ARMS CONTROL WITH AND WITHOUT AGREEMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R000800130019-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 38
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 11, 2008
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: October 22, 1984
• Content Type: REPORT

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UNITED STATES ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY
WASHINGTON
Od ;~ 3-9'P
OFFICE OF
THE DIRECTOR
15 OCT 1984
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10/22/84
ARMS CONTROL WITH AND WITHOUT AGREEMENTS
Of them all, the most profound emotion arising from strategic
arms control today is disappointment. On this, as on little else
in the vast realm of arms control, conservatives and liberals
concur -- conservatives for its failing to diminish the evermore-
ominous Soviet strategic buildup, liberals for its failing to
diminish the evermore wasteful strategic "arms race."1
Few fields of human endeavor display as great a gap between
what is hoped for and what has been realized as strategic arms
control. Former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown said it best:
"Measured against these glittering possibilities, the achievements
of arms negotiations to date have been modest indeed, as are their
immediate prospects...In all, not much to show for thirty-five
years of negotiations and twenty years of treaties."2
People of all ideological stripes bemoan this state of affairs.
They long for a breath of fresh air in this all-too stagnant endeavor.
"Arms control theory is now at a dead end," Henry Kissinger recently
observed. "The stalemate in negotiations reflects an impasse in
thought."3 We should not have an "impasse in thought." With a
half generation of experience, we should now have enough data to
judge what works and what does not in strategic arms control, and
to glean what new approaches might offer. We should, for instance,
complement traditional arms control with a new or refurbished
approach: arms control without agreements.
Hence, four basic questions: What is the problem? What did
we expect? What should we expect? How do we get there?
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2 _
I
First, the problem. At a glance, it seems clear: we have
ratified no nuclear arms control agreement for more than a decade,
and Moscow has furnished scant evidence that we can do so anytime
soon.
But is this really the problem? Making it so stresses the
existence of an arms agreement rather than its effect, a misplaced
emphasis. For the objective lies not in an agreement for its own
sake; were it so, an agreement could be readily obtained (most
easily by signing up to the Soviet proposal). Any nation can
conclude an agreement with another if it yields to terms sufficiently
favorable to that other state.
Thus it is that arms control agreements are neither good nor
bad in the abstract. Their value depends upon their terms, and even
more, on their effects. If an agreement reduces the risks of war,
strengthens sound international norms, and contributes to world
stability, as has the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, then it is
worthy. But if an agreement inflates expectations without much, if
any, concrete benefits, as did the interwar arms pacts and especially
the Kellogg-Briand Pact, then it is not of much value and can even
have adverse effects.
While the logic here is irrefutable, the passion for "an agree-
ment" is barely resistible. American society is result-oriented.
To be without any agreement is to invite serious criticism -- witness
the cry against Ronald Reagan during the recent campaign as the
first President in twenty years not to have concluded an arms accord.
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To achieve an agreement, even one that leaves the strategic
plans of both sides relatively unaffected, is to earn acclaim.
Such a standard invariably proves counterproductive. As Dean
Acheson said, we can never get a good arms control agreement
unless we are fully prepared to live without one.
II
So the pertinent question becomes: What are the problems
with getting a good agreement? Some are on our side, many on
the Soviet side.
Alexis de Tocqueville was on key 150 years ago when writing
in Democracy in America that our system "can only with great difficulty
regulate the details of an important undertaking, persevere in a
fixed design, and work out its executions in spite of serious obstacles.
It cannot combine its measures with secrecy or await their consequences
with patience.>4 Persevering "in a fixed design" is a major
difference between our democratic, free-enterprise system -- which
rewards risk-taking, thrives on innovation, and equates success
with action -- and the Soviets' totalitarian, centralized system
-- which rewards risk-aversion and thrives on predictable control.
Surely, the Soviets watch the dizzying pace of changes in
U.S. arms control proposals -- the 1983 "build-down" concept
constituting at least the fourth U.S. strategic arms approach in
seven years -- with wonder and with pleasure. While 1983 critics
of the Administration derided what they saw as a lack of U.S.
flexibility in the START and INF negotiations, the Soviets may
have wondered about the half dozen or more significant modifications
in our START and INF proposals which we made in fairly rapid order.
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In any case, the Soviets can take pleasure in the expectation that
if they stand pat, we will meanwhile negotiate with ourselves and
likely change our position as a result.
To lurch from one objective or one fresh new approach to
another -- buffeted by the pressures of impatient groups seeking
a prompt agreement -- is to be playful with arms control. It is
not to be serious about arms control. Indeed, the surest method
to assure that we never conclude a significant agreement with
the Soviets would be for us to propose whatever new notion moves
some American faction -- a nuclear freeze one day, a MIRVed ICBM
test ban a second day, build-down, a cruise missile deployment
moratorium, or whatever. The Soviets will watch such twists and
turns, pocketing benefits to themselves while persevering in
their own objectives.
Thus must we curb some of our instinctive impatience. Arms
control lends itself to speedy results no moreso than do negotiations
on other complicated political or economic matters. The Austrian
State Treaty of 1955 took more than ten years of hard negotiations.
Impatience there could well have doomed Austria to less than the
complete removal of Soviet occupation troops and less than the
establishment of a fully democratic, neutral state in the heart of
Europe. The Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963) came after eight years
of effort, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) took more than three
years, SALT I (1972) two-and-a-half years, and SALT II (1979)
almost seven years.
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As endemic as impatience is our inability to keep a secret,
for long anyway. Leaks about arms control preparations and nego-
tiations sabotage the chances for success. The likely prospect
that any new offering will get leaked spurs any President to announce
it himself. Such sadly has become standard fare. While admittedly
adding a dramatic flare, this is precisely what arms control does not
need. Public fanfare invariably leads to dashed hopes and deepening
suspicions that the endeavor is being transformed from one primarily
of strategic significance to one primarily of public relations.
The problem here is colossal. A glaring deficiency in our
system is the unavoidable urge, nay necessity, to exaggerate in
order to make an impact. Flamboyant rhetoric and stark conclusions
come where subtlety and ambiguity should be. While common in areas
of commerce, poverty programs, foreign aid, and defense (areas in
which I have worked in the Federal government) it is most upsettingly
pronounced in arms control. Ever since President Kennedy called
the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 a key step in "man's effort to
escape from the darkening prospects of more destruction," agreements
have been adorned with rich superlatives. In the arms control
realm, the Hawthorne effect holds in spades, namely that which is
observed changes by the very act of its being observed. Here it
is not so much the fact of being observed that so alters arms
control as it is the overbearing amount of observation it attracts.
