyond moral considerations, the NATO study should include a detailed examination of the military utility of nuclear weapons and of the off-setting military risks of their use. I believe such a study would support the conclusion that, as Ambassador Graham said, we should move back to a non-nuclear world.
In support of that statement, I want to make three points. First, there is the experience of the Cuban missile crisis, and in particular what we've learned about it 30 years after the event. The experience of that crisis and what we learned about it recently makes it clear beyond any doubt that so long as we and the other great powers possess large inventories of nuclear weapons, we will face the risk of their use, and we will face the risk of destruction of nations.
Second, that risk is no longer, if it ever was, justifiable on military grounds. Proponents of nuclear weapons have produced only one plausible scenario for initiating their use, and that is the situation where there is no prospect of retaliation. That means it is against either a non-nuclear state or one so weakly armed as to permit the user to have full confidence in his nuclear force's capability to achieve a totally disarming first strike.
But even in such circumstances -- For example, even when we, the U.S., were in dire and desperate straits during the Korean War, at a time when China and North Korea had no nuclear weapons and Russia only a limited number, we did not use them.
I think the conclusion is clear. The military utility of nuclear weapons, as Tom Graham said a moment ago, is limited. it is limited to deterring one's opponent from their use, and if one's opponent doesn't have the nuclear weapons, there is no military use for them.
Third, in recent years -- and I want to emphasize this; I doubt your press has covered it, because certainly ours has not -- there is been a dramatic change in the thinking of leading western security experts, both military and civilian, regarding the military utility of nuclear weapons.
Although certainly not yet a majority a them, a significant number of senior military security experts and senior civilian security experts are expressing views very similar to those you heard from Ambassador Graham and are hearing from me.
Because of considerations such as I have expressed, I am quite confident that a thorough review of NATO's nuclear strategy would be fully supported by senior security experts in the United States and Britain, and even by several in France.
Experts who would support such a review and the conclusions along the lines I've outlined would include not only General Butler, whom you'll hear from in a moment, but also General Goodpaster, whom Ambassador Graham referred to, the former Supreme Allied Commander; Admiral William Crowe and General David Jones, both former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States; many of the counterparts from Britain, particularly Field Marshal Lord Carver, former Chief of the Defence Staff in Great Britain; and Michel Rocard, the former prime minister of France.
In truth, for over 30 years, with respect to NATO's past and current nuclear policy, it could be said that the emperor had -- and has -- no clothes.
After 1960, by which time the Soviet Union had acquired a retaliatory force, I do not believe any of the U.S. presidents, not one of the nine -- Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush or Clinton -- would ever have initiated the use of nuclear weapons, nor would you or other allies have wanted them to. It would have been your death if we would have done it against a nuclear opponent.
As I've said, to initiate their use against such an opponent would be tantamount to suicide, and to initiate the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear opponent would have been militarily unnecessary, politically indefensible, and morally repugnant.
To retain the capacity to utilize those weapons carries risks that, if properly understood, by your people and by mine, I think would be recognized as totally unacceptable.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you very much.
Mr. McNamara: May I have one further word? I am sorry.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Of course; you always get the last word in this committee.
Mr. McNamara: I have a somewhat longer statement. If you wish, I'll make it available for the record.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you very much, Mr. McNamara, for the strong endorsement of our report and for putting it in the context of your extraordinary life experience. We appreciate that very much.
General Lee Butler, Member, United States Delegation, Middle Powers Initiative: First of all, I must say, it is delightful to be back in Canada. I am a long-time and strong friend of this nation. I was for many years a card-carrying member of the permanent joint board on defence.
I must say, today Ottawa is wonderfully reminiscent of my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. I feel right at home.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): The same snow.
General Butler: Yes, the same snow.
I should also like to say, Mr. Chairman, that I am deeply appreciative of your report. It reminds me that in many respects, perhaps Canada's most important contributions to international security have been not so much the forces it has brought to bear; in the guise of its peacekeeping and conflict-resolution contributions, it is in the moral dimension that it is had its greatest impact.
I find that also to be the defining quality of your report. It reminds us that at the core, choices about nuclear weapons are also profoundly moral choices.
It is also a sad commentary that a report that has such modest and common-sense recommendations has stirred such controversy, and worse, has been greeted so vociferously by my own government. In point of fact, this is a report that my government should have written many years ago.
This is simply reflective of the fact -- again, it is sad to say -- that the Government of the United States today is marked by both intellectual paralysis and legislative gridlock on this most urgent of subjects. I never would have imagined such an outcome in the first part of this decade, when I was first the strategic planner for the armed forces of the United States and participated directly in the events that closed the Cold War.
To my utter astonishment and boundless professional relief, as early as 1989 you could see the glimmerings, the prospects, the hopes, that virtually a half century of acute danger might actually be brought to a close. It was my privilege to participate in the remarkable policy decisions that helped to reunify Germany and to begin to usher the world away from the perils of the nuclear age.
As the commander of the nuclear forces, I was also a principal nuclear adviser to the President of the United States. It was my direct responsibility to make recommendations to him on the nature of the U.S. retaliatory reply to a perceived attack.
