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Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security (1989)

Chapter: 2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements

« Previous: 1. Challenges for International Security in the 1990s
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
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Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
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Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
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Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
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Page 16
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 17
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 18
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 19
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 20
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 21
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 22
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 23
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 24
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 25
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
×
Page 26
Suggested Citation:"2. Introductory Remarks: From INF to New Agreements." National Academy of Sciences. 1989. Challenges for the 1990s for Arms Control and International Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1462.
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Page 27

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2 Introductory Remarks: From I N New Agreements Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky to National security has many aspects, of which military preparedness is only one. In previous seminars we emphasized this diversity by including such topics as offensive versus defensive strategic armaments, the management of international crises, as wed as specific discussion of anns control issues. Since our last seminar two years ago, the world has changed drastically in respect to national security affairs. The INF Treaty has been signed and ratified. What we can the mandate conference determining the charge for the Conventional Forces in Europe talks has been concluded. The Strate- gic Arms Reduction Talks (START) have progressed, but concluding that treaty has eluded the Reagan Administration. Above all, there has been a drastic change in the climate in which future arms control will operate. There has been an increased weariness in pursuing war as a means of resolving conflicts. The Iran-Iraq war has been terminated by an uneasy truce. Soviet troops have left Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are leaving Cambodia, and Cubans are leaving Angola. The Contras are no longer a significant force in Nicaragua. The two Koreas are exploring contacts leading to communication and, maybe, a long time hence, unification. A China-Soviet summit is in view, after a 13

14 CHALLENGES FOR THE 1990s 30-year lapse. Above an, the Soviets have announced unilateral moves, particularly with respect to Europe, which promise to lessen greatly the asymmetry with respect to both conventional and nuclear weapons in that most heavily armed region of the world. AU these factors signal moves away from conflict. But there are other, less favorable trends. Religious fundamentalism is on the increase. Ter- rorism and the drug traffic remain elusive of increased control measures. Security of the world can no longer be described as a bipolar issue as it has been simplistically by some that is, dominated by the United States versus Soviet confrontation. National security no longer rests exclusively, or even primarily, on military might. In fact, during the last years it has become increasingly clear that the vastly excessive military weaponry of the United States and the Soviet Union is to some extent a burden rather than an asset. Economic strength and societal vitality may be more determinative to real security than military power. The military losers of World War IT have become the economic leaders of today. In this respect the growing strength of the Asiatic nations, in particular Japan, makes it clear Mat the age of world dominance by the United States and the Soviet Union is fading. The nations of the world are aD struggling intemally, by a variety of means and to varying degrees, to achieve an acceptable balance among social equity, productivity, and preservation of the earths resources. All this has, happily, tended to submerge the strictly military aspects of security. Yet military forces, in particular the nuclear deterrent, can be given at least some of the credit for having prevented all-out conflict for four decades. The maintenance of a stable, peaceful relationship among several nations intertwines military and political factors. It is against this context that we would like to examine today, in this seminar, what should follow the INF Treaty in aiding the true national security of the United States, by reducing the dangers and burdens of arms and enhancing stability among the nations of the world. The new Administration, similar to many previous ones, wild have to make many decisions in the national security area which are a balance of risks. Neither increased arms nor increased arms control will ever be without perceived benefits or without costs and risks. We are hearing many voices today urging the Bush Administration to go slowly on arms control, because, indeed, wrong moves can be made in the name of reducing arms. But wrong moves can also be made, and frequently have