Should arms control ever approach the public inattentiveness
which trade negotiations, civil aviation talks, or international
debt negotiations have attained, it would yield richer results.
But this, for sure, is not to be.
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Our flamboyance and openness contrast with Soviet stodginess
and secrecy. Looking at us, the Soviets face a cacophony of voices,
of facts and views, a veritable information-overload. Looking at
the Soviets, we face an unsettling paucity of inside knowledge and
hard data.
Hence verification becomes a problem primarily for the U.S.
The Soviets should know that we comply with agreements. Besides,
they can easily substantiate their own intelligence about suspected
U.S. violations through our press and Congress. We lack any such
helpers inside the Soviet system.
"How much is enough?" must be posed in terms of verification,
as in defense spending. That no significant arms control treaty is
perfectly verifiable has become better known of late. An acceptable
degree of verifiability depends upon the judgment of the President
and the Congress, which in turn must take into account (a) the
precision of treaty language and the technical capabilities for
monitoring treaty compliance with an adversary who may try to cheat
clandestinely; (b) the military risks of undetected violations or ones
that are detected in a late stage; (c) the adversary's record of
past compliance; and (d) the overall benefits that will accrue from
the treaty in security or political terms. This standard is as
demanding as the judges make it to be, though it should be stringent.
Meanwhile, tough choices must be made between high confidence
verifiability and strategic significance. Elements easiest to
verify, such as fixed launchers for ICBMs and SLBMs platforms in
SALT I and II, are not necessarily the most important or useful
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measures of strategic strength. Indeed, their limitation may even
be detrimental to strategic stability: limiting launchers without
limiting warheads encourages MIRVing which increases the value of each
launcher to an attacker, and in essence, raises pressures to strike
first in a crisis. Those elements having the most strategic signif-
icance -- such as warheads, throwweight, and non-deployed missiles,
all included in our START proposal -- are much harder to verify.
Moreover, new systems coming along, such as cruise missiles
and mobile ICBMs, are both more stabilizing and less verifiable.
The very traits that make them less vulnerable, and hence which
discourage pressures for a first strike, are precisely those which
thwart verification.
Even more troublesome is verification's twin, compliance.
Verification involves the means to detect an opponent's adherence,
and compliance involves the adherence itself, whether detected or
not. Both are critical. Arms control is empty without compliance,
and compliance is impossible to know in a closed society as the
USSR without verification. Distrust of Soviet adherence to agree-
ments runs consistently high among Americans, with polls indicating
that some 70 percent of the public believe the Soviets are cheating
on existing agreemments and would cheat on future agreements.5
Similar skepticism runs throughout American history, beginning
astonishingly with one of our earliest negotiators. John Jay,
negotiating a treaty to end the Revolutionary War, reportedly said
"he would not give a farthing for any parchment security whatever.
They had never signified anything since the world began, when any
prince or state, of either side, found it convenient to break
through them."6
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Still, the Soviet Union is worse than most any prince or state.
In January 1984, responding to a Congressional mandate, President Reagan
documented seven cases of Soviet violations and probable violations
of arms control undertakings. The most important are the high degree
of Soviet encryption (scrambling) of its telemetry (radio signals
from missile tests) and the construction of a radar near Krasnoyarsk.
These two symbolize ominous developments: encryption of missile
telemetry, the increasing concealment and deception of all USSR
strategic programs, and the new radar, a possibly significant step
toward a nationwide ABM capability. Both indicate brazen Soviet
disregard for even bold violations of arms control commitments.
For the Soviets certainly knew we would detect such a massive
structure as the new radar, several football fields large, whose
existence could not reasonably be reconciled with the ABM Treaty.
Even more disturbing is that the construction must have been planned
in the 1970s -- the very heyday of detente and of high and rising
expectations for arms control.
What to do about Soviet violations remains most confounding
of all. The usual deliberations in the Standing Consultative
Committee (SCC) and higher level diplomatic protests appear necessary
but not sufficient. Military countermeasures may be appropriate,
but unless begun as a "safeguard," as part of a treaty's ratification,
they may be too little, too late.
Formerly what might be labeled the "massive retaliation theory"
of verification prevailed, namely that the domestic and international
reactions stemming from a Soviet violation would deter or at least end it.
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- 9 -
President Carter went so far during an April 30, 1979 press conference
as to forecast the "very severe" consequences that would arise from
"any" Soviet violation of SALT II. He sternly stated: "...the Soviets
know that if we ever detect any violation of the SALT agreement,
that that would be a basis on which to reject the treaty in its
entirety; there would be a possible termination of the good relation-
ships between our country and the Soviet Union on which detente is
based; and it might very well escalate into a nuclear confrontation."
Perhaps President Carter believed what he said, or perhaps it is
yet another example of the tendency or even the necessity of over-
selling an arms control accord to engender support. But in any
case, the muffled public and world response to President Reagan's
January report belies this "massive retaliation theory" of compliance.
Cancellation of our obligations in treaties that the Soviets
violate is one legal recourse, but one politically painful and at
times even unwise. It does not seem wise for the U.S. to respond
to Soviet, Vietnamese, or Iraqi use of chemical weapons, in stark
violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological Weapons
Convention by our abrogating them. We have no intention of ever
initiating the use of chemical weapons, and our abrogation would
diminish the accords' salience for the violating state and for
scores of other states adhering to them.
Nonetheless, some effective response must be found if Soviet
violations are not corrected. Otherwise arms control is doomed.
For a treaty prohibition adhered to by open societies and violated
by closed societies is no prohibition at all. Rather, it is unintended
unilateral disarmament in the guise of bilateral or multilateral
arms control.
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Another major problem in strategic arms control, one of the
most complicated, stems from the different force structures and
approaches of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. The U.S. strategic force and
doctrine evolved from the Air Force and its strategic bombing
concepts of World War II. We stressed high technology and placed
a premium on strategic bombers and later, ballistic missile submarines.
From the earliest period in the nuclear era, we emphasized a
deterrence doctrine and a retaliatory strategy.
The Soviet strategic force and doctrine arose from its Army,
its artillery actually, and stressed size and sheer firepower.
