Post-Wyoming Damage Control: Start Without SDI Should Amount To No Deal

The Center for Security Policy today released an analysis of the devastating impact on the U.S. SDI program that will result from the formula advanced last week in Wyoming by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in what has been described as a laudable display of negotiating flexibility.

The Center’s analysis, entitled The Soviet Wyoming Formula for START Would Kill SDI, establishes that Shevardnadze’s latest move actually represents a significant hardening of the Soviet position. While the USSR has been widely praised — especially by Secretary of State James Baker and other U.S. government officials — for its stated willingness to "de-link" completion of a START Treaty on the one hand from an agreement limiting SDI systems on the other, Moscow has, in fact, redoubled its effort to use arms control to destroy the Strategic Defense Initiative.

In releasing this report, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director said, "The Soviets’ latest formulation would tie START more firmly than ever to thwarting a future SDI deployment. By saying that its adherence to a START agreement will be predicated on the United States continuing to respect the ABM Treaty, Moscow has effectively done two things: First, it has walked away from ongoing negotiations on an agreement that could facilitate a transition to defenses in the future. And second, it has attempted to foreclose the United States’ right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty — a right expressly provided for by that agreement."

Gaffney added, "The Bush Administration’s reaction to the new Soviet negotiating gambit is puzzling. Its professions of continued commitment to development and deployment of the SDI program strain credulity when simultaneously it welcomes the Soviets’ latest assertion that such work is incompatible with the ABM Treaty and would end future Soviet adherence to START."

The Center’s analysis concludes that U.S. security will in the future be better served by deployment of SDI than by continued adherence to the ABM Treaty. This is even more true should a START agreement be concluded requiring large and unverifiable reductions in strategic forces.

Gaffney noted, "In light of the real, and growing, problems with the START Treaty, it is increasingly apparent that SDI will be needed, among other things, as a vital defense insurance policy against Soviet cheating. It is striking that 34 senators voted earlier this week to preserve a higher level of funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative — precisely the number needed to block ratification of a deficient START Treaty.

The Center believes that the Bush Administration must fully protect in its negotiating positions and in its programmatic investments the option to deploy effective strategic defenses. It must also make a commitment to initiate such deployments an express part of its ratification request to the Senate. It will be dangerous and self-defeating if the Administration chooses in its pursuit of Soviet assent to START to accede to Moscow’s demand that SDI be sacrificed."