15 FROM INF TO NEW AGREEMENTS TABLE 1 The Number of Launchers and Bombers in the U.S. and Soviet Strategic Forces Present Inventories U.S. USSR TSTART Proposed Total delivery vehicles 2,002 2,503 Heavy bombers 362 175 BM total ICBM SLBM Total Brow weight of BMs 1,600 1,640 2,328 At. 1,000 1,386 (308 heavy) (154 heavy) 640 942 <50% of Soviet level "at reference fume" been made, in increasing arms. I would reject firmly the assumption underlying much of the go-sIow counsel that risks in arms control are unacceptable, while risks in increased armaments are to be expected and condoned. It is in this spirit that I would like to address the different moves which I envisage for the years to come. First, there is START. The basic outline of that treaty is in place. Contrary to its public image, START will neither cut the total number of nuclear strategic delivery vehicles in half nor win it reduce the number of nuclear weapons of intercontinental range by that amount. The START draft treaty, as it stood by the end of last year, fans significantly short of that goal. I will present two tables that will give an overview of the current inven- to~y. Table ~ indicates the number of launchers—ICBMs and SLBMs and bombers of the United States and the Soviet Union. The proposed START agreement is that the total number of delivery vehicles shall be reduced to 1,600, not by a factor of two. In addition to that, the total throw weight of ballistic missiles that means the total amount of weight which can be thrown from one nation to the other is to be reduced by a factor

16 CHAlLENGES FOR THE 1990s TABLE 2 The Number of Warheads in the U.S. and Soviet Strategic Forces Present ~ventories- U.S. USSR SALT START SALT START Counting Counting Counting Counting Type Rules Rules Rules Rules START Proposed Total warheads 14,637 99789al 11,694 lO,S95a/ 5 oooc 1 0,585b 1 0,4556 Heavy bombers 5,608 1~784a/ 1,620 805a/ l,loob 2,580b 665b BM total 9,029 8,005 10,074 9,790 4,900 ICBM 2,373 2,373 6,412 6,4i2 3,000 3,300a SLBM 6,656 5,632 3,662 3,378 3,3005 SLCM 400 Nuclearb 600 Nonnuclearb NOTE: Numbers of warheads are agreed upon values unless otherwise noted. aU.S. counting rules or U.S. position. bSoviet counting rules or Soviet position. CUnder START counting rules actual warhead counts would be 20 to 30 percent larger. Of two at reference time. There is still disagreement on what that refer- ence time is to be. There is a separate agreement that the 308 very heavy ballistic missiles, the SS-~8s, that the Soviets have are to be reduced by half. Table 2 displays a much more complex situation—namely, the number of warheads. As far as the number of warheads is concemed, it depends on how you count them. There are what we call the SALT counting rules and new counting rules at START. Under the new counting rules at

17 FROM INF TO NEW AGREEMENTS START, the same inventory counts at considerably lower numbers than it did under SALT. I will not go into detail here, only to point out that there are still some residual disagreements about how the load of warheads carried by heavy bombers is supposed to be counted. Note a in Table 2 indicates the U.S. positions and note b indicates the Soviet positions at the end of 1988. You will notice, in general, that the U.S. position tends to give a lower count of warheads. The agreement is to reduce the total number of warheads to 6,000, however, using the START counting rules. Therefore, the actual ratio of reductions being proposed is something like a 40 percent reduction, not a 50 percent reduction. In addition to these differences, there are disagreements about what we call sublimits. There is an agreement for the total number of ballistic missiles. The United States wishes to put a sublimit on the ICBMs, but none on the SLBMs, and since the Soviets have more ICBMs than SLBMs, naturally that is not something which the Soviets would accept. The Soviets are taking the "both or neither" position- namely, either to have a sublimit on SLBMs (on which we have more warheads than the Soviets) or none at all. So that is still a disagreed item, even though the bottom line of the number of ballistic missiles is agreed to. To summarize, we have agreed on two warhead totals, with some disagreement on counting rules and on sublimits. In addition to that, however, there are three major disagreements be- tween the United States and the Soviet Union: the matters of mobile strategic ballistic missiles, sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs), and the linkage of START to constraints on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Let me briefly comment on each of these. The current U.S. position is to prohibit mobile ballistic missiles unless verification problems can be resolved. That is the official phraseology. The Soviet position is to permit limited numbers of such missiles. Note that currently the Soviet Union has deployed the mobile SS-25 and SS-24, while the United States has not fielded any mobile ICBMs. A mobile version of the small Midgetman missile is being designed, but its approval for final development remains in doubt. The Air Force is proposing a mobile version of the MX; again, its final approval is at present in the political process. In brief, the arguments against mobile missiles are: (1) their numbers cannot be verified with the same degree of precision as those of fixed

