Truth or Consequences: 1988 ABM Treaty Review Conference

Introduction

The Reagan administration plans to use
the 1988 ABM Treaty Review Conference as
a means of advancing its campaign to
“restore the integrity” of that
accord. For the United States, therefore,
the focus of this meeting will be on
getting the USSR to stop violating the
Treaty. Much energy will be expended in
particular on the matter of the Soviet
Union’s illegal construction of a large,
phased array radar (LPAR) at Krasnoyarsk.

As important as compliance with
treaties is, however, were the Review
Conference to do nothing more than berate
the Soviets about their egregious
violations of their obligations, it will
represent a tragically missed
opportunity. In fact, with regard to the
long-term security interests of the
United States the conference will be a
failure — even if it results in Soviet
agreement to destroy the Krasnoyarsk
radar.

The reason for this harsh judgment
should be self-evident: The five-year
review affords a unique and final
opportunity for the Reagan Administration
to engage in a fundamental reappraisal of
the rationale behind the ABM Treaty. Such
a reappraisal would reveal that, after
sixteen years, the history of this accord
has been one of unrealized expectations
and a dramatically worsened U.S.
strategic posture:

• Contrary to the prediction of the
  ABM treaty’s architects, the
  treaty did not halt Soviet
  movement toward development of a
  nationwide ABM defenses.
• Indeed, growing evidence of the
  Soviet Union’s intention to
  deploy such defenses suggests
  that the premise that
  anti-ballistic missile systems
  could not be made to work is no
  longer true (if ever it were).
  The United States’ own research
  under the Strategic Defense
  Initiative bears this out.
• Also contrary to predictions, the
  treaty did not lead to deep arms
  reductions or greater stability
  in offensive weapons.
• In fact, the signature of the ABM
  treaty ushered in a period of
  vast and unprecedented growth in
  the Soviet arsenal (a fourfold
  increase in the number of Soviet
  strategic nuclear weapons since
  1972). In its aftermath, the
  United States is decisively more
  vulnerable to preemptive attack
  than when the treaty was signed.

For its part, the Soviet Union will
almost certainly wish to keep the focus
of the review conference squarely on
strengthening the ABM Treaty. However
much it may contrast with their own
actions, the Soviets’ rhetoric since 1983
has emphasized the USSR’s commitment to
the Treaty; Soviet diplomacy has been
uniformly directed at ensuring that the
United States would continue for the
foreseeable future to be bound by that
agreement’s limitations.

Toward this end, the USSR may agree at
this meeting to do something about the
Krasnoyarsk radar; then again, it may
not. Most likely is some middle position
— a cosmetic action that seems to meet
part of the American objections without
entirely dismantling the radar. Even if
the Soviets were to destroy the radar
facility at Krasnoyarsk, however, the
significant problems posed for U.S.
security by this accord will persist.

Soviet Strategic Defenses

Central among these problems has been
a Soviet behavior which has scorned not
only the letter but also the spirit of
the agreement. The Krasnoyarsk radar is
an important part of this behavior, but
it is not the whole story. As President
Reagan has repeatedly certified to
Congress in his annual reports on Soviet
non-compliance, this radar fits into a
broad pattern of Soviet strategic defense
activities. Some of these are permitted,
some of them legally ambiguous, and some
of them clearly in violation of the ABM
Treaty. While Soviet secrecy, advances in
technology and ambiguities in the
Treaty’s constraints have made it
difficult to establish clearly that all
such activities contravene the ABM
accord, in their totality these
questionable activities pose a
significant risk of eventual Soviet ABM
breakout. Together they suggest, as the
United States has repeatedly said, that
the “USSR may be preparing an ABM
defense of its national territory.”

To cite but a few examples:

• The Soviets have increasingly
  exploited the technological
  gray-areas between air defense
  and anti-ballistic missile
  defense. For example, their SA-12
  missile, nominally an
  anti-aircraft missile, also has
  capability against tactical
  ballistic missiles. It could be
  used illegally to defend against
  submarine-launched, and possibly
  even some land-based,
  intercontinental-range missiles.
• U.S. concerns about this
  possibility are exacerbated by
  the Soviet Union’s pattern of
  testing ABM and air defense
  components concurrently —
  behavior the United States
  believes may amount to yet
  another violation of the treaty.

• The Soviet Union has been
  developing for years ABM systems
  believed capable, thanks to their
  inherent mobility, of being
  deployed to sites around the
  Soviet Union in a matter of
  months. Such systems could reduce
  dramatically the warning time the
  United States might have of
  Soviet breakout from the treaty.
  Recently, the Soviets established
  unequivocally the
  transportability of the
  components of two such systems —
  the Pawn Shop and Flat Twin ABM
  radars by moving them from legal
  sites to a prohibited location.
  In so doing, they committed
  another unequivocal breach of the
  ABM Treaty.
• Reload capabilities of the Moscow
  ABM system also gives rise to
  what the President’s December,
  1987 noncompliance report cites
  as a “serious concern”
  and an “ambiguous
  situation” with regard to
  compliance. Such reload
  capabilities significantly expand
  the usefulness of the
  100-launcher ABM system that the
  Soviets are permitted under the
  treaty.
• It must be assumed, moreover,
  that, as the Soviets engage in a
  major upgrade of the ABM system
  at Moscow, they are producing
  sufficient numbers of
  interceptors and other equipment
  to support a larger ABM
  deployment than allowed by the
  Treaty. Indeed, the fact that one
  such interceptor, the SH-08, has
  previously been associated with
  the mobile ABM-X-3 system
  heightens concerns about the
  likelihood of a rapid and
  widespread deployment.

