We appreciate all four of you taking the time to appear before this subcommittee today. We know that at least one of you has come from out of town in order to participate. We are grateful to all of you who have been able to get here today and who are willing to take time out of your schedules to give us some information from your own perspective.

We may be interrupted for votes this afternoon, as we were delayed by our party meetings on Tuesday. Senator Quayle is not here yet, and when he comes, we will interrupt to see if he might have an opening statement at that time.

I think you are all familiar with the way things work around here. We may have to leave you in the middle of your testimony. But we will try to break at a logical point if we have to break. Again, we appreciate your patience and now call upon Dr. Mearsheimer.

STATEMENT OF JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER, PROFESSOR, POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Dr. MEARSHEIMER. Thank you very much, Senator Levin. I will take about 15 minutes to lay out my views on the conventional bal

ance.

The basis argument I would like to make is that the conventional balance in Europe is quite good. I want to explain my reasons for reaching that conclusion.

Before I get to the basics of the argument, let me offer four caveats.

First, although I think the conventional balance in Europe is good, I do not think that situation should lead to any deemphasis on nuclear deterrence. I am in favor of maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent.

Second, my optimistic view of the conventional balance does not mean that I favor conventional arms control, especially conventional arms control that results in pulling forces out of Europe. I would point out here—and I can talk about it later if you are interested— that I am firmly opposed to an agreement that results in pulling out any American forces from Europe or reducing the size of the standing forces of any of our European allies'.

Third, I am not going to say anything about the balance of air power in Europe, in large part because of time constraints.

Fourth, I think it is important to emphasize that one should not talk about the balance in terms of absolute certainty. For example, one should not say that the balance is simply good or that the balance is simply bad. When you talk about the state of the conventional balance in Europe, you are talking largely about likelihoods and not air-tight judgments.

The basic argument I am making here is that I think NATO would stop the Pact probably 7 out of 10 times, if you can put a rough approximation on it.

My argument basically has two parts to it. The first part deals with the raw numbers in Europe, specifically comparative force rations or what are sometimes referred to as bean counts. After talking about the balance of forces, I want to discuss operational strategy that both sides would employ in a war. I think that if I can con

vince you and others that we are not hopelessly outnumbered in Europe, then the issue becomes one of strategy or, more specifically, how the Soviet strategy of blitzkrieg and the NATO strategy of forward defense will play themselves out in a war.

Turning to the subject of numbers, let's start with the balance of standard forces.

The conventional wisdom, I think it is fair to say, is that we are hopelessly outnumbered in Europe. People who make that argument usually focus on artillery and tanks, and make the claim that NATO is outnumbered in those categories of weapons by about 3 to 1, and, therefore, all is lost.

I would challenge these comparisons of tanks and artillery, pointing out that you don't fight wars with batches of weapons. Wars are not simply fought with batches of tanks and batches of artillery pieces.

For example, when the Pentagon runs a war game, it does not say Side A gets 5,000 tanks, and Side B gets 6,000 tanks. Instead, each side gets so many divisions.

Wars are fought between fighting units, and the basic fighting unit on the modern battlefield is the division.

So, if you are interested in measuring raw numbers, the place to start is not with tanks and artillery pieces, but with divisions.

Now, the problem with comparing raw divisions is that there are differences in the size and composition of Warsaw Pact and NATO divisions.

Now, the Pentagon has gotten around this problem by coming up with an indicator, known as armored division equivalents, or ADEs, that tries to control for these differences in size and composition. If you look at the ADE balance of standing forces in Europe, you see that the Warsaw Pact has an advantage over the United States and its allies of approximately 1.2 to 1. I repeat, 1.2 to 1. That is hardly a staggering advantage. In fact, it is a small advantage.

I would note that that 1.2 to 1 advantage does not take into account, as Barry Posen has pointed out in a very important article, that NATO spends much more money on command and control, logistics, training, and maintenance that the Pact does, and yet those factors are not figured into the ADE measure. ADEs capture the raw number and quality of weapons inside each division. They do not account for things like training, logistics, maintenance, and command and control.

Posen makes the argument, which I find quite convincing, that the 1.2 to 1 ratio in ADEs should be further reduced to about 1 to 1 when you take those categories of spending into account.

Obviously, NATO believes those categories of spending are very important; otherwise we would not spend significant amounts of money in those areas.

Now, my experience in discussing the conventional balance with people outside and inside of the Government has been that analysts usually agree that the balance of standing forces is nowhere near as bad as most people believe it to be. Proponents of what I call the "gloom and doom school" argue instead that NATO is going to be short-changed with regard to second echelon forces.

The Soviet Union, so the argument goes, is capable of bringing forces into Central Europe from the western districts of the Soviet Union that will simply overwhelm NATO's standing forces. NATO, it is claimed, unfortunately does not have the capability to match that Soviet second echelon.