Perhaps most important, I was responsible for elaborating the U.S. nuclear war plan, which, on the assumption of my responsibilities in January of 1991, I was dismayed to find still encompassed some 12,500 targets in what was then the Soviet Union, a war plan that would have imagined the immediate employment of 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads by the United States alone in answer, perhaps, to the same number employed by the Soviet Union. What this held at risk was not just the survival of the antagonists but also the fate of humankind in its entirety.
I say again, you can imagine my relief at participating in the decision process that helped bring that era to a close.
It is also a sad commentary that it has been now some eight years since President Bush took what turned out to be the last significant steps with regard to reducing nuclear dangers -- to unilaterally remove tactical nuclear warheads from our seaborne forces; to denuclearize the U.S. army; to accelerate the retirement of the Minuteman II; and at my direct recommendation, to take bombers off nuclear alert for the first time in 30 years since the Cuban missile crisis.
I am utterly dismayed at the state of affairs in which we find ourselves today. I left active duty in March of 1994 believing we were on an irreversible path away from the horrors of the nuclear age, but within a matter of months that momentum began to slow, and today we see the prospect of reversal.
Today in the United States we find ourselves in this circumstance. Our nuclear weapons policy is still essentially that which was elaborated by President Reagan in 1984. It still envisions Russia as the enemy, and in its war plans it still retains the option for delivering thousands of nuclear weapons simultaneously on a wide variety of targets in Russia.
Second, the Congress of the United States has mandated that the United States will not reduce the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenals one weapon below the 6,000 operationally deployable enshrined in START I -- this in the face of a Russia who daily falls into greater economic penury; who cannot sustain and support its own strategic nuclear forces; whose command and control and warning systems erode by the minute; and who is increasingly experiencing false alarms in both its warning systems and breakdowns in its communications and control authorities. This is a Russia in which we have only recently given notice that we are prepared to walk away from the ABM treaty, and a Russia we have confronted with the expansion of NATO virtually up to its former Cold War borders.
Time and the forces moving through the international security environment are not on our side. India and Pakistan have now come out of the nuclear closet, and the rationale they play to that are precisely the words in our own nuclear weapons policy -- that they are the cornerstone of their national security; that they are essential to preserve their vital interests. They cling to the notion that somehow deterrence will spare them what we have long since learned -- that is, that the deterrence is the first victim of a deepening crisis.
This is folly. It pains me, as a former professional officer and as a citizen of the United States, to make this critique, but I would remind you at the same time that I am not the first senior military officer to hold these views.
I long ago took to heart the words of Omar Bradley, spoken virtually a half century ago, when he observed, having seen the aftermath of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this:
We live in an age of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We live in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We've unlocked the mysteries of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
This cannot be the legacy of the Cold War era. This is not the world I want to leave to my children and grandchildren.
Canada has done a great service in rendering this report. I fully endorse its recommendations. I commend them to the consideration of the government here in Canada and my own government.
I express my heartfelt appreciation that in the absence of U.S. leadership on the subject you have felt moved to at least stir some sense of conscience and some sense of responsibility with regard to what I consider to be the most urgent issue of our time.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you very much, General Butler.
Dr. Graham, did you wish to add something to your colleagues' comments?
I think there is going to be a feeling in this room, if we have a third Graham, that there is a conspiracy of Grahams.
Voices: Oh, oh.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): I already have enough trouble with this committee without adding this dimension to it.
Dr. Thomas Graham, Director of International Security, Rockefeller Foundation, Middle Powers Initiative: In the interest of letting members ask questions, I would make just one comment.
With respect to recommendations one, two and ten, I think Canada has a very unique opportunity. As the first country in the world that chose not to proliferate, it has an understanding of the technology and a moral position to influence countries like India and Pakistan that the United States does not have.
I encourage you to implement the recommendations of the report, and I am happy to answer any questions that may come up that relate to India and Pakistan, which is an area I've worked on for 20 years.
With that brief comment, I think other questions to members of the panel might be the most productive use of your time.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you, very much.
Members, I am going to ask you to restrict yourselves to five-minute intervals, because there is a great many members here, and I've had a lot of signals.
I am advised by one of the members that there may be a bell starting at 4:20 p.m. I don't know if that is right. We are just checking that.
If so, is it going to be a 15-minute or half-hour bell? Do you know?
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby--Douglas, NDP): Yes, a half-hour.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Okay.
We'll keep you advised.
Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I believe I should probably make some statements, and then I'll have brief questions. Maybe on the second round I'll get to the major ones.
I want to welcome our guests here. I have no question that they are very sincere in what they have said. I wish everything they had said about nuclear weapons were true, and that we could in fact wish them out of existence and be rid of them all. Unfortunately, I don't believe that to be the case.
I do find it rather disturbing that four of the five presentations have been given by Americans who have been allowed to use our committee -- and we've invited them -- as a soapbox. This committee has become a platform from which they demand that Canada urge changes to their own country's policies concerning nuclear weapons, policies, I should add, that some of the presenters not only had a hand in initiating but they themselves repeatedly justified before their own people, their government, and the international community.
