Focus 580; National Security Challenges for the 21ST Century

Good morning and welcome to focus 580. My name is Ron Yates and I'm pinch hitting this morning for David Ensor who is taking some vacation time. Normally I'm over in the department journalism here at University of Illinois but today I'm just hosting So also today we're going to be talking about a topic that concerns all of us that's national security and in particular national security in the 21st century. Since the end of the Cold War it's been suggested that U.S. defense policy has been formulated on an ad hoc basis without a clear underpinning this piecemeal way of doing things has caused problems and frustrations both at home and abroad. Our Congress military allies adversaries potential adversaries seem to be confused about the lack of consistency. Perhaps this lack of consistency is an editable given the changes in the international political and economic system since the end of the Cold War. After all there is no more evil empire as a Soviet Union was known during the Reagan administration and indeed for most of the 18 years that I spent as a foreign correspondent with The Chicago Tribune and Asia and Latin America between 1074 in 1900 to US foreign and security

policy was one of containment specifically containing the Soviet Union and communism. Today the world is no longer just a push of a button away from mutually assured destruction. The way it was when the Soviet Union and the United States had thousands of ICBMs pointed at one another. Or is it. That is just one of the topics I'd like to explore with our guest today. He is Mr. Michael Lexan deputy assistant secretary for multilateral unconventional arms control in the bureau of arms control. Mr. election is on the campus of University of Illinois for a foreign policy town meeting that will examine national security challenges for the 21st century. The town meeting which begins at 2:00 p.m. today unfolding or auditorium on the south end of the UIUC quad is jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the office of continuing education at the University of Illinois. Mr. election is the keynote speaker and along with several other experts on the issue of national security he will be available for question and answer session. But for those who have tuned into focus 580 today you don't have to wait until the town meeting this afternoon to ask

questions about this critical topic you can do it during the next 55 minutes. Welcome to focus 580 Michael. It's a pleasure to be here. You know let me get to the questions. The questions rolling here by asking a couple of them right now. Those of you by the way you're invited to join in the conversation by calling 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 in Champaign-Urbana or toll free 1 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. From anywhere you can hear us on the radio or anywhere across North America that you might be listening in on the Internet. Those numbers again are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 locally and toll free 1 800 2 2 2 1 4 5 5. Let me begin by going back to my little intro here and ask you kind of a long question which talks about the demise of the Soviet Union in 1900 and the fact that many Americans assumed that when the Soviet Union disappeared the group received it last.

I mean indeed today America faces no readily apparent major conventional military threats or likely strategic nuclear threats at least not that I know of at the same time. There are some smaller yet dangerous challenges from states concerning key areas of the world and a host of emerging security threats such as weapons of mass destruction by terrorists or outlaw states ethnic violence refugee problems and failed or failing states and the possibility of new forms of warfare such as information technology warfare or the use of biological weapons. It's been suggested in the second congressionally mandated quadrennial defense review that that the American government and the U.S. national security community are not yet organized to respond to this new this new world. Is this an accurate praise all of the way things are since the end of the Cold War. Well I would say it's the first part is accurate. The challenges are not what we were used to during the Cold War. They

were appeared to be simpler then and in some regards they were though many of the problems that you talk about existed then or were beginning to develop then and we were starting to address them. But the primary concern that you mentioned A and E A logical in geo political confrontation with a hostile rival superpower armed with nuclear weapons as you said with ICBMs that can deliver them within half an hour or less. I mean that that is no longer with us and therefore the other problems which were always serious and now have greater prominence and to some extent I think it's it's safe to say that some of the problems may have been somewhat submerged by some of the discipline that at least the other side in the cold war imposed on them. I'm thinking in particular of something like the rampant nationalism which we've seen in the former Yugoslavia which I don't I don't think coincidentally emerged with the bill the last day the welcome was for the most part of the sort of discipline that communism imposed on those states unfortunate enough to be governed by it.

