White House officials were particularly upbeat about START, the strategic arms reduction talks advertised as heading toward a 50 percent reduction in both sides’ strategic forces–nuclear weapons with ranges of more than 3,000 miles. In fact, the reductions will be at most a quarter by 1998–and given the increased accuracy of today’s delivery systems, the capabilities of both sides will even be greater than when the START talks began in 1982. Projections by the private Arms Control Association suggest that by 1998 the United States will probably deploy 11,636 warheads, while the Soviets may have 9,658. That would do no more than reduce the warheads on both sides to the levels of mid-1981, just before the START negotiations began.
At the signing ceremony, Bush and Gorbachev urged their negotiators to reach a final START agreement before the end of the year. That process will not be easy. Behind closed doors, U.S. officials were furiously backpedaling on concessions that Baker made only two weeks before–concessions that will allow the Soviets to develop and test a new class of multiwarhead intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), according to critics. “It’s a remarkable achievement,” says former assistant Defense secretary Richard Perle, one of at least four top Reagan-administration arms experts who on the basis of Baker’s concessions are prepared to testify against ratification of START in the U.S. Senate. “In the last year, the Bush administration has actually lost ground in the negotiations–at a time of great Soviet weakness.”
At issue is the Soviet SS-18 Model 5, an ICBM that the Soviets claim is simply an improved version of the SS-18s that Gorbachev agreed to reduce by half in 1986. In reality, there is evidence that the Model 5 is a new and more capable system: it has the throw-weight to carry an enormous number of warheads and enough accuracy to destroy perhaps twice as many targets as the old Model 4s. And, charges Paul Nitze, special arms-control adviser to the Reagan State Department, the Soviets “are already working on the second model of this new missile. It’s an entirely new generation that we are allowing through this loophole.”
Test flights: Baker, the critics say, opened the loophole last month at a presummit meeting in Moscow. While the Reagan administration had called for a complete ban on production and flight-testing of SS-18s once a START treaty came in force, Baker proposed that the Soviets could produce the missiles until the end of 1992 and could conduct two test flights a year. “It will cause us no end of trouble in the future,” said a senior Pentagon official, “but Bush and Baker want a deal.” If so, the Soviets were unwilling to take the bait. While U.S. negotiators tried to back away from the Baker position, the Soviets were still calling for unlimited production and testing. Baker finally suggested that the Model 5 issue could be deferred for further negotiations once initial START agreements are sealed.
Other agreements contain less controversy–and less content, too. After years of haggling, the Soviets agreed to rules governing mutual on-site inspections of the size of nuclear tests–an inspection procedure that is essentially irrelevant in light of improvements in seismic monitoring. Of symbolic value was the agreement to reduce stockpiles of chemical weapons by approximately 80 percent. Not only is the agreement impossible to verify, but both sides face nearly insuperable problems in disposing of their weapons. The United States is just starting a 16-month test of a CW destruction plant on Johnston Island, a desolate atoll in the Pacific. But to comply with the agreement, the Pentagon says it must build eight more destruction plants–all within the United States. Arms-control officials are resigned to environmental lawsuits that will tie up the plants indefinitely. The Soviet situation is even more problematic. Deteriorating roads and railways make it next to impossible to transport chemical weapons safely. Compliance will not come any time soon–but that didn’t stop both sides’ self-congratulation on last week’s deals.
Last week’s arms agreement could lead to nub clear-warhead cuts of as much as 25 percent by 1998–putting total counts close to 1981 levels.
Nuclear warheads 1981 1989 1998 ICBMs United States 2144 2440 1444 Soviet Union 5302 6450 3060 SLBMs United States 4976 5152 3456 Soviet Union 2426 3642 1840 Bombers United States 3568 4885 5280 Soviet Union 568 1228 3350 SOURCE: NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL/ARMS CONTROL ASSOCIATION