18 CHAllENGES FOR THE 1990s land-based missiles and (2) the deployment of mobile ICBMs gives the Soviet Union a strategic advantage, since that country has a larger land area in which such missiles can operate. In contrast, public opinion would restrict the operation of mobile ICBMs in the United States to federally owned land. An argument for mobile missiles is that they are more survivable against preemptive attack than are fixed land-based missiles, and they are therefore more suitable to serve as a deterrent, i.e., as second-strike weapons. Stability is enhanced if the survivability of the strategic forces of both nations is improved. So long as the Soviet Union continues to deploy a much smaller fraction of its strategic forces in submarines and strategic bombers, overall strategic stability would be enhanced if land- based mobile missiles were permitted. The issue could easily be resolved at START by permitting the Soviets and the United States to retain limited numbers of mobile missiles. Since the number is small, the verification issue is minimal. The United States can then unilaterally decide whether deployment of such systems is worth the cost. The second open issue is the matter of sea-launched cruise missiles. Here, in the 1987 Washington summit, Gorbachev and Reagan jointly declared that these missiles should be brought under a separate limit, but subsequent negotiations failed to reach agreement on just what is to be controlled and how such control is to be verified. The Soviet position is that there shall be 400 nuclear SLCMs and 600 nonnuclear SLCMs. The U.S. position is that, for the time being, there shall be no numerical limit at all, but that there simply shall be a unilateral declaration of intent, stating the level of SLCM deployment that is sup- posed to go forward, but without any specific means of verification. This matter has been studied extensively. Time does not permit me to discuss the technical nature of this complex issue. Sea-launched cruise missiles can be deployed with either conventional or lighter nuclear warheads and guidance packages of diverse weight. Their range is largely dependent on how their payload is divided among fuel, guidance, and weapons. Thus, controls on nuclear strategic SLCMs are inexorably linked with controls on conventionally armed shorter-range systems. Once the control regime has been decided upon, there are substantial verifica- tion issues to ensure compliance. I would maintain that verification, although difficult and intrusive, can .

19 FROM INF TO NEW AGREEMENTS be achieved to meet reasonable standards for any of the regimes for limiting either nuclear or conventionally armed SLCMs. Verification is, in fact, not the real issue. In actuality internal disagree- ments within the United States, and possibly also within the Soviet Union, as to the desired reach of control are impeding agreement. The dominant issue is the value that each navy places on retaining conventionally armed long-range SLCMs. The United States has a greater dependence on naval forces to maintain its supply lines to Europe and other national security objectives. This mission is greatly assisted by short-range conventional SLCMs, but long-range SLCMs are less relevant. Again, these matters should be resolvable. Once such agreement is reached, the verification issues are, I believe, tractable, considering the willingness demonstrated in INF to accept in- tn~sive inspection, about which we will hear more later in this program. The U.S. position, the 1987 summit declaration notwithstanding, in es- sence removes consideration of any SLCM limits from the current START framework. This deferral may be convenient but in my view is very undesirable. While the number of nuclear-armed SLCMs that would evolve during the next years is relatively small compared with the total number of strategic weapons now deployed, the lack of any nuclear SLCM limit would further compromise the definite ceiling on strategic delivery systems imposed by START. While the long flight times of SLCMs make them relatively unsuitable as first-strike weapons (and therefore the limited deployment would not be very destabilizing to the strategic balance in itself), they can contribute to the counterforce poten- tial in connection with other systems. Moreover, I consider He evolution of nuclear SLCMs to be highly undesirable, in the long run, both to the interests of arms control and to the security interests of the United States. The Soviet Union has a much smaller concentration of important military and industrial facilities near its coast. Therefore, the U.S. installations, in particular command and control centers, are much more vulnerable to SLCM attack than those of the Soviet Union. Therefore, if the SLCM dilemma is not resolved, in the long run, the United States wild be the loser. If the SLCM dilemma is not going to destroy the START agreement entirely, it must either be resolved at START or deferred. I would very much prefer the former, but I do not minimize the difficulties involved. That leaves us with the linkage of START to SDI. The Soviet position