As to whether the U.S. government is organized well enough to deal with these challenges I don't think it will surprise you that it's someone representing the US government I'm going to say I think we are. We are well organized I'm sure there are always ways to become more efficiently organized and there's there's constant efforts to do that. If there are specific suggestions I'm happy to entertain them. Well you know recently Senator Fred Thompson is a Republican senator from Tennessee said that. But states like Iran and North Korea may be able to strike U.S. territory in less than five years if not already. I mean we saw something along those lines when North Korea launched a three stage rocket over Japan about two years ago and it confirmed that I believe. How concerned should we be about this kind of activity. Well I think we should be extremely concerned as the dates. I don't want to take issue with Senator Thompson but the dates from the intelligence community and of course all of these are estimates. I don't think the North Koreans could tell you for sure the Iranians

how their missile development program is going to proceed. I think we think that five years is more or less a reasonable date to expect the North Koreans Iran I think is a little longer. But again these are estimates on everyone's part. We do need to be very concerned part of part of this needs to be addressed with diplomacy as I think we've had some success with North Korea with Iran. We are working to try to have a what we call a fact based dialogue with them on issues of across the board including needs and then of course we also addressed this in terms of the nonproliferation approach where countries that might be providing equipment or technology to countries of concern such as Iran and North Korea. We deal with the provider countries in a way to discourage their proliferating these kinds of technologies. There's also this concern also underlies the debate here in the United States about national missile defense which. Is something

whose controversial nature I think is well known the president has made a decision that the technology development should continue but he's not at this time. He does not at this time believe that he's in a position to make a decision to deploy a particular system. We'll have to see the next president will have to make whatever decision is appropriate based on the facts that are brought to him. He's effectively deferred this right to the next to his to his successor essentially. Yes in effect he has said among the criteria he was going to use to decide how to proceed. Was the technology. There are other criteria as well of the nature of the threat. The cost and then the overall impact on foreign policy including relations with our allies relations with the Russians and the Chinese the arms control regimes. But just on the basis of the technology alone he did not feel he could make this decision so the technology development is supposed to proceed allowing a successor to make his own decision at whatever time the successor feels is appropriate.

Now this is a system which I think originated during the Reagan administration if I'm not mistaken to start recall the so-called Star Wars system right and that was a lot of a lot of comment about a lot of criticism of it and also a lot of supporters. What's your opinion of this the national missile defense system and will it work. Well. I'm putting you on the on the spot here as well as since I'm from Washington I spend my time getting out of spots so I'll see what I can do. It isn't exactly the same as what President Reagan had in mind. He was talking about a system which would defend the United States and its allies against any sort of ballistic missile attack and obviously that requires substantially more technology than what the national missile defense system this administration was exploring is supposed to address because what NMT as probably lapsed into calling it national missile defense was intended to deal precisely with the kind of problem you outlined a few minutes ago about North Korea or Iran or perhaps Iraq. What we now call countries of concern

being able to threaten the United States with a few ballistic missiles the kind of missile defense that President Reagan talked about was intended to protect the United States at that time and by extension other countries basically to make ballistic missiles obsolete. It's a very different kind of challenge and has different implications as you might imagine. As to the technology question I really I'm not the person to answer the president made his determination based on the advice he got from his senior advisers that. The technology was not in the state where he could responsibly make a decision to deploy this system at this time. Well you know what I found interesting about this and even though this is a different system from what was created in the Reagan administration or at least it was opposed by the Reagan administration. The response of the rest of world to the system is interesting. I think earlier this month something like three hundred thirty six environment groups peace groups church groups

political organizations parliamentarians and local governments from the dozens of nations including the US have actually called on the US government in an open letter not to proceed with its emptier it's a national missile defense system. Russia and China have said of Star Wars are in India's proceeds they will ditch all arms control agreements to bait. The European Union in the Nonaligned Movement. The New Agenda coalition all these groups of. They represent together the majority of the world's governments have also stated opposition. How should the US respond to this and why are they opposed to it I wonder. Well I think I'm I'm not aware that the European Union for instance has formally indicated opposition to what we've done so far different governments have asked us specific questions I don't think it's possible to say that. China for instance and the U.K. each of which have questions are of the same that their questions are of the same nature. The Chinese are probably the most hostile hostile to this but they're hostile to a lot of things we do not

always for. I would say for well-founded reasons. I think part of it is that this is something new and there is a widespread concern among many countries including some of our allies that anything new needs to be thought through before you proceed with it. We have gone out of our way to consult closely with our allies both bilaterally in their capitals and at NATO as well as dealing with our allies in other parts of the world to explain what we're talking about what the nature of the threat is why it's important and how we're trying to proceed. I think. A concern that many have is the ABM treaty which the United States and then the Soviet Union signed in 1972 which is a cornerstone of the arms control regime that the various arms control treaties which have been put together into an overall regime. And it is not possible for this

