Needed: A ‘Loyal Opposition’ to Clinton’s Anti-Nuclear Policy

Leadership
from Senator Lott

(Washington, D.C.): In recent weeks, events — not right-wingers — have
conspired to
demonstrate what is, arguably, the Clinton Administration’s single greatest political
vulnerability: Its wonton disregard for U.S. national security and its ineptitude, if not
outright malfeasance, in fashioning policies that safeguard it.

The Republicans Show Signs of Getting It

No less striking has been the extent to which the Republican Party has finally begun to shrug
off
its years of inattention to this frightening reality. In response to evidence that the Administration
has facilitated the transfer of strategic technologies (nuclear missile-related equipment and
know-how is only one item in the emerging, damning bill of particulars) to a prospective
adversary — the
Chinese People’s Liberation Army — the GOP has finally begun to find its voice as a
Loyal
Opposition on defense and foreign policy matters.

The good that can accrue to the Republicans — and, far more importantly, to the
Nation — from a
vigorous critique of Clinton’s anything-goes policy toward Beijing threatens to be undone,
however, unless the Loyal Opposition gets its act together on a related front: The
Administration’s no-less-reckless policy towards nuclear weapons brought into sharp relief
following nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan that were precipitated in part, at
least, by China’s American-assisted military build-up.

Clinton’s Policy of ‘De-Nuclearization’

Over the past five-and-a-half years, the Clinton team has pursued an agenda whose goal has
been
described, in its more forthright moments, as “denuclearization.” href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾ Unfortunately, to this point,
Republicans have largely failed to challenge either the ludicrous premises or the dangerous
strategic implications of this policy. They can no longer afford to do so in light of developments
in South Asia; they will either challenge this policy and offer more sensible alternatives,
or
become fully implicated in its failure.

That failure will be marked not only by the unchecked spread of nuclear and other weapons of
mass destruction, together with the proliferation of the means of delivering them via long-range
ballistic missiles. Worse yet, if the Clinton Administration has its way, these trends will
be
accompanied by the steady erosion of the reliability, safety and effectiveness of the U.S.
deterrent, an invitation to potential calamity.

‘The Greatest Mistake of the 20th Century?’

There can be no doubt this is the direction of things. In his zeal to denounce the Indian and
Pakistani nuclear tests, President Clinton has suggested that the United States’
development
of nuclear weapons “was the greatest mistake of the 20^th Century.” This
statement ignores
the fact that “the Bomb” saved the lives of perhaps a million or more American troops who would
likely have died liberating Japan, to say nothing of all those who were spared the horror of a third
conventional World War as the U.S. nuclear umbrella held in check the USSR’s hegemonic
impulses.

The President’s anti-nuclear proclivities are also evident in such Clinton initiatives as the
Comprehensive Test Ban and the idea of impounding fissile
material — to say nothing of
schemes to make further, massive reductions in U.S. deterrent forces,
“de-alert” those that
remain and seek the complete abolition of nuclear arms.

Will Republicans find the courage to call such initiatives what they are:
wooly-headed delusions
whose only certain result will be unilateral U.S. nuclear disarmament? The international
traffic in relevant technologies and expertise makes it inevitable that neither India nor Pakistan —
nor, for that matter, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea and other wannabe states — will be
denied nuclear weapons to which they aspire because the United States has decided to take steps
its intellectuals believe will “devalue” such arms.

Take the Comprehensive Test Ban. India and Pakistan chose to test notwithstanding this
expression of what the Clinton Administration fatuously calls the “will of the international
community.” They were not swayed either by the fact that the United States has observed a
unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing for six years. With or without these tests,
however, both
nations would still have been deemed to be nuclear weapon states, albeit undeclared
ones.
(See the attached excellent editorial concerning these hard facts of
life, which appeared in today’s
Wall Street Journal.)

What a Loyal Opposition Must Do

Just as the Republicans have begun to lay out an alternative to Clinton’s policy of
appeasement of
China, so too they must define a more mature and responsible stance toward nuclear weapons, at
home and abroad. Such a stance would have several elements.

