LOTTMAN: In the last ten years, the Pentagon has shifted a lot of its focus toward being able to fight and win against the group of "rogue states." Based on the information available to you, what is the nature and what is the extent of the threat posed by the "rogue states"? In what ways are these countries capable of threatening our interests? In what ways are they not capable of doing so?

BINGAMAN: Well I think that they are still capable of threatening our interests in significant ways. There's no question that Iraq demonstrated in the Middle East that in that part of the world it was able to threaten our interests in the sense of invading Kuwait and clearly interfering with an ally and potentially interfering with an oil supply that not only the US but a lot of the industrial world had come to depend upon. The same thing with North Korea. I think if you look at the potential they have for causing destruction in South Korea, or in Japan, I think clearly there's a threat there that continues.

LOTTMAN: Is the threat taking the same form as it did, say a decade ago?

BINGAMAN: I don't think the threat is taking the same form, because a lot of the potential threats that we face are not even necessarily from rogue nations. They may be from terrorist groups, they may be from individual… individuals or entities that may not have a formal connection to any government. So, I mean, threats to our critical infrastructure, threats to our information infrastructure, threats of that sort I think are new, and we're just becoming aware of those, and are trying to determine how to deal with them.

LOTTMAN: How about coming from the rogue states themselves? Is the threat picture which they put forth, has that changed or evolved over the past ten years?

BINGAMAN: I think it has. And again I think that we don't know the extent at all times, but I think that they have probably shifted more to a reliance on non-traditional military ways of causing us problems. I think it's clear that we have the most capable military today in the world, and accordingly, it's foolhardy for someone to take us on tank-to-tank, and militarily. So I think that they accordingly have been forced to look at other ways of mounting challenges to us.

LOTTMAN: Again, thinking about the same group of countries, over the next decade or so, how do you see the face of the threat changing or evolving.

BINGAMAN: I don't think we know exactly how it will evolve, but I think we are aware of our increased dependence on a lot of infrastructure, our increased dependence upon information technology, our increased dependence upon so-called 'smart weapons' of various kinds, and highly sophisticated telecommunications equipment. And I would think that there would be a real threat that that could be disrupted. That's the sort of thing that we need to prepare against.

LOTTMAN: That's really interesting. So the threat has as much to do with our position in the world as it does with potential adversaries to the United States.

BINGAMAN: I think so very much. When you look at the bombing that's occurred in Serbia, we have primarily focused on sort of their traditional infrastructure: roads bridges, these types of… factories of various kinds. In order to do damage to a highly advanced nation like our own, I don't think you'd have to take on that kind of an effort. You don't need to blow up bridges, you don't need to interrupt transportation and such. You could go after some of the less tangible ways in which we… less tangible infrastructure that we depend upon.

LOTTMAN: How are the military and intelligence communities adapting to potential real-world threats? What are they not doing that they could or should be?

BINGAMAN: Of course here in the Congress we've set up this subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. That's been a very conscious effort by the chairman and the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee to focus our attention on this, and to try to work with the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy and other organizations in government to address these. I think the Department of Defense has done some things. They do spend a significant amount each year. I think their non-proliferation initiatives, with the Russians, are one clear example. Again, those were started in the Congress, I mean with the Nunn-Lugar funding, but we now spend something close to $800 million a year on non-proliferation activities focused on Russia. All of that I think is indirectly intended to address these kinds of emerging threats that we're talking about.

LOTTMAN: Are there other things you'd like to see, more concrete changes…?

BINGAMAN: We need to put money, and this year I think Congress will commit more funds to assisting various federal agencies in getting a handle on this critical infrastructure question. The National Academy of Sciences is now doing a study of how to better protect the critical infrastructure that we depend upon. The Department of Defense, we're adding some funds to their budget to be sure that they have adequate resources to do their share in getting their hands around this problem, their arms around it. I think there's more and more, each month, each year, there's more and more appreciation for the importance of these threats.

LOTTMAN: Are there other programs in the Defense Department or activities that you think they could scale back on in order to devote more attention, more resources to the kinds of threats that we're talking about, or do you see it as a problem in which it's really additional resources that are called for?

BINGAMAN: Well, we have that debate every year, of course, with the Defense bill, and the Department of Defense argument is that there's a substantial amount of Defense Infrastructure in the way of bases and other facilities that they could shut down and over a period of time save money. And I think undoubtedly there are some of those. The reason that the Congress has not gone along with that I think is that people are concerned that they'll pick the wrong ones to shut down, or they'll pick ones that are politically very sensitive for particular individuals in the Congress. But money can be saved there without a question.