particular system we're talking about to be deployed in a fashion consistent with the current terms of the treaty. But we have explained is that we are trying to get the Russians to agree to some amendments to the treaty as has happened before. And on that basis the treaty as amended and in our view is strengthened by that amendment could print could continue so that the arms control regimes could continue and stability would not be affected or brother would be would be enhanced by the kind of deployment we're talking about being done in that way. The Russians have so far been less responsive than we would like though they have also indicated some openness now and then it's just when you actually get down to dealing with them that they haven't been as responsive as we would hope. None of this at one point I think I need to make this comment. At no time have the Russians indicated that their opposition to U.S. national missile defense is so so deep and deeply ingrained in their own feeling that they would do away with their

own missile defense which they have had deployed around Moscow for three decades now. That particular price is not when they seem to want to pay. There's a lot of apocrypha in this in this topic. You're listening to focus 580 on 580 on Ron Yates filling in for David Ensor today. If you'd like to join the conversation you may do so by calling 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 locally in Champaign Urbana or toll free 1 800 2 2 2 1 4 5 5. That's 3 3 3 W I L L locally or 1 800 1:58 W I L L. If you're calling long distance. The director of the CIA says that the People's Republic of China is perhaps the most significant supplier of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology in the world or to the world I guess the rest of the world as a result. You have countries around the world from Asia to Africa to the Middle East they're rapidly building up their nuclear and missile capabilities now and are being supplied in part by China. Yet recently we know Congress approved and President

Clinton will sign legislation granting China permanent normal trade relations. Some people are wondering why we should have done this this PNTR this permanent normal trade relations. Or perhaps we should have applied a few strings to this. We're going to pull a fair ration of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology. What do you think about that. Well it was our judgment that the best way to deal with the kind of problems you're talking about was by engagement. That's probably I should have said that some time back because you were talking about the loss of containment as a one word sort of statement of what our policy is now is an engagement in particular with respect to China. We have been talking to them about our proliferation concerns for some time and had some success though I have to frankly say less than we would have preferred. I think it's been particularly unfortunate that in response to the accidental

bombing of their embassy in Belgrade by NATO last year the Chinese broke off a number of their the means by which we and others were engaged with them. And the one that took the longest to get restarted was nonproliferation dialogue. In fact it just either last week or the week before had formally resumed. So we are pressing them on that as far as trying to use permanent normal trade relations or something as a stick with which to threaten them. I think we have to put the balance of where overall best interests are and what permanent normal trade relations does it is in fact do away with they sort of stick that wasn't that was broken which was a formal review of their human rights practices every year before this kind of status was granted to them on an annual basis. It was clear from previous years that this wasn't working. We were Grant we were

going through the motions but not actually there was never any real threat that they would not get this kind of status. So I think it probably undercut our credibility rather than than enhanced it in telling the Chinese that we were serious about things now that we have permanent normal trade relations I guess approved and on the verge of being signed that situation where our basic economic engagement with China which is let me say it's in our economic interest and we believe it's also in the best interests of developing China into a democratic and free market society which should in and of itself enhance our security. Now that this is underway I think we have a better foundation on which to have success in our nonproliferation dialogue. We have a caller. Now some of the caller on the line one you're calling him from champagne. You know focus by video you have a question for our guest. Yeah. Well you know this and this is the making of a nuclear weapon. Is relatively speaking

a simple matter even even Pakistan has managed it. On the other hand the construction of long range ballistic missiles remains a rocket science and it involves long costly highly visible and somewhat unreliable lead ups to any possible use. And if a new nuclear weapon was launched against us by a missile of course we have systems in place that would immediately identify where it was coming from which would lead to the conversion of the sending country into a radioactive desert. An hour later. Now my question to you is. Given that. Spending 20 billion dollars a year for several decades. Has not put the least dent in the smuggling of drugs into this country.

If you were in Iraq say and you wanted to deliver a bomb to New York or Washington why wouldn't you just smuggle it in an A in a commercial cargo container. Where and when it went off it wouldn't be known where it came from it seems. To me that the whole idea of national missile defense is an immense distraction which if we ever deployed it the only effect would be to lead us into a false sense of security when the real problem would be remain untouched. Interesting. Well let me say a few things in response to that. The concern part of the concern is that not all I mean I had we no longer use the term rogue states I think we may have taken some some flak for changing it. You know countries of concern but what we're talking about is I believe what you called outlaw nations few minutes ago.