20 CHAlLENGES FOR THE 1990s is that the United States should obligate itself to abide by the 1972 ABM Treaty, "as signed," for a period of 10 years and as a precondition to Soviet willingness to go forward with the START treaty. After those 10 years, the ABM Treaty should remain in force for an unlimited duration. The United States has been unwilling, under the Reagan Administration, to accept the "as signed" formulation, since it would generally be inter- preted to contradict the legal position promoted by the Reagan Admini- stration in support of the so-calRed broad Interpretation of the ABM Treaty, which permits unfettered development and testing of space weap- ons. In my view the Soviet position is reasonable and acceptable, and recent events have reinforced that conclusion. Over the next 10 years, consider- ing both technical practicalities and the realities of the budget, a sensibly managed U.S. research and development program on ballistic missile de- fense can well be carried out within the traditional interpretation of the ABM Treaty. Moreover, He Congress has been unwilling, and is ex- pected to remain unwilling, to authorize test programs that would contra- dict the narrow interpretation. Most important, the U.S. position, in its raw foam, establishes a basic violation of the ABM Treaty, which is the only treaty now in force in the field of strategic arms, as a precondition for agreeing to the START treaty. This I consider to be patently unreasonable. Purely arguing as a technician, one can maintain that linkage between constraints on ballistic missile defense and Me strictures of START is not required. One can argue and, for instance, Academician Sakharov has done so on earlier occasions—that the promise of SDI activities beyond the strictures of the ABM Treaty is so limited and the reductions proposed for START so moderate that for the next decade any feasible ABM deployment would make little difference strategically. While I tend to agree with this conclusion, I would maintain that the sanctity of a treaty like the ABM Treaty, which has been agreed to by its signatories to be valid for an unlimited period, should be an overriding issue, unless there is a truly supreme national security interest. Even within the traditional interpretation, Mere are many gray areas of conduct that could give rise to friction and mistrust in the future, unless the already established consultative mechanisms which provide a forum to clarify areas where one side questions the conduct of the other are used

21 FROM INF TO NEW AGREEMENTS more effectively. Groups of technically competent delegates from the two sides should arrive at guidelines for accepted and forbidden conduct under the ABM Treaty. In the spirit of glasnost, space activities coming close to the boundaries defined by the ABM Treaty should be disclosed to a consultative body, in which the legality of proposed missions can be discussed. While such a body cannot veto activities in the gray area of conduct, discussions of the purported space missions can go a long way to preventing future disputes. While START will be an extraordinarily important agreement, no one can justly claim that START win substantially, let alone drastically, change the relationship between the superpowers in itself. The enactment of START will in no way require a revision of the strategic doctrine now established by either government, although the target lists will have to be moderately shortened. But one should legitimately ask: How deep can reductions in strategic armaments of the superpowers be before the basic relationship between the superpowers and the doctrinal base of acquiring and deploying strate- gic nuclear weapons must be altered? This is an important question. A partial answer is provided by a recent study carried out at the incentive of our committee. This study makes it clear that under reduc- tions by a factor of two these relationships will hardly change at all, and that, in fact, this conclusion is rather insensitive to the detailed mixture of forces remaining after the reductions are accomplished. Even reductions by a factor of four need not change the relationships, although some care in how to achieve such reductions should be exercised for this conclusion to remain valid. Thus, the more moderate reductions contemplated for START win have little impact, other than in the purely political and symbolic sense. Financial savings may or may not accrue, depending on separate unilat- eral decisions on modernization of the strategic forces. But this remark does in no way make START less important. START will materially expedite the many adjustments that are evolving between the superpowers, and it can save money and reduce the demand for resources, in particular those for nuclear materials. The unequivocal conclusion of these studies is that there is no technical need for linkage between pushing for speedy completion of START and other negotiations that are aimed at alleviating some of the problems

