I want to thank the National Endowment for Democracy — especially its Chairman, my old friend John Brademas, and its president Carl Gershman — for sponsoring this timely, important, and unique event, of which I am proud to be one of the Congressional Co-Sponsors.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I regret that the press of my Senate duties made it impossible for me to hear the distinguished members of this panel earlier this afternoon.

I apologize if some of the themes I will briefly touch on have already been discussed.

Here in the Senate we meet on a fairly regular basis to commemorate anniversaries. Unfortunately, these meetings usually remember highly unpleasant — often even horrific events.

Today, however, we are here to commemorate the tenth anniversary of a truly great and uplifting event — the “Velvet Revolution” in which the citizens of the old Czechoslovakia threw off the shackles of four decades of totalitarian communist rule.

And what a difference a decade makes! Today — as all of us know — both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are well on the way to full re-integration with the West.

The Czech Republic, of course, is now a member of NATO and is attempting to meet the criteria for EU membership.

Slovakia, after losing several valuable years under the previous regime, voted in 1998 for genuine democracy. Last week the EU essentially removed the distinction between first-wave and other candidates, and Slovakia now seems poised for serious consideration for membership in both NATO and the EU.

On January 1, 1993 the two countries went their own separate ways. This separation — like the 1989 revolution — also had a “velvet” character.

Unlike the terrible wars that accompanied the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and the violence that still racks several of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, the Czech-Slovak divorce was an amicable one. Human nature being what it is, that was no small achievement.

All this is the good news. You’re both free; you’re both democracies.

Now, my Czech and Slovak friends, your real challenges begin! You have to grapple with the usual, day-to-day democratic problems of coping as we enter a new millennium: raising the standard of living of the citizenry; ensuring law and order with equal justice for all; assuring adequate health care; maintaining high quality education; and hundreds of other basic requirements.

These are the issues I deal with for a living, so I know how complicated and difficult they are.

Nonetheless, as a friend of the Czech Republic and of Slovakia, I would like to take the liberty of expressing to you my concern about a few particularly troublesome issues, which, if allowed to remain unsolved, could seriously disrupt civic life and also jeopardize the excellent relations with the United States.

One is guaranteeing full civil and cultural rights to all of your citizens as delineated in several documents of the Helsinki process, to which your governments are signatories.

This is an issue that is especially vexing with regard to the Roma in both countries, and in a completely different way is a challenge with regard to ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia.

I do not underestimate the complexity of this issue. The United States itself is an ongoing experiment in multi-culturalism. It has taken us more than a century to legally empower our minorities, and large economic disparities still persist. Our significant progress has shown that a strong governmental commitment is absolutely essential for creating a climate hospitable to racial, ethnic, and religious diversity.

But, ladies and gentlemen, for any country to move forward in the European mainstream, it must completely eradicate anti-democratic remnants — from skinhead attacks to walls separating communities.

This fundamental point was underscored in last week’s EU progress report on candidates for membership.

Moreover, there are examples in Europe itself — like Finland, Spain, and Bulgaria — where ancient ethnic and linguistic feuds have been overcome as a result of enlightened government policy. It can be done.

Organized crime is a second cancer eating away at the democratic fabric in both of your countries. We in the United States unfortunately know a bit about this problem too.

A third challenge concerns one of the worst legacies of communist misrule: widespread environmental pollution and safety threats for the future.

You all know of the apprehension that several of your neighbors have about your nuclear power plants near their borders. I have no magical instant solution, but one thing is certain: cooperation in these matters beats confrontation.

A fourth set of challenges also flows directly from the forty years of communist tyranny. How can the new Czech Republic and the new Slovakia come to terms with their pasts and at the same time not fall into the old repression of individual rights through willful misuse of personnel files?

And then there is the question of expropriated property, some of it formerly owned by citizens of this country.

The legal tangle, which in some cases goes back to the World War Two Nazi occupation with its protectorate in the Czech lands and fascist puppet government in Slovakia, is formidable. But, again, in order to move forward, the slate must be wiped clean.

Now a final word on broader issues. I believe it is still premature to forecast what the shape of Europe in the twenty-first century will be.

The successful introduction of the euro by the European Union, the growing body of European Community law, the accretion of competencies by the EU Parliament, the ambitious plans for a common foreign and security policy — even for a European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) within NATO — all indicate that the European Union is on the way toward assuming increased political and economic power from its member-states.

On the other hand, the EU has been careful to support the flowering of the languages and cultures of individual countries — even of regions and localities.

Moreover, economic development has to a great extent assumed a cross-border, regional character in several areas of Western Europe.

In fact, a similar process has begun in Central Europe. The triangle made up of southwestern Poland, the northern part of the Czech Republic, and the German federal state of Saxony already comprises just such an informal economic unit.

It may be that southwestern Slovakia, northeastern Austria, and northwestern Hungary will soon coalesce economically in the same fashion.

In any event, in spite of the ambitious European Union, blossoming regional economies, and vibrant local cultures, I do not foresee the demise of the nation-state in Europe in the near future, if ever. Old loyalties simple run too deep.

Whatever the geographical framework, one thing gives me hope that Europe in the twenty-first century will be a much better continent than it was for much of the blood-stained twentieth-century. That is democracy.

Democracy is the glue that can bind together diverse elements in society.

Democracy is the catalyst than can make the whole of society greater than the sum of its parts.

Democracy is the best secular vehicle for every citizen to realize his or her God-given potential.

And the spread of democracy is the best guarantee that Europe will not relapse into self-destructive violence and war.

The Czech and Slovak peoples have demonstrated that they appreciate the potential of democracy.

I am particularly proud that the United States of America is aiding the Czech Republic and Slovakia in fulfilling democracy’s promise.

Thank you for including me in this happy event.

We are two weeks away from the new millennium. More significantly, we are a couple of weeks from an election year — when the great issues that define the direction of our country should take center stage.

Of those great issues, the most significant involves the shape and direction of American foreign and strategic policy. Should the United States remain actively engaged in the world, promoting multilateral arrangements in the military, economic and political spheres? Or should it rely on our overwhelming military and economic power to assure our future, and reduce our reliance on military alliances and trade partnerships?

I believe the choice is clear, but the outcome uncertain. The world is simply too complex for America to withdraw. We may be the world’s sole superpower, but we lack the power to impose our will on all others.

In the military sphere, our power is clearly unmatched. Notwithstanding our predominance, however, Russia could still destroy our society in a nuclear war; China could inflict awful damage; and lesser powers like North Korea or Iraq could embroil our forces in full-scale war. For two generations, the United States has successfully used nuclear deterrence, formal alliances like NATO, and coalitions of willing states to keep the peace and, when necessary, to restore world order.