Now, I think it is quite clear, from a number of pieces in the public record-and I can point to them later in the discussion period, if need be-that the Soviet Union does not have a second echelon that we cannot match.

I believe NATO is fully capable of bringing forces into the Central Europe to match the Soviets' second echelon.

There was a CBO study that was done in 1980, which shows-and I have cut out the key chart from that study and brought it with me-that with a competitive mobilization the armored division equivalent ratio of second echelon forces never goes above 2 to 1. In fact, once NATO begins to bring its second echelon into Europe, the ADE ratio stabilizes at about 1.6 to 1.

That CBO study, I believe, is based on worst case assumptions about Soviet and ÑATO mobilization rates.

Barry Posen, in the article I referenced before, has done work on this subject of comparative mobilization schedules, and he shows, using reasonable assumptions about mobilization rates, that the ratio of armored division equivalents, Pact to NATO, remains about 1.2 to 1 over an extended period of time, and that, in fact, the Warsaw Pact does not have a second echelon that NATO cannot match.

In short, the basic argument I am making about raw numbers is this. If you look at the standing forces in terms of armored division equivalents, which is the basic measure that the Pentagon itself uses, you see that we have a disadvantage of approximately 1.2 to 1. And if you look at the ability of both sides to bring second echelon forces into Central Europe, there is no reason to believe that NATO cannot match the Soviets and keep that balance at about 1.2 or 1.3 to 1. We are not hopelessly outnumbered in terms of the balance of raw numbers.

it?

Senator LEVIN. What is the date of that chart and how current is

Dr. MEARSHEIMER. The CBO chart, which I can give you a copy of, is December 1980, and the Posen article is Winter, 1984-1985. Senator LEVIN. I think we have both of them, but if not, we will accept them for the record.

Dr. MEARSHEIMER. I think that very little has changed since those two pieces were written.

Senator LEVIN. I'm sure we do have both, but why don't you leave copies with us just in case.

Dr. MEARSHEIMER. I will do that.

[The information follows:]

Fiques $2

From: December 1980 Congressional Budget Office Study entitled U.S. Ground Fores: Design and Cost Alternatives for NATO and Now-NATO

Contingencers, p. 24. This figure is

an

updated version of the CURVE provided by
the Defouse Department to Congress in June 1976.

Dr. MEARSHEIMER. Again, the point is that despite the fact one piece is 7 years old and the other is 3 to 4 years old, little has changed in terms of the raw capabilities on both sides.

So, my basic argument is that if you accept my claim that there is no significant asymmetry in the balance of standing forces or in the flow of second echelon forces to the central front, the question of whether or not the Soviets can win in Central Europe is largely a function of strategy.

Now, talking about strategy in Europe, NATO is going to employ a strategy of forward defense. Forward defense is a lot like a goal line defense in football. The majority of our forces will be positioned at the front line, near the intra-German and Czech-German borders, where they will try to stop Soviet and East European forces from penetrating into West Germany.

We have a small number of operational reserves behind those forward deployed forces that are designed to deal with breakthroughs.

We expect the Soviets to attempt to launch a classical armored blitzkrieg. What this means is that they will try to mass armored forces at one or maybe two points along the forward line, break through NATO's defenses at that point, and then drive deep into NATO's rear area, cutting critical lines of communications as they advance, making it impossible for NATO to maintain a coherent defense.

In effect, we believe there will be two major operations in this Soviet offensive; first, the breakthrough battle, and second, the deep strategic penetration or the exploitation phase.

The questions you have to ask yourself if you are analyzing the balance are one, how likely is it that the Pact can make a breakthrough-in other words, rip a hole in NATO's front? Two, assuming they do rip a hole in NATO's front, how likely is it they can exploit that breakthrough before NATO seals off the penetration? Now, let me take a slightly different cut at this problem because it is important to try to explain what the Soviets will be trying to do in a situation where they do not have an overwhelming advantage in number of forces.

The Soviets will try to use stealth or surprise to create an overwhelming force advantage along NATO's front. They will attempt to gain something more than a 3 to 1 advantage at the main point of attack, which should allow them to rip a hole open in NATO's front.

Now, what NATO wants to do is hold the Pact long enough at that point where it is outnumbered so there is time to move forces to that point from other locations in the theater or from outside the theater, thus reestablishing the overall symmetry at that local point of attack.

Again, I am starting from the basic assumption that the overall balance of forces is somewhat close to parity, and, therefore, the Soviets' only hope is to create a marked asymmetry in forces at a specific point. Then, they must exploit that asymmetry and effect a deep, strategic penetration before NATO shuts the door.

Now, the question we have to ask ourselves is how likely is it that the Soviets can find a point along the intra-German or CzechGerman borders, mass forces there, and break through before