SOVIET VIOLATIONS OF ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS: SO WHAT

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 THE AUTHOR: Senator Wallop (R.-Wyoming) was first
elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976. His committee
assignments include the Select Committee on Intelligence,
and he is Chairman of its Budget Authorization Sub-
committee. Senator Wallop was a Congressional Adviser
to the SALT negotiations. A graduate of Yale University,
he served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Artillery,
1955-1957.
IN BRIEF
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SOVIET VIOLATIONS OF ARMS CONTROL
AGREEMENTS: SO WHAT?
MALCOLM WALLOP
The debate over Soviet violations of arras control agreements and treaties (particularly SALT)
is featuring a great deal of quibbling over technical and legalistic trivia, thus both missing and
distracting from the fundamental issue for debate: namely, the state of the US. military posture
after two decades of arms control efforts. Beyond reflecting on Moscow's cynical approach, the
violations and our reactions to them are symptomatic of a basic phenomenon in Western democracies
well documented by history: a mind-cast that, once entracked on the rails of hopes and fears, comes
to regard the arms control "process" as more important than both the actual results achieved and
the other side's compliance with them - and more important even than the adversary's displayed
intentions, which the continuing process is supposed to shift in the direction of peaceful and faithful
behavior. The issue of violations is baring the kind of self-contradictory policies that public opinion
in a democracy cannot long support.
A debate is unfolding in the United'
States over the facts and implica-
tions of violations by the Soviet
Union of existing arms control agreements.
Thus far the debate has swirled around specific
cases of such violations: the arguments have
been draped in technicalities and, legalisms.
It is the contention here that, in focusing on
such narrow parameters, the debate not only
'fails to shed any real light on the difficult
military and political choices that the United
States now faces, but, indeed, holds the danger
of further distorting and trivializing the fun-
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damental questions relevant to our country's
security.
Almost a generation ago many prominent
Americans in and out of government, investing
hopes and reputations in arms control, shaped
this country's military and intelligence plans
accordingly, and convinced public opinion that
all of this would make the world safer. Today
public opinion in the West rightly fears war
more than ever. It anxiously looks for expe-
dients to lift the incubus, and for people to
blame. Whereas in the mid-1960s Soviet
strategic forces were vulnerable to superior
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American ones, today numerically inferior
American forces are in the deepening shadow
of a relentlessly growing Soviet arsenal. And
beneath this shadow, the Soviet global offen-
sive has gained a momentum that would have
been considered unimaginable two decades ago.
In short, any objective analyst in the West
now must realize that a generation's labors on
behalf of arms control have not borne the an-
ticipated fruit. Nonetheless, all we have done
in the name of arms control - the very depth
of our involvement with it - renders us unable
to confront our strategic problems directly.
Although no one in public life today will argue
that any specific arms control scheme would
be accepted and adhered to by the Soviets -
and would make us all safer - we still discuss
our hopes and fears in terms of arms control,
anticipating that today's realities will not
again be reflected in the results of tomorrow's
agreements.
Lately that discussion has come to turn upon
one question: Do certain Soviet activities
violate arms control agreements or do they
not? Yet, that question obscures another, much
more important one: What do the Soviet ac-
tivities in question tell us about the possibil-
ities and limitations of arms control? Our task
here is to answer this question. Once that is
done, only then can we consider Soviet
strategic plans - and our own - in terms of
their intrinsic merits.
The Debate Over "New" Missiles
Two fellow members of the Senate, James
McClure of Idaho and Joseph Biden of Dela-
ware, have drawn together respectively the
case for the proposition that the Soviets are
violating SALT agreements, and the case
against it. Senator McClure contends that the
Soviets are violating the most important pro-
vision of the SALT II Treaty - Article IV,
Paragraph 9 - by flight-testing two new-type
ICBMs. Senator Biden argues that Senator
McClure is "simply and flatly inaccurate."
The SALT II Treaty indeed allows only one
new-type ICBM to be developed by either side.
The two Soviet missiles that have been tested
are sufficiently different from all other missiles
to be new types. Yet, the Treaty also stipulates
that the differences that determine a new-type
missile - discrepancies of more than 5 per cent
in length, diameter, launch-weight and throw-
weight between the missile tested and all other
missiles - may not be counted as violations
until after the twelfth test.