In the economic sphere, we are by far the world’s strongest economy. As we found with the “Asian flu,” however, our economic well-being is tied to the fortunes of smaller economies from Mexico to the Far East. We have successfully used both regional and world-wide trade agreements, as well as international financial institutions, to maintain a stable world economy and to advance our interests.

These “entangling alliances” have been the subject of American debate since George Washington warned of them over two centuries ago. Today, that debate is still with us — in the streets of Seattle and in the halls of Congress.

I want to focus today on one important aspect of that debate: whether the United States should turn away from the strategic doctrine that has formed the basis for our arms control and non-proliferation policies over the last generation. I submit that, although the Cold War has ended, both the doctrine of deterrence and the pursuit of international agreements to maintain strategic stability are vital to continued American security.

MY STRATEGIC DOCTRINE

Let me sketch for you my own strategic doctrine, which is rooted in the events I have observed in my 25 years as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This doctrine proceeds from our basic national interest in preserving world stability.

We also stand for democracy, human rights and open markets. We take the lead in countering terrorism and narcotics trafficking. And we work to reduce environmental degradation. But regional and world stability furthers those goals, and is often a prerequisite to achieving them.

I believe that the lynchpin of our strategic policy must continue to be deterrence, as it has been for decades. Our enemies must be confident that we will destroy them if attacked. Our allies must be confident that we will defend them as well, and also that we will not drag them into unnecessary wars.

Although the Cold War is over, the U.S.-Russian relationship remains our central strategic interest. This is based on Russia’s strategic military strength, its ability to affect its neighbors on two continents, and its potential to recover much of its former economic and conventional military might. The challenge is to help a weakened Russia find its legitimate place in the world, reduce its stock of nuclear weapons, decrease its need to keep those weapons on hair-trigger alert, and lessen the risk of its spreading weapons of mass destruction.

The strategic arms agenda that we must pursue with Russia is clear: lower strategic force levels, greater transparency, and the safe removal and neutralization of excess nuclear weapons. We should consider repackaging START Two with START Three. We should also propose lower force levels than the 2,000-2,500 warheads agreed to at the Helsinki summit two years ago.

A similar strategy can be applied to our relationship with China. As China’s power increases, the world must accord it both respect and a constructive role on security issues. China, in turn, must accept its own stake in, and responsibility for, regional and world stability — even on the sensitive issue of the future of Taiwan.

Our strategic agenda with China must promote their further acceptance and enforcement of non-proliferation norms, across the board: nuclear, missile, chemical and biological. China has come a long way from the days in which it favored nuclear weapons for all. If we show persistence, firmness and sensitivity in our dealings with China, we can keep it on a responsible path, in Asia and in the world.

That leaves the threat from so-called “rogue states” such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Thoughtful conservatives like Henry Kissinger admit that they accepted the need to base U.S. strategic doctrine on deterrence during the Cold War. They say that they no longer trust deterrence to ensure our security, however, because the countries to be deterred are irrational Third World states, rather than the Soviet Union or China. Conservatives propose that we rely instead upon our own defensive might and build ballistic missile defenses, at least to guard against Third-World missiles.

In my view, those conservatives are misreading history. We must not demonize our enemies. For all the talk of “irrational” leaders in Iran, Iraq and North Korea, those regimes have responded rationally when pressure was backed up by the determination and the capacity to use world-wide economic sanctions or military force.

THE STAKES FOR ARMS CONTROL

The debate between those who understand the continuing relevance of deterrence and those who would cast it aside has had a debilitating impact upon strategic policy and arms control.

The Clinton Administration came into office in 1993 and won several significant achievements in the area of strategic arms control and non-proliferation in the four years that followed: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was extended indefinitely; the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was signed; and the Senate approved U.S. ratification of both START Two and the Chemical Weapons Convention. But that’s about as far as we got. The Russian Duma has not ratified Start Two — which would reduce strategic warheads by half and eliminate MIRVed ICBMs — and I will be truly surprised if it does so this week, although that’s the latest Moscow rumor.

Meanwhile, Republicans want to abrogate the ABM Treaty, even if that causes a collapse of the START process. Congress also cut back the Nuclear Cities Initiative, which combats proliferation by helping Russian nuclear weapons experts to find new careers. And of course, you know the fate of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. That, in turn, casts a shadow on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 1995, we used the promise of that test-ban to convince non-nuclear weapons states to agree to an indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now we are failing to keep our end of that bargain.

That vote two months ago today — rejecting the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty on a nearly party-line vote, after a straight party-line vote on procedure — was a watershed event. It has become, for the moment, the defining political reality for U.S. foreign policy.

Many arguments were made against the Test-Ban Treaty, and I can respond to those arguments in whatever detail you might wish. My point today, however, is that the Treaty’s defeat signals the collapse of the bipartisan consensus that once existed on our basic strategic doctrine.

We must rebuild that consensus.

One of the most telling moments in the Test-Ban debate was when Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona responded to the concerns raised by three of our closest allies: Great Britain, France and Germany. Senator Kyl said: “I, frankly, don’t care much if people around the world who don’t want the United States to defend itself against ballistic missile attack are going to criticize the Senate for rejecting… CTBT.” Senator Kyl was not merely tying the Test-Ban issue to that of a national missile defense, as did other treaty opponents. He was also expressing their impatience at having to maintain what Thomas Jefferson so eloquently termed “a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind.”

That conservative impatience is part of a disturbing pattern. Call it isolationism, call it unilateralism, call it whatever you want. But it must be recognized for what it is: a turning away from the doctrine of deterrence and arms control that has maintained our security and guided our relations with friend and foe alike since the 1960s.

Continued reliance upon deterrence does not require a rejection of all defenses. Indeed, we must develop effective theater missile defenses to protect American and allied troops overseas.

But it is folly to base our strategic posture on the idea that we can develop effective defenses against all the diverse threats we face today. We must analyze proposed defenses in light of their impact not only upon our ability to deter “rogue states,” but also on our mutual deterrence relationships with Russia and, to some degree, China, as well as the concerns of our allies who rely upon our nuclear umbrella. We must also consider the impact that missile defense would have on nuclear proliferation.

It is in this regard that the Republican crusade for national missile defense ignores critical realities: the reality that every step we take to construct a missile shield will affect the strategic posture of our adversaries and allies; the reality that no affordable missile shield will protect us from short-range missiles, a bomb in a boat, or chemicals in a truck; the reality that a missile shield may only prompt Russia, China, and even rogue states to respond with countermeasures and more warheads.