We're talking about countries which do not abide by what most other countries consider the standard way in which business is done internationally some of them have behaved in very irresponsible fashion. The stability of. All of them I think is a real serious question they don't have a democratic system of government which allows for a normal change of power and there you almost always countries run by strong men who go out of their way to make sure that opposition has to be extremely covert so you can imagine situations in which the stability of a country can begin to degrade. And if that is the kind of situation in which some sort of crisis is happening then the control they might have over such systems or they're perhaps feeling that the way to handle a domestic crisis is to threaten a neighbor. Those are the kinds of scenarios we have to be concerned about. There are two elements to this one is if somehow they do launch a missile are we really better off. Having having that missile reach the United States with a warhead

of some kind of weapon of mass destruction and causing therefore mass destruction or are we better off being able to prevent that. And do we really want the response to have to be what you said or if if can we deter them by knowing that by their knowing that they can't use this at all. The other part is the concern that they don't feel they can deter us. That that is what you have in a crisis too if they think. I would say they would be wrong but if a country of that sort would think that it could deter us from taking action that needs to be taken because they believe they can threaten us with with this kind of missile attack so that's that's the sort of thing that we need to be concerned about that doesn't mean that other delivery vehicles or means of delivery of some kind of weapon can't be can't be employed but they have different significance and different impact both on stability and America's overall security in the world. I would also say I don't think it's quite that easy to construct a nuclear weapon.

I mean at this point not that many countries have them far fewer I think than would have been anticipated 30 or 40 years ago when people were talking about a world with a lot more nuclear powers and this one currently has it's the caller raises an interesting question that you know we know that the number of states seeking strike capability is outlawed by the international community is growing in the development of this modern weaponry is not limited to these establishments I mean look at the use of sarin gas by this apocalyptic cult Shinrikyo in Tokyo in the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma or Oklahoma City in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. You know I think what the caller is asking and what I was an intern question how should we prepare ourselves to deal with groups like these who may try to smuggle some kind of a destructive device into the country and create some kind of mayhem or terrible terrible catastrophe in say a shopping mall someplace. Yes and specifically. It seems to me it hasn't. I mean I feel that so

far the guest has not responded to my question on the matter about the nuclear weapon Being simple is only in Russia in a relative sense relative to the difficulty of making a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile making a nuclear bomb is relatively easy. And I mean that's just demonstrated by the number of states that have nuclear bombs and a few number of states that have good long range in a common busting missile. And my point is. In a before we even think about putting up a system whose only function would be to shoot down intercontinental missiles should we consider the question of whether that's the likely route that one of these states that we're talking about could possibly conceive of using it. It would be very difficult for them. I mean none of them currently have long range intercontinental ballistic missiles. Their development process is going to take a long time it's going to be expensive it's going to be expensive. It's going to be calm.

Paket it and when the time comes if it should ever come when they want to use a missile it's going to be unreliable. Just because the whole business is so difficult and so my question is why do we spend why we are thinking of spending many billions of dollars to build a system that might lead us might lead some people to think that we're now safe against attack by such nations when in fact it would be very simple in a relative sense for such nations to put weapons that could put weapons in this country hidden and threaten us later and say if you don't do what we want we'll blow up Washington. And I mean as I say the drugs I'm coming in by the ton and we've done everything we could to stop and have not been in the least successful. And it seems to me that that's what we should be worrying about and not preparing about missiles which are very unlikely. The response that Michael. Well I have I fear this is going to be a situation where your caller and I probably talk past each other because I may not have done it clearly but I was trying to respond

to his his question. It is not the case that if one concern is legitimate that the other concern therefore is not legitimate We need to be concerned about both. I think. These countries are trying to develop intercontinental range ballistic missiles. I assume they're doing it for some reason it's not to threaten their neighbors they don't need intercontinental missiles to threaten their neighbors. They the assumption would be that they're doing it to try to. To do something with respect to someone at intercontinental range which is likely to be us. And the primary thing which we believe they would be trying to do is to deter us from taking action that would prevent them from doing something along the lines of what Saddam Hussein tried to do with Kuwait some time back. So we need to at least consider that kind of threat as well as the threat I outlined of states becoming. Disintegrating or losing losing some control over these kinds of systems which as I say