22 CHAllENGES FOR THE 1990s which beset the relationship between the superpowers, particularly those relating to Westem Europe. In other words, one cannot argue that one should go slow at START until other negotiations have run their course. In view of the above, the remaining obstacles to START should be resolvable in the first, or at most the second, year of the Bush Administra- tion. While it is understandable that the new national security team of the Bush Administration wishes to review these issues on its own, there are those who are promoting a deliberate go-siow attitude. The reasons expressed for caution generally fan under some combination of four arguments: (~) the credibility of the nuclear deterrent for the defense of Europe should not be further undermined, beyond what the INF Treaty has already done; (2) the current categorization of different reductions proposed at START does not maximize stability and does not eliminate the perceived vulnerability of the land-based ICBM force in the United States; (3) SDI flexibility should not be limited in any way, notwithstand- ing the ABM Treaty or the limited technical or budgetary expectations for SDI; or (4) verification measures for START are either inadequate, too expensive, or both. Let me separately address these four possible objec- tions to going forward speedily now with START. Currently, the United States' protection of Western Europe rests on the doctrine of what is known as extended deterrence. This doctrine is based on the presumption that the Warsaw Pact nations are superior in conven- tional arms over NATO and that the extent of that superiority is sufficient to permit a sudden attack by the Warsaw Pact against NATO by concen- trating forces on selected points on the European frontier. It is argued that the credibility of having the nuclear forces controlled by the United States come to the aid of Europe in case of a threatened defeat of NATO forces would be undermined by START. Critics claim that the impact of the INF Treaty and the rhetoric on the total elimination of nuclear weapons at Reykjavik have already diminished European faith in the United States' nuclear commitment. The basic question of redressing the conventional balance will be the task of the forthcoming Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) talks and has already been addressed in part by Gorbachev's unilateral move to withdraw 50,000 Soviet troops from the territory of the Warsaw Pact allies and to reduce military forces by 500,000 worldwide. Moreover, Shevardnadze has promised that the Soviet Union will remove additional nuclear weapons from Europe.

23 FROM INF TO NEW AGREEMENTS However, even the most optimistic arms controlUers would agree that, due to its fundamental complexity, an acceptable settlement of the Euro- pean military balance from its current risk of sudden attack to a purely defensive posture wild take several years to achieve. Paul Doty will address this matter later in this seminar. Thus, making a settlement of the European balance a precondition to START would doom this next step in strategic nuclear force reduction for a long time. There is no technical or military necessity for holding rapid action on nuclear strategic force reductions hostage to a settlement of the conven- tional balance in Europe. The types of calculations such as the ones referred to above make it clear that the proposed START reductions should not affect a presidential decision on whether or not to come to the aid of Europe in case of threatened conventional defeat. However, the problem remains that the credibility as to whether a president would or would not make such a fateful decision is not based on technical or military factors alone, and therefore this argument will not subside under technical analysis. An irrational fear that any decrease in nuclear weapons within the homelands of the United States and the Soviet Union or on European soil would signal a decreased commitment to extended deterrence applied to Europe should not be permitted to detract from the urgency of lowering the total worldwide nuclear deployments from the insanely high levels we have today. In fact, almost all European leaders have urged the early enactment of a START treaty. There can be, and always will be, debate about the optimal mixture of systems to be reduced by each side under an agreement such as START. Negotiable formulas will always be asymmetrical, because the point of departure from which the reductions are to be achieved and He geographi- cal conditions are not symmetrical. The START proposal on the table in Geneva has many laudable fea- tures—for instance, the special provision that reduces the large heavy missiles of the Soviet Union by half. However, as critics are prone to point out, neither START nor the now-lapsed SALT Treaty remedies the vulnerability of U.S. land-based ICBMs to presumed preemptive Soviet attack, nor were START or SALT ever designed to do that. However, as many analyses, including that of the Scowcroft Commis- sion on Strategic Forces, have conclusively pointed out, this vulnerability of He land-based forces cannot be exploited by the Soviet Union, since neither the U.S. nor the Soviet deterrent rests on the capability of the land-