I see no sign that the theologians of the right who demand immediate deployment of a national missile defense have thought through the implications of these realities.

What would a realistic defense against Third-World missiles look like? I favor a multi-pronged approach:

maintaining our deterrent posture;

• working to remove the missile threat by pressing negotiations like those now ongoing with North Korea;

• continuing to strengthen existing non-proliferation regimes;

• maintaining the international consensus necessary to impose multilateral sanctions upon rogue states; and

• improving our ability to take out the missiles, if necessary.

If we must add a national missile defense to that mix, I recommend the proposal of your senior fellow, Dr. Richard Garwin, for a land-based (or sea-based) boost-phase missile defense, built in cooperation with Russia to stop only rogue-state missiles.

REBUILDING A CONSENSUS

As you well know, the challenges of strategic policy are complex. The political reality is equally problematic – the views that I just outlined may have been the mainstream view 10 years ago, but they are not the views of those Republicans who control the Senate today, or of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

One lesson I draw from the Test-Ban Treaty debate is the need to reach out to Republicans early. But of course, it’s a two way street. Both sides must engage in a dialogue on strategic arms policy.

In the months to come, Democrats will rebuild the public record in support of Test-Ban ratification. We will also reach out to Republican senators who will consider eventually supporting ratification after adding sensible conditions to a resolution of ratification. Senators Levin, Lieberman, Moynihan and I, among others, are already trying to promote such a serious dialogue.

Finding consensus will not be easy. Both common sense and the national interest require, however, that we find areas of common ground, rather than forging a U.S. policy in the executive branch that Congress simply rejects.

A related task will be to articulate clearly and directly to the American people, who are largely supportive on these issues, how arms control and continued world engagement serve our national interest and their own interests. The case for arms control is there to be made, and you don’t have to be a nuclear weapons scientist to understand it.

In summary, a strategic doctrine of deterrence, arms control, and multilateral engagement remains both valid and vital in the post-Cold War world. By contrast, a doctrine based upon the illusory goal of unilateral defense would put American leadership and security at risk.

The challenges of strategic arms policy and arms control are a fitting topic for political debate. We in Washington need your help, however — to keep that debate rational, and to keep our national security from becoming one more political football in Campaign 2000.

Your sponsorship of this lecture series may focus America’s attention on the real foreign policy issues, rather than the artificial ones that are sometimes created in Washington. I wish you every success in this important effort.

It is a pleasure once again to speak to members of the Council, which since its founding nearly eighty years ago has been the crucible for some of this country’s most creative thinking on foreign policy.

We meet at a time in American foreign policy when we will need a great deal of creativity in our thinking and in our decision making. Whether it is in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, or Europe, key elements of our foreign policy are in play.

You know the hot spots as well as I. Decisions have to be made – and carried out – even in the dwindling days of this Administration. We do not have the luxury of deciding which crises to respond to, and when.

Tonight I would like to focus on one key aspect of our foreign policy: our relations with Russia, and in particular, the choices we face right now on arms control.

Yesterday, Vladimir Putin was overwhelmingly elected President of the Russian Federation. I will not try to predict exactly where Putin will take his country. I am not smart enough. And it’s my guess that no one in the West has a firm grasp of the policies of a man who has made an art form of concealing his intentions.

Putin is an enigma. He is ex-KGB, with ties to Yeltsin and the oligarchs; but he also worked for a reformist mayor of St. Petersburg. He calls for law and order, but also for reform. He is a technocrat, but also a nationalist. He is no Communist, but he appears not to be a democrat either. He had no real election platform; so we, like the Russians, project our hopes and fears on him.

I have not had the chance to take the full measure of the man, but I suspect Putin will be willing to deal with the United States on issues vital to us, while asserting Russian interests in other areas, and stifling political freedoms at home.

Mr. Putin appears more reformist than Boris Yeltsin in economic policy.

But I believe we will also see more support for Russia’s military-industrial complex; more centralized control over Russia’s regions; more restrictions on civil and political liberties, and a renewed insistence that Moscow be treated as a great power, particularly when it comes to relations with the countries on its borders. But the truth is: we don’t know.

What we do know is: No other country will “win” or “lose” Russia. Russia alone will determine its ultimate destiny; Russia under Putin will continue to be a major influence on the world and a major focus of U.S. foreign policy; and The United States, to pursue its national interest, must continue to engage Russia, no matter who its leader is.

What are our national interests? I see three: making the world a safer place, through non-proliferation and arms control; making Eurasia a safer place, by defining Russia’s rightful role in world and regional affairs; and making Russia a safer and more prosperous place, by encouraging and assisting its transition to fuller democracy and a true market economy.

All of those interests are important, and inter-connected. But this evening I would like to concentrate on the one I think I know best: our national interest in non-proliferation and arms control.

Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. He replied, “because that’s where the money is.” It’s the same with arms control and nonproliferation.

Are you concerned about the risk – smaller than it used to be – of total annihilation in a nuclear war? Russia is the only country that can do that to us.

Are you concerned that a terrorist or rogue state will seek to buy its own nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or the technology or equipment for long-range missiles with which to deliver those weapons? Russia is one big supermarket for all those things.

Of course we are already doing something to combat proliferation from the former Soviet Union. We help Russia to destroy weapons pursuant to the START treaty. We help it to protect sensitive nuclear materials, as well as its horrendous store of chemical weapons – an admitted 40,000 metric tons.

We help find new employment for experts from Russia’s bloated weapons complex, to minimize their temptation to accept contracts or job offers from Iran, Iraq, or Libya. We help train and equip Russian export control personnel, to stop proliferation in their factories and at the border.

But these programs are just a drop in the bucket. The Administration knows that. Last year it called for a 40 percent increase through its Expanded Threat Reduction Program. The experts know that. There are studies in the works that will soon call for tripling the size of our effort.

But the current majority in Congress doesn’t get it. When the Administration tried to double the Nuclear Cities Initiative last year, Congress cut it in half.

Russia has started to downsize its nuclear weapons complex: They plan to end nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly at 2 of their 4 warhead production facilities; to stop work at 1 of their 2 fissile component production facilities; and to convert or shut down 3 fissile material production reactors.

In the next five years, they will cut 35,000 nuclear weapons personnel. They are defining the means for us to help them speed up their downsizing, working with such people as former Los Alamos director Sig Hecker and former ACDA director Ron Lehman.

But the window for that assistance may not stay open. Their willingness to let us help close down their weapons plants could dissipate. Some Russians even see Iran as an ally, to be assisted in its nuclear and missile programs.

Before that window closes, and before the window for cooperation with Iran opens wider, we – the Administration, the Congress, and you who influence us – need to decide to devote truly significant funds to programs that help Russia to avoid or crack down on proliferation.