In evolving their strategic systems, they compensated for their
lack of technological sophistication with a brute-force design,
which now furnishes them with tremendous growth potential as they
have become more technologically sophisticated. Their strong,
almost paranoid urge for greater and greater military power, lack
of air and naval traditions, and keen intent upon the strictest
command and control restrictions -- all these pushed them into a
far greater reliance on air-defense and civil-defense and land-based
missiles. Although the Soviet Union is deploying a dynamic triad
of its own, the two sides' approaches and forces are not the same
in major respects. Thus, even with good faith and Herculean efforts
on both sides, it would be difficult to bridge the wide disparities
-- to balance systems that are comparable and to make tradeoffs
between systems that are not. This difference exacerbates substantial
differences between U.S. and Soviet goals in arms control.
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Last is the problem of frequent leadership changes. This
debilitates arms control by breaking continuity and the making of
the tough decisions essential for a balanced agreement. Usually
these changes arise on the American side. In the initial decade
and a half of strategic arms discussions, five different U.S.
Presidents faced the same General Secretary heading the Soviet
Union (Brezhnev). This proved most disruptive since the past three
Presidential elections have been marked by challengers opposing
the incumbents' arms control approach. And new Administrations
inevitably feel an obligation to reinvent the arms control wheel
yet again.
Of late has been a role-reversal, with President Reagan facing
three different Soviet leaders in his first three years in office
(Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko). The disruption here is not so
much newcomers opposing their predecessors as it is stagnation in
Soviet policy. This is not surprising, since all three Soviet
leaders have been afflicted with serious ailments. Besides, in
their system a new leader needs considerable time to consolidate
his hold (witness Stalin from approximately 1924 to 1934 and
Khrushchev from around 1953 to 1957). The President's meetings
with Foreign Minister Gromyko this fall will, we hope, lead to a
reinvigoration of our dialogue with the Soviets; but we have yet
to see whether or when the Soviet leadership will be both willing
and able to bargain on tough issues. President Chernenko's remarks
of mid-October did not clarify that picture any.
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III
These obstacles we know now, far better than we did at the
dawn of strategic arms control. Still, it is worth posing:
What did we expect? And, has it come about? In a nutshell, we
expected an end, or at least a tempering, of both the strategic
buildup and of Soviet aggression around the world. Neither has
come about as hoped.
Even though both sides have now signed three strategic arms
agreements, both have increased their strategic offensive capabil-
ities, the Soviets far more than we, with the number of U.S. missile
warheads doubling and that of the Soviet Union quadrupling. Since
the strategic arms talks began in 1969, the Soviets introduced four
new classes of land-based missiles, upgrading these seven times,
and launched at least five new or improved classes of ballistic
missile submarines. They are currently flight testing yet another
new type of ICBM, inconsistent with the terms of SALT II. Since
the first strategic arms accord was signed, the Soviets have added
a staggering 7,900 nuclear warheads; just from the time the second
was signed (1979), it has added 3,850. The existence of the massive
Soviet strategic buildup has become a matter of fact, not debate.
Current controversy instead revolves around its durability and its
consequences.
While the Soviet Union marched ahead in its strategic capabil-
ities, the U.S. dawdled. Our defense spending, by the mid-1970's,
had for seven years been in real decline. Symbolically, when Ronald
Reagan assumed office in 1981, the U.S. had an open production line
in only one leg (i.e., sea-based) of the strategic triad, whereas
the Soviet Union had open and active production lines in all three.
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Arms control has not been a major, if any, impediment to the
Soviet buildup. No one can reasonably argue that the strategic
balance is more stable, or more favorable to the U.S., today than
it was when the strategic arms talks began. For it palpably is not.
Those who most fervently championed SALT I and II for the accords'
reputed ability to help stop the strategic arms race are those who
now most fervently decry the staggering growth in strategic weapons
within the terms of those very treaties. We may have created our
own illusions -- and the folly here has been bipartisan -- but the
Soviets never misled us in this regard. Given a choice between
constraining U.S. strategic forces or protecting their own strategic
buildup, they have consistently chosen the latter. They continue
to do so in their proposals offered in START.
Secondly, we expected arms control negotiations to at least
temper Soviet misbehavior in regional crises. Again, the outcome
has been different. Between 1970 and 1976 -- the time of arms
control "breakthroughs" and intensive U.S.-Soviet dialogue, including
five summits -- the Soviets (a) furnished considerable arms and
ammunition to back North Vietnam's war against South Vietnam, which
subverted those peace talks; (b) threatened to intervene militarily
in the Yom Kippur War which caused the U.S. to go on strategic
alert, despite a recently signed U.S.-Soviet agreement to warn each
other about just such instances; and (c) expanded involvement in
sundry African countries by dispatching significant arms, Cuban
soldiers, and Soviet officers.
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During these very years, five countries became Marxist -- South
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Mozambique and Angola -- nearly all with
substantial help from the Soviet Union. Two more -- Ethiopia
and Afghanistan -- went Communist during 1977 and 1978, again with
considerable Soviet assistance. And these were the same two years
in which the SALT II negotiations intensified, Mutual and Balanced
Force Reduction (MBFR) talks continued, and four new arms control
channels were opened up.7 In 1979, after Secretary of State
Vance met Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin more than twenty times and
after the Carter-Brezhnev Summit to sign SALT II, the Soviets
still blared false statements designed to further inflame Iranians
during the hostage crisis and, even worse, began their own massive
invasion of Afghanistan.
In marked contrast, over the past four years, Soviet global
behavior has been most inhibited while arms control and high-level
diplomatic negotiations have unfortunately been most stalemated.
Of the three major wars in this era -- those in Lebanon, the Falk-
lands, and Iran/Iraq -- none was at its core an East-West conflict.
Since leaving the arms negotiations in late 1983, Soviet words
have become harsher but their actions have remained tepid.
Given such a clear historical record, should we give up the
goal for arms control negotiations of at least tempering Soviet
expansionism in regional crises? The answer, in a word, is yes.
To assign arms talks responsibility for eliminating or even
diminishing geostrategic competition is to burden them with much
more than they can conceivably carry. To laden arms control
with such unrealistic expectations is inevitably to break it.
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Arms control best be considered one singular element in a full
panopoly of political, economic, and defense efforts. But, frankly,
such modesty is frequently lost, since arms control has been thrust
forward as the barometer by which superpower relations (indeed,
global tranquility) is gauged.