• First, nuclear weapons are a fact of life and, in the right hands, can be a force for
  stability and security. This is certainly true of the U.S. deterrent. Therefore, its
  effectiveness must be assured and maintained for the foreseeable future. To do so, though, the
  United States will have to resume periodic underground nuclear testing. The Senate must,
  therefore, reject the prohibition on such testing imposed by the Comprehensive Test Ban
  Treaty.

Needless to say, decisions about the numbers of nuclear weapons which the U.S.
possesses and their alert status must be made, not through the Cold War prism of parity
with the Russians or on the basis of wishful thinking about “moral example-setting,”
but on the basis of a clear-eyed assessment of global strategic circumstances.

• Second, it makes no sense either to apply sanctions universally to countries if they conduct
  nuclear tests or to reward them for promising not to engage in such testing. The issue
  should
  be one of whether a given state has nuclear weapons or not. If their having such a
  capability is a problem for U.S. security interests, then it will be a problem whether they
  decline to have a “coming out party” by testing one — as, for example,
  North Korea has
  done to date, or whether they agree to forego further testing — as
  China purports to have
  done.
• Finally, the Loyal Opposition must offer an alternative to the Administration’s
  one-size-fits-all
  approach to non-proliferation, rife with moral equivalence and the delegitimation of the U.S.
  nuclear deterrent. A cornerstone of this alternative should be deploying the means to
  provide protection to those who might be the victims of nuclear aggression. As it
  happens, Republicans — and a number of thoughtful Democrats — are recognizing the
  importance of initiating such a deployment as soon as it is technologically possible. href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾

The Bottom Line

In this connection, it is particularly heartening that the Senate Majority Leader, Trent
Lott
(R-MS), issued a press release last Friday denouncing the Comprehensive Test Ban as “irrelevant”
and calling for a new approach. Sen. Lott’s statement said, in part:

“American policy should shift from a misguided focus on an unverifiable and
ineffective treaty that precludes maintaining the safety and reliability of the U.S.
nuclear deterrent to a sustained effort to build international support for de-escalating
the nuclear arms race in Asia. This should include multilateral sanctions and a
complete reappraisal of U.S. export control, counter-proliferation and arms
control policies.

“It must also reflect an understanding that offensive steps — including missile and
nuclear testing — will proliferate until missile defense programs are in place. Only
effective missile defenses, not unenforceable arms control treaties will break
the offensive arms race in Asia and provide incentives to address security
concerns without a nuclear response.“

The Center for Security Policy commends Senator Lott for his grasp of the defects of
present American policy and his identification of needed corrective actions. It urges all Americans
— of both political parties and every other stripe — to join the Majority Leader in forging an
effective Loyal Opposition to the Clinton Administration’s agenda which would leave America
bereft of both the effective nuclear forces and the competent anti-missile capabilities it
will need
for the 21^st Century.

– 30 –

1. See, for example, Press Barrage Signals New Phase
of Denuclearization Campaign (No. 98-D 50, 18
March 1998), Wall Street Journal, Kathleen Bailey Warn Against Latest Clinton
Denuclearization Scheme — ‘De-Alerting’ (No. 98-D
09, 20 January 1998), Unilateral Nuclear
Disarmament By Any Other Name Is Still Recklessly Irresponsible; Will Clinton Be Allowed
To Do It? (No. 98-D 06) and U.S.
Deterrent ‘Unplugged’: The Denuclearizers’ Already Far-Advanced Agenda Is A Formula For
Unilateral Disarmament (No. 97-D 170, 14
November
1997).

2. See Senate Should Vote to Defend America ‘As
Soon As Technologically Possible’ (No. 98-D 79, 6
May 1998) and Shame, Shame: By One Vote, Minority of Senators Perpetuate
America’s Vulnerability to Missile Attack (No. 98-D
84, 14 May 1998).