In return for an offer of significant, long-term funding, we should get Russia to provide transparency into its activities and to cease activities that contribute to proliferation – especially in Iran.

There is one more piece, of course. In addition to reducing Russia’s weapons of mass destruction complex, we need to further reduce Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons.

Economics will force Russia to go below START One levels. But only arms control will give us verification. Only arms control will give us transparency regarding the warheads for all those missiles. Only arms control will implement the START Two ban on MIRVed ICBM’s, the most destabilizing weapons in modern nuclear forces.

So we need a new push for a START Three agreement – real negotiations, not just the “discussions” of the last several months. But there is one big roadblock in the way: our proposed, limited national missile defense. We may decide we need such a defense against the threat of North Korean, Iranian, and/or Iraqi missiles.

But surely we don’t need a new arms race with Russia. Surely we don’t need an end to the START process, or Russian retention of MIRVed ICBM’s.

Surely we don’t need a missile defense that results in an unholy alliance of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, to spread nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.

At present, I am agnostic on this issue. I am not yet convinced that missile defense makes sense, given the ease with which a country could use other means of delivering weapons of mass destruction – and given the costs and limitations of the missile defense currently proposed.

If we do need such a system, I would rather we developed ascent-phase interceptors that could be located near the countries that pose the threat. These would pose less of a threat to Russia or China’s deterrent capabilities, and thus be less likely to spark a new arms race.

Such a system would also be more effective against countermeasures that could defeat the current proposed system. In any case, it is crystal clear that any missile defense system we deploy should be in compliance with a modified ABM Treaty. We should not walk away from that Treaty.

Getting an agreement with Russia to modify the ABM Treaty won’t be easy.

Russia may be waiting for us to show we are serious – by making a deployment decision, and perhaps by announcing our intention to withdraw from the Treaty.

We, in turn, are postponing those decisions for technical reasons. There is no point in deploying a system that won’t work, and the test schedule for this system is already absurdly tight – as retired General Larry Welch and the head of operational testing and evaluation at the Pentagon have made clear.

But there are other problems if President Clinton waits until fall to make a deployment decision and “show Russia he’s serious.” We could find ourselves in a dangerous game of “chicken.” By that time, the American people could elect a successor – Governor Bush – who is committed to a missile defense whether Russia likes it or not.

At that point, it may be too late to agree on a limited missile defense. Instead, America may be pursuing the old “star wars” dream, while Russia tries to resurrect its strategic forces in all their MIRVed glory.

So where does that leave us for the next several months? I am tempted to say, between a rock and a hard place, but let me be more diplomatic. We are between two bookends: yesterday’s election in Russia, and our own.

The bookends need not be a barrier to creative diplomacy. The Administration still has time to reach agreement with Russia on ABM Treaty modifications and a START Three treaty.

We can achieve this. Russia knows that Third World ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons threaten it, as well as us. Rather than stick to an unrealistic schedule, we should delay any decision on national missile defense for a year.

That will give us time to convince Russia that its interests lie in a modified ABM Treaty, not one tossed on the scrapheap.

It will also ease the unrealistic test and development schedule for a missile defense. It will give us more time to investigate other options. It will give us more time to remove the immediate threat through our ongoing negotiations with North Korea. It will give us time to consult more fully with our European allies, who are clearly nervous about our policy, and It will give us more time to consult China, which might react foolishly to even a limited defense deployed under a modified treaty, thus kicking off new arms races with India and Russia.

I am not naive enough to predict that we will succeed in this approach. But we have to try, and try harder than we have so far: our decisions in the coming few months will set our strategic posture for years to come.

We should view those decisions in the context of our overall foreign policy. At this point in our history, Russia is the key relationship for our national security and foreign policy. What is the best way to encourage Russia to remain peaceful, and become a democracy?

I don’t think the answer is to start a new arms race. I believe the best way is to engage Russia: in arms control negotiations, in mutually beneficial foreign policy efforts, and by increasing the scope of educational and cultural exchanges.

Even as we engage Russia, we stay true to our values, and criticize any repressive behavior of the Putin regime, and we should increase American assistance to democratic and free-market forces working for a more open Russia.

But let’s keep our eye on the ball: managing our strategic relationship with Russia remains America’s most urgent task. Thank you.

Thank you, Professor Weiss. It is an honor to be introduced by you. Your career clearly makes you the Johnny Appleseed of science and technology programs. It is also an honor to be here with Dean Gallucci, who is one of the great public servants of our day.

The issue that most concerns me today is the spread of weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But as this is the very first Loewy Lecture, let me begin by sketching the outlines of the Lectureship’s broad topic of “Science, Technology and International Affairs.”

America has thrived on technology. Revolutions in transportation and communications – steamboats, railroads, the telegraph – were essential to expanding our territory coast to coast. The industrial revolution was the basis for our rise to world power, first acknowledged in Teddy Roosevelt’s mediation of the Russo-Japanese War and demonstrated to the world in World War I.

In the 20th century, America excelled – when we cared to – in the conversion of industrial power into military might. We also brought the fruits of the industrialization to nearly all of our people and demonstrated the power that can be derived from a healthy, highly-educated citizenry. Revolutions in medicine and agriculture were as crucial to the development of our power internationally as those on the assembly lines.

The 21st century will be an era of new technological revolutions. Indeed, they are already upon us. We are only now beginning to realize what has happened, let alone to see where these revolutions will lead us.

New revolutions in communications will have profound implications for U.S. foreign policy. It is a truism that e-mail, cellular phones and satellite dishes have brought people into unprecedented contact with each other.

From China to Russia to East Timor, political activists have maintained real-time contact with the outside world during their times of crisis. During the Asian currency crisis two years ago, when countries tried to control information, you could literally walk down the street and have a little kid offer to sell you a copy of information he had downloaded from the World-Wide Web.

CNN has given the whole world a common window on the events of our day. And non-governmental groups now produce their own analyses of North Korea’s missile test sites and Pakistan’s nuclear complexes, using commercial satellite imagery with 1-meter resolution.

Equally important, cultural trends now cross the oceans electronically, long before the artists – be they real or animated – arrive “in person.” Downloaded games or music can be as subversive as a political tract.

The ability of governments to control access to all but the most sensitive information is literally crumbling. Rulers like Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein may still be able to stage-manage the flow of information to their people, but I question whether their counterparts will be able to do that 30 years from now – or maybe as little as 10 years from now.

The revolution in communications is having an equally dramatic impact upon the world economy. One reason for recent international mergers and “globalization” is surely that digital communications and computers enable workers in far-flung enterprises to maintain intensive contact with each other, where before they were unable to have any contact with one another.