24 CHALI~NGES FOR TlIE 1990s based forces alone. In fact, only roughly a quarter of U.S. strategic warheads are carried by its land-based ICBMs. These analyses have pointed out that the timing sequence that is involved in any preemptive attack against the strategic forces would make it impossible to attack the U.S. land-based forces without the attack against either element of strate- gic forces giving advance warning. In other words, the different legs of the strategic retaliatory forces are mutually reinforcing, so that an isolated attack against one of them is not a possibility. The so-called window of vulnerability is therefore a fiction. A certain prescription for sabotaging the prospects of any strategic arms reduction agreement in the near future is to demand that it remedy the vulnerability of the land-based ICBM forces. This cannot be done by mutual agreement alone, but only in conjunction with redesigning the basing of such forces in such a way that a successful attack on these forces would exhaust a substantial fraction of the forces available to the attacker. The next argument against proceeding now with START is promoted by SDI enthusiasts, who, notwithstanding the pessimistic prognostication for the ballistic missile defense systems deployable in the near future, insist that the United States should shed its obligations under the ABM Treaty. Such voices are, however, decreasing in numbers, when faced by the realities of technology and cost. Then there is the problem of verification. The INF Treaty has broken new ground in reaching agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, initiating highly intrusive verification measures by which compliance with the INF Treaty can be policed. We will hear details of the initial success of implementing the INF agreement in this respect from General Lajoie. Clearly, the START agreement will build on this impor- tant precedent. While disagreements remain, most analysts would agree that verifica- tion provisions now on the table in Geneva are "adequate" in that they would reveal violations that have significant military importance. If vio- lations were discovered, lead time would be available sufficient to re- spond effectively to such violations. However, it is generally agreed that a START treaty wild be more complex to verify than the zero-zero solution of the INF Treaty. It is clearly less difficult to verify elimination of a whole class of weapons, as the INF Treaty does, than to count and measure the numbers and perform-

25 FROM INF TO NEW AGREEM~S ance of permitted strategic delivery systems under constraints negotiated under START. Much has been made of the verification issue in the past, and such debates win continue. Actually, the record of compliance of nations with past arms control agreements has been excellent. Interestingly enough, the record is persuasive that even those treaties such as SALT I, SALT Il. the Threshold Test Ban Treaty Qimiting the size of nuclear test explo- sions), and the ABM Treaty have all, in fact, been obeyed throughout by all parties, with only minor exceptions which have no significant military importance. This is particularly noteworthy since among those treaties just cited only the ABM Treaty is actually in force, while the other treaties have been signed but not ratified. SALT I has lapsed in time, and SALT II has been officially abrogated by the U.S. Administration. Thus, signed treaties have in fact been a very powerful force in limiting the conduct of nations, and each party has elected in its own enlightened self-interest to comply in all essential respects. Such treaties have limited the more extreme "worst case projections" that intelUigence analysts can introduce. Thus, I would conclude, although the matter of verification and pro- moting compliance is a highly important matter, that those who object to the enactment of proposed treaties on grounds of inadequate verification measures are, in fact, generally objecting to the provisions of the treaty itself, using alleged inadequacy of verification as a cover. To summarize, with mutual goodwill between the Bush Administration and the Soviets, a clear path exists to negotiating the remaining obstacles to START, and I see no validity to any of the go-sIow arguments counsel- ing against speedy conclusion of that treaty. It is clear that START is not the end of the road as far as desirable strategic arms reductions are concerned. Further reductions by at least another factor of two could be pursued bilaterally win the Soviet Union. Further reductions beyond that would require involvement with the other nuclear nations, in particular China, France, and Great Britain. Thus, concurrent with completing START and completing one further step in the reduction of strategic arms, arms control should focus on other agenda, most of which can only be negotiated in a multilateral, rather than a bilateral, forum. Enactment of START can and should proceed rapidly. However, the above discussion makes it clear that truly major reductions of strategic

