SELL-OUT AT THE SUMMIT: CLINTON COMPROMISES U.S., ALLIED SECURITY WITH CONCESSIONS IN MOSCOW

(Washington, D.C.): As predicted ⁽¹⁾,
President Clinton used his just-completed summit with Boris
Yeltsin for a deplorable purpose — namely, to affirm his
commitment to perpetuate the American people’s vulnerability to
ballistic missile attack. What was surprising though was the
extent to which Mr. Clinton went even farther than expected to circumscribe,
foreclose or otherwise offer the Russians a veto over U.S.
options to defend American forces and allies overseas.

Taken together, the “basic principles” Messrs.
Clinton and Yeltsin have agreed to will have the effect not only
of endorsing the obsolete and increasingly dangerous 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. They also significantly expand its
scope in ways inimical to vital U.S. interests. In so doing,
President Clinton has thrown down the gauntlet to the
congressional leadership which has repeatedly and strenuously
objected to his diplomatic initiatives in this area. ⁽²⁾

Shame, Shame: A Bill of Particulars

The following are the “basic principles” (emphasis
added throughout) that the two presidents have declared would
“serve as a basis for further discussions in order to reach
agreement in the field of demarcation between Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) systems and Theater Missile Defense (TMD)
systems.” (This formulation expressly commits the
United States to continue negotiations to which Senate Majority
Leader Robert Dole, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and virtually the
entire Republican congressional leadership have formally
expressed their opposition.)

• “The United States and Russia are each committed
  to the ABM Treaty, a cornerstone of strategic
  stability.” Since the 1972 ABM Treaty
  effectively precludes the United States and its people
  from being defended, this “principle”
  establishes unequivocally President Clinton’s
  determination to leave this Nation vulnerable to missile
  attack — even as he has acquiesced to Russia’s plan
  to ensure that Iran will be able to have nuclear weapons
  with which to exploit that vulnerability. (See
  below.)
• “Both sides must have the option to establish and to
  deploy effective theater missile defense systems. Such
  activity must not lead to violation or circumvention of
  the ABM Treaty.” This “principle”
  affords the Russians the first of several bases upon
  which to object to future U.S. deployments of theater
  missile defenses, systems that have not heretofore been
  legally constrained by the ABM Treaty. It will
  indubitably be cited also as grounds for objecting to
  future cooperation on TMD with allied governments.
• “Theater missile defense systems may be deployed
  by each side which (1) will not pose a realistic
  threat to the strategic nuclear force of the other side
  and (2) will not be tested to give such systems
  that capability.” The term “realistic” was
  reportedly inserted at Russian insistence. The reason?
  The extent to which a threat is “realistic” is
  clearly in the eyes of the threatened. It is predictable
  that Moscow will be claiming that American TMD systems —
  particularly capable ones — are a threat to individual
  Russian missiles, even if they are wholly inadequate
  to pose a “significant” or
  “meaningful” threat against a Russian attack in
  a “force-on-force” scenario.
• “Theater missile defense will not be deployed by
  the sides for use against each other.” This
  “principle” appears to introduce a basis for
  the Russians to argue that there should be geographic
  limitations on the deployment of U.S. TMD systems. The
  ABM Treaty imposes no such limitations on non-strategic
  anti-missile weapons.
• “The scale of the deployment — in number and
  geographic scope — of theater missile defense systems by
  either side will be consistent with theater ballistic
  missile programs confronting that side.” This
  “principle” appears to offer the Russians a
  “two-fer”: First, it establishes that there
  should be some relationship between the scale of theater
  missile threats faced by a “side” and the
  number of theater missile defenses that “side”
  may have. And second, it creates a basis for establishing
  numerical as well as geographic limitations on U.S. TMD
  capabilities.

According to this logic, since Russia faces a
potentially enormous danger of attack from shorter-range
ballistic missiles, it would be entitled to an enormous
number of TMD systems. Since Russia’s TMD systems (e.g.,
the SA-12 and S-300) have considerable strategic missile
defense potential, the Kremlin could proceed with what
amounts to a nation-wide defense against missiles of
all ranges. On the other hand, since the United
States itself faces no theater missile threats,
its TMD capabilities would presumably be limited to
overseas deployments and possibly just to those numbers
and regions where U.S. forces are still forward-deployed.

• “In the spirit of partnership, the Presidents
  undertook to promote reciprocal openness in
  activities of the sides in Theater Missile Defense
  systems and in the exchange of corresponding
  information.” Given previous experience,
  openness in sensitive Russian military programs is
  anything but reciprocal, as is evident from continuing
  problems associated with Moscow’s non-compliance with
  various data exchange and verification requirements of
  existing arms control agreements.
• “The Presidents confirmed the interest of the
  sides in the development and fielding of effective theater
  missile defense systems on a cooperative basis. The
  sides will make every effort toward the goal of
  broadening bilateral cooperation in the area of defense
  against ballistic missiles. They will consider expanding
  cooperative efforts in theater missile defense technology
  and exercises, study ways of sharing data obtained
  through early warning systems, discuss theater missile
  defense architecture concepts, and seek opportunities for
  joint research and development in theater missile
  defense.”

This “principle” appears to mean that
instead of the “cooperation” contemplated by
President Reagan between the two sides on a global
— read, strategic — anti-missile system, there will now
be only “cooperation” on theater missile
defenses. This is a substantial departure even from the
commitment made by President Yeltsin in January 1992 when
he expressed a desire to participate in a “global
protective system.” All other things being equal,
the “cooperation” contemplated by this far more
narrow statement will mean the transfer of extremely
sensitive technical information, software and hardware
that could lead to its irreparable compromise.