Not only messages, but pictures, graphics, and even instruction codes to guide automated manufacturing equipment now are routinely passed from engineers in one country to colleagues – or machines – half a world away. Computer experts in Russia and India are building high-tech careers and businesses on their work for American or other foreign companies, which they transmit instantly to their international clients.

Capital is more international than ever, and less constrained by government policy. In the 1970’s, when I spoke with West German economic officials including the head of the Bundesbank, we were able to discuss over the period of a few days (with the approval of President Carter) possible moves to stabilize currencies. Today, more money flows into and out of countries between a minute before 12:00 and a minute after 12:00 than is held by all the central banks.

Money now flows into countries – and out of them – within minutes or hours. The Asian crisis showed how quickly private decisions can undo national or international efforts to insulate countries from the collective judgments (or panics) of international lenders.

The revolution in transportation will also affect foreign policy in the years to come. I don’t mean commercial space travel or the supersonic transport. There are limits to how fast or far we need to travel, especially when teleconferencing lets us be “face to face” without being “in person.”

The real revolution is in the cost of transportation, for both goods and people. Fresh fish and vegetables now travel around the world, providing new economic opportunities in seemingly out-of-the-way lands and better diets everywhere. People seeking more opportunity now travel with equal ease. New population flows are vastly eroding ethnic “purity” in European countries and making our own country richer both culturally and economically.

The impacts, though, are not all positive. Easier flows of people and products bring a speedier diffusion of infectious diseases. An outbreak in Hong Kong or Nigeria today can have consequences in Florida, or California or Illinois, the next day. An outbreak of smallpox tomorrow, in any center of world commerce, could set loose a world-wide pandemic of death and disfigurement.

Fortunately, the revolution in communications gives us tools to learn about such outbreaks, as well, and the revolution in transportation gives us tools to combat them. Disaster relief has undergone a revolution as great as any other in world affairs. The horror of earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes is no less than it was in earlier generations, but the speed and depth of international response gives new hope to the survivors in a way that was unimaginable even 20 years ago.

Similarly, the horror of Serbian actions in Kosovo was real, but the speed with which 850,000 international refugees were assisted – first in foreign lands, and then in returning to Kosovo – was nothing short of astounding, no matter what you think of our Kosovo program.

The revolution in transportation that helped to feed, clothe and shelter those refugees was based upon a revolution in logistics based as much on digital communications as on the C-17’s and the C-5’s that flew out of Dover AFB, which is part of the new revolution in military affairs.

World War II brought us jet planes, nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. That was an industrial revolution, as exemplified in the Manhattan Project and in the work of the Loewy family.

The new revolution in warfare is information-based. GPS devices can tell an arms control inspector whether he was taken to the right building. Terrain mapping guides cruise missiles around obstacles and into the right ventilation shaft. The integrated use of remote sensing, signals intelligence, and satellite communications can warn a pilot of an enemy action and feed into targeting the enemy.

Meanwhile, countries large and small are developing information warfare or “cyberwar” capabilities. In a world where even high school students can pose a threat to complex systems, the great “force multipliers” of information and communications could also become the “Achilles’ heel” of modern military machines.

I have neither the time nor the expertise to discuss at length the scientific and technological revolutions that I have only begun to sketch for you, and that you will surely encounter in your foreign affairs careers. You will just have to attend future Loewy Lectures to learn about all this.

Let me turn to the area of particular concern to me. The 20th-century revolutions in military affairs largely benefitted the United States, and our military power has increased relative to that of other countries. There are downsides, however, and one is of potentially catastrophic proportions. That is the increasing lure – and the availability to countries other than great powers – of weapons of mass destruction.

The history of weapons of mass destruction in the 20th century has a Dantean quality. There are events of such utter horror that the human psyche can hardly comprehend them: the poison gas at Ypres, the “showers” at Auschwitz, the slaughtered civilians of Halabja, Iraq, the Japanese testing of biological weapons on World War II prisoners of war, and the awesome devastation visited by just two small nuclear weapons – small by modern standards – upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But the history of non-proliferation offers hope. While chemical weapons have been used in a few wars since World War I, they have been largely shunned, both in legal terms and in practice. Biological weapons have not been used on a mass scale in a hundred years or more. Nuclear weapons have not been used since the end of World War II.

Since 1968, new international agreements have been signed in each of these areas – barring the production or stockpiling of chemical or biological weapons, as well as the spread of nuclear weapons. If formal commitments translated perfectly into moral acts, and if technology were static, then the world could bury its martyrs joyfully. While non-proliferation has been generally successful, however, it has also failed, and it has failed at significant times.

India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons. China helped Pakistan develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. North Korea illegally reprocessed spent nuclear fuel for its nuclear weapons program and sold missiles to Pakistan and Iran. Iraq developed chemical and biological weapons, as well as a crude long-range missile, and made progress toward developing nuclear weapons. These and other setbacks remind us that non-proliferation is a constant pursuit, rather than a destination at which we will someday arrive.

Modern technology opens dangerous new avenues for proliferation. New processes have been developed to synthesize chemical weapons. New binary weapons have been created that are easier to store, as well as to use. Some are based upon chemicals that also have benign industrial or agricultural uses, making weapons production harder to detect. Each new chemical weapon carries the risk, moreover, that there will be no known antidote to the weapon.

The impact of modern technology on biological weapons has just begun, and we frankly do not know where, how far or how fast it will go. Will genetic engineering enable countries or terrorist groups to covertly develop new, drug-resistant strains of known diseases, or even create new ones? Will new manufacturing processes enable these programs to weaponize pathogens or toxins that have previously been too unstable or too fragile to use? Will biological weapon “cocktails” – mixing pathogens to increase their lethality – move from concept to reality? The evolution and application of science and technology in these areas will pose a continuing challenge to civilized society for a long time to come.

The impact of modern technology on nuclear weapons proliferation is more subtle. The complexity of thermonuclear weapons, especially those small enough to be used in multiple-warhead missiles, makes the “bomb in the basement” scenario much more unlikely than other scenarios that we are likely to face.

One reason the United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was precisely to impede the development of sophisticated nuclear weapons by new entrants to the nuclear “club.” I believe that the Senate rejection of this treaty was a tragic mistake. I still believe that, with full debate and a chance to adopt amendments to the resolution of ratification to address members’ concerns, the Senate will give its advice and consent to ratification of CTBT before too many years pass.