26 CHALLENGES FOR THE 1990s nuclear weapons could not be accomplished unless and until the United States would find it possible to modify its current doctrine of extended deterrence. Under that doctrine, U.S. strategic nuclear weapons are to deter not only aggression with nuclear weapons but also the initiation of conventional attack, in particular in Westem Europe. If extended deter- rence is interpreted under current doctrine, this requires that a surviving retaliatory force should be able to destroy the war-making potential of the aggressor. Although there is increasing doubt concerning the credibility of the United States' nuclear umbrella, it is clear that a conservative interpreta- tion of U.S. national security interests would not permit shifting from the current extended deterrence doctrine until threats to European security from Soviet attack by conventional forces are no longer considered fea- sible. Although I agree that, particularly with the recent shift in Soviet attitudes, the possibility of such aggression is indeed extremely remote, it remains a technical possibility unless the perceived inferiority of NATO in conventional awns is redressed. Thus, the ongoing and forthcoming negotiations aimed at enhancing stability in Europe are of overnding importance. The multinational negotiations designed to limit the spread of chemical weapons will hopefully soon be brought to successful conclusion. The threat of chemical warfare has recently become a great public concern as a result of the use of such weapons by Iraq. These talks in the Donation Conference on Disarmament go beyond the Geneva Convention prohibi- tion against use of chemical weapons in their aim to prohibit manufacture and stockpiling as weld. These talks have made enormous progress. In fact, the Soviets and the United States have provisionally accepted inspec- tion provisions that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. The principal threat here is not the use of chemical weapons in a U.S.- Soviet conflict but the increasing worldwide proliferation of such weap- ons. Professor Meselson will discuss this matter in detail later. Similarly, a new focus has been placed on clarifying He situation in regard to biological weapons. Here the existing Biological Weapons Convention prohibits the manufacture of such weapons but permits defen- sive measures and unlimited research. There are no commonly accepted verification provisions, and the quantities of biological agents that can be

27 FROM INF TO NEW AGREEMENTS justified for conducting research or to exercise defensive measures are not restricted. While the technology of chemical weapons has not advanced substan- tially since World War II, biotechnology of possible relevance to biologi- cal warfare is a very dynamic field, and therefore there is an urgent need to tighten restrictions in that area. A subcommittee of our group has been active in this matter. The issue of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons win again be in critics focus due to the impending review conference in 1990 and the definitive review conference in 1995. The threat of the threshold coun- tries joining the nuclear club is very real. Moreover, nuclear weapons raw materials have themselves become threats to the environment, indicating that the real cost of such materials is much higher than has been pre- sumed. These issues must be faced now. Mr. Keeny will discuss this later. The afternoon session of this seminar will be devoted to those forth- coming arms control moves, other than those dedicated to the central problem of controlling strategic arms, which I have outlined. In rum, should those additional arms control moves prove fruitful, then modifying current strategic doctrine to reduce the role of strategic nuclear weapons solely to deter a nuclear attack, not nuclear and conventional attacks, should become feasible. In turn, this reduced role requires a much smaller number of nuclear weapons. Thus, while total elimination of nuclear weapons does not appear to be a feasible goal in Me present international order, we can look forward in the future to a world win hundreds rather than tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

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Featuring essays by prominent experts in international security, this volume surveys the status and prospects for progress in every major area of arms control under active negotiation: strategic and conventional force reductions, a chemical weapons ban, and the vitality of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty regime. Also included is a fascinating account of the implementation of the INF Treaty through on-site inspections to verify missile destruction by the director of the U.S. On-Site Inspection Agency, Brigadier General Roland Lajoie. Roald Sagdeev, a prominent Soviet scientist and expert on security matters, offers his views of the Soviet Union's restructuring of its approach to national and international security. Also featured are essays by Wolfgang Panofsky, R. James Woolsey, Paul Doty, Matthew Meselson, Spurgeon Keeny, and Marvin Goldberger.

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