U.S. nuclear arms risk-taking

Question: Would you agree to scrap the U.S. nuclear deterrent, or at least commit to do so, under present and foreseeable world conditions? Those conditions include the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to some of the most dangerous nations on Earth. Worse yet, it is now possible for such nations to acquire the ingredients for nuclear weapons – and perhaps even the weapons themselves – by simply buying them, thus skipping the complex, time-consuming and hard-to-conceal process of manufacturing them.

In other words, would you be in favor of a strategic situation in which the United States had no nuclear weapons and others – for example, Iraq, North Korea, China and Russia – probably would? My guess is that few Americans would support such a proposition. Yet, it is the predictable outcome of steps now being taken by the Clinton administration – both unilaterally and as part of its effort to garner international support for the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Any lingering doubts that the administration is committed to a U.S. "denuclearization" agenda were eliminated with The Washington Post’s recent publication of a voluminous, six-part paean to this policy’s principal bureaucratic proponents. Published on the eve of the NPT review conference now under way in New York, this series underscored the extent to which denuclearizers now hold sway in the Clinton Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Energy Department and Pentagon. The Post report confirmed that the anti-nuclear policies being promulgated are resulting essentially in the shutdown of the infrastructure for manufacturing and maintaining America’s nuclear deterrent. Increasingly, its critical functions are going unperformed, its resources diverted to non-defense tasks and its skilled work force dissipated.

The fact that other countries are not following suit gives rise to a natty problem: At some point, this denuclearization policy is going to be seen for what it is – reckless, unilateral U.S. disarmament. In truth, it is appalling that neither the Democrat-controlled 103rd Congress nor the Republican-controlled 104th has taken the administration to task for an agenda that will, in due course, render the American nuclear deterrent unsustainable.

To obscure the fundamentally unilateral nature of its program and to forestall congressional challenges, the denuclearizers are making common cause with developing nations and others who share their desire to see the United States driven to disarm. The vehicle for accomplishing this is the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. The administration is allowing itself to be extorted into making new commitments inimical to the U.S. nuclear deterrent in exchange for others’ agreement to extend the NPT indefinitely. According to a report published in the New York Times last Sunday, the quid will be an American commitment to "reduce nuclear arsenals, complete a comprehensive test ban, encourage the creation of nuclear free regions [around the world], provide binding security assurances for nations without nuclear arms and move toward a cutoff in the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials."

Before the United States is pushed by these undertakings and other Clinton initiatives any closer to denuclearization, adult supervision must be urgently brought to bear. A good start was made last month by one of this century’s most distinguished public servants, former Secretary of Defense and Energy and CIA Director James Schlesinger. On March 14, he told the Senate Government Affairs Committee:

"It is essential fully to protect the U.S. nuclear deterrent. I cannot overstate the importance of such measures – for some lose sight of this essential element in the desire to assuage the desires of others. There is a good deal of talk about eliminating the ‘discrimination’ between weapons states and non-weapons states, ultimately eliminating nuclear stockpiles, further reducing such weapons at this time, etc.

"It is important to be clear that the distinction between weapons states and non-weapons states is not going to be eliminated. Nuclear weapons, moreover, will be with us for the indefinite future.

"Some of the non-aligned states would have us pretend that these simple realities do not exist. They demand that the United States make commitments – purely abstract commitments — regarding non-discrimination, elimination of nuclear weapons, and so on," Mr. Schlesinger said.

"It is necessary to put to such nations the question whether it is really in their interest for the United States precipitously to weaken its own deterrent. . . . It is in the interest of all the nations that desire stability for the United States to continue to have a deterrent sufficiently impressive to deter weapons use by other states.

"The game of flagellating the United States in disarmament conferences is one to which many diplomats from the Third World became habituated during the Cold War. It is time to end that game," Mr. Schlesinger said. "It is also time to curb the tendency to satisfy these demands by rummaging through our own nuclear deterrent to see what we can throw overboard without doing too much damage."

As Congress returns from its Easter recess, it must come to grips with the fact there is a growing potential for lethal attacks against American citizens – attacks that will make the horrible carnage inflicted by a small bomb in Oklahoma appear trivial by comparison. If it fails to do so, the legislative branch may find the Clinton administration has catastrophically eroded the contribution that a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent might make to avoiding such tragedies.