they are trying to develop after they have them. But it seems to me that since since the process of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile is very very visible to systems that we already have in place. If a nation that at the time we were concerned about were actually approaching having what we consider to be a viable system would it be simpler cheaper and a lot more reliable to take direct action at that time rather than to build a system which of our own for defense which in fact may not work. I think if I understood you you're suggesting that when a country develops a ballistic missile capability that could threaten us that we should take military action directly against that country for having that system I think that. That isn't the best way to go the better way to go would be to be able to render that system useless by the kind of national missile defense which we're talking about. So I don't discount much of what you're saying but I think that you are selling a little short the need

to at least explore the technologies which could be used as a basis to decide to develop such a system if. If that's what the next president feels he should do. We have another caller calling in from from Freeport. Hello you're on the Focus 580. You have a question for Mr. Lexan. I understand it is not official U.S. government. That's correct. See an official. Oh yes yes yes. I wish you could read some history once. I wish you could understand that. Since the end of a Spanish American War 1898 the turn of the century US corporations expanded overseas to try and make a big profit. The market wasn't that good at home and the purpose of US foreign policy in all these years. Over a hundred well over a hundred years has been to protect these US corporations protect their big profit making capabilities now this is involved us in two world

wars and numerous small wars. I wish sure these officials could come to their senses once and see that it's impoverishing our country and it's created a dribbling amount of human casualties as well at home on them or veterans. I don't think that we we need any more military buildup. And as the previous caller stated this these smaller states will try and do what we call rogue states. Some of them may try and smuggle him in a suitcase some sort of weapon that very inexpensively it could create a lot of mass destruction. If you want to take that one. Well I appreciate the caller's comments on the. I mean I just don't agree that U.S. foreign policy has been run by or exclusively for American corporate interests throughout the last hundred or

so years. I don't think that's the reason we got into World War 1 or World War 2 or some of the other things that we've we've done. I think we've tried to protect America's national security and that of our allies and sometimes we've acted out of humanitarian impulses when there were situations which didn't directly threaten our security but which we felt were intolerable. I think I also would say it is I don't see how America is in economic ruin or whatever term you used. As a result of our foreign policy I think we're the most prosperous country in the world we have been for 50 years and we're certainly looking pretty strong right now. Our foreign policy and I do need to be careful how I say this is not intended to be anti American business in fact American embassies are supposed to help American business overseas we think that's good for good for business and good for America overall. It's not a zero sum situation where American business success

is means everyone else does worse in fact the global. Economy is considerably larger and I think the world is considerably better off because of much of what we've been doing. You know thank you caller. While China is being blamed for selling nuclear missile technology. Recently Oscar Sanchez who is the former president of Costa Rica and is a Nobel Peace Laureate was speaking on behalf of the British American Security Information Council and he said recently that the U.S. and Western Europe account for around 80 percent of the global trade in conventional weapons. I don't know if this is an accurate statement or not but he said that this is really in and consistent contradiction to the rhetorical peace and security that we here in Washington and other European capitals in essence essencia says the United States and Europe are are being hypocritical about arms control and security issues. I just wonder how you might respond to a statement like that.

I. I think we have a pretty well-established system in the United States government to try to monitor what kind of weapons are being sold and to take into account concerns both of regional stability. Does selling certain kinds of weapons to certain countries make it more likely or less likely that a regional security balance might be upset as well as the human rights practices of the governments concerned. And we also take into account their their economic situation. I would not want to claim that everybody in every arms manufacturer in the group of countries that President Arias talked about has as thorough a system as we do I think the Europeans are trying to do somewhat better. And I think there's there's a real problem here I mean we're not talking if I understand correctly

we're not talking about weapons of mass destruction we're talking about standard weapons which are conventional conventional weapons which nonetheless can obviously kill people. And a balance needs to be struck. Countries do feel they have a need for National to be able to defend themselves. There are potential sources of conflict throughout the world and almost I was going to say every continent but I think Australia will have trouble finding somebody to fight on their continent as an article also. But on the others. And there's always the question if we don't sell them will somebody else sell them and I think there are some. I mean there's some potential there for not doing everything we we might wish we were able to do to try to see that the money by these countries was being spent more and more wisely but I I think I can distinguish that between the approach which we've criticized in China which doesn't seem to take into account the destabilizing impact of what much of what they're doing. Let's take another call. Caller from Urbana your own focus 582 have a question