Inasmuch as the Soviets have only conducted
thus far. three tests, Biden has a technical
point. But McClure has a substantive one. The
second new Soviet missile, known as the PL-5,
differs in throw-weight by more than 200 per
cent and in length by more than 2 meters from
any other Soviet missile remotely like it. No
matter how many times it is tested, these
characteristics will not change. Moreover,
modern test programs may not require more
than twelve launches before a weapon becomes
operational. Neither set of arguments,
however, touches the crucial point: while the
United States has produced one new missile
(the Trident I) and is planning two (MX and
Trident II), the Soviets have produced four
fourth-generation missiles and have begun a
fifth generation likely to include six new
missiles.
Soviet Missile Numbers and "Reloads"
Senator McClure charges that the Soviets
have exceeded the SALT II ceiling of 1,320
MIRVed missile launchers and bombers
equipped with long-range cruise missiles.
Senator Biden cites the CIA's count of 788
Soviet MIRVed ICBMs and claims that the
total of MIRVed ICBMs, SLBMs and bombers
capable of carrying cruise missiles does not go
above 1,320. The legal issue turns on whether
one counts the "Fencer," the Soviet equivalent
of the American FB-111 bomber. Once again,
however, the legal issue is of scarce practical
relevance. Even if one chose to agree with
Senator Biden, one would not thereby skirt the
issue of the threat which the Soviet Union's
nearly 6,000 counterforce warheads carried by
the Soviet MIRVed systems pose to the United
States, or change the fact that our most potent
MIRV, the Mark 12-A, is considered to have
only about one chance in three against Soviet
silos.
Senator McClure contends that the Soviets
have violated SALT II by testing the "rapid
reload of ICBM launchers" and by stockpiling
at least 1,000-2,000 missiles which could be
refired from standard silos. These missiles
could also be fired by "soft" launchers from
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Soviet Violations
covert sites. Senator Biden considers this point
to be "succinctly rebutted" by the U.S. Defense
Department's volume, Soviet Military Power,
which states (on page 21): "The Soviets prob-
ably cannot refurbish and reload silo launchers
in a period less than a few days." Biden con-
cludes: "Although the Soviet Union might
have a limited capability to reconstitute its
strategic forces after an initial firing, there is
no real indication of a rapid reload capability."
McClure concedes that a legal grey area ex-
ists because "the Soviets never agreed on a
definition of `rapid'." All parties refer to the
same data: during the summer of 1980 the
United States observed that the Soviet Union
routinely practiced reloading its principal
missile silos many times during war games.
This procedure takes a few days.
However, all the parties concentrate on the
Treaty so fixedly that they miss the point.
Whether the Soviet practice of reloading
missiles is legally "rapid" or not is quite ir-
relevant to American security. Ever since the
beginning of the arms-control process in the
mid-1960s the United States has based its en-
tire strategic policy on the notion that each
side would only have about as many missiles
as it has launchers. The Soviets never formally
agreed to this; nevertheless, informally, in a
thousand ways, they led us to believe that they
did. Now we know that, probably from the
beginning, the Soviets held a wholly different
view of the matter. Thus, not only is it a vir-
tual certainty that they have available for use
many more missiles than overtly deployed
launchers, but the implication is much larger:
namely, that the Soviets do not share the
Western view that nuclear war, if it ever
comes, will be a mutually annihilating spasm.
While American planning stops in effect at the
edge of the contingency of a nuclear exchange,
the Soviets are planning and practicing what
to do after the first round. If this is not
strategically significant, nothing is. Yet, as we
can see, the arms control perspective is capable
of trivializing even this fundamental factor in
the nuclear equation.
Other Soviet Violations
Senator McClure says that the Soviets since
1976 have conducted at least 15 underground
nuclear tests whose yield was probably above
the ceiling of 150 kilotons specified by the
Threshold Test Ban Treaty. Senator Biden
cites an article by two geophysicists in Scien-
tific American, in which they claim that
charges like McClure's "are based on a mis-
calibration of one of the curves that relates
measured seismic magnitude to explosive
yield."
Some background is needed to understand
this aspect of the debate. In 1977 some of the
U.S. geophysicists involved in evaluating the
yields of Soviet tests from seismic data became
apparently distressed at the fact that they
were consistently providing judgments on the
basis of which the Soviet Union and, more im-
portant, arms control itself were being im-
peached. Therefore, they successfully lobbied
for a change in the yardstick. Even then, the
new and more liberal geophysical yardstick
still shows a few Soviet tests. to have been
above 150 kilotons. Although there is really
not much reason to prefer one yardstick over
the other, the fact that one was abandoned
because it gave unpleasant answers should give
no one, least of all scientists, cause to rejoice.
