To be successful conventionally we must be strong enough at our general defensive position to hold the initial attack long enough until we can reach back deep into the rear of the enemy and delay and disrupt his follow-on echelons.

We have manned aircraft to do that now, but at the time early in a conflict is when enemy air defenses are going to be the strongest. We are trying to get penetrability with missile systems which are developed or being developed, and if we will only procure and exploit them we can reduce the numbers of enemy follow-on forces that will reach our forward line of troops, so that we can manage their numbers in our defensive posture.

Although it is very important that we do better with the forces we already have by bringing them up to standard, to include their substainability which is our major deficiency. I do believe that the determinant of whether or not we can keep the forces attacking us at manageable levels lies with our using these new weapon systems to strike deep in the enemy rear.

What happens then if we get that capacity for our conventional forces? We will have enhanced our deterrence, raised the nuclear threshold, and reduced our dependence on the nuclear response. Should the Warsaw Pact then attack us and we frustrate their conventional attack, they have two options: withdraw or be the first to escalate to the use of theater nuclear weapons. They are no more anxious to cross that nuclear threshold than are we because of the uncertainty of a further escalation to the strategic nuclear exchange which they, like we, abhor.

RELIANCE ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS

As Senator Cohen heard me say at Wehrkunke, because of the failure to meet commitments in the conventional area by all nations and through trying to buy alliance defense on the cheap by relying on nuclear weapons, we have mortgaged our defense to the nuclear response.

But even if we get to the point where we have high confidence in our level of conventional capacity, we still would want to keep an adequate and appropriate spectrum of nuclear weapons coupled to a first use option so that the Soviets would know that, even if we failed in our conventional defense, we will still have nuclear weapons with which to respond, and therefore the gains for her would be outweighed by the risks and the disadvantages.

Even reaching that conventional posture which we have set as a goal for the end of the decade, we must keep the first use option and an array of nuclear weapons. At that time, though, the political authorities of NATO should point their finger at SACEUR and say, "All right, SACEUR, we have reduced our dependence on the nuclear response. How many nuclear warheads can we eliminate? What is the number to which we can reduce now under those conditions?"

There should be some in addition to what we are trying to do on a yearly basis under our new rationale I mentioned. Nuclear weapons can only be negotiated away. Senator Cohen has heard me say before, the only solution I can find for the kind of future world we want is successful negotiations at arms reduction talks.

That may be a weak reed I am leaning on because you have to negotiate those nuclear weapons away.

NEGOTIATE TO REDUCE NUCLEAR WEAPONRY

Senator COHEN. What you are saying is that before you can reduce the nuclear weaponry, you must build the conventional force capability, because one of the things that is advocated is to freeze the nuclear weapons and rebuild the conventional force structure when, in fact, no one knows whether if you cut back, money will be spent elsewhere.

Your suggestion is let us spend the money to enhance the conven- . tional capability, and then you would be in a position to reduce some nuclear weapons?

General ROGERS. Then there should be a very deep analysis made of how many we can reduce at that time, knowing that we still have to keep an array of a certain number.

Senator COHEN. You indicated that you are quite sanguine about Italy and Britain. I agree with you. I was in Italy and visited with the Defense Minister and members of their armed forces committee. I was really impressed with the commitment the Italians have made to go forward with the ground-launched cruise missle. The same with the British.

The question I have is, if Germany is not to go forward and assuming the decision is not reached to deploy in December, what is your assessment as to what will happen in Italy and Britian?

General ROGERS. I think that would unravel the whole agreement as a consequence. If Germany itself, located where she is with all the danger that she faces, is not prepared to put those weapons on its soil for deterrent purposes, I really believe that would unravel that decision of December 1979.

Senator WARNER. General, I think it is very important that we get all aspects of this down. In your view, is the espousal of attacks on second echelon targets at odds with the defense of the NATO alliance? General ROGERS. Not at all, Mr. Chairman. Let me describe our concept of operations of which striking deep is a subconcept.