Secretary McNamara observes in his paper, "Elimination of Nuclear Weapons," that:
The military utility of nuclear weapons is limited to deterring one's opponent from their use. Therefore, if our opponent has no nuclear weapons there is no need for us to possess them.
I would suggest that this simple logic does not reflect the political reality today. First, we must recognize that there is just no way possible to rid the planet of nuclear weapons technology. We cannot put the genie back in the bottle.
In addition to the five nuclear powers, India and Pakistan have exploded nuclear devices. it is generally conceded that Israel has them and that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea are aggressively pursuing them.
We must accept the fact that there will always be a risk of nuclear proliferation. No non-proliferation verification regime will ever be sufficiently strong.
For example, nine years after UNSCOM began its work in Iraq, we still don't know if Saddam Hussein is capable of producing nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.
We should also note that countries acquire nuclear capability for very different reasons. During my trip last year to south Asia, I learned this first-hand by talking to the foreign affairs ministers and to the foreign affairs committees in both India and Pakistan.
India sought to raise its status by becoming a nuclear weapon state, while Pakistan sought to enhance its security. Neither government was crazy. Neither government was a rogue state. The decisions by both governments were broadly supported by national public opinion in those countries. Each government made a rational calculation of what it thought was in its best interest and acted upon that assessment.
Nuclear disarmament, or NATO's adoption of a no-first-use strategy, would not likely have changed many minds in New Delhi or in Islamabad. Basic politics alongside --
Mr. Robinson: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, given the fact that there are many members who have questions to ask of these witnesses, I wonder if, rather than gratuitous insults and Neanderthal rhetoric, the member might move to questions.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Well, I am assuming the member is getting to his question. If his five minutes is gone at the end, there won't be time to get an answer to his question.
Mr. Mills: Mr. Speaker, the member knows this time can be used however one chooses.
Basic politics alongside the existence of rogue states means a non-nuclear world is just a fanciful dream. All of us here today want to live in such a peaceful world, but that world simply does not exist.
There is also another important role for nuclear weapons. The proliferation of biological and chemical weapons is a serious, perhaps the most serious, threat to today's world.
To those who argue that nuclear weapons cannot effectively deter the use of chemical and biological weapons, I would offer two observations. First, the Clinton administration certainly believes they can, and in late 1997 made it policy in a presidential decision directive. Second, in the absence of nuclear weapons, I would ask what type of response would deter the use of chemical and biological weapons.
Do the members of this committee really believe conventional forces have the political weight to deter rogue states from using weapons of mass destruction? Personally, I don't believe they do.
My last point concerns Canada's international credibility. Both Secretary McNamara and General Butler have had long associations with international security affairs.
As you both are undoubtedly aware, Canadian military capabilities have steadily eroded over the past three decades. My question is quite straightforward. How credible do you think Canada would appear, given its limited military capabilities, were we to demand that Washington change its national security policy?
In a recent interview, Secretary McNamara--
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Sorry, but your time is now up.
Mr. Mills: It can't be.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Yes, it is. it is five minutes.
Now, the member did raise two specific questions. First, would the use of nuclear weapons deter rogue states from attacking the United States, and second, is it credible for Canada to take its position?
Perhaps, General Butler, since you deal specifically with that issue, you could deal with those issues very quickly for us.
General Butler: I have, unfortunately, been in the position where I had to answer that question rather directly, Mr. Chairman. I was the strategic planner for the U.S. armed forces during the Gulf War.
One of the several extraordinarily complex questions we addressed was how to respond in the event Saddam Hussein might have employed a weapon of mass destruction. In fact, the question was specifically asked, as Colin Powell notes in his memoirs, by Secretary Cheney -- to look at the issue of nuclear reply.
That was an extremely illuminating exercise. What I concluded in a relatively short period of time was that I cannot imagine any circumstance in which the U.S. government would have employed a nuclear weapon with regard to any such provocation on the part of Saddam Hussein.
First and foremost, we didn't need to. We had the military capacity to bring Iraq to its knees at any moment of our choosing. We simply chose not to. We elected not to go to Baghdad as the ground war accelerated. We elected not to occupy the country and to impose a new regime, as we did in Germany and Japan at the end of World War II.
So point one is, happily, the United States, together with its coalition partners, had put itself in a situation where it was not forced with the decision of whether or not to use a nuclear weapon. I would say it is difficult for me to imagine any circumstance in the post-Cold-War world where, with the political will, the United States and its allies would not find itself under similar circumstances.
So what I am suggesting to you is that we don't know what will deter, but what we can do is ensure that we have the capacity to reply to this kind of extreme provocation without leaving ourselves only the resort to nuclear weapons.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
General Butler: Point two, sir, is an extremely critical question. It would have shattered the coalition for the United States, in an Arab region, to resort to a nuclear weapon. In one blow, we would have martyred our enemy, Saddam Hussein, and we would have forever earned the antipathy of the Arab world. No matter what their feelings were at the outset of the conflict, our Arab partners made very clear to us what the limits of our actions were with respect to how we would impose our will on Saddam Hussein.