Technicalities versus Strategic Substance
I could go on with such comparisons, but my
basic point already should have become clear:
by thinking and arguing about Soviet ac-
tivities in terms of the relationship of these
activities to treaties - instead of relating them
to security substance - both Senators are quib-
bling with trivialities while the strategic posi-
tion of the United States crumbles apace.
Moreover, those who argue in these terms in-
evitably cast themselves in the role of either
the Soviet Union's prosecutors or defenders.
Senator Biden has strongly expressed the
wish, no doubt sincere, that he not be taken
as the Soviet Union's defender. But how else
can one characterize the invitation not to be
alarmed by activities which are clearly
threatening but which might possibly be
shielded by some technicality as a contraven-
tion of agreements?
In one instance Senator Biden, like the geo-
physicists, has to resort to redefining the terms
of the Treaty. He notes that the Soviets have
encrypted just about all the telemetry in their
tests of the fifth generation of missiles. Arti-
cle 15 of SALT II prohibits encryption that
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impedes verification of the Treaty. Senator
Biden notes that Soviet practices in this
respect "raise questions" about whether the
Soviets have violated the Treaty. Questions?
These activities are not questions; they are
answers!
Senator Biden says that "Soviet activities in
regard to ... the ban on the [mobile] SS-16...
can only make one wonder about the depth of
Soviet interest in maintaining the SALT
framework." In thus "wondering," he was no
doubt inspired by the CIA's version of said
Soviet activities. According to this version
(reported by the Washington Post on April 9,
1982), the Soviets have some mobile SS-16
missiles (prohibited by the SALT II Treaty) at
Plesetsk. They are ready to be fired. But
because they are not being handled in a way
that fits the CIA's definition of deployment,
they are not "deployed." The point, again, is:
Why cast for artificial definitions and techni-
calities that might becloud the issue of
whether a given Soviet activity is or is not in
contravention of SALT? Why not think - first,
last and foremost - in terms of the strategic
implications of the threatening activity itself?
Finally, Senator Biden, searching for a def
inition of what a violation of SALT II might
be, has posited that if the Soviets were to have
more than 830 MIRVed ICBMs, that would be
a violation. A little later he noted in passing
that by not having dismantled 95 strategic
nuclear delivery systems as new ones have
joined their forces, the Soviets now have more
than the 2,400 permitted by SALT. Yet, he
does not come out and say that the Soviets are
in violation. Why not?
On a more fundamental level, Senator Biden
has conceded that the Soviets have violated the
Biological Warfare Convention of 1972. At the
same time, he describes himself as "a strong
supporter of the unratified SALT II agreement
and of worthwhile future arms control
agreements." Clearly these are contradictions
that cannot be bridged with technicalities
regarding Soviet compliance.
Senator McClure's position is more direct,
but contains an anomaly. He so strongly ham-
mers on the fact that the Soviets are cheating
on the treaties that he leads his audience to
infer that our strategic difficulties would
vanish if only the Soviets could somehow be
held to the letter of the treaties. Yet, not even
the most enthusiastic advocates of arms con-
trol have claimed - at least not since the
mid-1970s - that the treaties are so well con-
ceived or drawn up that abidance by them will
solve the future of mankind.
In short, even while the strategic position of
the United States continues to erode, men of
goodwill find themselves saying things about
arms control which cannot halt that erosion,
and that cast them in roles that they sincerely
reject for themselves: apologists for the Soviet
Union and/or apologists for the SALT process.
Hope and Historical Logic
We should not be surprised at the fact that
assumptions based strictly or even
predominantly on arms control often lead to
sterile arguments. After all, the entire premise
of arms control - that safety can be gained by
mutual limitations on weapons - abstracts
from the most fundamental fact that weapons
are tools in the hands of men, not vice-versa.
The propensities of men to kill or respect one
another have never been basically affected by
the existence of particular kinds of weapons.
Genocide was routine in the ancientmorld. In
our day, the greatest slaughters have been
perpetrated by simple tools: barbed wire, star-
vation and hand-held weapons. Whether or not
a weapon is dangerous depends on the direc-
tion in which it is pointed and on the inten-
tion of the person wielding it. Where nations
are friends, there is no talk of the need to
negotiate arms control. Where they are
enemies, even total disarmament could only
make the world safe for hand-to-hand combat.
