Military Spending Cuts Could Cost U.S. ‘Superpower Status,’ SAC Chief Warns : Defense: Gen. Chain complains that under current budget proposals he could not maintain ‘more than a token bomber force.’

Less than a week after President Bush came here and lauded the nation’s nuclear warriors for their part in promoting change in the Soviet Bloc, the general who hosted Bush warned that the Administration’s military spending plans are “insufficient” to the challenges the United States could face in the years ahead.

In an interview this week, Gen. John T. Chain Jr., commander of the Strategic Air Command, said the Pentagon’s proposed five-year defense plan, which projects reductions of 2% annually between 1991 and 1995, will leave American combat capability “significantly eroded” and could cost the United States its status as a superpower.

Under the budget proposal, the United States would be unable to maintain “more than a token bomber force” for use in nuclear and conventional wars around the world, Chain said.

Chain, who oversees the Air Force’s arsenal of long-range nuclear bombers and missiles, has been one of the Pentagon’s point men in the struggle to win congressional approval for 132 B-2 bomber aircraft. He also is certain to be a key player in the Bush Administration’s controversial push to deploy two new missile systems, the MX missile in rail-side garrisons and the small mobile ICBM known as Midgetman.

Saying he has “no idea” what the world would be like in five years, Chain complained that “everybody’s basing their predictions on this brand new world that may or may not take place. And I don’t want to see us lose superpower status.”

Chain’s comments came as Congress began a heated debate on the Pentagon’s $295.1-billion 1991 budget request, which proposes deep cuts in troops and conventional weapons but seeks billions in funding for new strategic weapons. Many lawmakers, the most vocal of whom are Democrats, are calling for greater defense savings in light of sweeping changes throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. They hope the defense cuts will yield a “peace dividend,” which could fund social programs.

In the wide-ranging interview, however, Chain appeared critical of the Administration’s decision to bow to congressional pressure--and sweeping political changes in the Soviet Bloc--and lower its defense spending plans by $167 billion over the next five years.

“What should change is that the people of the United States need to be told the truth about what these budget cuts are going to do to the combat capability of the U.S.,” Chain said. “It’s going to end up being rather severe.”

The four-star general reserved some of his fire for those in Congress who have urged military cutbacks beyond those proposed by the Administration.

“There are people that want to sell . . . the American military combat capability out and I think that’s very dangerous,” Chain said. “Perhaps it’s rhetoric, because they certainly couldn’t have their head screwed on right.”

Chain cited the B-2 Stealth bomber, designed to penetrate heavy Soviet air defenses and threaten mobile missiles and command posts, as his “highest priority” in coming budget battles. He said that if Congress cancels further production of the bomber, he will oppose the Strategic Arms Reduction, or START treaty, slated for completion later this year.

At the direction of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, the Pentagon is reviewing the B-2 program’s cost and strategic rationale and could propose changes in the program as early as April.

Without the B-2 bomber, Chain said, “I will not be able to do the task that I’ve been given to do” after the START Treaty limitations become effective.

Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has threatened that Congress might terminate further production of the B-2 bomber, 13 copies of which have been built.

Other lawmakers have said the Pentagon will have to scale back its proposed purchase of 132 B-2s. But Chain said no changes in the Soviets’ military deployments have occurred that would justify a smaller bomber force than currently planned by the Pentagon.

Chain also said he “strongly opposes” a proposal to ban mobile missiles that carry more than one warhead--an initiative that would scuttle the Pentagon’s plan to deploy 50 MX missiles on rail cars.

The ban, which is the object of heated debate within the Administration, is favored by White House National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and opposed by Cheney.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently said that Congress may cut or even cancel the rail-based missile system if the Administration does not propose to ban such deployments in negotiations with the Soviets.

But Chain said that U.S. and Soviet mobile missiles would add stability to the superpower nuclear balance, since such weapons are harder to find and destroy and would not be used in a first strike.

“I don’t think the Soviets would have one hiccup with us having the rail-garrison Peacekeeper” missile system, which would cost about $6 billion to build, Chain said.

As director of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, which drafts U.S. nuclear war plans, Chain is considered the American military’s principal expert on which and how many Soviet military installations would be slated for destruction in a nuclear war--and thus how large the U.S. nuclear arsenal must be.

Chain said that in spite of the dispersal of power and apparent breakdown of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, the Soviet military continues to have “significant interest in protecting” its leaders in a nuclear war.

The Soviets’ deep underground command posts beneath Moscow and its surrounding areas have been cited as prime targets by those justifying the B-2.

Chain added that American engineers and intelligence analysts have “come a long way in helping us understand” how to find and target the Soviets’ force of mobile missiles, which would be a key target for the B-2 in a nuclear war.

Chain conceded that finding mobile missiles once seemed an “insurmountable” problem, a fact which caused many critics to argue that the B-2 program’s $70-billion price tag could not be justified.

“But in past years, I’ve been pleased with the progress we’ve made,” said Chain. “We’re going to find some of them.”

Chain’s comments came a day after he hosted an unprecedented visit to SAC headquarters by 10 members of the Supreme Soviet’s Committee on Defense and States Security, during which the general told his Soviet visitors that the pace of their strategic nuclear modernization has not slackened in spite of other military and economic changes.