Third, there were no military targets that made any sense whatsoever. The first question you should ask yourself, when you believe nuclear weapons might be a useful means of reply, is, "What is your target?" it is certainly not Baghdad. We would not hold hundreds of thousands of innocent people accountable for the decision of a demented leader who heaped abuse upon them.
Four, how would we contain the physical consequences of using a nuclear weapon? The fallout from the fire from 800 torched oil wells was felt around half the globe. Imagine if that had been a radioactive cloud from the use of a weapon.
Finally, and most important, Mr. Chairman, was the simple question that I think would be the first asked by any president of the United States: How can we, a democracy, resort to the means that we so rightfully condemn and abhor?
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you, General.
Ambassador, I am afraid I am going to move to the next questioner.
Mr. Graham: Could I just have ten seconds?
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Ten seconds you can have, but nobody ever takes just ten seconds.
Mr. Graham: It'll be ten seconds.
The way to deter chemical weapons and biological weapons is with the overwhelming, conventional force of NATO. To overtly deter such weapons with nuclear weapons will it make significantly more likely that these weapons will spread widely throughout the world, creating a nightmarish security situation for the United States, Canada, and NATO.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you very much.
The Joint Chairman (Senator Stewart): I am going to turn now to Senator Grafstein.
You've heard the general rules for the conduct of questioners.
Senator Jerahmiel S. Grafstein (Metro Toronto, Lib.): Thank you for that admonishment, Chair.
First of all, I would like to welcome the witnesses. I found not only the testimony but also the report from the House fascinating and provoking.
I want to touch on two matters, briefly, the first with regard to NATO in the 21st century. That is essentially what we are talking about: What should be the shape of NATO in the 21st century?
The second is with regard to the recent information we've received with respect to China's new ability to deal with multiple tactical nuclear weapons.
First of all, on NATO, there was a very curious debate in this country about NATO not so long ago. The government ultimately, with the assistance of the House committee, decided they would support the expansion of NATO.
Some of us in the Senate concluded that this was a wrong-headed policy. It was wrong-headed because once the Russian bear was in effect tamed, what we were doing was provoking the Russian bear yet again.
Our concern was that if we had a preoccupation with nuclear disarmament, which we all did, this in fact would stall START, I or II.
You, General Butler, just alluded to that in your testimony. I assumed you implied that NATO expansion was a wrong-headed policy. Could you give us your thoughts on that?
The direct result of NATO expansion, even with the weakened condition Russia has at this particular moment, has provoked the reactionary forces in Russia to stop nuclear disarmament, even though they are financially in difficulty. My conclusion is that expanding NATO was a counterproductive policy.
I would like your views on that, relating to the central issue of nuclear disarmament.
General Butler: I was a strong and vocal opponent of NATO expansion, Senator, for the following reasons. One, the end of the Cold War shattered a paradigm. In so doing, it offered a glorious opportunity, which was to rewrite the rules of middle European security in a way that gave hope, for the first time, of breaking the cycle of ethnic and nationalistic violence that had characterized it over the centuries, particularly given the fact that the political, economic, security, and cultural forces moving across Europe were going to perform that task anyway. It was simply a question of how it came out.
In my view, NATO was an historic success and should have been put into the history books as an historic success. At the same time, it could have served as a transition vehicle to assist Europeans in weaning themselves off of reliance on the United States, even as they worked their way through what they are doing now -- that is, economic integration, which will inevitably lead to greater political and security integration.
Second, I think we have our priorities wrong. For me, the number one security priority for the United States and for NATO at the end of the Cold War was to shepherd Russia through this extraordinarily traumatic transition, which it was inevitably going to undergo. Instead, we exacerbated their worst fears and suspicions.
What I found quite ironic was that we had hit upon a formula, called the Partnership for Peace, that I thought was proving very successful, and yet we abandoned it in what I think was a sense of political anxiety because of United States domestic political concerns, quite frankly.
So I think we lost an historic opportunity, and what we now see is an alliance in intellectual decline. The simple fact that this alliance has erected a taboo in discussing an issue that is at the heart of its interests -- its Strategic Concept, with its embedded nuclear paragraphs -- and the fact that the document still contains the words "Soviet Union," dated 1991, are graphic evidence that NATO is no longer an intellectually viable organization.
So I don't know whether we can recover from the damage we've done to our relationship with Russia. I don't know whether we have the capacity to start again, with a blank piece of paper, and reimagine the future of European security. We may have set ourselves on a path that ultimately history will judge as simply not just wrong-headed but calamitous.
Senator Grafstein: Mr. Chairman, I don't know if I still have a minute.
The Joint Chairman (Senator Stewart): I think your time has expired.
Senator Grafstein: Do we get a second round?
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): I doubt it, because there are too many people on the list.
Mr. McNamara, if you'd like to add something, please do.
Mr. McNamara: I would like to say just one word about China. We haven't mentioned it except in the question. I am not certain I'll be addressing the question exactly correctly, but I want to suggest to you that the U.S. nuclear policy today is building the same friction with China that we've built with Russia, as Lee just alluded to.