In practical and historical terms, it is dif-
ficult to prove the proposition that arms con-
trol by itself leads either to peace or security.
History affords no example whatever of na-
tions possessed of serious reasons to fight one
another who disabused themselves of those
reasons by agreeing to limit the means by
which they could fight. Nevertheless, the
desire for peace is so natural and strong that
it has always made attractive the claim that
perhaps, just perhaps, all men are sane and
all sane men want peace - which is in
everyone's interest - and that the danger of
war issues from the weapons themselves. If all
sides can slowly rid themselves of the burdens
of their worst weapons, they will simultan-
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c
eously learn to value peace and to trust one
another. But this appealing promise discounts
the ever-present possibility that one side in the
arms control process may be determined not
only to pursue its goals as vigorously as ever,
but also to use agreements as a means of
achieving the other side's moral and material
disarmament.
The stark record of our century is that arms
control has been embraced by democracies as
a means of exorcising the specter of war with
dictatorial enemies - and that it has been ex-
ploited by dictatorships as a means of increas-
ing their capacity for waging war against
democracies. At various points along this
historical road some within the democracies
have asked whether there was any proof that
the dictatorships really meant to keep their
agreements in good faith. Others have
answered that although there could be no real
proof, democracies must take the lead and
show good faith, because no one could afford
the alternative.
In the normal flow of international negotia-
tions, a determination of the other side's in-
tentions is a prerequisite to the process that
culminates in agreements. In the case of arms
control, any issue of the other side's intentions
tends to be considered a priori as disruptit-e
to the perceived imperative of reaching an
agreement. Instead, we as democracies invest
in the agreements themselves the hope of
favorable omens of the opponent's intentions.
Questions regarding a dictatorship's com-
pliance with arms control agreements go to the
heart of the question: What are the dictator-
ship's intentions? But since the arms control
process itself is based on at least a suspension
of questions about intentions, the issue of com-
pliance must thus be suspended as well, lest
the process be disrupted.
Patterns of Democratic Behavior
Some of the generic difficulties in the path
of rational discussion of compliance with arms
control agreements were outlined by Fred Ikle
in his classic article, "After Detection -
What?" in the January 1961 issue of Foreign
Affairs. They are well worth reformulating
after nearly a generation's experience.
First, unless the violator acknowledges that
his activities constitute a violation, politicians
in a democracy are likely to feel that the
evidence in their possession might be insuffi-
cient to convince public opinion that a viola-
tion has occurred - or at least that trying to
persuade the public would be a thankless task.
Moreover, many politicians, having staked
their reputations on the agreements, will fear
being damaged in the public's esteem if the
agreements were perceived as failures.
Second, a political leader who declares that
arms control agreements which are a fun-
damental part of national policy have been
violated, thereby faces the obligation to pro-
pose a new, redressive policy - one that will
make up for the other side's violations and
assure his nation's safety in an environment
more perilous than had previously been im-
agined. Inevitably such a policy looms as more
expensive and frightening than continuing on
the arms control track. Few politicians are
willing to take this step of personal and
political valor - especially if they can ra-
tionalize away the observed violation as "in-
significant." Ikle in his article cites Stanley
Baldwin's admission that fear of losing an elec-
tion had prevented him from admitting that
Germany was violating the Treaty of Ver-
sailles. This remains a rare example of hon-
esty, albeit after the fact of dishonesty.
Third, politicians can always hope - more
or less in good conscience - that continuing
negotiations will eventually reach the goal of
a stable and mutually accepted peace and that
therefore "this is not a good time" to accuse
the other side of bad faith and risk driving it
from the bargaining table. But when is it a
"good time"? Moreover, as time passes and the
dictatorship's arsenal rises in relative terms
(abetted by the violations), the premium on
finding a modus vivendi with it rises apace.
The net result is that the brave declarations
that accompany the signing of arms control
treaties, according to which this or that action
by the dictatorship (usually some form of
interference with verification) would cause
withdrawal from the treaty, become dead
letters.
Finally, these inhibitions are compounded
when they are involved in alliance diplomacy
among democratic nations. Each alliance part-
ner is likely to find in the other a confirming
reason for not pressing the issue of violations.