for Mr. Alexis. Thanks. Got a comment first and then the question of the commonest kind of reflects my my concerns are more to do with the kind of things that the last caller was talking about Mitt namely the risk due to our own overt covert actions. Last month in L.A. in a town meeting Gore Vidal said the following quote. All right we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states. We ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties we spurn international courts we strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders. The United Nations but the. But do not say or do we bomb and aid and subvert other states complaining of terrorism. Our empire is now the greatest terrorist of all. Unquote. With that specific My question is I was just curious within the private and of

State. Anybody given the task to review our foreign policy actions to perhaps spot mistakes we might have made and anybody in the department state inclined to think that pursuing our interests across the world is inherently wrong headed and and it and that in Tegan eyes is both good and bad members of the international community. Interesting question. I think Madonna is a very accomplished literary figure and I think he accomplished what I would call a rather extreme exaggeration. I think I would if we had more time I think I would be inclined to pursue even though you said you didn't want to the specifics of each of those allegations I think none of what Mr. Ball

was quoted as saying is standard U.S. practice and I think specific instances that might be brought up to try to justify each of those each of those assertions would be worth discussing and I think the discussion might suggest that the situation is somewhat different from from what he said with respect to how the Department of State looks at things I mean I don't think pursuing U.S. interests on a global basis is wrong I think it's right. I think our interests are are positive for the most part. And we need to pursue them in a fashion that makes that makes for a positive outcome rather than a zero sum outcome but I think we do that. The Department of State does consider. Almost I think almost all of the questions that are at least underlying what you say I think all of those are part of any consideration of whether to make a certain decision when confronted with a policy choice and are evaluated.

We also do try to look after the fact at how things worked or didn't work. And sometimes it takes a while longer and often those results are of more interest internally than they may be externally but it is something that we do. Thank you for the call we've got several callers waiting on line or we'll try to get to them. This is. Caller from southeastern Illinois your own focus 582 have a question for Mr. Lexan. Yes I don't know for Hampshire there is more for callers every time there's a guest discussing the anti-ballistic missile system. Number of people call in and talk about a bomb in a suitcase and I was just wondering how that if they could explain how that would work. Now we're not talking about a psychopath here to destroy and kill for the for the pleasure of it but political terrorists to have a goal. It seems to me that that in practical terms when you come down to that bomb in their suitcase if you're

very limited rights you're going to do enough with the bomb in their suitcase and that you know as opposed to say we were going over to Al. Israel against an attack and somebody can drive we've got bombs in the suitcases if you don't turn back we're going to blow those up OK you turn back. You've had a massive search and you're going to find a needle and I if that could put enough people to work doing it and you find anything I mean anything that would can be found if there are not people searching for it you find those bombs in the suitcase you get rid of them and you turn back around and go back and back over I mean it's not like a ballistic missile system where they've got it in their country and it's it's not something that you can do and locate and and destroy and and one more point and then I rang up the day

and hope he would make some comments on what to do. Bomb in the suitcase really would be practical. But anyway the analogy which is not valid because there are too many people who in this country who profit from drugs who would not profit from some account from a nuclear bomb and being around and I think there would be a united front among the upper road in the underworld and something like the country about to be blown up. Thank you thank you. I think the caller has done a much better job than than I would have sort of analyzing this bomb in a suitcase situation I think that I would agree with the basic outline of his argument. Just perhaps repeating something I had said earlier. The concern remains that we not be deterred from doing whatever is necessary to do to protect America's interests. And it's hard to

see how a country proclaiming that it is about to explode a bomb. I mean the United States that nobody knows about is going to have the same effect as having a ballistic missile system that everyone does know about. If I were that country the last thing I would think would make sense would be actually to blow that bomb up having announced that came from from them. That would be in fact inviting rather unfortunate consequences for themselves. Let's take another call me a caller from Chicago you're on with focus 580 But Mr. Lexan do you have a question. Well first statements and then I'd just like to reply if possible. We presently have satellites aloft. You're capable of detecting any activities the size of 10 feet or less anywhere on earth. Why cannot that system be used to detect any missile

