May 11, 1999

... AND MORE DEFENSE SECRETS LOST

 

   "Our Navy must have at its core the world's best

submarine force,'' said Sen. Joseph Lieberman

last December. ''The weapons that will dominate

battlespaces of the future are those that are lethal,

stealthy, mobile and flexible ... [and] the

submarine fits this description best.''

 

   Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat and one of

the Senate's most respected national-defense

experts, couldn't have put it better.

 

   At present, the Navy's ballistic-missile submarine

force makes up fully 54 percent of America's

nuclear deterrent (while employing just 1.5

percent of the country's uniformed naval

personnel). Once submerged and on patrol,

Trident-class submarines are undetectable by

potential enemies - and thus invulnerable to

counter-attack.

 

   Now comes word that the Clinton administration

has allowed critical information concerning

top-secret submarine-detection radars to go over

the transom. It apparently landed in the People's

Republic of China, where it joins purloined data

that likely will permit the Chinese to rapidly advance

their nuclear-weapons acquisition program.

 

   Giving up the weapons secrets was bad enough.

The loss of information that might permit Beijing

more easily to locate deployed nuclear submarines

conceivably changes the global power balance.

Not right away, for sure, and maybe not ever. It's

not all that clear how well the radar technology at

issue works - or even that it works at all.

 

   Basically, it's meant to chart the passage of

submerged submarines by measuring the slight

upward displacement of water that they produce.

But the former Soviet Union thought enough of its

potential to invest enormous sums in research,

particularly in satellite-based systems. And the

U.S. apparently has deployed anti-sub radars

aboard aircraft.

 

   Now, the information is in Chinese hands -

whence it passed on Bill Clinton's watch.

The White House has many questions to answer -

as honorable Democrats like Joe Lieberman

clearly know.

 

   It's time somebody started asking them.