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The Contemporary Mind-Set
These historically documented attitudes -
which ushered in the tragedy of World War II
- have been strengthened in contemporary
times by the seductive premises of the nuclear
age. The primary such premise is that the only
alternative to arms control is an arms race
that is certain to lead to the nuclear holocaust
and the end of the world; therefore, there is
no alternative to continuing arms control ne-
gotiations and making the best of them. In this
view the "process" of negotiations is more im-
portant than the tangible results achieved -
and, by extension, more important than the
other side's adherence to solemnly agreed-upon
results.
The second premise relates to the fashion-
able notion of "overkill": since each side
already possesses enough weapons theoreti-
cally to obliterate the adversary, any advan-
tages wrested by the other side are "marginal'.'
at best. It deserves mention that this
"marginality" tends to be applied only to
Soviet strategic programs: by contrast,
American counter-programs, like the MX
missile, are deemed "provocative."
This latter premise illuminates the cavalier
attitude of so many U.S. officials toward Soviet
forces superior in numbers and quality to the
American ones. The State Department, for ex-
ample, has long opposed even proposing to the
Soviets an equality in throw-weight of missile
forces, on the assumption that the Soviet ad-
vantage is so overwhelming (the SS-18 force
alone carries more megatonnage than the
entire U.S. strategic force) that the Soviets
would never agree to surrender it. In the in-
teragency controversy over U.S. policy, the
State Department's line, only partly tongue-
in-cheek, has been in effect that "real men do
not need throw-weight." This of course begs
the, question: What do we need? The only
answer consistent with the State Department's
position would be: If we had a small force able
to deliver a few warheads to major Soviet
cities, it would not matter how big, powerful
or accurate Soviet forces were, because the
deterrent effect would be the same.
This variant of Mutual Assured Destruction
(MAD), which goes by the name "minimum
deterrence," has been gaining inchoate accep-
tance in the Congress as weapon after
American weapon has been delayed or can-
celed - in part because of hopes for arms con-
trol. As the SALT debate of 1979-1980 proved,
neither the Congress nor American public
opinion will accept MAD in any form when it
is presented explicitly. Nonetheless, "mini-
mum deterrence" survives as the theology of
many.
An instructive example of this came in the
testimony of a CIA official who in 1980 briefed
the Senate about the newly discovered Soviet
practice of reloading ICBM launchers. This
practice had invalidated a basic premise un-
derlying U.S. strategic planning and procure-
ment for almost twenty years. Nevertheless,
the official was nonchalant. What would be the
implications of a possible doubling or tripling
of the Soviet SS-18 force? There was no need
for concern, he answered: the extra Soviet
missiles could not be fired because, after an
initial exchange, nothing could be fired.. Only
a little pressing elicited that neither he nor his
Agency had really determined what would be
required to prevent the Soviets from reloading
their SS-18 launchers. Indeed, the facts show
that we would be in no position to prevent it.
As far as the alleged irrelevance of all
military assets after an initial nuclear ex-
change is concerned, it is noteworthy that the
entire thrust of Soviet military strategy is to
reduce the size, efficacy and significance of any
American strike - to protect Soviet society
and to win the war. The Soviets do not merely
wish this: they also work at it. Hence, while
the sizes and shapes of opposing nuclear
arsenals seem to be of secondary importance
to many American officials, for the Soviets
they are clearly matters of life and death.
The Artificial World of SALT I
American advocates of arms control sought
to create a situation unprecedented in history:
two rivals for primacy in the world would
agree for all time to stop trying to gain the
edge over one another in the most important
category of weapons, thus ending military
history at the highest achieved level.
Moreover, each would "cede to the other in
perpetuity the right to deliver nuclear weapons
onto its soil and would refrain from efforts to
protect itself. Thus, spurred by the fear of an-
nihilation, both sides would enter into a kind
of perpetual Hobbesian social contract. The
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Soviets did not seem enticed by this contract,
but it was one of the prevalent assumptions
in the 1960s that in time they would be
"educated" by our negotiators to the realiza-
tion that their own interests lay there as well.
Yet, from the very first the Soviets' refusal
to see their own interests through the eyes of
American arms control theorists led the U.S.
Government to construct an elaborate, highly
ambiguous intellectual framework - one
which, has given American arms control en-
thusiasts warrant to pursue their utopia with
respect to U.S. forces, but within which the
Soviets have continued to pursue the orthodox
military goals of self-protection and victory in
the event of a conflict.
