NEGATIVE/NUCLEAR/ARMS CONTROL

ARMS CONTROL STRATEGY IS AN UNWISE OPTION

ARMS CONTROL IS A FOOLISH AND ROMANTIC APPROACH, READINESS IS SOLID AND PRAGMATIC

Editorial; The Detroit News September 13, 1999, Pg. A8 HEADLINE: The Arms Treaty Illusion // ln-10/99-acs

The dream of worldwide arms control is rooted in romantic hopes that peace can be achieved simply by abolishing weapons. But history isn't encouraging on that subject. America should continue to hope for the best from the rest of the world -- but plan for the worst.

WE MUST AVOID THE TEMPTATIONS OF ARMS CONTROL REGIMES IF WE WANT TO PRESERVE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER; The Weekly Standard, November 1, 1999, SECTION: COVER STORY; Pg. 21 HEADLINE: Arms Control: The End of an Illusion; The Cold War was won at Reykjavik. The Senate's defeat of the test ban treaty is Reykjavik II. // ln-acs-11-11-99

November 9 marks the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There will be many speeches and much celebration. Let us ask the Clinton administration, the proponents of the CTBT, and the architects of the new era of universal arms control to tell us how the wall was brought down by SALT I or SALT II or the ABM treaty. The fact is that it was brought down not by paper but by steel and technology, by an arms race and an iron will.

The challenge to American security today does not require an iron will -- we do not face that level of risk or require the same resolve. But it does require a clear head -- the ability to see through the illusions of arms control and the courage to resist the lure of parchment.

ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS ACTUALLY DECREASE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

The Iraq example shows how universal treaties can actually decrease international security by creating a false sense of security. Inspectors, bureaucracies, governing boards, lofty goals, and professed norms -- these are supposed to protect us from the ambitions of unappeasable rogue states. With these phony safeguards in place, the urgency to take real and often unilateral measures -- whether aggressive (like Israel's attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981) or defensive (like building an ABM system) -- is blunted.

ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS FAIL BECAUSE OTHER NATIONS VIOLATE THEM

First, there is the problem, to put it delicately, of compliance. Universal treaties, as Richard Perle points out, group together good guys and bad guys. The good guys, with a free press and open governments, will honor the treaties. The bad guys will not.

You would think that the arms control dreamers would have learned their lesson with Iraq and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. At the time of the Gulf War, Iraq was in excellent standing with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, passed all its IAEA inspections, and been pronounced nuclear free. Indeed, Iraq was on the IAEA governing board! Had it not been for the invasion of Kuwait, we would not have known that Iraq had not one but 11 facilities involved in various aspects of its nuclear program. If not for Saddam's folly of invading Kuwait, he would have had nuclear weapons within six months -- all under the IAEA's nose.

INTERNATIONAL ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS HAVE NOT BEEN BENEFICIAL

It did not. Indeed, with the return of Democrats to power in 1993, the main American foreign policy agenda has been to develop, sign, and ratify a dizzying array of new treaties -- mostly multilateral, even universal -- regarding chemical, biological, nuclear, and strategic defensive weapons. These include:

- A chemical weapons treaty that even its advocates admit is unverifiable.

- A biological weapons regime that would intrusively inspect American pharmaceutical operations and have no chance whatsoever of finding the small concealable plants that could produce toxins in rogue states like Libya, Iran, and Syria.

- The land mine treaty, which the Clinton administration was in the end forced by Pentagon pressure to refrain from signing.

- The ABM treaty, strengthened and multilateralized.

- And now the test ban.