We charge our lead divisions, the divisions occupying our general defensive position, each to handle two enemy divisions opposite them. Those are the first and second tactical echelon divisions of the Warsaw Pact's first operational echelon.

Our second subconcept of operations calls for our reserves in, say, the Northern Army Group and Central Army Group areas to take care of the enemy's second operational echelon forces or any Operational Maneuver Groups exploiting forces-which may have broken through.

Then our third subconcept calls for us to attack both mobile and fixed targets in the enemy's rear area.

What I am talking about is interdiction. We have had interdiction from time immemorial, but this will be very accurate and on specific targets which we would quickly locate, target, get the information to a joint tactical fusion center where human judgment is exercised by man and pass it to a weapon system to attack the target before it leaves. Fixed targets will stay put but we must get our missiles or manned aircraft over mobile targets before they move. Remember in World War II, we would sit out there at night with our artillery and every 10 or 15 minutes, we would pop off two or three round

crossroads, just hoping we could catch somebody at those crossroads at the time.

Senator WARNER. That was at the start of World War I?

General ROGERS. You know, that, too, was interdiction and what I am talking about is a modernized form of interdiction.

It has been misconceived by some because it has been associated with the U.S. Army's AirLand Battle 2,000 (ALB 2000), which is a conceptual, speculative attempt to determine what the battlefield is going to look like at the end of the cenutry. But ALB 2000 has aspects to it which are not applicable to the defense of Western Europe.

I have had very intelligent individuals in Western Europe who should know better, who, because of a little bit of knowledge about ALB 2000, accuse me of going to have massive forces attacking across the German border headed toward Prague and toward Warsaw.

Nonsense! All we are trying to do is to strike deep with more sophisticated, more survivable, more reliable, more penetrable, and more accurate weapon systems to hit the targets that the attacker will provide for us.

We have watched the Group of Soviet Forces Germany on its maneuvers. I can tell you that Murphy's Law applies on both sides of the German border. We are not the only ones that make mistakes. They are presenting us with some very lucrative targets, tanks nose to tail in long columns, tanks that go into an assembly area "all bunched up", as we would say in the infantry jargon.

One can assume that for the first few days of the war-and that is the period I am talking about-the Pact troops are going to fight the way they train. We assume that about our troops. The other side provides some very lucrative mobile targets in addition to the fixed targets that don't move-bridges, railroad yards, command and control centers, and logistic facilities.

That is the third subconcept of our concept of operations.

In summary, the first subconcept calls for our divisions on our general defensive position to take care of two enemy divisions in the Warsaw Pact first operational echelon. The second subconcept is for our Army Group Reserves to handle the enemy's second operational echelon or any Operational Maneuver Groups that may punch through our defenses. The third subconcept is reaching back deep into the enemy's rear with weapon systems, delay or destroy the follow-on forces so that we reduce to manageable proportions the number that will be attacking us at the forward edge of the battle area.

We plan no change to our forward defense which is so essential in Western Europe, both politically and militarily. Nor to our deterrent strategy of flexible response. What we are doing is providing additional flexibility to the flexible response by improving our conventional capacity.

MAINTAINING CREDIBLE NUCLEAR CAPABILITY

Senator WARNER. That brings us to the next question.

The issue we face is one of maintaining a credible nuclear capability. The argument is made that such systems would be quickly overrun and then would be useless or else they have to be used in the event of attack very quickly.

General ROGERS. One can always design scenarios so that you end up with disaster in anything you try to do. If we are attacked at the outset with Warsaw Pact nuclear weapons-and we are never sure, but we might be I would expect our short-range battlefield weapons would be used very quickly to reduce the odds against us. But if we were not attacked at the outset by nuclear weapons and only attacked conventionally, then I would anticipate not using the shortrange nuclear weapons on our own soil first. And only when we were losing the cohesiveness of our conventional defense, would I request using some kind of nuclear weapons that could reach non-Soviet Warsaw Pact soil and/or Soviet soil. Under those conditions and under my guidance, we would strike only military targets important to us and to the other side in those numbers necessary to let them know that we are prepared, before losing the cohesiveness of our defense, to use any means available to defend ourselves.