From the outset Americans recognized that
verifying an equality in missilery and
restraint in research and development would
require the presence of inspectors in produc-
tion facilities and laboratories. But also from
the outset the Soviets' clear refusal of such on-
site inspection placed American arms con-
trollers before a fateful choice: If arms control
agreements constrained production and
research, or the number of warheads or their
accuracy, they would stand a chance of bring-
ing about the desired arms stability in the
world. But the agreements could not possibly
be verified beyond the limited scope of
technical means of detection, and thus could
not be presented to American public opinion
as prudent arrangements.
The answer to the dilemma was to construct
agreements that could define the weapons and
practices to be limited in terms that were more
or less verifiable by technical means. The
agreements could thus be sold to the U.S.
public and the Congress, but - as it turned
out - they were inherently weak agreements
that failed to cover the significant parts of the
strategic equation and whose real restraining
power was questionable at best.
Thus, from the very first American arms con-
trollers chose to negotiate treaties which were
verifiable at least in part, and therefore
ratifiable, but which were intellectual con-
structs well removed from reality. The
SALT I Interim Agreement set limits on
numbers of missile launchers because
American satellites could take pictures of
Soviet missile fields and submarines. Silos and
tubes could be counted. The controversies of
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Soviet Violations
the 1970s over the Soviets'. failure to disman-
tle older launchers as new ones were built and
over their operational use of silos that were
nominally for tests and command and control
- straightforward issues of compliance - were
basically unrelated to that decade's strategic
revolution: the replacement by the Soviets of
the SS-9 with the SS-18 in the "heavy launch-
ers" and the replacement of the majority of
single-warhead SS-lls with MIRVed SS-17s
and SS-19s. The latter replacement was not a
direct violation: rather, it stretched the defini-
tion of a "light" missile under the Agreement.
In any event, these replacements precisely
brought about the situation (a mounting Soviet
threat to American strategic forces) which
American negotiators had sought to prevent
by entering the talks in the first place.
There was little question within the
American establishment about what was
transpiring. Nevertheless, official anger was
muted. After all, advances in technology
sooner or later would have been able to turn
even light missiles into multiple-killers like
the SS-17, SS-18 and SS-19, but American
arms controllers had simply assumed that the
Soviets would not thus escalate the weapons
competition. American officialdom has not yet
mustered the humility to admit that it has.
been deceived - not because it was deceived
primarily by the Soviets, but because it was
deceived by its own fancies. Indeed, there is
evidence that, on the eve of the signing of
SALT I, Henry Kissinger learned about the
development of the SS-19 but apparently did
not deem the reported development significant
enough to derail the process.
The SALT II Trail
The negotiations for SALT II dragged on for
six years largely because of American concerns
over definitions. Having been "burned" in
SALT I, American negotiators were now going
to be more rigorous. As regards launchers,
however, they could not be rigorous without
declaring the treaty unverifiable. In fact, if one
defines a launcher merely as that which is
necessary to launch a missile - and one
acknowledges that ICBMs can be launched by
very little equipment (Minutemen have been
erected and launched by equipment carried on
the back of a jeep) - one must admit that
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limits on launchers cannot be verified. Of
course, because some kinds of launchers can
be monitored, the tendency is to think of the
"launcher problem" solely in terms of that
small part of it that is controllable.
American negotiators in SALT II did insist
on a complex definition of new missiles in
order to prevent the wholesale substitution by
the Soviets of a fifth generation of missiles for
the fourth generation, even as the fourth had
substituted for the third generation under
SALT I. The four cornerstones of that defini-
tion are the requirements that a modified
missile not exceed the original by more than
5 per cent in launch-weight and throw-weight,
that the number of warheads on any modified
missile not exceed the number on the original,
that on any single-warhead missile the ratio
of the weight of any warhead to the weight of
the total reentry package not be inferior to 1
to 2, and that each side be allowed only one
new missile.
Opponents of SALT II, including myself,
pointed out that under this definition the
Soviets could develop and deploy a generation
of missiles that were new in every way but still
not "new" in terms of SALT. The new missiles
could be made of wholly new materials and ac-
cording to wholly new designs. They could be
vastly more reliable and accurate. They could
thus pose wholly new military problems - all
without ever violating the treaty in the
slightest. Circumventions would be profitable
and difficult to prove, especially if - as is now
happening - Soviet missile tests are almost
totally encrypted. Post-boost vehicles can be
tested with fewer reentry vehicles than they
can carry. Single-warhead missiles can be
MIRVed, and the number of warheads carried
by MIRVed missiles can be increased. Thus,
a new, more numerous, more powerful Soviet
missile force can emerge more or less within
the "constraints" of SALT II.