The potential deployment of an anti-ballistic missile defence in the U.S. will destroy China's deterrent. This is bound to lead to major friction between China and the "west," as I'll call it; particularly the U.S., but more generally China and the west.
That is something we can avoid, and from my point of view, we must avoid. It would be a tragedy if we started the 21st century with an unbridgeable relationship with China. That is what we are about to do if we deploy an ABM.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you very much, Mr. McNamara.
[Translation]
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Gentlemen, it is an honour and privilege for us to welcome you to the committee this afternoon. I am pleased to note that you have expressed your support for the committee's report, which was almost unanimous. The lone holdout was my Reform Party colleague who rejected the report's recommendations.
My first question is directed to Mr. McNamara.
Prior to the meeting, I read the paper which you submitted to us and I found it most interesting.
The paper is entitled "Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: Is It Desirable? Is it possible?" The paper leads off with the following:
In this paper, in answer to the question in the title, I will conclude that the elimination of nuclear weapons is desirable, but it is not feasible in the foreseeable future.
I would like to tie this statement in with our report. You and your colleagues undoubtedly feel that the report's 15 recommendations are desirable, but not feasible in the foreseeable future. Would that be a fair statement?
[English]
Mr. McNamara: The 15 recommendations are both desirable and feasible. The second sentence, following the one you read from my report, states:
However, I will urge that action which is consistent with [nuclear weapons'] ultimate elimination, and which in the meantime will reduce the risk of accidental or inadvertent use of such weapons --
-- and the risk of further proliferation --
-- be taken immediately.
That is exactly what your 15 recommendations in the report are designed to do. I applaud them.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: Take the recommendation concerning the START treaties. We now have START II, but the Russian duma refuses to ratify the treaty concluded by the United States and Russia. Plans are already being made for START III. In your opinion, can we expect the United States and Russia to reduce their arsenal of nuclear weapons even further, given the apparent impasse in the treaty process?
[English]
Mr. McNamara: I strongly agree with Lee's point that expansion of NATO was a major mistake. George Kennan, our foremost Soviet expert, has stated it was the greatest single mistake we made with respect to Russia in the last 50 years. I agree with that. But if we can get by that -- and we are compounding there almost every day -- and we get the Duma passing START II, then I think we can move to a START III that is a major further step in the direction your report points to. It goes along with the figures that Ambassador Graham referred to.
I think START III, for example, could come up with a limit of 2,000, which would be a much further step that, by the way, is absolutely essential if we are going to lay a foundation for continued non-proliferation.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: I consider you to be an eminent figure in the United States. The Foreign Affairs Committee has tabled a report, but how can we heighten public awareness of not only the potential risks, but equally of the social and economic cost of nuclear weapons proliferation? What can we do to get the public on side so that we can move more quickly to implement these 15 recommendations?
[English]
Mr. Graham: I think the way to get public opinion behind this issue is to try to get as much publicity and attention with regard to your report as possible. It is a very difficult job, both in the United States and Canada, because many people believe that the problem was over with the end of the Cold War, and that we don't have to worry about nuclear weapons any more.
A recent poll in the United States stated that 30 per cent of all Americans think nuclear weapons have all been eliminated throughout the world. Among the American public, and, I suspect, the Canadian public, 70 per cent or 80 per cent want to see this problem solved. They want to see nuclear weapons drastically limited and the world made as safe as possible with respect to these weapons.
The public is with us. The trick is how to get them involved. I see no way other than just outreach in communities in both our countries, and as much publicity and attention to developments like your report and other things like that.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you.
Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): I have two questions. First, you said you endorse our recommendations. In our fifth recommendation, we discuss the concept of de-alerting. How much of that should be based on technological verification and how much of it do you think should be based on mutual trust between two superpowers, keeping in mind that a few years ago one of the presidents described Russia as an "evil empire"?
My second question is for you, General Butler. Politicians don't like to answer hypothetical questions, but generals, chief-of-staff commanders, prepare themselves for war under hypothetical situations.
Let's go back 54 years, to June of 1945. Let's assume you are the commander-in-chief of the U.S. army. Would you have used nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
General Butler: Would you permit me to doff my general's mantle for a moment and to take on the guise of the politician?
Voices: Oh, oh.
Mr. Assadourian: Well, I give you credit, because you --
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): We'll make you an honourary member of the committee on that basis.
General Butler: Thank you.
In that particular guise, I would say to you that, like all seasoned politicians, I don't answer hypothetical questions.
Voices: Oh, oh!
Mr. Assadourian: Can I ask another question, then?
General Butler: But let me also give a serious reply to that question, because I get it frequently.
Simply, I don't know what I would have done. I wasn't there. I wasn't subject to the intense pressures at the time. It would be entirely feasible for me to imagine that I would have made the same decision that President Truman did.
In the same breath, I would tell you this. I would hope to God, knowing what I do now, I would have chosen different targets than two urban centres in which hundreds of thousands of lives were snuffed out. Those were not military targets by any stretch of the imagination. They were chosen principally for their geographic characteristics in order to multiply the consequences of the anticipated blast.