What should we expect from arms control?
We should expect an arms control accord in fact to increase
strategic stability and thereby reduce the risks of war (for my
money, the most vital goal of all), to reduce nuclear weapons
to equal and substantially lower levels, and to be effectively
verifiable. These goals, while simple to state, are of course
exceedingly difficult to attain.
Critics of the Reagan Administration who argue that we are
much too ambitious correctly grasp the difficulties of our achieving
with the Soviets deep reductions, particularly in the most desta-
bilizing weapons. These critics advocate more modest goals, with
more significant limits on arms coming somewhere down the road.
Such was the promissory nature of SALT I and II advanced, not so
much for what they delivered themselves, as for what they promised
future agreements would deliver.
If we should eventually have to settle for something less than
the level of deep reductions we now propose, it should only be after
a most valiant try and only with extreme reluctance. But this does
not mean that we should ask for less. Unless we seek arms control
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with a real military bite -- an agreement that reduces destabilizing
weapons and increases strategic stability -- we relinquish any
chance of ever achieving them. Moreover, proposing yet another
arms control approach that does not even attempt to slow down,
much less halt, strategic competition may so undercut public support
as to bankrupt the entire process.8
Herein lies the core set of questions: Whether the Soviet
Union will ever accept an arms control regime that significantly
reduces its strategic forces; whether our strategic concepts will
ever become so compatible as to agree on how to distinquish stabi-
lizing from destabilizing weapons; and whether the Soviets will
ever accept true equality between strategic forces, or continue to
mask their demand for strategic superiority in the guise of "equal
security". We do not know.
But we do know that we cannot find out unless we try. If,
after enough time and with enough incentives, the answers to these
core questions are "no," then we will have learned something rather
important: that arms control cannot be justified on military/security
grounds. If the answer turns out to be "yes," we will have taken,
together with the Soviets, a big step forward in making the world
a much better place.
We will not have the answer unless we negotiate with most
modest publicity and most vigorous diligence, all the while providing
for an adequate defense. Doing so is much trickier than it sounds.
For the arms control process has become handicapped by constant
carping from both ends of the political spectrum.
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To many conservatives, the very act of arms negotiations
inescapably saps the will of the West and inevitably erodes support
for essential defense programs. This tenet predates the onset of
strategic talks. Secretary of Defense Forrestal in July 1947 stated
"even the talk of disarmament is highly dangerous because of the
American tendency always to take for granted that other nations have
the same objectives as ourselves. I am most apprehensive of our
people's mistaking the discussion of disarmament for the fact."9
While that point may have been valid then and later, especially
in the 1970s, it is less so now. Americans have come to realize
that talking does not make it so, that no amount of arms talks can
substitute for defense programs. Only an effective treaty that is
concluded and adhered to can help our security. The converse of the
Forrestal fear may be truer today, namely that a President unfortunately
must depend upon ongoing arms control talks to build the necessary
Congressional support for controversial defense programs.
To many liberals, defense programs are frequently seen to be
so provocative to the Soviets as to squander chances for successful
arms control. Time after time the cry goes forth for us unilaterally
to halt tests or deployments of systems -- be they the B-1, the MX,
sea-launched cruise missiles, the Pershing II, or anti-satellite
interceptors -- quite irrespective of what the Soviets do, so as to
"give arms control a chance."
Sadly, this is not the way the world works. No labor union
would ever scrap its strike fund, pledge never to have its workers
walk off the job, and then one-by-one relinquish demands to manage-
ment in order to set a climate conducive to successful negotiations.
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The Soviets are no different in this respect from other tough nego-
tiators, and tougher than most. If they can realize their goals
without giving up anything in return, they will. If we hand them
strategic superiority by neglecting to modernize our forces, we cannot
hope to attain strategic stability or parity through arms control.
But if we pursue programs that redress the imbalances that have
arisen from the unparalleled Soviet military buildup, the Soviets
will have a strong incentive to negotiate genuine arms reductions.
V
Last consideration: How do we get there? How do we move
toward our goals, particularly furthering strategic stability?
Given the staggering obstacles set forth above, the tempta-
tion is strong in some quarters to step aside from nuclear arms
control, at least until more favorable conditions materialize.
The Soviets have of late sought to do something on this order,
for their own reasons. But there is no walking away from the
nuclear dilemma. Nor should there be. People in the U.S. and
around the world expect Washington and Moscow to address and redress
the nuclear buildup.
The Soviets seek to switch the spotlight from nuclear arms
talks to those on "preventing the militarization of space," as
they first publicized in June and as President Chernenko hyped
again in mid-October. While they no doubt wish to downplay their
walkout from the nuclear arms talks, surely their prime purpose
here is to help abort research for the President's Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI, or "Star Wars" in the common venacular).
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The Soviets, posing the topic this way in public, neatly slide
over the fact that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R have long relied
upon space for such important military functions as communications,
early warning of attack, navigational assistance, and monitoring
of the others' forces. Furthermore, space systems are essential
for verifying strategic arms accords. The Soviets also slide over
their monopoly in an operational, dedicated anti-satellite (ASAT)
interceptor, while ours is in the early test phase. Finally, the
Soviet formulation lumps together two programs with quite distinct
goals: ASAT, a near-term development program for us, designed
to destroy orbiting satellites and to redress a specific military
imbalance; and SDI, a long-term research program designed to explore
the potential for defense against ballistic missiles.
Not surprisingly, the Soviets have chimed into our long-overdue
national debate on SDI.10 Regrettably, though, they have yet to
pick up our offer to engage the subject in a more serious vein,
between our two governments. The President reiterated this offer
in his September speech at the United Nations. This discourse too
is long overdue, since the ABM Treaty explicitly recognizes the
intrinsic relationship between offensive and defensive strategic
forces. A dialogue on this relationship could bring both of us
"back to basics" on matters critical to future arms control, in a
manner last seriously pursued a decade and a half ago.
The dialogue could be conducted within the "umbrella talks"
the President likewise proposed in his UN speech. Besides enabling
spin-offs of actual negotiations -- for example, on nuclear arms and
on space -- umbrella talks could continue for our joint exploration
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of overall security/arms control matters and for discussions on
the host of ongoing multilateral arms talks (MBFR, Committee on
Disarmament, and Conference on Disarmament in Europe).