• The Soviets are in the process of
  completing a network of radars
  like that at Krasnoyarsk. Such a
  network is an essential
  ingredient for a traditional
  territorial defense system. It is
  also the most time-consuming one
  to acquire. The inherent
  capability of these radars could
  permit them to contribute
  significantly to a Soviet
  territorial defense capability —
  even though they are nominally
  deployed in a legal fashion.
• Such ABM-related activities take
  on even greater strategic
  significance against the
  back-drop of a wide array of
  other Soviet defensive measures.
  Massive investments in air
  defenses, deeply buried
  leadership shelters, civil
  defenses and a variety of means
  applied to enhancing the
  survivability of offensive forces
  (e.g., hardening, concealment,
  mobility, deception, etc.) all
  attest to the Soviet Union’s
  abiding commitment to reduce the
  vulnerability of its most
  valuable assets to nuclear
  attack. These other strategic
  defenses work synergistically
  with the USSR’s ABM program and
  would enhance the effectiveness
  of even a relatively modest
  capability against ballistic
  missiles.

In short, there is a broad sweep of
Soviet activities that go well beyond the
problem posed by the Krasnoyarsk radar
and that bear directly upon the Soviet
Union’s actual capabilities to defend its
territory against ballistic missile
attack. The simple truth of the matter is
that the USSR remains committed to
strategic defense, a commitment it is
pursuing in violation of the spirit as
well as the letter of the ABM Treaty.
Even if the Soviets agree to destroy the
Krasnoyarsk radar, they will not have
altered this fundamental reality.

ABM Technologies Can Work

The U.S. SDI program has demonstrated
that techniques are available that will
permit the interception of ballistic
missiles and their reentry vehicles with
non-nuclear means. The Soviets have, of
course, opted for a less elegant, more
brute-force approach — traditional,
nuclear-armed interceptors guided to
their targets by powerful ground-based
radars.

The American research program into and
the substantial Soviet deployment of
their respective technologies attest to
the shortsightedness of the ABM Treaty’s
framers. Far from it being impossible to
stop a bullet with a bullet, as some of
them believed at the time, doing so is
today well within the technical
capacities of both nation’s military
establishments. The difference is that
the USSR is actively pursuing deployment
of its system, at a minimum in the Moscow
region and possibly beyond; the United
States, meanwhile, is racked with
uncertainty and divisiveness over the
future of its Strategic Defense
Initiative.

Stability in Offensive Arms
Has Not Ensued

Perhaps the most important and least
realized promise of the ABM Treaty was
that it would create a stable strategic
environment, one that would give rise to
reductions in strategic arms from the
levels existing in 1972. In the event,
the number of the weapons in the Soviet
strategic arsenal has actually increased
fourfold since the Treaty was signed.

What is more, during this period, the
Soviet Union deployed a new generation of
highly accurate missiles, optimized to
render U.S. ICBMs vulnerable to
preemptive attack. Ironically, under the
ABM Treaty, the survivability of U.S.
land-based forces has not grown and the
stability of the strategic balance has
not improved; to the contrary, they have
worsened dramatically. U.S. strategic
forces — like the nation they are
supposed to protect — became more, not
less, vulnerable with the Treaty’s
inhibition of American defenses.

The Review Conference

It is against this backdrop that the
five-year review of the ABM Treaty should
be considered. The following prescription
will maximize the utility of this event
and ensure its consistency with long-term
U.S. interests:

• The United States should be
  extremely chary of Soviet
  proposals aimed at reinforcing
  the ABM Treaty. The Treaty has
  manifestly not prevented the
  Soviet Union from obtaining
  considerable capability to
  breakout of its limitations.
  However much the United States
  (especially its uniformed
  military) might hope the Soviets
  will not do so, there is little
  evidence to support the
  contention that new commitments
  not to withdraw from the Treaty
  will do much to prevent them from
  breaking out when and if they
  wish to.
• While the Soviets should be
  encouraged to destroy the illegal
  radar at Krasnoyarsk, the United
  States should be under no
  illusion that this action — if
  it is taken — will preclude the
  USSR from breaking out of the ABM
  Treaty or otherwise acquiring
  defensive capabilities not
  permitted by that agreement.
  Moreover, anything short of
  complete destruction of the radar
  facility may not even seriously
  interfere with its use by the
  Soviet Union in the future for
  illegal purposes.
• Under no circumstances should the
  United States agree to further
  encumber research into practical
  strategic defenses as the price
  for more promises about
  reductions in offensive arms.
  America has already paid dearly
  for the last such promise; when,
  moreover, it is becoming
  increasingly unclear that sharp
  reductions are going to produce
  additional strategic stability
  (any more than the ABM Treaty
  did), there are further grounds
  for resisting the so-called
  “Grand Compromise.”

In short, the purpose of the ABM
Treaty Review Conference should be to
dispel illusions about this agreement,
not to strengthen its regime. It should
establish unequivocally that the Soviets
have materially breached this agreement,
violated its spirit and acted so as to
ensure that whatever arguably mutual
benefits might have arisen from its
strategic construct were not achieved.
Finally, the 1988 Review Conference
should set the stage for vigorous work on
and deployment of SDI — not its
abandonment.