From that perspective, I think I would have chosen another target that I think would have had the same political effect but certainly would have been less costly in terms of innocent lives.
With regard to the question of alerting, if I might, that was my business. I was responsible for ensuring the alert status of all of America's strategic nuclear forces for the three years I was their commander, and before that as the commander of two units of B-52s earlier in my career.
The reason I made the recommendation in 1991 to reduce the alert status of bombers had little to do with military consequences. It had to do with political signalling. It was about trust. It was about, in that critical period with Russia in the early stages of this transition, allowing the President of the United States to say that I feel sufficiently confident in our new relationship that I am willing to make this dramatic change, after 30 years, in the posture of our bombers such that their response time is reduced from 12 minutes to 72 hours.
Some said that was cynical in that it is easily reversed. That is not the point. The point is that in all of the 7.5 intervening years, we have never put our bomber forces back on alert -- never. It is part and parcel of the business of reducing the relevancy and the saliency of nuclear weapons. It is about building trust.
The irony, of course, is that we took these modest steps, with regard to the alert status of our bombers, that are the least threatening and the least destabilizing element of the triad. Today, with the Cold War 10 years in its grave, we still have all of our land-based ICBMs and 60 per cent of our sea-based ICBMs on hair-trigger alert.
I think that is unconscionable. It makes no political, military, or moral sense. We have the capacity, without elaborate verification procedures, just as the British have done, to widen the firebreak, to expand the interval between decision and launch from five minutes per submarine to what the British have done -- that is, three days, 72 hours.
They didn't negotiate that with the Russians. They simply accepted the premise that in the absence of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and what is described in NATO doctrine as extremely remote prospects of a threat, they could actually expand their launch window for their missiles from five minutes to 72 hours.
It is long overdue for the United States and Russia to take those measures, on either a negotiated basis or unilateral, in the interests of building trust and clearing the way for further like-minded steps.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you very much.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Saskatchewan, PC): I just wanted to, perhaps in the second round, challenge the issue that NATO should not have been expanded, and the implication being drawn of the situation in Russia today. Surely, their military capacity has been so reduced that what they have left is their nuclear capacity, however ill-functioning, if I can use that term. Their nuclear capacity continues. it is what they have and what they are relying on due to the other aspects of their military being so depleted.
I wanted not to go into that -- unless you want to answer that -- but really to ask this question. The nuclear capacity lies in three NATO members. If they would reduce their capacity, and if they would follow through on their treaties and their obligations and adhere to what all of us seem to be saying around the room, it would be less of an issue of NATO.
Now, we seem to be using NATO as the trigger to encourage those three countries to move off their positions. If, in fact, as the report suggests -- and I am not suggesting we shouldn't be going that way -- we go that way and we don't achieve the Americans, the French and perhaps the British moving off their existing positions today, do we not weaken NATO even further? What is our strategy, then, and our defence mutual assistance strategy with Europe?
Mr. Graham: The reason there is a focus on NATO is that there has been to a degree a strategic review. What we are urging is that this review be extended to include the nuclear component. It has been eight years since the last review. The first-use doctrine is a very old one, going back to the beginning of the alliance. A lot has changed. It should be reviewed. it is overdue to be reviewed.
There is a certain degree of inconsistency between three of the NATO countries, three NATO partners -- U.S., U.K, France -- pledging formally, pursuant to a Security Council resolution, that they will never use nuclear weapons or threaten to use them against virtually the entire world, all the non-nuclear-weapon-state parties to the NPT, on the one hand, and on the other hand, being part of an alliance that leaves open the first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances in which the alliance believes this is justified.
That seems to me inconsistent, and it is an inconsistency with respect to a very important commitment that underpins the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is our principal defence against the widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons that would undermine NATO security more than any other single thing.
With respect to the commitments of each of those three countries in terms of reductions of nuclear weapons and so forth, as we've just been saying, the START process is stalled right now, with START II blocked in the Duma. Who knows what's going to happen to that?
The British have done some reductions unilaterally, and also have taken some moves with respect to de-alerting, as General Butler has just pointed out.
The French have done similar things. They are not part of a nuclear arms reduction process because it is been assumed that they would not be included in that process until the U.S. and Russia get down to levels of perhaps 1,000 or so, close to their levels, at which point there would be a five-power negotiation.
But I don't think the discussion of these issues, of suggestions that NATO should review a very old policy in light of an entirely different world that we live in, weakens NATO in any way. Indeed, I think in the long run it will significantly strengthen NATO security.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you.
Senator Andreychuk: My question was entirely different from the answer--
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): That is right, but that is the nature of--
Senator Andreychuk: I think all other NATO countries would go to the recommendations here. it is really France, the U.S....
I won't pursue it.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you, Senator.
Mr. Robinson: I would like to warmly welcome the witnesses before this committee and to say that I believe you bring experience, wisdom, and great eloquence, if I may say, to this profoundly important question.
One member of this committee has questioned whether Americans should be in Canada giving evidence to us. I can't think of a more fundamentally important group of people, given their experience, than this group to talk to us, and given the United States' role as well.
