WHAT THE WORLD DOES NOT NEED IS ANY MORE OF CLINTON’S NON-PROLIFERATION NON-ACHIEVEMENTS

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton
Administration’s decision to pursue
approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTB) — despite the lack of
consensus in the Conference on
Disarmament (CD) supporting that treaty
— speaks volumes about this President’s
preoccupation with placebos rather
than effective counter-proliferation
measures, with signing ceremonies rather
than the painstaking, often unglamourous
work entailed in really
reversing the hemorrhage of weapons of
mass destruction.

In fact, Mr. Clinton’s CTB gambit
nicely illustrates the dangers inherent
in such short-sighted, expediency driven
initiatives: They do little, if anything,
to ameliorate the problem of
proliferation. To the contrary, they tend
to exacerbate them. For example,
the Comprehensive Test Ban will not
prevent states determined to acquire
nuclear weapons from simply buying them.
Alternatively, they may opt to field
crude, but functional atomic weapons,
foregoing the sort of underground testing
that the American military requires in
order to validate and assure the
reliability of its sophisticated nuclear
weapons designs. The Washington Times
on Saturday reported that India was now
more likely than before to bring its
nuclear weapons program to fruition.

Too Clever By Half

The absence of such U.S. testing,
however, will inevitably degrade those
critical factors — with detrimental
effects for the American deterrent
posture. They may also reduce the safety
of the Nation’s nuclear forces. What
is more, the United States will probably
find itself forced under international
legal practice to honor the constraints
imposed by this treaty even though it
cannot come into effect, thanks to the
refusal of India as an undeclared nuclear
power to sign on. It is hard to
see how either the American people or
their national security interests will be
served by a treaty that produces these
ominous results.

If that were not bad enough, however, the
Clinton decision to abrogate the
Conference on Disarmament’s consensus
rule creates a precedent that is sure to
cause the United States great grief in
the future. Time and again,
hare-brained arms control ideas have been
hatched in the CD — ideas that would
enjoy overwhelming support in a UN
General Assembly invariably hostile to
the U.S. and keen to dismantle its
military power. Only the American ability
to veto or otherwise bottle up such
measures in the Conference on Disarmament
by refusing to permit a consensus has
prevented these measures from entering
into force.

The CWC: No Pride of
Authorship

A similar reckless disregard for
American interests is at work in the
Clinton initiative now awaiting Senate
approval: the Chemical Weapons
Convention. Naturally, the Administration
would have Senators believe that the
treaty they will be voting on (possibly
as early as Thursday, 12 September) is
simply the product of the Reagan and Bush
presidencies. In point of fact, as the
attached letter
signed by over fifty distinguished
national security experts — many of whom
served in senior positions in those
administrations — makes clear, the
burden of justifying this Chemical
Weapons Convention under present
circumstances lies squarely with Clinton
and Company.

Indeed George Bush’s Secretary of
Defense, Dick Cheney,
and four former Reagan Cabinet officers,
six retired four-star military officers
and a host of other, respected security
policy experts conclude that: “The
national security benefits of the
Chemical Weapons Convention clearly do
not outweigh its considerable
costs.” The reason for this
conclusion lies in part in the fact that
so much has changed in the assumptions,
circumstances and expectations concerning
this accord since 1993 as to make it
almost unrecognizable to those previously
associated with it.

These changes include: Russian
repudiation of the BDA; Moscow’s
assertion that it will not ratify the CWC
unless the West agrees to pay billions to
underwrite its chemical demilitarization
activities; revelations that the Kremlin
is developing two new classes of
super-toxic agents not among those on the
Convention’s prohibited list; and the
failure of a far more rigorous on-site
inspection regime in Iraq.

It is now clear, furthermore, that
agreeing to sell weapons-relevant
“commercial” technology as a quid
pro quo for treaty signature has not
worked out so well in the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty context. It is
even less likely to do so in that of the
CWC, given the inherent dual-use nature
of chemical manufacturing technology and
know-how. Similarly, the Clinton reversal
of the Bush commitment to the U.S.
military to preserve the armed forces’
ability to use tear gas in situations
like Bosnia is clearly a deal-breaking
breach of faith with those who serve.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy
commends Secretary Cheney and his
colleagues for their efforts to put the
CWC into context and to encourage the
Senate to reject this counter-productive
so-called
“counter-proliferation”
initiative. It is to be earnestly hoped
that these important inputs will
encourage the Senate to postpone action
on the CWC, unless and until it is made
effective. Failing that, it must be
defeated outright.

In this way, the “World’s
Greatest Deliberative Body” will
create an opportunity to correct this
accord’s most serious defects. Perhaps
more importantly, it will re-establish a
standard of verifiability, effectiveness
and enforceability that can only enhance
the value of any arms control agreement
submitted in the future.