The real impact of high technology is on the ability to maintain nuclear weapons without nuclear testing. While the ultimate success of our stockpile stewardship program cannot be guaranteed, we are far ahead of other countries in this regard. So we wrestle with the military and non-proliferation implications of requests, from Russia to India, for our supercomputers to increase their ability to do without nuclear testing. Today’s students in the School of Foreign Service will have to address issues of this sort when they become advisers to future Secretaries of State and Secretaries of Defense, as you will.

The diffusion of technology poses as many proliferation challenges as does the technology itself. A country seeking weapons of mass destruction can now buy precursor chemicals, specialty steels, reactor vessels, or even dangerous pathogens from entities in a dozen or more countries, not all of them Western. Deals can be struck with funds wired through global chains of shell companies. Electronic transactions can be massively encrypted using algorithms available on the Internet.

Your Professor Dorothy Denning knows all about that. She has battled ably with Silicon Valley industrialists who see any law enforcement or national security encryption “key” as a threat to their survival in the global marketplace. So has the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The law allows the Bureau to wiretap a person with a judicial warrant, after showing probable cause that the wiretap will produce information regarding the commission of certain serious crimes. With modern digital communications and encryption techniques, however, the Bureau may get a warrant, only to discover that it simply cannot read the communication. The FBI went to U.S. companies and proposed not that it be given the key to their digital communications and encryption, but that they agree to provide that information when a proper judicial warrant has been granted. But not one of the U.S. companies would accept that.

Alas, they may be right. Few companies today are shielded from vicious competition. Few products remain exclusive for long. In a world where free software makes economic sense, few barriers remain to the rapid spread of new ideas. If U.S. companies agree to cooperate when the Government obtains a judicial warrant, some foreign company may announce that it will not provide such access to law enforcement – and it may therefore get increased market share at the expense of U.S. firms.

Few people comprehend, moreover, to what extent the common good may be at stake. They have yet to internalize the fact that we could be talking about protecting ourselves from things like acts of biological terrorism.

Yet those same companies must now be our salvation. As former Assistant Secretary of Defense Ash Carter recently wrote in the journal Survival:

“In the Cold War, new technologies of importance to defence usually arose from research conducted under DoD sponsorship within defence companies, think-tanks and universities located in the US. Today, new defence systems tend to arise when defence companies embed commercially developed technology into weapons. This transplantation of the roots of the nation’s defence from one soil under its direction and control to another governed by profit-making in the civil marketplace has profound policy implications.”

Government laboratories may still dominate the nuclear weapons field, although only with the crucial help of foreign scientists (and of outside contractors to develop the next generation of supercomputers). But to satisfy other national security needs – from intelligence systems to new materials, better rocket engines and information warfare techniques or defenses – we now must “adopt and adapt” innovations created by and for the civilian economy, not the Defense Department.

Stemming proliferation was always a Herculean task. In tomorrow’s world, the intellectual challenges will be as great as the challenges to our vigor and determination.

Our non-proliferation efforts have been wonderful in their doggedness and their breadth. (Isaiah Berlin wrote of hedgehogs and foxes. We have been very successful hedgehogs.) We have negotiated treaties. We have created great lists of exports to control. We have monitored countless communications and taken pictures of untold industrial plants.

In the 21st century, however, we must be more daring and we must live with more risk. In a world overwhelmed by volumes of information, we must learn to select. Rather than trying (like old Stalinists) to control everything, we must focus on keeping critical goods and technologies away from the criminal states and groups in the world.

Rather than swinging our swords at the waves of invention, like Ireland’s King Cuchulain trying to turn the tide, we must learn to surf and ride those waves, dangerous as they may be.

What does that mean in practice? Frankly, I’m not yet sure myself. In case you students hadn’t guessed, my generation doesn’t have all the answers. (I know that comes as a shock to you.)

But think of the power of modern supercomputers. The routes to weapons of mass destruction are many, but they are finite. The potential suppliers are also many, but they are finite, also. Controlling all transfers to countries of concern may be beyond our means. But shouldn’t we be able to track those transfers using supercomputers, speedily detecting suspicious sales that warrant intervention?

Business firms object to the delays that export controls build into their contracting, and they have a point. But they could help design electronic filing and analysis systems to speed up the process. Companies could also contribute their scientific and daily business knowledge to the task of tracking and analysis. Nobody wants their sales to lead to Saddam Hussein having nuclear weapons or to some terrorist starting a plague.

Government must enlist the active help of business – perhaps in return for an easing of export licensing requirements. It must explain to firms precisely why their help is needed; business can be as narrow-minded as government, and we cannot assume that every executive knows how countries go about covertly developing weapons of mass destruction. The United States and its allies must also enlist foreign companies in this effort. The Australia Group does a good job of guarding against sales that could help countries of concern build chemical or biological weapons, but the active help of companies around the world would open new options for controlling or disrupting a covert weapons program.

We in the Congress are just beginning to cope with the modern face of proliferation, but we have at least supported efforts to build non-proliferation data bases for the Defense Department and other agencies. Last year, as proposed by the Deutch Commission on combating proliferation, we also enacted legislation to eventually require electronic filing of Shippers’ Export Declarations. This will enable federal agencies to search for suspicious procurement patterns before the goods have been delivered.

Congress and the executive branch need to take a further step, however, and that is to act more like venture capitalists. We get good ideas, but are afraid to risk our money on them. Venture capitalists know that undercapitalization is a sure route to failure. You need to study before you invest, and you need to be willing to pull out when an investment goes sour. But to get real gains, you also must be willing to take risks.

Look at our programs to help Russia destroy its excess weapons, protect its nuclear material and chemical weapons, and find civilian jobs for up to 100,000 or more weapons experts who have been, or will soon be, let go by its bloated weapons complex. The Nunn-Lugar portion to destroy weapons pursuant to the START treaties is reasonably well funded. But scores of useful projects in our other non-proliferation assistance programs are unfunded today.

Despite the tensions in recent U.S.-Russian relations, the window of opportunity to help them prevent proliferation remains open. But none of us knows how long it will stay that way. This is no time for excessive caution, while criminal countries and groups offer enticing contracts to Russian scientists.

Can we become successful risk-takers? Let us not give up hope. The Marshall Plan was truly daring, it was properly funded, and it certainly was a great success. Of course, it was also first fleshed out, and then run, by a business executive and the son of a robber baron. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned there.

The executive branch has proposed increases in those Russian programs – although they still do not meet the need, and Congress has been slow to give even the modest amounts that have been requested.

Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, has taken a look at one underfunded program, the Nuclear Cities Initiative. Last month, he said:

“The current program scope, progress, and funding are not consistent with the scale of the threats to us….