So I thank you for that.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
Mr. Robinson: I might just say in passing that this is interesting for me. As a young student many years ago, I recall demonstrating against the policies of Secretary McNamara in Vietnam. it is great to be here today, lauding his leadership on this profoundly important question.
It is a moral issue, but I know our witnesses would agree, as well, that it is an issue of obscene waste of human resources in a world in which UNICEF has documented 35,000 children dying, every day, of preventable disease and hunger. So to go through this madness of expenditure on these weapons is another issue that I think we have to acknowledge.
I have three questions, Mr. Chairman. I'll put them very briefly.
The first question is with respect to the issue of no first use. Earlier today in Question Period in the House of Commons, I urged our minister, Lloyd Axworthy, not just to call for a review of NATO's strategic concept but to go further and say that we in Canada believe the review should indeed recommend to NATO that the no-first-use policy should no longer form part of NATO's strategic concept.
I want to hear from our witnesses on this. I assume they would agree with that position. They've talked about the importance of putting it on the table, but I assume our witnesses would go further and say that this particular no-first-use policy has no place in NATO doctrine today. I would like clarification on that.
The second question is with respect to the issue of so-called rogue states. The Reform Party, in their dissenting report, stated, "Nuclear weapons operate as a kind of an insurance policy against the unforeseen." Among the "unforeseen," they talk about, "hostile states, rogue states, and terrorist organizations."
Could the witnesses respond specifically to the suggestion that we should maintain nuclear weapons to deal with the threat from so-called rogue states?
My final question, Mr. Chairman, is what can we do as Canadians -- particularly, what can our government do -- in this critical window that remains between now and the Washington summit? Secretary McNamara has talked about the recommendations of our report -- and your recommendations -- being non-starters unless in fact there is a majority of the non-nuclear-weapon states.
Do you have any advice to us as to what role we might play? Should Canada be leading in trying to gather that kind of consensus, to put pressure particularly on the United States but also on France and Britain? Do you have advice for the committee and for our government as to what we can do in this very critical and very short period of time to achieve the very important objectives you've set forth?
Mr. Graham: First, I would recommend that Canada attempt to persuade other NATO allies to support her in an effort to obtain a written commitment at the April summit -- perhaps a line in the communiqué or some other way -- that there would be a review of NATO nuclear policy after the April summit. There have been suggestions that this will indeed be the case. I think it would be very useful to have this commitment in the communiqué, and I think it is important that such a review take place.
With respect to whether or not the result of the review should conclude that adopting a policy of not introducing nuclear weapons into future conflicts -- a no-first-use policy -- would add to NATO security, I would strongly say that I believe it definitely would. it is in NATO's interest to adopt that policy, and it would be a major contribution toward dealing with today's most significant threat to NATO security, the threat of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
So my answer would be yes.
With respect to using nuclear weapons against rogue states and terrorists, I am not quite sure how you would use a nuclear weapon against terrorist organizations. You'd probably blow yourself up in the process.
Rogue states? We've been through that before. I don't particularly like the term; let's say "irresponsible" states. Most of them are in the category of states that don't have nuclear weapons. We would be in violation of our non-proliferation treaty commitments if we did that. it is not necessary to do that. We don't need to do that. I don't see any role for nuclear weapons against irresponsible states.
Perhaps my colleagues would like to add to that.
Mr. McNamara: Perhaps I can add just 30 seconds to that.
I totally agree. I see no role for nuclear weapons in relationship to rogue states. But assuming for a minute that is wrong, what relationship does that have with what we are dealing with today, which is a world of 20,000 nuclear weapons? Hopefully we'll reduce that, through START II, to 10,000, and through START III, to maybe 6,000. We might get down to what Tom proposed, something in the order of 100 or 500 in 15 or 20 years from now. That would be more than enough to deal with rogue states.
So the rogue states argument has no bearing on the issues that confront us today.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): I have Ms Augustine and Mr. Bachand on the list. We have seven minutes, because our witnesses must leave here at 4:55 p.m. They have a meeting with the Prime Minister.
Could we perhaps split your time within that seven minutes?
Ms Jean Augustine (Etobicoke--Lakeshore, Lib.): I want to join with my colleagues in welcoming you to our committee. I feel very pleased that you agree with the recommendations we've put forward.
In light of your involvement, Mr. McNamara and General Butler, with two important documents that have come out -- in 1996, from the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, and in 1997, the I think U.S.-sponsored document on the future of U.S. nuclear weapons policy -- where do those recommendations fit in with what we are recommending right now? How do you see this advancing the debate?
General Butler: As a member of both the Canberra commission and the U.S. National Academy of Science -- and having therefore participated in the elaboration of both those reports -- it is my judgment that your recommendations are entirely consistent. They are very much in the spirit as well as in the intellectual mode of those two reports.
For example, the Canberra commission and the National Academy of Science both urged that the alert status of weapons be reduced, the shorthand term being "de-alerting." You have recommended that as well.
The Canberra commission recommended that NATO adopt a no-first-use policy. The national academy report was also favourable in that regard.
So you really have gone down some very familiar intellectual and strategic pathways here. That is why I was not only delighted to see the report and its recommendations but I was also very comfortable with it.