Our negotiators could have devised a tighter
definition of newness. But that definition
would have been unacceptable to the Soviets,
or wholly unverifiable. They had to choose be-
tween reality and the SALT process.
Legacies of the ABM Treaty
Many consider the ABM Treaty of 1972 the
jewel in the crown of arms control
achievements. More than anything else it is
supposed to symbolize the superpowers'?
mutual commitment to MAD. But the closer
one looks at the Treaty's unrealistic re-
quirements, the more one realizes that ques-
tions of the Soviets' compliance with them are
of secondary importance.
A nationwide ABM system must be
served by a nationwide network of battle-
management radars. The Treaty allows such
radars only at one ABM site in each country.
The Soviets have built five huge radars that
are inherently capable of performing that func-
tion. Are these radars intended to perform it?
We will probably never have absolute proof
short of their performance in actual battle.
The ABM Treaty forbids the rapid reload of
ABM launchers at the one ABM site available.
But when these launchers are underground,
how does one know how rapidly they can be
reloaded? Given the range of modern ABM
missiles and radars, how much of a country
can a "site" protect?
The Treaty forbids the testing of mobile
ABM systems. Yet, the components of the
Soviets' fully tested ABMX-3 system - the
Flat Twin radar and the SH-04 and the SH-08
missiles - are merely "transportable," not
"mobile." The Treaty does not limit mass pro-
duction or storage of these components. If they
are ever deployed en masse after a sudden
denunciation of the Treaty, the United States
would have no legal complaint.
The Treaty forbids testing - much less using
- air defense systems "in an ABM mode." Yet,
advancing technology has deprived that con-
cept of whatever meaning it may once-have
had. Today the technology available for the
American Patriot and Soviet SA-12 air-defense
systems allows them to be used both against
aircraft and against reentry vehicles. Still, the
ABM Treaty is not being violated so much as
it is being left behind by evolving reality.
Perhaps the best example of the ABM
Treaty's decreasing relevance is the contro-
versy surrounding the question of whether it
would permit or prohibit space-based anti-
ballistic missile lasers. Many American cham-
pions of arms control aver that Article I of the
Treaty prohibits all anti-ballistic missile
systems forever, except for the two ground-
based sites specifically allowed. The Treaty
deals with ABM launchers, missiles and
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radars because at the time it was drafted no
other means for anti-missile defense were
known. Some argue that the Treaty was meant
automatically to ban any other devices which
might be invented, so long as they were
capable of destroying ballistic missiles, but of
course the Treaty says no such thing, and in
fact it is an axiom of international law that
nations are bound only by the commitments
they specifically undertake.
The ABM Treaty does not mention lasers at
all: indeed, it could hardly have done so in
1972, when laser technology was in its infancy.
The only possible reference to lasers is in
Agreed Interpretation "D," which states that
in the event components based on "other
physical principles" and capable of substi-
tuting for ABM launchers, missiles and radars
"are created," the two parties would discuss
how they might be limited. That is to say, the
two parties would develop definitions.
A moment's reflection is enough to realize
that, in the case of space lasers, to distill
reality into legal terms verifiable by national
technical means would be much more difficult
than it has been in the case of ballistic
missiles. Unlike missiles, the characteristics
which make lasers fit or unfit for strategic war-
fare are not discernible through mere obser-
vation. Observation will yield information on
gross size, power plant and, possibly, wave-
length. But the laser's power, the quality of
its beam, its pointing accuracy, its jitter, the
time it needs to retarget and the number of
times it can fire can be learned only from direct
access to test data.
Hence, once again we see a demonstration
of the folly, and dangers, of approaching a
strategic question with the mind-cast of arms
control. Suppose for a moment that the Soviet
Union placed a number of laser weapons in or-
bit. Discussion of the strategic significance of
this event would instantly be distracted by
questions of whether a violation of the ABM
Treaty had occurred. But on what basis could
the Soviet Union be accused of having violated
the Treaty? There could be little in the way
of determining - much less hardproof - that
the lasers' mission was ballistic missile
defense. Yet, against this background of legal
murkiness and ominous strategic implications,
many devotees of arms control, while they
question the efficacy of American lasers
against ballistic missiles, still object to placing
such lasers in orbit, on the grounds that doing
so would violate the ABM Treaty. When will
they learn that unilateralism is not the road
to arms control, let alone to national security?
