Banning Ballistic Missiles

Alton Frye

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 1996

Article preview: first 500 of 4,628 words total.

Summary:  Heady years for arms control make a superpower complacent. The structure of restraint accepted by Washington and Moscow could crack; meanwhile, proliferation continues apace and nuclear materials trickle onto the world market. The Clinton team has followed through on the work of past negotiators, but it is high time for a third start. The United States should propose the dramatic steps of placing nuclear warheads in "strategic escrow" and banning ballistic missiles. Advanced monitoring and inspection technologies make the plan practicable, and there will be security payoffs for all.

Alton Frye is Senior Vice President and National Director of the Council on Foreign Relations.

FROM BUILD-DOWN TO STAND-DOWN

Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote of reaching a moment when he discovered that success was the hallmark of failure. That insight may yet prove to be true for the remarkable achievements in arms control in recent years.

After decades of diplomatic wrangling, breakthroughs have come on many fronts, both bilateral and multilateral. Not only have Soviets and now Russians joined Americans in agreements to make massive reductions in strategic arms, but the overwhelming majority of nations have signed on to indefinite extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Leaders in Ukraine, Kazakstan, and Belarus have greatly contributed to the nonproliferation regime by returning thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia for safe keeping and elimination, a process to be completed this fall with the departure of the last few warheads from Belarus.

The Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty has ratified and reinforced the transformation of the military balance on the continent, although the altered political landscape after the collapse of the Soviet empire will require nettlesome changes in its provisions. The long-sought Chemical Weapons Convention should enter into force shortly, and, despite India's recalcitrance, a comprehensive nuclear test ban enjoys nearly universal support.

Woven through these and other arrangements are unprecedented procedures for strict and effective verification. Particularly in the first and second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and START II), the United States and Russia are perfecting inspection techniques of far-reaching significance. Similar methods are being applied in the most difficult case of a hostile, uncooperative country, Iraq, where they have yielded crucial lessons for enforcement as well as disturbing revelations of Baghdad's habitual deceit. This progress in on-site and remote surveillance is indispensable to sustaining arms control over the long haul.

Yet these heady days in arms control have bred dangerous complacency. Many citizens and their leaders take for granted that arms control deals now require little care and feeding. Some strategists argue, not so sotto voce, that a weakened Russia has no alternative but to continue reducing its forces and that the United States can therefore follow its own strategic preferences with little regard for Moscow's desires. This blend of inattention, indifference, and calculation is a recipe for misplaced confidence in a process that remains highly vulnerable to political disruption.

The structure of restraint that recent arms accords have erected is fragile. Reaping its promised benefits will require meticulous implementation over many years. It will also demand an exceptional degree of political sophistication, particularly on the part of American leaders. There are worrisome signs that both Congress and the executive branch may fail the test.

In their understandable determination to cut the budget deficit, members of Congress chopped $65 million -- 17 percent -- from the 1996 budget for the prudent and far-sighted program Senators Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) crafted to help Russia manage its complex cutback in nuclear forces. Congress has also been reluctant to fund the Korean Energy Development Organization, the body created to carry ...

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