“I’m now drafting legislation…to address these concerns with the Russian complex. My goal will be to substantially increase the funding and scope of the [Nuclear Cities Initiative] to assist the Russian Federation in downsizing its military nuclear complex, to authorize a variety of mechanisms in addition to commercialization, and to measure its progress against realistic and transparent milestones.”

Now, there is some daring and creativity. Senator Domenici is also working with U.S. and Russian officials to bring them on board and to make sure his plan is workable. His plan isn’t off the ground yet, but it’s on the runway!

If we are to meet the challenges of weapons proliferation, and to manage high technology in the 21st century, we need more cross-cutting cooperation and more Senator Pete Domenicis on the other side of the aisle who are willing to engage in that sort of daring.

In the coming decades, your generation will bring to U.S. decision-making much more experience and comfort with modern technology. Until then, you and your Silicon Valley peers must do all you can to help us to be daring and successful. For, at least in the area of non-proliferation, we have no time to waste.

It will really fall to you. Those of you who go on to pursue careers in foreign affairs and the Foreign Service will, I predict, be more engaged in these sorts of technological issues than any generation that has preceded you.

SPEAKER: Please welcome an expert on national security issues, a graduate of the University of Delaware as well as of Syracuse Law School . He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 as a callow youth of 29; he did turn 30, the constitutional age limit, by the time he joined the Senate. He is now the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, where he gets to butt heads with Chairman Helms on a daily basis. He has a long history of involvement with missile defense issues; he was in the center of the debate in the 1980’s during the Reagan presidency over national missile defense, as well as the interpretation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Our next speaker, Senator Joseph Biden, our third point of view.

SENATOR BIDEN: Thank you very much. I am flattered and honored to be invited to speak here, and that was a very nice introduction. I am not sure what the third way is; I want you to know this is not triangulation. I don’t know that I have a third way; I do know, by the way, that I don’t have any trouble dealing with Senator Helms. He and I are good friends, and I have had twenty years of practice. I was the former Chairman of the Judiciary and ranking member with Strom Thurmond, so this is a piece of cake. I actually do respect my colleague, and we get on very, very well.

You know I’m reluctant in front of a prestigious group with such varied views of a critically important and complicated issue to begin with an attempt at humor, but I think the best way to describe to you all the way I think things are moving on the debate or lack thereof in the United States Senate on this issue is to remind you of the old joke, that story about Wilbur Mills when he found himself in the circumstance in the tidal basin with a stripper and under the influence.

He was arrested by the police, who, as they do in this town, immediately called the administrative assistant of Wilbur Mills, who asked what the chairman’s reasoning was. The chairman said that Mrs. Mills had asked him to pick up Fannie Fox because Mrs. Mills had broken her leg. She was hurting and in bad shape, and she was a friend of Fannie Fox and wanted him to bring Fannie Fox home. This accident happened, and the administrative assistant said that was absolutely true and that he would be on the way to get him shortly. He hung up the phone and immediately called Mrs. Mills.

He said, “Mrs. Mills, I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.” She said, “Well, give me the good news first, John.” He said, “The good news is that your husband was found drunk in the tidal basin with a famous Washington stripper and is now in jail under arrest.” She said, “Oh, my God, that is the good news. What is the bad news?” He said, “Well, Mrs. Mills, I have got to come over and break your leg.”

That is what this debate reminds me of occasionally. We’ve got folks on all sides of this issue- for, against, and not sure. Some of it is like, I’m going to have to come out and break your leg to make this work, to make this system work, to make this rationale work. As I said, it’s a special honor to be invited to speak to this symposium. Your physical constitution sitting in those chairs as long as you have and me being between you and lunch makes me question your judgment, but I will give it a shot anyway to give you, as is characterized, a third point of view, not a third way, but a third point of view. It may be consistent in part with what both of my colleagues have said but differing in parts.

This is, I might add, a significant step forward in the national debate, which has not taken place yet. Don’t anybody kid anybody; don’t fool yourselves. There is no national debate. Nobody knows what we’re talking about. I am not being facetious. No one knows what we’re talking about, including the majority of my colleagues in the United States Congress. They have not focused on this yet.

So those of you who are against this system or any system and citing polls that claim the American people are against it, it’s of no consequence because the American people don’t know what we’re talking about. Those of you who suggest that the American people want this, just try at the next cocktail party you go to pick the most learned, informed person in the group and ask them about their view on this issue.

I will be dumbfounded if they can give you an informed answer as to why they hold the position they hold. And it reflects our national realization that national security issues are much too important to be left to partisan debate that all of you three sponsoring organizations with different views have gotten together. So I begin by complimenting you, and I mean this seriously, for beginning the national debate on the notion of national missile defense.

As you surely know by now, I am a skeptic regarding national missile defense. I mean that literally: I am a skeptic, not opposed. I can understand why such a capability might be desired. I am not at all sure, however, that it is yet feasible. Neither am I convinced that the system proposed by the Pentagon would work satisfactorily, or even that deterrence is so bad.

I will be happy to elaborate on those points when I take your questions, assuming you have time for questions. But I suspect that you have been debating them all morning. So let me give you instead some thoughts on the strategic context within which the issue of national missile defense I think has to be considered and is not being discussed, in my view, thus far, in this context.

Let’s begin with the objective of statecraft. It is not simply to achieve this deployment or to preserve that treaty. Rather, it is to maximize our overall national security. That is the objective of statecraft. Many issues are so narrow that we can ignore the broader context; we ignore relativity theory when analyzing whether a bridge needs repair. National missile defense is not one of those narrow issues; we must consider its place in the strategic context and in this time.

I submit that we are at a pivotal point in our strategic relationships with major countries in the world. A decade ago, we began the transition to a post-Cold War international system. That transition continues today. Our strategic weapons policy decisions over the next year or so could determine that transition, for good or for ill.

We have moved from a largely bi-polar world to one in which our military might is effectively unchallenged, although Russia retains the capacity to inflict immense damage upon us. Many aspects of strategic arms relationships, however, still remain unsettled. Let me just name a few.

• What nuclear force levels will the United States and Russia maintain in the coming years? • What formal arms control treaties, with their associated benefits of predictability and verification, will we retain, or have they become a thing of the past? • Will China continue its strategic doctrine of “minimal deterrence?” Or will it significantly increase the number and accuracy of its missiles or warheads, perhaps deploying MIRVed ICBM’s? What about Japan? • Will Chinese actions lead India and Russia to increase their forces, perhaps igniting an Asian arms race? Will other countries in East Asia decide to go nuclear? What about Japan? I don’t know about all of you, but I find some solace in the fact that Japan is not a nuclear power. I am not anxious to see that change; I’m not sure it will. I am sure that none of you know. We have not discussed it yet. • Will non-proliferation be reinforced as a principal objective of the nuclear weapons states, or will they help other countries to develop those weapons and the missiles (or cruise missiles) with which to deliver them? • Will our allies remain confident of our commitment to their security and accepting of our leadership? Or, for one reason or another, will they seek to counterbalance us, keep their distance from us, or rely more upon their own military forces? • Will the countries seen today as potential developers of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles live up to our fears? Or will changes on the Korean peninsula, in Iran, or in the Middle East reduce the current threats and give us more time and more options?

