at risk, or what kinds of capabilities, military and otherwise, we need to safeguard these interests.

For almost 50 years, the very term, threat, was synonymous with the Soviet Armed Forces. Deterring the USSR and, if necessary, fighting against it, had been at the core of our defense policy. Well, the USSR is no more. Gone with it are the stability and the predictability of time-tested constructs. Gone also is the luxury of planning against a single familiar and well-defined threat.

Clearly, the initial euphoria notwithstanding, the end of the Cold War did not really bring about an end to international conflict. The new security environment is replete with uncertainties and with amorphous and diffused and potentially undeterrable threats to our vital interests. It is an environment in which the unexpected might be the only sure thing. How well we cope with uncertainty, how well we prepare to deal with the surprises which are bound to happen, will determine the terms of our strategic success or failure.

In this new context, perhaps more than ever, a rigorous and precise approach to threat assessment is vital. Our national security is also a multisided equation in which a potential opponent's perspective is no less important than our own. Therefore, we need your help in assessing not only what adversaries, be it nations, or hostile alliances, or non-State actors, could do to harm our interests, but also what they might do and why, based on their objectives, their concepts, their standards of rationality and criteria for

success.

In other words, we need your help in highlighting both the capabilities, ours and our opponents, and their intentions. We would also ask you to help us anticipate where, when, and how the United States might be hurt by the actions of our opponents. That is, I would ask for your honest appraisal of our own and our allies' current and future vulnerabilities.

The United States enters the 21st Century in a uniquely privileged position. It is the world's sole superpower, a prosperous, strong, safe, and secure leader of the globe, deeply engaged with both allies and our former foes. Now, there are serious challenges we must meet in our military today. We will not get into the speeches of how stressed and strained and hollow that force is. We are taking steps to really address that. But we still have the bestequipped, best trained, best-led Armed Force since the end of World War II.

Yet this uniquely privileged position cannot be taken for granted. If history is a guide, our preeminence will soon be challenged at home or abroad, regionally or globally, symmetrically or asymmetrically. The question is not whether, but where and how. We need to make sure that we are indeed ready to face these new challenges lest we wake up to another Pearl Harbor, or the equivalent in the modern day, or attempt to face the next foe with a woefully unprepared task force.

The magnificent military today is the product of a lengthy painstaking effort, an effort whose results were amply demonstrated in Desert Storm and the manifold engagements since. We need to continue to build on this success. We simply cannot afford to fritter this advantage away, wasting our strength and credibility on secondary and tertiary concerns while our core interests go wanting.

Those who would risk their lives, as well as those who must pay the bills, deserve clear, coherent answers as to what threats we are likely to face and how we plan to deal with them.

Our witnesses today are Dr. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick-she is not with us yet. We have it from the Ambassador that she has a dead battery and is not with us. This is the first time I have ever heard Ambassador Kirkpatrick ever described with a dead battery-the Hon. Robert Ellsworth, General Charles Boyd, and Dr. Andrew Krepinevich. Doctor, we are going to use your last name in the first round and from that time on we are going to call you Andy. [Laughter.]

All are eminently qualified by virtue of both practical experience and academic expertise to help us get our arms around the problem of emerging threats to U.S. security interest. Each has thought deeply and written extensively on the subject. We look forward to your views, mindful of the ancient wisdom embodied in Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Now, the reason that the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge. Foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from the gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor from calculations. It must be obtained from the men and women who know the enemy's situation.

Before we turn to the panel, I would like to now turn to my distinguished Ranking Member and my colleague and good friend, the Senator from New Mexico.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JEFF BINGAMAN

Senator BINGAMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Congratulations to you for chairing this new subcommittee. I also want to commend, of course, Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner and the others who have had a part in putting together the agenda of this subcommittee. I think it is a great opportunity for the Armed Services Committee to focus on what the real threats will be to our national security in the future and what some of these nontraditional solutions to our security needs are going to be and how we can prepare for that.

