Beyond the Summit: next steps in arms control

US Department of State Bulletin, Feb, 1988

Beyond the Summit: Next Steps in Arms Control Before getting into the future, let me say a few words about the past.

When I was appointed to head the U.S. delegation to the INF [intermediate-range nuclear forces] negotiations at their outset in 1981, I made two immediate decisions.

First, we would prepare a draft of the "zero option" treaty we wanted before the negotiations began.

Second, we would keep an issues book in which we would enter, day-by-day, what had been said by either side on each issue that arose in the talks.

At the end of the first year, there were 35 issues in our book. Of those 35, five issues were clearly the most important, so we focused on those five. Over the succeeding years, especially at Reykjavik, we finally removed the five issues. But having removed those boulders blocking an agreement, we still faced a lot of rocks.

This past October, after the 2-day meeting in Washington between Secretary Shultz and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze in which the INF issues that loomed largest were resolved, it was left that Soviet Ambassador Viktor Karpov and I were to try to resolve the remaining issues the next day. I asked Karpov how many issues he had on his list, and he said there were 35, of which five were the most important.

I concluded that it is inherent in the human mind, when confronted with a very complex situation, to simplify it to 35 considerations, and then to 5.

Next Steps

During last week's meetings, President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev accomplished a lot. They signed the INF Treaty we had been seeking for 6 years. They issued a joint statement which significantly advanced us toward a stabilizing START [strategic arms reduction talks] treaty. And they agreed on language on defense and space which narrows the issues and promises to make them more manageable.

Where do we go from here? There are many tasks that come to mind; by rough estimate, about 35. But allow me to concentrate on the most important five. These are:

* Ratifying the INF Treaty;

* Continuing our work on a START treaty;

* Dealing with defense and space issues;

* Continuing our efforts on non-nuclear arms control; and

* Maintaining our focus on the broader context of U.S.-Soviet relations.

Ratifying the INF Treaty

Clearly, our most immediate and important task is to get the advice and consent of the Senate in favor of ratification of the INF Treaty. All of our other efforts depend on this outcome.

Why should the Senate so advise the President? Because this treaty enhances the security of the United States and its allies, and it contains the verification measures necessary to monitor Soviet compliance with confidence and to detect any militarily significant noncompliance in time for us to respond appropriately.

To determine how the treaty enhances our security interests, one must recall how the INF issues and the ensuing negotiations arose in the first place.

In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union began deployment of SS-20 intermediate-range missiles, greatly enhancing the nuclear threat to both our European and Asian friends and allies. This raised concern, particularly among Europeans, of a significant imbalance in the spectrum of nuclear capabilities directly affecting not only NATO Europe but also other countries on the periphery of the U.S.S.R.

In its 1979 dual-track decision, the alliance determined to redress this imbalance. It decided:

First, to deploy comparable missiles of its own; and

Second, to seek to minimize, through negotiations, the number of such missiles either side would deploy.

In 1981, President Reagan proposed NATO's preferred outcome: the complete elimination of all U.S. and Soviet missiles of this class, or the "zero option." In meeting after meeting since, the NATO allies, and our Asian allies as well, reiterated their preference for this global zero outcome.

This of course is what we have now achieved. With the elimination of the SS-20s and all other Soviet missiles of this class, the Soviet Union will no longer possess INF missiles capable of threatening targets in Europe from Soviet soil. This perceived weakness in the structure of deterrence has been removed.

In sum, a security threat was identified, a strategy to address the threat was conceived and implemented, and an outcome was achieved that removed that threat. This is a NATO success story, enhanced by the fact that the reductions are decidedly asymmetric in NATO's favor, leading to an equal end point. This sets a good precedent for future arms reduction efforts.

It appears that much of the ratification debate will center on verification. In conducting this debate, it is important to understand the purpose of verification. We negotiate arms control treaties to limit the military capabilities of our adversary. The purpose of verification is to ensure that the treaties serve their intended purpose. That is, we want to be sure that the other side has not moved beyond the intended limits in any militarily significant way, and, if they do, we want to be able to detect such violations in time to respond as necessary.