I think money can probably be save4d in some of the procurement accounts. I think we may be pursuing more weapons systems than we can justify-not more weapons, but more weapons systems, each one of which requires substantial funds. There's also always a question as to whether we have, whether we need all of the, both military and civilian personnel that we have in the Department of Defense. We have over 800,000 civilian personnel employed by the Department of Defense. I think there are some who believe that we can pare that back some without impeding or interfering with our defense.

LOTTMAN: In a real general way, we talked about this, but which emerging threats which you can identify are generally of the most concern to you, if you're able to sort of prioritize them like that?

BINGAMAN: Most people would say that this so-called threat of some type of attack, use of a weapon of mass destruction has to be sort of high on the list of emerging threats. I mean we, that covers a range of different things, nuclear weapons potentially being used in an unauthorized way, not a deliberate attack by a country that has nuclear weapons, but some type of unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon, by a terrorist for example. The same with chemical weapons, the danger of that, biological weapons, the danger of that. I think all of those are genuine threats that we're still trying to figure out how to deal with.

The threat to our information infrastructure I would put very high on the list also. I think that we are more and more dependent on that infrastructure, the Department of Defense is, the entire economy is. If a person were to try to find a way to disrupt our functioning, that would be the place to look.

LOTTMAN: The United States has assumed an almost unquestioned leadership role in promoting stability, the balance of power, in just about all of the world's key strategic regions. It takes a number of forms, from troop presence or aircraft carriers or border patrols, even supporting certain things which might be looked upon as law enforcement tasks or priorities. In your opinion, are we in danger, or are we today, trying to do too much as far as regional stability is concerned?

BINGAMAN: That's always a danger, and I think we need to constantly reassess whether some of the responsibilities we have stepped up to could be better handled through some type of multinational activity, whether it's NATO, whether it's United Nations, whatever. I think that in a lot of cases because we have been preeminent militarily, I thin we have shouldered more than our share of the burden. And we need to constantly reassess and find ways to reduce that level of commitment where we can.

LOTTMAN: Can our regional allies, the countries which are I guess more directly threatened by the rogue states we talked about before, or regional security organizations, which are proliferating these days, are they, today, capable of taking on more of this burden, in your opinion?

BINGAMAN: Well, in some ways yes, in some ways no. I think NATO is able to take on a lot, as long as we are willing to participate. The level of participation and the extent of the commitment we need to make is less today than it was ten years ago in order for NATO to pursue activities. I would say in the Far East it's not as clear there that there are others that are willing to step up and take on those responsibilities. I think we need to work toward that day, when we can be one of several countries there that that are working toward a security situation in that part of the world. Today, we're sort of the first-we're out front and taking the lead in a greater way than I think is good for us to do long-term.

LOTTMAN: OK. Do the Russian or the Chinese militaries, in your opinion, represent a significant threat to the United States. As far as those two countries are concerned, what is the trend? Do you see those countries becoming more or less threatening, and what should we do to try to address that?

BINGAMAN: Well, of course, the Russian military is a threat as long as they have nuclear weapons, a fairly large arsenal of nuclear weapons, and we need to continue to work with them to build down the level of nuclear weaponry on their side, on our side, on all sides. I think that that's very important for us. I don't think that they represent a threat in the sense that they have an intent to commence military action against the United States, but as long as those weapons are there, I think that's a clear and present danger that we need to recognize, and try to work to defuse.

Now I think in the case of China, China is, has much less capability militarily. They have some nuclear weapons, but much less than the Russians. And I think that the real danger is that China could perhaps be seen by some of the other countries of the Far East as engaged in some type of military buildup, which would cause a counter-action, and then you'd have some type of arms race occurring in the Far East. You'd have a competition going in the Far East for military dominance which would be destabilizing. I think that's the danger they represent. It's not a direct danger to the United States, but it certainly is contrary to our interests to allow that kind of arms race to develop. I don't think it exists now, but I think we need to be sure that it does not develop.

LOTTMAN: Let's say that it's really your say-so. You have the opportunity to direct the US military-taking a broad view of the military-as far as what it's gonna do, how it's gonna shape itself over the next ten years. What would some of your priorities be, keeping in mind the sort of threat picture that we've been talking about?

BINGAMAN: I think my priorities would be to try to move it towards more ability to deal with the so-called revolution in military affairs, which a lot of analysts have commented upon and written about, where we are dependent on technology to a much greater extent. I think that will allow us to reduce the number of total people in the Department of Defense, with perhaps as much reduction on the civilian side, or even more reduction on the civilian side as we have in uniformed personnel, but I think we can make reductions in both areas. We could. I think we can probably find a more cost-effective way to spend some of our procurement dollars. I think by trying to purchase too many different weapons systems, I think we perhaps dissipate our resources.

(end of interview)