Seen in this light, SDI and the U.S.-Soviet discussions on
offense-defense coming in its wake would revive the conceptual
approach underlying the ABM Treaty. Research on defensive systems,
as embodied in SDI, is not only permitted under the ABM Treaty but
was actively advocated by the Nixon Administration when the treaty
stood before the Senate. Defense Secretary Laird advocated, that
we "vigorously pursue a comprehensive ABM technology program."11
The research itself may eventually furnish possibilities for
deterrence to be based more upon defense against missiles that can
strike either the U.S. or our Allies, rather than solely upon the
threat of annihilation. The results are years off, and naturally
we do not know what they will be. Estimates vary wildly. But we
do know that SDI's components stand at the very frontier of today's
scientific advancements -- in computers and sensor technology, radars,
high energy beams, and laser technology. In contrast, components
of offensive systems have been exhaustively researched for decades;
breakthroughs here are thus far less likely.
We can surmise now that even a less than perfect or less than
comprehensive defense could markedly increase the uncertainty to a
potential attacker. And this, after all, is the quintessence of
deterrence. Should the technology prove successful and affordable,
defensive systems would clearly be most effective and stabilizing
in a world of markedly reduced offensive forces on both sides.
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We must, meanwhile, scrupulously guard against the vicious circle of
defensive efforts spurring the other side to yet more offensive
weapons, added in order to saturate the prospective defenses. Again,
this could best be done in frank discourse with the Soviets.
While there is much to learn in this endeavor, SDI research
is valuable on its own merits and as a prudent hedge against the
Soviets' active defense programs and research. For they have not
only constructed the permitted defensive system around Moscow but
also taken some steps toward fashioning a nationwide ABM capacity.
They are, as well, engaged in vigorous research on such SDI areas
as lasers and neutral particle beams. Surely, the worst outcome of
all would be one in which our hands were somehow tied on defensive
systems while the Soviets gained substantial further advantages in
this realm. Admittedly, SDI and the offense-defense relationship
need the most careful deliberations within our government, with the
Allies, and with the Soviets. The first two are underway; the last
lamentably not.
We do have a firmer historical and technological base on the
offense part of this equation. Indeed, we can learn from experience
which previous offensive arms control approaches have been successful
and which have not. For one, designing ways to stop modernization
of weapons has become more popular even though its record has been
consistently unsuccessful. Long a theme in arms control, the ban on
modernization has been played out in: the prohibition on flight
testing or deploying more than one new type of ICBM, as provided in
SALT II; the nuclear freeze movement; and in testing bans and moratoria
conceived for ASATs, nuclear explosions, testing or producing
MIRVed ICBMs, and so forth.
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This approach has proven rather futile, as could have been
anticipated. Types of progress can no more be stemmed in weapons
development than is possible in industry, sports, or any other
human endeavor. Nor should it be. Through modernization of weapons,
we can today keep deterrence strong with one-fourth fewer nuclear
weapons than in 1967 and a startling 75 percent less megatonnage
than in 1960. Moreover, modernization has of late concentrated
on making nuclear weapons smaller, safer, more reliable, and more
survivable -- in stark contrast to research in the late 1940s on
hydrogen bombs which strived to create evermore enormous blasts.
By and large, the newer strategic systems (SS-25s on the Soviet
side, Midgetman on ours, SLCMs on both) increase the survivability
of forces and thereby reduce the pressure to "use' em or lose' em."
The dispersion of firepower makes each a less inviting target, thus
less likely to be fired upon or necessary to fire early in a crisis.
Marked improvements in command, control, communications, intelligence
(C31) -- the top strategic priority of the Reagan Administration --
make the chances of accidental war yet less likely and the President's
grip on our nuclear forces yet more firm. This, too, is all to the good.
Moreover, defining what constitutes modernization for effective
arms limitations can be nigh unto impossible. It is no easier to set
criteria to determine (as in SALT II) when a missile becomes a "new"
one with new components or a renovation than it is for an automobile
or a major appliance. By concocting a phalanx of cumbersome defini-
tional difficulties which end with scant utility, provisions to retard
or rule out modernization open the door to endless doubts over Soviet
compliance (witness the SS-25 as a second "new type" missile in SALT II
terms). This only harms U.S.-Soviet relations rather than foster them.
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Another approach which grows in popularity as it declines in
utility is that of tying the deployment of individual weapon systems
to the vicissitudes of arms negotiations. This approach has grown
remarkably popular in Congress, but it sprang forth in NATO's INF
dual track decision of 1979, which linked the deployment of missiles
in Europe explicitly to negotiations with the Soviet Union. The NATO
plan in turn arose, unbelievably today, in part from European fears
that the U.S. would give away too much in strategic arms control.
However successful the final result -- and NATO held tough,
thwarting the Soviets' number one foreign policy goal of splitting
the Alliance by stopping the deployments -- the dual-track formu-
lation itself rendered far more problems than solutions. That
formulation practically invited the Soviet Union into NATO's councils,
bestowing upon Moscow power over the Alliance's ability to redress
an imbalance the Soviets had created in the first place. It also
stirred European public opposition to their governments, which the
Soviets could and did handily exacerbate. Nonetheless, political
parties which favored the NATO decision were favored by voters in
the key European countries quite consistently during the four years
between the NATO decision and the initial deployments.
Despite NATO's recent tumultuous experience with the dual-
track formulation, the concept is being more widely advocated,
and even bastardized at that. An extreme extension of this approach
was embodied in a House Amendment to the Defense Authorization
Bill in May 1984. It provided the Soviet Union an opportunity in
effect to kill a strategic system, the MX missile, that four Presidents
and a distinguished bipartisan panel (the Scowcroft Commission)
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deemed critical to our national defense. All Moscow would have to
do is to send a delegation to Geneva to resume a negotiation which
it had no business to interrupt. The MX would then almost certainly
be killed, not as part of a trade-off encompassing concessions on
their part, but merely by Soviet diplomats showing up where they
should have been all the while.
Politics is differentiation, and Congressional politics is
marked by a Member differentiating him- or herself from the party
or Administration, particularly on such a high-profile matter as
arms control. A President must negotiate with Congressional leaders,
as well as with the Soviets, on sundry strategic programs. But, as
is often quipped, we need to stop spending so much time negotiating
with ourselves and start spending more time negotiating with the Soviets.
