Defense Department authorization and oversight: hearings on H.R. 1872, Department of Defense authorization of appropriations for fiscal year 1986 and oversight of previously authorized programs before the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, first session, Part 1

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Page 81 - What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?
Page 87 - Interests; that realism, not wishful thinking, is the only basis for evaluating our adversaries; that we must deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be...
Page 72 - Deterrence is not an abstract notion amenable to simple quantification. Still less is it a mirror image of what would deter ourselves. Deterrence is the set of beliefs in the minds of the Soviet leaders, given their own values and attitudes, about our capabilities and our will. It requires us to determine, as best we can, what would deter them from considering aggression, even in a crisis — not to determine what would deter us.
Page 71 - In order for arms control to have meaning and credibly contribute to national security and to global or. regional stability, it is essential that all parties to agreements fully comply with them. Strict compliance with all provisions of arms control agreements is fundamental, and this Administration will not accept anything less. To do so would undermine the arms control process and damage the chances for establishing a more constructive US-Soviet relationship.
Page 69 - The sides agree that the subject of the negotiations will be a complex of questions concerning space and nuclear arms, both strategic and intermediate range, with all the questions considered and resolved in their interrelationship.
Page 130 - Inadequate manpower can only place debilitating stress on our personnel, with further degradations in readiness and sustalnablllty capabilities. Finally, history shows that while manpower losses can occur quite rapidly, it can take a decade to recoup such losses. b. Reserve Military Manpower The Reserve Components are charged with providing trained units and qualified individuals for active duty in the Armed Forces in time of war or national emergency. These units and individuals are to be available...
Page 49 - Security. The basic national security objective is to preserve the United States as a free nation with its fundamental institutions and values intact. This involves assuring the physical security of the United States and maintaining an international environment in which US interests are protected.
Page 83 - In addition to covering a wide range of advanced technologies, including various laser and neutral particle beams, the Soviet program is much larger than the US effort in terms of the amount of resources invested — plant, capital, and manpower. These efforts could lead to the testing of space-based ABM systems in the mid-1990s and to their deployment after the turn of the century. The President's initiative, therefore, is being pursued in part as a prudent response to Soviet R&D activities in this...
Page 130 - Code, section 262, defines the purpose of the Reserve components of the US Armed Forces as follows: The purpose of the Reserve components is to provide trained units and qualified persons available for active duty in the Armed Forces, in time of war or national emergency...
Page 83 - ... initiate rapid and wide-ranging attacks on crucial NATO military targets throughout Europe. The purpose of this tactic would be to reduce significantly NATO's ability to resist the initial thrust of a Soviet conventional force attack and to impede NATO's ability to resupply and reinforce its combatants from outside Europe. By reducing or eliminating the military effectiveness of such ballistic missiles, defensive systems have the potential for enhancing deterrence against not only strategic nuclear...

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