I do think our main task and I understand what the witnesses here are going to help us with today is going to not be to understand the great breadth of potential threats that are out there over the horizon but instead to narrow it down into a small enough group of concerns that we can actually try to begin to address those.

So I think it should be a very challenging and educational experience for me to participate in this subcommittee. I look forward to it. I think we have an excellent group of witnesses here to start with, and I look forward to a very productive year in Congress working with you on this subcommittee.

Thank you.

Senator ROBERTS. At this point, I submit for the record the opening statement of Senator Smith.

PREPARED STATEMENT BY SENATOR BOB SMITH

Mr. Chairman I would like to recognize the significance of this new Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, and want to thank Chairman Warner for his visionary leadership in spearheading its formation. The face of war is changing. Our potential enemies understand that they cannot coerce or defeat the United States with conventional weapons and conventional military strategies. The unfortunate consequence of that realization is that an increasing number of potential adversaries are turning to asymmetric warfare cyberterrorism and chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction-as a means to threaten the U.S. and its vital interests. These new emerging threats are real, and imminent. Each and every day there are documented cyber attacks on U.S. computer systems, in both the Federal and commercial sectors. Based on the widespread proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological technology, no longer can we ask if a rogue nation or terrorist group may attempt to coerce the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction; the question now is when.

This subcommittee must provide a laser focus in its efforts to meet its charter responsibilities: deterring and combating terrorism, preventing and responding to cyber attacks on our information infrastructure, and curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

As Chairman of the Armed Services Committee's Strategic Forces Subcommittee, I plan to ensure we leave no gaps between the Strategic Forces and Emerging Threats agendas. In my view, these two subcommittees are charged with combating the two most serious and consequentially significant threats facing America today. Whereas the Strategic Forces subcommittee is working to provide a comprehensive and effective missile defense program to prevent the intercontinental delivery of these horrific weapons of mass destruction, to ensure the security of U.S. space assets, and to enhance U.S. intelligence programs, Emerging Threats will focus its efforts on curbing the proliferation of these weapons and deterring their potential use by terrorists against the U.S. homeland.

Mr. Chairman, our task is clear and the time is now. I wholeheartedly look forward to serving on this critical new subcommittee as it sets about identifying and combating these emerging threats to ensure the continued safety and security of each and every American.

Senator ROBERTS. We are delighted to have with us our esteemed colleague and good friend Senator Byrd of West Virginia. Senator, would you care to make any remarks, sir?

STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD

Senator BYRD. Mr. Chairman, I express my appreciation to you for holding this hearing to gain an overview of the emerging threats facing the security of the United States, and I am very pleased to be a member of the subcommittee, and I join with the distinguished Senator from New Mexico in commending Senator Warner, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for his foresight in establishing this panel.

Zeroing in on emerging threats and capabilities is a timely and appropriate direction for the Armed Services Committee to take. In the past decade, our notion of what constitutes a threat to our national security has been turned on its head. I think we can safely assume even more upheavals as we move into the 21st Century with an apparent nuclear arms race underway by a number of our foes, including North Korea, China, Iraq, and Iran, and with unknown numbers of nuclear weapons have gone missing and presumably are rattling around in Russia and its satellites.

The need for an effective national missile defense is gaining new urgency, but we cannot afford to put all our eggs in one basket. As cataclysmic as a ballistic missile attack on the United States, a chemical, biological, or cyber attack could be equally devastating and equally difficult to deter, and far easier to mount.

As the Washington Post reported only yesterday, an expert witness on biological warfare slipped 72 grams of powdered anthrax into the Rayburn House Office Building and carried it directly into a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee. He did it to prove a point. Someone else could do it to launch a terrorist attack.

Let me say, as an aside, that I hope none of our witnesses, Mr. Chairman, have brought any deadly germs or chemicals with them today. We are more than happy to hear their testimony, but I do not believe we need to experience it first-hand.

The threat of chemical or biological or cyber terrorism is not to be taken lightly. It is real today, and as we experience new advances in computer technology, biotechnology, and bioengineering, we are likely to face a host of threats in the next decade that we cannot even imagine today.