There has, in fact, developed a need for a given amount of
arms negotiations at any one time. This new "zero sum theory of
arms control" goes: if negotiations are proceeding with the Soviets
(as in 1982 and 1983 on both INF and START), then the need for
vigorous negotiations with the Congress recedes; however, if nego-
tiations stall with the Soviets (as in 1984), then they are replaced
by more extensive and intensive negotiations with Congressmen and
Senators in order to retain controversial weapons systems needed
for our security and for incentives in ensuing arms talks.
But there is a price paid for this state of affairs.
Presidential control over both arms control and strategic planning
slowly, yet detectably, ebbs. Both are thus deprived of needed
coherence and continuity, characteristics which are not notable
hallmarks of the legislative process.
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No arms control negotiation can be successful without central
management; no negotiation of any kind can. Ditto for strategic
planning. This has been recognized and practiced. In the postwar
era, Congress has never deprived a President of a strategic program
he deemed necessary (though it has funded a few which Presidents
have considered unnecessary). Hence the MX affair takes on a grander
dimension and may set a more ominous precedent. Its outcome could
damage in one fell swoop prospects for arms control and strategic
coherence. If the President fails to gain Congressional approval
of basic strategic programs involved in arms control negotiation,
the Soviets are encouraged to be obstinate even longer. Hence the
crying need for more bipartisanship in these matters, a subject about
which so much has been written and so much more needs to be done.
Congress, of course, has a critical role to play in these matters,
and a great service to perform. Members of Congress constitute
essential continuity between Administrations. As such, they are
the trustees of the long-term national interest; clearly this was
the Founding Fathers' intention. But Congress best performs this
role not by haggling over minor matters but by taking the wider
and longer perspective. In particular, it should scrap the notion
of a "dual track" approach altogether. Defense programs, whether
the Pershing II or MX or ASAT, should be designed to meet U.S.
security needs and should be funded or discarded on that singular
basis. Should arms control accords be concluded and implemented
that actually alter those security needs, these defense programs
(and related ones) can then be altered accordingly.
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Above all else, Congress and the public must grasp how arms
control demands patience. President Eisenhower was right when he
presumed that "as everybody has always known, any move for
disarmament is going to be slow, tortuous, and certainly gradual,
even at the best" (January 25, 1956 press conference). No amount
of American imploring or unilateral concessions, such as sinking
the MX or holding up SLCM deployments, is likely to get the Soviets
back to the table and into serious negotiations. That is a decision
only Moscow can make, for its own internal and other reasons.
It is well to remember that the Soviets left the arms talks not
because of the Reagan Administration's overall handling of the
relationship, not because of past rhetoric, and not because of the
"deep cuts" we propose on strategic arms. They left, quite simply,
because NATO stayed the course set in 1979 to redress the European
imbalance arising from the Soviets' extensive SS-20 deployments,
averaging one a week. It is hard to imagine any President proceeding
differently on INF deployments in response to the Soviet insistence
on its "half-zero" option -- hundreds of INF warheads on their side
and zero on ours. And it is equally hard to imagine any Senator
or Congressman favoring such a lop-sided arrangement as the Soviets
proposed.
Congress is to be applauded for its rejection of "bargaining
chips" as justifications of weapons systems. Again, each system
should rise or fall on its own merits; none should be constructed
solely in order to be discarded. They seldom are so discarded.
Meanwhile, defense dollars have been wasted and, even more important,
precious defense credibility has been squandered.
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How do we get where we want to go?
First and foremost, we can and must be ready for tough bargaining
and equally tough trade-offs once the Soviets seriously reengage.
Even under the best of circumstances, a relatively comprehensive
START agreement will require a lot of hammering out given the two
sides' different doctrines, force postures, goals, etc. noted earlier.
This preparation has, in fact, been underway in the Reagan Admini-
stration for some time. When the President said his team was ready
anytime, he meant it substantively, not just logistically.
Such preparations, however critical, constitute the first of
several elements that furnish greater hope for progress in strategic
arms control beginning in 1985:
o The absence of such a momentous event as NATO redressing the
balance in Europe with the initial Euromissile deployments
sets a better stage for success. It was, after all, the
Soviet fixation on INF which provided such an ominous setting
for arms control these past four years.
o One can safely presume that no matter how long the stagnation
in Moscow persists, the Soviets will at least not change leader-
ship as often as they did over the past four years. Again,
this was debilitating since arms control inevitably involves
tough trade-offs within each government as well as between
them. Seldom over the past years was there much evidence
that such was taking place behind those thick Kremlin walls.
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o The strategic modernization program begun in 1981, with
its base of a much stronger U.S. economy, offers the Soviets
considerably more incentives to come to terms than previously
existed. SDI adds measurably in this regard.
o Last is the simple fact of continuity of the Reagan Admini-
stration, with the expertise it has accumulated and the lessons
it has learn about arms control in particular and dealing
with the Soviet Union in general.
While we are ready and willing to achieve a broad agreement
on nuclear weapons, the suggestion is sometimes made to limit the
scope of strategic arms control to a few critical elements, e.g.,
warheads and launchers on ICBMs and SLBMs, and heavy bombers.
Certainly, negotiation prospects can rise as items under negotiation
fall -- indeed, this approach has been advanced as something of a
"quick fix" -- and some of the toughest verification problems fade
away as well.
This notion is novel only in degree, not in kind. For despite
the label of "comprehensive" strategic arms accords, past agreements
have not even attempted to limit all key measures of strategic power.
Such crtical measures as accuracy, reliability, and C3I simply cannot
be controlled directly. But trimming down the number of elements
to be limited still poses two difficulties. Deciding what to include
and what to exclude becomes a nexus of disagreement between the two
sides, each seeking to limit areas of the other's relative strength.
Even more grave a problem is the limited effectiveness of such an accord.
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In arms control -- as in wage-price controls, pollution controls,
or any type of controls -- to limit only a few select elements
is to let other elements run free. This can thwart, if not nullify,
the whole enterprise. As with a balloon, when parts are pressed
down, other areas bulge out.
Yet another approach to bring speedier, easier results is to
limit an arms control agreement to broad principles rather than
specific weapons systems or their characteristics. This approach
contains all the strengths and deficiencies of the 1974 Vladivostok
understanding. It can be more readily negotiated, with disagreements
put aside or elevated to a common level of abstraction. Such
accords, however, may be so abstract as to leave the two sides
squabbling over just what the principles mean, and how they are to
be applied. The U.S. and Soviet Union disagreed after Vladivostok
was signed over whether the Backfire bombers and cruise missiles
were or were not included. This is most unfortunate as, at the
bare minimum, arms control is meant to reduce tensions between the
U.S. and U.S.S.R, not to exacerbate them.