Other Aspects of the Summit Appear No Better

Regrettably, Mr. Clinton appears to have performed no better
in other areas he discussed with Mr. Yeltsin and/or addressed in
their communiqué:

• Nuclear Weapons for Iran: Mr. Clinton claims to
  have secured two concessions concerning Russia’s planned
  transfer of nuclear weapons-related technology to Iran:
  First, Mr. Yeltsin has agreed not to sell Tehran a gas
  centrifuge facility used to enrich uranium for nuclear
  weapons. This is no major concession as even Yeltsin
  admits that it would be a “military” program;
  its transfer would put Russia in clear violation of the
  Non-Proliferation Treaty and in deep trouble with the
  U.S. Congress. There is every reason to believe that
  this item was added for the sole purpose of throwing it
  overboard in order to get President Clinton’s approval of
  the rest of the Iranian deal.

Second, the Gore-Chernomyrdin group is supposed to
“review” the remainder of Russia’s nuclear
cooperation program with Tehran. The value of this
cosmetic exercise was made even more insignificant by Mr.
Clinton’s announcement that the Russia-Iran cooperation
was “legal” and “consistent with
international treaties.” Worse yet, he agreed to
pap-filled communiqué language legitimating Russian
activities by associating the United States with:

“[The Presidents’ shared] commitments
to the NPT and to the nuclear suppliers group
guidelines, and in particular to the principles that
nuclear transfers should take place only under
full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
safeguards and only when a supplier is satisfied that
such transfers to any non-nuclear weapon state would
not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.”

• Chechnya: First, President Clinton dignified the
  perpetrators of brutal genocide in Chechnya by appearing
  in Moscow for festivities that featured a parade of
  hardware and personnel used in that brutal Stalinesque
  operation. (His decision to absent himself from the
  reviewing stand for the parade poetically captured the
  whole summit’s leitmotif of
  “See-No-Evil.”) Then he agreed to a communiqué
  that reeks of detentist moral equivalence and
  indifference to actual Russian behavior:

“Aggressive nationalism, proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, unresolved territorial
disputes and violations in the area of human rights
present serious threats to stability, peace and
prosperity. The Presidents agree that the effort
to deal with these challenges must be based on
respect for the principles and commitments of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
particularly concerning democracy, political
pluralism, respect for human rights and civil
liberties, free market economies and strict
respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and
self-determination.“

• NATO: Another rout appears to have occurred on the
  alliance-management front. Russian efforts to sabotage
  NATO and prevent its eastward expansion seem to have been
  advanced, among other things, by the adoption of
  communiqué language that appears to commit the United
  States to full Russian membership in an institution
  conceived — and still needed — to deal with a potential
  strategic, military and political threat from Moscow:

“[The Presidents] agreed that the central
element of a lasting peace must be the integration of
all of Europe into a series of mutually supporting
institutions and relationships which ensure that
there will be no return to division or
confrontation. The evolution of European
structures should be directed toward the overall
goal of integration. President Clinton stressed
that the process should be transparent, inclusive and
based on an integral relationship between the
security of Europe and that of North America.”

• Dangerous Technology Transfers: President Clinton
  also affirmed the U.S. commitment to work for the
  earliest possible integration of Russia into the
  floundering organization intended to succeed the
  Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls
  (COCOM) and the Missile Technology Control Regime:

“The Presidents agreed that the formal
participation of the Russian Federation in the
multilateral nonproliferation export control regimes
would significantly strengthen those regimes as well
as broaden the basis for cooperation between the two
countries on nonproliferation. They agreed to direct
officials in their respective governments to address
expeditiously the issues affecting Russian membership
in the various regimes, with a view to ensuring
active U.S. support for Russian admission to each of
the regimes at the earliest possible date.”

Unfortunately, including Russia and China — two
of the most prodigious and indiscriminate transferers of
sensitive dual-use technologies — is a sure-fire way to
neuter and otherwise obstruct these initiatives.

The Bottom Line

President Clinton has done significant harm to U.S. interests
with his performance in Moscow. It now falls to Congress to try
to undo at least some of this damage. These efforts should
include, among other things: a clear statement of congressional
intent to protect the American people, their forces and allies
overseas against missile attack; penalties for
countries and companies that defy the U.S. economic embargo on
Iran; and conditionality with respect to aid and other
political and economic assistance to Russia. Such conditionality
should make clear the unacceptability of Moscow proceeding with
the transfer of nuclear weapons-related technology to Iran,
furnishing of other strategic capabilities to dangerous third
parties or prosecuting genocidal attacks against Chechnya — or
others within or near its borders.

(1) See the recent Center for Security
Policy Decision Brief entitled Mischief in Moscow,
Crisis in Washington: Will Clinton Defy Congress on Missile
Defense? (No. 95-D 30, 8 May 1995).

(2) In addition to Mischief in Moscow,
see the Center for Security Policy Press Release entitled Read
Their Lips: New Hill Leadership Tells Clinton to Stop Foreclosing
Missile Defense Options (No. 95-P 02,
9 January 1995) and various News Releases by the Coalition
to Defend America: Summit Showdown: Key Legislators, AIPAC
Warn Against Clinton Efforts To Constrain Missile Defenses
(April 12, 1995), Senate Leadership Throws Down the Gauntlet
to Bill Clinton: Defend America — Or Else (March 15, 1995)
and Congressional Leaders, Others Fire Opening Salvo In 1995
Campaign to Defend America (January 24, 1995).