I find it after 28 years in the Senate kind of interesting that from a military perspective, we have to assume the world will remain static or get worse. From a political perspective, it hardly has. From a political perspective, the notion that North Korea, for example, will be this isolated dictatorship immune to threats of retaliation seven years from now is as likely as it is fundamentally changed. Yet we posit our entire rationale on the notion that it will remain static, as we assumed in 1987 that the Soviet Union would remain static.

What sort of world will we face in the coming decades, and what role will we play in it? When the Cold War ended, many predicted a “New World Order” in which the great powers would realize their common interests and work together to maintain international stability.

Well, if that new world has occurred, I haven’t seen it yet.

A whole series of issues has divided Russia from the United States. Russia’s military, economic and political weakness has given us greater freedom of action, but has also made Russia more distrusting of the West. Meanwhile, international and ethnic disputes that had been sublimated in the Cold War have surfaced and bred wars, terrorism, and proliferation.

These new instabilities have led supporters of a national missile defense to view the current era as a window of opportunity in which to build a shield against ballistic attack, before Russia or China becomes strong enough to block us. Some see missile defense as a hedge against an unstable leader who might not be deterred even by our overwhelming ability to retaliate. Others see it as a means of maintaining our freedom from blackmail if another country were to threaten nuclear retaliation in an effort to keep us from intervening to save an ally from invasion. Still others see it as a shield against a small attack by any country, and eventually as a shield against all attacks, even from Russia.

You’ve probably gotten that from the debate among those of us who have come to speak to you and what you hear on the floor. Every time someone stands up and says the purpose of missile defense is to deal with rogue states, one of my colleagues will stand up and say, “But we have to stop China.” There is no consistency in the view that has been put forward by the Democrats and Republicans who speak to this issue on the floor of the Senate.

What I find interesting – and a little frightening – is the unrelieved pessimism that underlies that approach to the world. A decade ago, even conservatives saw hope for “a world transformed.” Now that vision has been discarded, and their hope is put instead in better weapons – both offensive and defensive – to maintain U.S. predominance.

I think the conservatives are missing a bet here. The world has yet to be transformed into a really benign place, but there have still been some real advances. I think we still have an opportunity to build a more stable world. On the other hand, I fear that acting upon our worst fears will only make those fears come true.

U.S.-Russian relations are often frustrating, but they are far better than they were in the Cold War. Russia has a NATO relationship. It participates in peace-keeping operations. It has allowed international action on Iraq. It has lowered its strategic nuclear forces and is more than willing to continue that process. It no longer targets its missiles at the United States – which is no safeguard against a future decision to fire them at us, but is a very good safeguard against an accidental attack. And, however much we may question Russia’s motives or its sincerity, it has offered to help wean North Korea away from the long-range ballistic missile kick it’s on.

U.S.-Chinese relations are similarly a glass that is either half-full or half-empty. China’s impatience regarding Taiwan is a matter of great concern; rash actions there could lead to terrible consequences. China has also contributed significantly and foolishly to the proliferation of long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

At the same time, China – which once argued that every country should develop nuclear weapons – now recognizes the need for nuclear non-proliferation. It has given North Korea good counsel on that point. It ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. It reduced its cooperation with Iran. It did not block international action on Iraq. It is reducing the stranglehold that the People’s Liberation Army had on its economy. And it is opening up its economy to the world, which will further erode the grip of the Communist Party upon people’s daily lives and their political expectations.

In recent weeks we have seen possible steps toward a transformed world on the Korean peninsula. I am not predicting it will happen, but I’m predicting none of you predicted it four years ago, one year ago, six months ago, two months ago, or one month ago. Will continued rapprochement with South Korea and with the United States open North Korea to economic reform and lead it to end its long-range missile programs? I don’t know, but it’s different. It’s different from the way it was a year ago. A safe bet is that it won’t happen overnight. But the odds of these good outcomes are better than they have been in more than half a century.

The same is true in the Middle East, where Israel, the Palestinians, and Syria are enmeshed in difficult – but serious – efforts to settle their disputes. Similarly, in Iran, while conservative clerics still view America as the Great Satan, other clerics – with overwhelming popular support – are slowly moving Iran toward a more rational view of the world. What will the outcome be? I don’t know, but it’s different than it was two years ago.

These trends may change. A safer world to come is far from certain. But we would be foolish to ignore these forces, just as we would be foolish to ignore the risks posed by weapons proliferation. We would also be foolish if we were to sacrifice these possibilities through a short-sighted obsession with deploying a national missile defense that, one, most people don’t think can do the job even as they paint it, and those who think it can do the job, think it can only do part of the job. It should not be held at what we are advertising it to be.

I think that a single-minded push for national missile defense would indeed sacrifice some real opportunities to make the world a safer place:

• If we were to abrogate the ABM Treaty, I believe we would sacrifice both the START process and, perhaps, the INF Treaty. • Russia might then see the world’s trouble-makers as its only friends, and undercut the world’s non-proliferation regimes further than they already have. • If we were to deploy the national missile defense proposed by the Pentagon, China would surely increase its nuclear forces. I know some of you say they are going to do it anyway. It’s interesting, I asked the Intelligence Committee for an analysis when I raised this a year ago with them. I went to the Pentagon and met with the brass sitting around that big old table with Secretary Cohen. Nobody had an analysis. Everybody could tell me what North Korea was going to do. Nobody could tell me what they thought China was likely to do. I find that absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating, but No one disagrees, maybe you do, that China would increase its nuclear forces. China is already modernizing its nuclear forces, at least to improve their survivability. Our deployment – even if Russia acceded to it – may very well lead China to reconsider what they’re going to do. Maybe not, but at least we should be talking about it. • If we were to abrogate the ABM Treaty, China, too, might well engage in increased arms proliferation. • Our allies, as well, would be deeply shaken. Whatever our reasons, they would see our actions as reckless, rather than prudent. This would undermine our influence in the world, even if it were to increase our military freedom of action. • Finally, the world’s trouble-makers would still be tempted to cause us grief, but with renewed support from an aggravated Russia and China.