That is the guidance under which I function at the present time. Under those conditions, I would not anticipate the early use of the short-range battlefield weapons upon our own soil.

So it depends, obviously, on the kind of scenario we are talking about, Mr. Chairman.

FRENCH AND BRITISH STRATEGIC NUCLEAR SYSTEMS

Senator WARNER. What contribution to your theater nuclear target coverage do the French strategic nuclear systems make and the British?

General ROGERS. The British strategic forces are assigned to me as SACEUR, committed to me. So we have full use of them.

In the joint strategic targeting office at SAC headquarters, we have British representatives on my team which is there coordinating the nuclear forces of both the United Kingdom and the United States.

With respect to the French, although our coordination and cooperation is extremely close and is as close now as with the previous administration, there are certain aspects about their forces which are inviolable.

One is the French forces do not intend to reintegrate into the military structure of NATO.

Second, the French intend to retain an independent nuclear force, and, third, they intend to retain the independent use of that independent nuclear force.

To go further I need to go into closed session.

REACHING AN INF ACCORD

Senator WARNER. Of course, that raises the question of how we reach an INF accord with the presence of those two systems.

Do you want to touch on that?

General ROGERS. With the exception of a very few number of missiles, the British and French nuclear systems are in fact strategic weapons. If they are going to be taken account of, they should be taken account of in the strategic talks, not in the INF talks.

In addition to that, the British and the French have said that these are bilateral talks between the United States and U.S.S.R. and there

fore their weapons system will not be taken into account under any conditions.

Senator WARNER. Do you believe the effective verification of the interim proposal would be substantially more difficult than the verification of the zero option?

General ROGERS. Yes, in the sense that an interim proposal would probably include some GLCM's. And it is very difficult to determine the kind of warhead a ground-launched cruise missile may have, whether it is conventional or nuclear. But we face that problem somewhat today.

Two aircraft may be flying over and you don't know whether one, both, or neither has nuclear weapons aboard. You have an artillery batallion in East Germany that has deployed its nuclear weapons. You don't know if the next round it may fire will be conventional or nuclear. Mr. Chairman, irrespective of the conclusions that are reached at the arms reduction negotiations, verification is going to be, as you know, the toughest one with which to deal.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

Senator WARNER. General, each year we have to bring up a very difficult subject of chemical weapons. As you know, I personally have been a strong proponent of the need to modernize our chemical deterrent capability.

Would you give your opinion with respect to the impact of the action of last year's Congress which deferred the chemical modernization program? What has been that impact on your ability to adequately train and plan for defensive measures against the use of chemical weapons in your forces?

General ROGERS. On the defensive side, Mr. Chairman, this country continues to make progress in providing the warning systems, the overgarments, the boots, gloves, and so on, that are needed for defensive. purposes.

Where this Government has not taken the action which I had hoped for a number of years it would take, is to permit the production of two types of modern chemical weapons for use in retaliation. We have chemical weapons in our inventory, the last ones built in 1969. The wall of obsolescence we have discussed before gets closer and closer despite our maintenance of those weapons, obsolescence caused by deterioration of the chemical warhead and by the deterioration of the projectile that gets the warhead to the target.

If I were writing my own ticket from where I sit as SACEUR, it would be to develop and produce two binary rounds, one for shortrange artillery, and the other the Bigeye bomb filled with a persistent chemical to attack and prevent the use by them of sites such as airfields, communications centers, logistics facilities, nuclear storage sites, a whole series of such targets. But our weapons would only be used in retaliation for their use against us, never first use of chemical weapons by our side.

They know that our retaliatory capability is extremely limited and they also know that if you wear one of the protective garments for any length of time your efficiency is reduced by about 70 percent.