Mr. McNamara: This is the Canberra commission report. It is totally consistent with your report. It particularly deals with a number of the controversial issues brought up here today, particularly verification of reductions and possible elimination.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Thank you.
Senator Marcel Prud'homme (La Salle, Independent): Could we ask that the report be given to you and eventually distributed, please?
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Yes, certainly, Senator. it is with our researchers. We had it when we were doing our study, and we'd be happy to share it with you.
[Translation]
Mr. André Bachand (Richmond--Arthabaska, PC): I would like to welcome you. When I saw the lights on, I didn't think I would have the chance to ask you even one question. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ms Augustine, for sharing your time. I appreciate it a great deal.
I would like to summarize for you my party's position on nuclear weapons. I draw a distinction between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. In the report, we also talk about nuclear energy and our stand on this issue is quite firm as well.
On the subject of nuclear weapons, our party advocate non-proliferation, provided we have the proper verification capability. It also maintains that the number of nuclear warheads must be reduced and that nuclear weapons should be banned. The Progressive Conservative Party is working toward that goal.
I would, however, like to make one fact clear. The committee is not recommending a no-first-use policy. It did broach this subject, but the report acknowledges that no unanimous consensus emerged on this issue. I wouldn't want you to think that the committee agreed on the no-first-use policy when it comes to nuclear weapons. However, we do hope that Canadian government will make it position clear fairly soon.
I would like Mr. McNamara to talk to us about some of the changes that have occurred. It is much easier today...
[English]
Mr. McNamara: I am sorry, I didn't hear. The issue of what?
Mr. Bachand: I didn't ask my question yet, sir, so don't worry.
Voices: Oh, oh.
Mr. Bachand: I made a small statement, that is it.
[Translation]
Here's my question. Since the Cuban missile crisis, the situation has evolved. In the past, we had nuclear weapons and conventional weapons. Now, we have a third kind of weapon, high tech weapons. Would you agree that poorer countries and countries with financial problems are not in a position to have or to acquire an arsenal of conventional or high tech weapons, whereas, as General Butler noted, the 1945 technology is much easier to acquire?
I would like your opinion on the current situation and on the advisability of reducing our stocks of nuclear weapons, on the one hand, while at the same time increasing our arsenal of high tech weapons.
[English]
Mr. McNamara: I would like to ask General Butler to respond to that. I would be quite happy to, but he's the expert, and I am not.
General Butler: Another political ploy, I notice, and used to great effect.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): Well, General, as a political ploy to help you, I'll tell you that you have only two minutes, so --
Voices: Oh, oh.
General Butler: First, let me say that as demonstrated in the Gulf War, the capacity to conduct that kind of conventional conflict has now been elevated to a level that some have called "hyper-war." Hyper-war is the dominant feature of something called "the revolution in military affairs." It is within the capacity of very few nations -- and now, in fact, just one -- to conduct war on that level, but it has changed the whole nature of warfare.
Witness the fact that we lost fewer than 300 casualties, including accidents, in the Gulf War, and yet brought what at the time was the fourth-largest army in the world to its knees.
So, yes, with respect to the violence, the spontaneousness, and the intensity of conventional war, technology has already raised it to an entirely new level.
Some would say that in the face of that, it is all the more tempting for poor nations to resort to weapons of mass destruction. Typically, however, that would not be nuclear weapons; it would be chemical or biological weapons.
The technology for building a nuclear bomb dates back to 1945. One of the success stories of non-proliferation is that whereas there was a time when it was imagined that some 24, 30, or 36 nations would now be nuclear powers, the fact is, fewer than that have ever acquired the capability. Today, arguably, there are only eight, and it is still within our capacity to sustain that success.
What we are saying, however, is that this will not happen by chance. It will require commitment, perseverance, and leadership. Above all, it is the responsibility of the Government of the United States to exercise that leadership.
The Joint Chairman (Senator Stewart): With respect to the clock -- with great respect to the clock -- let me make two comments at this point.
One, I appreciate what you have said on the topic of NATO expansion. Your conclusion is the conclusion of the Senate foreign affairs committee. So what you say encourages us.
Second, you've given us a very clear and logical analysis, one that I find convincing. The problem I would have put to you, but on which you can perhaps advise us later, privately, is assuming that Canada is effective, what do we have to do to convince whatever power in Washington is in control of this situation to adopt the appropriate attitude toward particularly recommendation 15 in the House of Commons report?
But I am not asking that question. Ponder it and perhaps tell us the answer at your convenience.
Thank you very much for being with us.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. Graham): It is my job to wrap up and let our guests go to meet the Prime Minister, but let me say to our witnesses thank you very much for attending.
Whatever are the political differences around the table amongst those of us who worked on the report, we are all proud of the work the committee did in respect of the report. I thank you, our guests, for providing the committee with your wisdom, your experience, and your eloquent testimony in support of our members' work.
I would only leave it with you that I very much regret that somehow you had to, in the process here, encourage the Senate committee into believing it was right in respect of NATO expansion.
The committee adjourned.