Focus on arms control through agreements-in-principle could
detract attention and energy from the need for real reductions of
real weapons. Moreover, a long line of broad "principles agreements"
already exists involving the U.S. and U.S.S.R, including the UN
Charter, the 1972 Basic Principles Agreement, the 1973 Agreement
on the Prevention of Nuclear War, and the 1975 Helsinki Accords,
as well as the Vladivostok Accord. The most charitable thing that
can be said about this panoply of signed documents is that
strategic stability has not palpably improved because of them.
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George Marshall once said: "Don't ask me to agree in principle;
that just means that we haven't agreed yet."
Another and to me the most promising of innovative thoughts
is arms control through individual but (where possible) parallel
policies: i.e., arms control without agreements (treaties, in
particular). In simple terms, each side takes measures which
enhance strategic stability and reduce nuclear weapons in consultation
-- but not necessarily in a formalized, signed agreement -- with
each other. Those measures could be enunciated as national policies
and could be confirmed in exchanges, ideally after some understandings
or at least discussions with the Soviets. Not all aspects of arms
control could or should be so fashioned. But some areas may benefit
from less emphasis on the formal process -- whether negotiations
are on or off, whether one side puts forward a new proposal or
another -- and far more on the results -- whether there is greater
stability and fewer nuclear weapons on either or both sides. If
the Soviets are willing, we can attain these results together in
evolving parallel policies.
Adopting this approach of individual, parallel restraint could
help avoid endless problems over what programs to exclude, which
to include, and how to verify them. The focus should be on areas
or strategic systems of greatest military importance. Arms control
without agreements would be easier to discuss with the Soviets and
quicker to yield concrete results. Being less formal, such arrange-
ments could be more easily modified if circumstances change than
could be legally-binding treaties.
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While appearing novel, this approach of evolving parallel
policies is by no means new. Winston Churchill, in a March 1933
speech before Parliament, contrasted what he deemed the glaring
deficiencies of formalized disarmament negotiations with the
oft-hidden benefits of "private interchanges" in normal diplomatic
discourse, such as: " 'If you will not do this, we shall not have
to do that,' 'If your program did not start so early, ours would
begin even later,' and so on." Churchill believed "a greater
advance and progress towards a dimunition of expenditure on armaments
might have been achieved by these methods than by the conferences
and schemes of disarmament which have been put forward at Geneva."12
At the dawn of strategic arms talks, others advocated a similar
approach.13 And, in a way, it has been practiced ever since.
Today we have a policy of not undercutting SALT I and SALT II, as
long as the Soviets show equal restraint, and a policy of reaffirming
adherence to the obligations of the unratified Threshold Test Ban
Treaty and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty. The Soviets state
similar policies. At times, a treaty followed unilateral restraint,
as the 1962 unilateral U.S. renunciation of nuclear weapons in space
helped lead five years later to the Outer Space Treaty, and as the
1969 unilateral U.S. renunciation of biological and toxin weapons
helped lead three years later to the Biological Weapons Convention.
But such practices need not lead to full-blown treaties. The
U.S. and U.S.S.R hold discussions on non-proliferation -- regularized
to twice yearly during the Reagan Administration -- which are helpful
to both sides and to world stability. The two countries talk, not
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about what they might talk about or when or where, but about the
real difficulties of preventing problem countries from acquiring
the bomb. Receiving less publicity enables them to work more
productively, and continually. When the Soviets suspended START,
INF, and MBFR at the close of 1983, they informed us that the
non-proliferation dialogue would continue on schedule.
Strategic stability can be enhanced by making our forces less
inviting to a Soviet first strike and postured to be less threatening
in terms of a dangerous first strike potential. We need to commun-
icate with the Soviets -- explicitly through discussion, but if
they refuse, then implicitly through example -- on how to lower the
incentives to launch nuclear weapons preemptively. We need to talk
about how some systems are inherently more destabilizing in this
regard, such as ICBMs which provide scant warning time, are highly
accurate, concentrated in firepower, and difficult to defend against.
Other systems, such as strategic bombers, are inherently more
stabilizing because they are slower, can be recalled before they
release their nuclear weapons, and are easier to defend against.
Finally, a fruitful dialogue could evolve into U.S.-Soviet
discussions -- without expectations of a legal document or even full
agreement as a result -- on crisis prevention, crisis management,
increasing openness, and sharing more and accurate information.
This could be done through discussions between U.S. cabinet officers
and Soviet counterparts, or U.S. and Soviet regional experts or,
best of all, under the arms control umbrella -- all proposed by the
President at the UN last September. One can also envision a similar
but wider dialogue between NATO and the Warsaw Pact country members,
which might profitably evolve from or even within the MBFR forum.
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The second prime goal, reduction of nuclear weapons, can
likewise be pursued by way of individual, or, better yet, reciprocal
restraint. As mentioned, the U.S. has unilaterally reduced its
own nuclear arsenal quite markedly over the past two decades, and
many of these reductions took place before the beginning of the
SALT process. At times, the process itself has contributed to
keeping obsolete and even dangerous nuclear weapons in the arsenal
in order to bolster our negotiating leverage for ongoing or prospective
negotiations. NATO likewise unilaterally decided over the past
half decade to withdraw 2,400 nuclear weapons from its total arsenal.
Both sets of reductions have been quite beneficial; having the
effect of raising stability and lowering nuclear reliance, they
constitute moves toward arms control without agreements. Neither,
one can safely postulate, would have happened had it depended upon
an arms control treaty.
While the trend in nuclear weaponry generally is toward smaller
and safer devices, the trend in military strategy generally is to
move away from such heavy reliance upon nuclear weapons. As mentioned,
SDI research, if productive, may eventually favor a non-nuclear
defense over a nuclear offense, leading to a stable balance at much
lower levels of nuclear weapons. Far closer to being realized are
dramatic improvements in conventional weapons which could enable them
to help raise the nuclear threshold by (a) reducing the chances of
conventional wars, which could then become nuclear, and (b) assuming
military roles which, until now, could be accomplished only by
nuclear weapons. With more accurate guidance systems and more
effective conventional munitions ("smart weapons"), for example,
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conventional arms could be deployed to attack hardened point targets
such as bunkers, bridge pylons, and other targets behind enemy
lines. New sub-munitions could delay and defeat massed Soviet
armor with the effectiveness of nuclear weapons.