The creation of this subcommittee underscores the importance that we place on understanding and deterring the new generation of threats to our national security. In so doing, I hope we can come to a better understanding of our military needs for the 21st Century and better target our resources to meet those needs. Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for scheduling this hearing, and I look forward to reviewing the information that our witnesses will provide.

Senator ROBERTS. Thank you, Senator, and I might say at the outset that we also wish to thank you for your outstanding long service in terms of providing what I would refer to as honest budgeting and support for our Nation's military in regard to our national security interests, you have been a recognized champion in that effort, and we truly appreciate your service on this subcommittee, and you will certainly provide us some very valuable insight. Senator BYRD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator ROBERTS. I would say, Senator, that under the guise of offering the witnesses a cup of coffee in the back room we were able to make a security check, and none of the witnesses have vials of anything that I am aware of. [Laughter.]

But they do bring a great amount of expertise. I am going to ask Ambassador Ellsworth to lead off in the absence of Ambassador Kirkpatrick, and we hope she gets her car fixed, and I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues and everyone present a study that was conducted 2 years ago called America's National Interest. The reason I am doing this is that Bob Ellsworth was a primary mover, along with General Goodpastor and Rita Hauser, and the people behind this were the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, and the Rand Corporation.

I was privileged to serve on the advisory committee along with some outstanding real experts in regard to military strategy. This is a 60-page booklet or summary that is an easy read, but basically what they did is what we are asking the witnesses to do today in regards to emerging threats and in regards to our national security interest, and they did it in a way that I thought might be a little unique, but it was certainly a good way to demonstrate what our challenges are.

They separated our vital national security in sort of a poker criteria. We have blue chips, red chips, white chips, and translucent

chips. I would tell my colleagues, it is interesting to me as you go down the translucent chips, which are allegedly, according to this very outstanding group, not that important to our national security interests, that is what we are involved in in many instances as of today, and if you look down the blue chips, it seems to me that we have a lot of challenges that are ahead of us.

This is one of the reasons I was so pleased when we asked Ambassador Ellsworth to come and testify, because I know that he has a wide background in this, and we thank you for your effort in putting this together, Bob, and we welcome you to the committee. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT F. ELLSWORTH, FORMER
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen. It is a real pleasure for me to be able to respond to the invitation of the subcommittee to come and talk about emerging threats and emerging capabilities. I am going to focus in on what Senator Byrd already referred to as the cyber threats, and that addresses and is a threat to one of our vital national interests, in my judgment, of the highest priority, and that is the integrity and the safety of our own homeland.

Now, the world order is being remade by a clash of civilizations, in the words of Professor Sam Huntington of Harvard, but as the world order is being remade by a clash of civilizations, the greatest clash, in my judgment, is a clash between civilization itself and the enemies of civilization, and it is from those enemies of civilization that the threat that I am talking about will emerge.

I want to divide my presentation into four parts. First let me talk about the threats, then let me talk about the U.S. Government response, which in my judgment has been quite good up until now, then let me highlight two major inadequacies in the Government's response so far, and then finally let me share with the subcommittee some of the thoughts that my colleagues and I have developed as a result of some serious study of this problem.

First, the threats. I could not put it better than President Clinton did a week ago today in San Francisco when he referred to sabotage against our critical computer systems. That is the threat. There are several facets to that threat. One is associated with but is not just the Y2K problem. I am sure I do not need to pause and explain what the Y2K problem is to this distinguished and knowledgeable subcommittee, but associated with that are three problems that have to do with, as in President Clinton's words, sabotage against our critical computer systems.

One is the fact that we interact with the world at a very high level of intensity across a wide spectrum of activities, and let us just assume that everybody in the United States is 100 percent Y2K compliant on January 1 next year. There will be a lot of other people in the world who will not be.

I am referring to people like airlines, people who use telecommunications systems that interact with ours, banking and finance, I could go on and on, but there will be big problems for us due to the fact that there will be a lot of people who will not be