In short, the difficulty of reducing the reality
of modern weapons to legal terms, the
pressures on American negotiators to make
those terms both negotiable and arguably
verifiable, and the political impediments to
deciding that any given Soviet activity war-
rants abandoning a fundamental foreign policy
- all these have produced an intellectual
tangle of our own making, within which we
thrash about even as the Soviets widen their
margin of military superiority. Since the ques-
tion of Soviet violations of arms control
treaties refers to a framework removed from
reality, dwelling on the question is only to com-
pound the unreality.
The Political Predicament
The issue of past Soviet violations played a
minor role in the SALT debate of 1979-1980.
To be sure, the earlier debate did turn on the
right question: Has arms control with the
Soviet Union enhanced our security in the
past, and can it be expected to do so in
the future?
The proponents of SALT II conceded that the
United States' strategic position in relation to
that of the Soviet Union had deteriorated, and
that mistakes had been made in the concep-
tion of SALT I and in the management of U.S.
forces under it. But they argued that SALT II
was necessary to keep U.S.-Soviet relations
headed in the direction of peace. When con-
fronted with criticism of specific provisions of
the treaty, they often conceded the treaty's
weaknesses, but argued that only ratification
would make possible the continuation of
negotiations, wherein lay the ultimate solu-
tion to those weaknesses. The U.S. Senate re-
jected these arguments, and in the election of
1980 the American people clearly re-
buffed SALT.
Nevertheless, an army of bureaucrats simply
could not recast their thinking beyond a frame-
work within which they had operated so long.
Since 1980, however, the principal argument
in favor of arms control has been quite dif-
ferent from previous ones. It reads basically
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as follows: However harmful arms control
might have been in the past, however unlikely
might be Soviet acceptance of anything which
enhances the West's security, nevertheless we
must pursue the arms control process in order
to convince our own fellow citizens that we are
not warmongers but peace-loving people.
When the question is raised why we should
pursue negotiations with an adversary who,
by one means or another, has used them as a
screen for overturning the strategic balance
and is apt to use further negotiations for the
same purpose, the general answer is that we,
too, must practice cynicism. We, too, must
negotiate in order to legitimize our own
military buildup.
This argument ignores the fact that in a
democracy public opinion cannot support self-
contradictory policies. If the U.S. Government
declares that the Soviet leaders are the sort
of people from whom one can reasonably ex-
pect a fair deal on arms control - and that
arms control is so important that it is essen-
tial that a deal be reached - then public
opinion will reasonably blame the Government
for doing anything which seems to put
obstacles in the way of agreements. The
Soviets, having received from the U.S. Government the credentials of men of goodwill, will
persuasively point to our military programs
and our own proposals as obstacles.
On the other hand, when our Government
replies with figures showing how the Soviets
have seized military advantages - along with
suggestions that the Soviets might have cir-
cumvented or violated treaties - public
opinion rightly questions the Government's
motives. If the Soviets really had tipped the
strategic balance using arms control as a
screen - if there were reasonable evidence
that they regarded arms control far differently
than we, and circumvented or violated
whenever they could - why would we be
negotiating with them at all? To evade such
questions is to be too clever by half.
Some American officials regard the publica-
tion of evidence regarding the Soviet Union's
violation of the Biological Warfare Convention
and other arms control treaties as embar-
rassments to their own policy preferences
rather than as occasions for reexamining their
own approach to arms control. Deputy
Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger
recently declared that, in light of all that hap-
pened, it is clear we must "do a better job" of
arms control. But what can he mean by "a bet-
ter job?" Can anyone really believe that there
exists a formula which, if discovered and
presented to the Soviets, would lead them to
agree to unmake the military gains they
achieved as a result of their strategic buildup?
Does a set of words exist which would induce
them no longer to regard arms control as a
means of thwarting our countermoves to their
strategic programs? I doubt it.
The proposition that it is possible to do "a
better job" deserves a definitive test. President
Reagan's Director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency, Kenneth Adelman, has
expressed the view that the foremost criterion
by which arms control proposals should be
judged is their effect on national security. Only
proposals that meet this criterion warrant ex-
amination from the standpoint of verifiability
and acceptability to the Soviets. This sensible
approach would draw the dialogue on arms
control closer to the real world and help
remove the blinders that have prevented us
from seeing it.
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