activity anywhere abroad and stop it automatically buys you no warning and a threat to bomb. Thank you very much. Just as in the Cuban crisis where we had less sophisticated activity of missile activity in Cuba was detected at a time. OK I don't think I'm probably not competent to but I certainly don't think I should discuss the exact capabilities of U.S. satellites. What's publicly known. Well it's been printed in the press especially. Look there's no way of escaping that. But it's true. OK I think what is not the case is that whatever capabilities we have are directed against all parts of the globe at all times we have limited resources which we try to

devote to the parts of the globe where we think there is something of greatest interest or concern. Cuba was obviously a place where whatever systems we had that 1062 were going to be focused because of the concern we had about our national security threat emerging from that part of the world. But the basic point is I don't think if I understood the caller's suggestion it is once we detect missile activity that we then threaten to to attack the country where we are detected. And I don't think that's that's a good way to go. We don't want any time we think a country is developing something that might be a threat to us to have to immediately say we're going to attack the country unless it ceases doing what we think we've detected that would go off in the direction that government always quoted. As deploring some time earlier I think as I said before it was quite exaggerated

coming from Mr Woodall but I think we need an approach to the kinds of threats to U.S. national security which doesn't rely on immediately threatening an attack on another country. Well if you can you can present the evidence in front of the United Nations that would that would provide sufficient backup for our arguments and you know I think your statement is basically in the Floyd and some of the facts when you're talking about missile activity are you talking about missile testing or are you talking about somebody actually launching a strike. Yes we're talking about people putting building placements you can detect anything the size of 10 feet or less. Over the world these days the satellites are circling in the yard 24 hours a day and they can they can they can detect pop people can sit can detect this activity you know a missile. You have to put in references to the carrier to

use the missile lista material that Scott started going to shoot off these missiles and so on. Let me ask you a question. You know there's a quid pro quo here that works two ways I mean other countries can detect missiles in ARC and United States and are we not allowed to have these missiles also or are we talking about only us telling other countries they can have them I mean this is within our seventh sovereign territory they can do what they want as a present time. We've already faced the danger of China and Russia. They already have. Well I don't know if China does but certainly Russia has these emplacements and essentially we we've decided not to attack each other. But you have to. On the nations that we've been talking about during this program and just in the process of seemingly building these missile systems and so not in any position to counteract any anything that we were to do to preempt any possible strikes that they had

in mind. Right but that's. Thank you so much for your call We're getting close to the end of the program here but let me just say one thing. You know there are questions here if one of the reasons a lot of the nations are concerned about the missile the national missile defense system is that they feel will be protected and nobody else will be. And they feel vulnerable. And this issue of vulnerability is is one of the areas that you have to consider when you're talking about some kind of national security policy I mean everybody wants to feel safe and at this point I think the Americans have it's in a sort of feel fairly safe. But also there is there's a problem with what some of the callers were talking about the conventional threat which is not something that's easily detectable. As you can tell by the number of calls I have been coming in and we still have several people on line we can even get to today this is a very interesting topic and it's one of concern to all of us. And if you want to hear more about

this. With Michael Lexan who is the deputy assistant secretary for multilateral incumbant conventional arms control and the Bureau of arms control. You can go to the foreign policy meeting that will examine national security challenges in the 21st century. And that meeting is today at 2:00 p.m. and following your auditorium on the south end of the UIUC quad and it's jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the office of continuing education at the University of Illinois. Mr. election is the keynote speaker there. I want to thank you Michael for coming in and talking with us this morning and thank all of you for listening. I think this is a it's an interesting topic and I suspect you'll get some interesting questions today if the following are true. So I'm person. Once again thanks very much. And if you come back this way hope to have you back. Well thank you very much it's been very interesting I wish there'd been time to deal with some more questioners but I know the Olympics are coming up next and I'm sure the questions there will be even more interesting.

There are a lot of them. I'm Ron Yates head of the department journalism here at the University of Illinois. And after a commodity market update and in PR and NPR news Jay Paris will be talking about sports in American society with Ray Essex who is president and CEO of the Center for Sports leadership and chairman of the United States Olympic Committee actually chairman of the United States Olympic Committee. Athletic Performance Group I should say. I hope you'll stay tuned. And thank you very much.