We need to swim with this technological tide. President Reagan
feels personally committed to working toward radically reducing the
numbers and degree of reliance upon nuclear weapons. This goal can
best be furthered by planning, along with our NATO Allies, to build
up our conventional forces in order to raise overall deterrence and
to eliminate the need to consider using nuclear weapons early in
response to a massive Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe.
All such steps must be carefully managed. We need to work closely
with our Allies and communicate precisely to or, better yet, with
the Soviets so that there would be no misunderstanding about our con-
tinuing deep commitment to NATO and its doctrine of flexible response.
In particular, we in no way wish to make Western Europe "safe" for
a conventional attack. Besides, the Alliance has depended upon
nuclear deterrence to compensate for the Warsaw Pact's conventional
superiority since 1949, and will continue to do so throughout the
foreseeable future.
Our nuclear forces must serve the additional role -- beyond
deterring a Soviet nuclear attack on the U.S. -- of "extended
deterrence," helping to protect our friends and Allies abroad
against any type of armed attack from the Soviet bloc. In this
endeavor we have reaped sweeping success; Europe is approaching
a modern-day record, 43 years, without war. No mean accomplishment.
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Despite possibilities of this approach -- arms control without
agreements -- it could encounter stiff resistance here at home.
Some conservatives could justifiably fear more unilateral than
reciprocal or parallel restraint from this approach. But if that
happened and this approach created great pressures for harmful
unilateral concessions, then it would and should readily lose
support; it would soon be rendered ineffective. Moreover, conser-
vative opponents could claim that the objective of arms control is
to control Soviet forces, not ours. But arms control should make
each side more stable. It is not a zero-sum game. Both sides can
gain by taking the right strategic steps on their own and in collab-
oration with each other, even while realizing that their strategic
doctrines and tasks for strategic forces diverge substantially.
Some liberals may be even more bothered, detecting here a
devious way to kill arms control as practiced over the past half
generation. As stated, however, this approach would supplement,
not supplant the traditional track. Besides, they could see that
if successful this manner of proceeding could result in fewer
nuclear weapons and greater global stability, issues which should
be of deepest concern to them. In addition, this approach could
be applicable across many areas of arms control to supplement the
traditional track in these areas.
In its greatest asset lies its greatest liability: blandness.
Useful measures of restraint, even if reciprocal, constitute scant
material for a media event, furnish no soaring political lift.
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Such moves are far more likely to further strategic stability
and reduce nuclear weapons than they are to fill peoples' deep
longing for an arms control treaty (sometimes used in the media
interchangably with "a peace treaty"). As R. James Woolsey quipped,
it is virtually impossible to organize a parade on behalf of
proximate justice. Likewise, no parade will ever be organized on
behalf of arms control without agreements.
VII
Certainly a primary role filled by the arms control process
is to reassure the public that somehow, someway its government
is grappling with The Nuclear Issue. Pope John Paul II wrote
the United Nations in June 1982 that the world should not be
condemned to be "always susceptible to the real danger of explosion."
It is painfully depressing to face up to the fact that the world
is so poised, and may be condemned to remain so.
Throughout human history, hope has been as powerful and deep
an emotion as fear, lust, aggression, and love. Free people have
rightly asked their government to contend with the greatest of
all human dilemmas involving the most awesome of all human weapons.
That government has a solemn obligation to do its very best.
Arms control should not be allowed to degenerate. Rather, it
should be molded into the most effective instrument we know how
to fashion. Then, the sweeping hopes long associated with arms
control can be justified.
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1 The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's November 1979 report on SALT II
was quite perceptive in this regard: "...while giving due weight to
these modest though useful steps, the Committee is disappointed that
more could not be achieved from the arms control point of view. The
permitted aggregates are very large...But the most important reason
for the Committee's sense of disappointment is the large increase in
warheads expected on both sides, despite the modest reduction in the
numbers of permitted launchers. Thus, paradoxically, a vast increase
in the quantity and destructiveness of each side's strategic power will
occur during the period of a treaty that seeks to limit strategic
offensive arms.", The SALT II Treaty (Senate Executive Report 96-14,
November 19, 1979) pp 316-7.
2 Brown, Harold, Thinking about National Security: Defense and Foreign
Policy in a Dangerous World, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,
1983), p. 185.
3 Kissinger, Henry H., "Should We Try to Defend Against Russia's Missiles?",
The Washington Post, September 23, 1984, p. C8.
4 Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America, Vol. I (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1946), p. 235.
5 Poll for the Committee on the Present Danger, Conducted by Penn and
Schoen, (April, 1984).
6 Beilenson, Laurence W., The Treaty Trap, (Washington, DC Public Affairs
Press, 1969), p. 18.
7 These included negotiations on a comprehensive test ban, Indian Ocean
naval demilitarization, banning anti-satellite weapons, and conventional
arms transfers.
8 Again the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report in November 1979,
(p. 317) on SALT II was on key: "...to be worthwhile, and to preserve
the base of support in the U.S. for the arms control process, SALT III
must achieve much greater progress in reductions and qualitative limits."
9 The Forrestal Diaries, edited by Walter Mills, (New York: Viking Press,
1951), pp. 290-1.
10 Personally, I found such a debate needed years ago. See "Beyond MAD-ness,"
Policy Review, No. 17 (Summer 1981), pp. 82-3.
11 Testimony by Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, June 6, 1972. U.S.
Congress, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Military Implications
of the Treaty on the Limitations of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems
and the Interim Agreement on Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms,
Hearing 92:2, p. 5.
12 Churchill, Winston S., While England Slept, (New York: G.P. Putnam,
1938), p. 48. Churchill went so far as to deem the Geneva disarmament
process harmful, in the same speech to the Parliament: "The elaborate
process of measuring swords around the table at Geneva...stirs all the
deepest suspicions and anxieties of the various Powers, and forces all
the statesmen to consider many hypothetical contingencies which but for
this prolonged process perhaps would not have crossed their minds."
13 Schelling, Thomas C. and Morton Halperin, Strategy and Arms Control,
(New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1961), p. 5; for full discussion
see Chapter 8, pp. 77-90.
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