When Will We Ever Learn? Last Bush Foreign Policy Paroxysm Produces Flawed Start Ii Accord — For Wrong Reasons

Suddenly, there is a START II Treaty. Before negotiators had even finished drafting the document, Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger declared it ready for presentation to Presidents Bush and Yeltsin; the Russians announced that it would be signed by the two leaders at a ceremony in Moscow this weekend; and, Mr. Bush made a brief, anti-climactic Rose Garden appearance yesterday to confirm his acceptance of the accord.

‘You Want It Bad, You’ll Get It Bad’

The reason for such haste is not difficult to divine: After his defeat last November, George Bush became seized with the idea of concluding this agreement before he left office on January 20th. The rationales ran from the self-serving (for example, the syndrome that persuades presidents their "place in history" will only be assured by the arms control agreements they have signed) to the wrong-headed (i.e., that signing the agreement would "help" the beleaguered Yeltsin regime in some unspecified way and/or "lock in" understandings that would bind the hardline factions that are supplanting it).

Unfortunately, such considerations have chronically animated Bush arms control policy. Time and again, the Administration has allowed expediency to drive the timing and to determine the content of strategically sensitive arms control accords with the ex-USSR. Time and again in the process, U.S. positions crucial to the equitability, workability and verifiability of such accords have been seriously compromised.

All too often, the result has been agreements that: promise more security for the United States than they deliver; establish precedents and loopholes quite detrimental to U.S. interests; are difficult, if not impossible, to verify; and reward the worst elements in the Kremlin for their negotiating intransigence and their insistence on continued militarism. The Conventional Forces in Europe and START I treaties and the Chemical Weapons Convention are cases in point.

START’s Flaws

The same applies to the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty announced Tuesday in Geneva. In June 1992, President Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a "framework agreement"(1) in Washington that provided for the complete elimination of all multiple-warheaded land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (MIRVed ICBM) systems. In exchange for dismantling the backbone of the former Soviet Union’s first-strike capability (about 2,000 highly accurate and deadly warheads), the Bush Administration agreed to give up approximately 5,000 of its most formidable nuclear weapons (including those on the new MX ICBM) and favorable counting rules that discounted bomber-delivered weapons.

The growing assertiveness of the military and other hardline elements in Moscow, however, evidently compelled Yeltsin to backtrack from his commitments at the Washington summit. When a desultory negotiating effort gave way following Mr. Bush’s defeat in November to an intense effort to complete the START II accord prior to the end of his term, the Russians demanded — and obtained — important U.S. concessions. These include:

• The Right to Retain SS-18 Silos: The START II Treaty will not eliminate the infrastructure associated with the most dangerous of the ex-Soviet MIRVs, the SS-18 heavy ICBMs, as contemplated in the June 1992 framework agreement. Instead, the treaty permits Moscow to retain ninety SS-18 silos and associated launch facilities, support complexes, etc. As the United States has no idea how many SS-18 missiles the Russians actually have in their inventory, even the monitored destruction of all "declared" heavy ICBMs may leave Moscow in a position to utilize these silos in the future to launch SS-18s.

 

Heretofore, arms control agreements hedged against this possible break-out avenue by stipulating that the launchers for missiles subject to reduction had to be physically destroyed (i.e., by blowing up their headworks). When the Russians complained that — in their present, dire economic straits — they could not afford the expenses associated with the destruction of these silos and the construction of new silos for smaller, single-warhead missiles, the United States was accommodating. Instead of asking why Russia needed new missiles, Washington agreed that Moscow could simply modify ninety SS-18 silos with concrete and steel rings.

 

At best, such modifications will permit the Russians to deploy other, potentially MIRVed missiles in these silos (possibly the SS-19 or "non-deployed" SS-24s). At worst, they may be susceptible to swift undoing, enabling covertly retained SS-18s to be backfitted into the de-modified silos.

 

• The Right to Retain SS-19s: Another major change to the June 1992 agreement involves the United States’ eleventh-hour decision to accede to the Russians’ demand that they be permitted to retain substantial numbers of one of their most advanced MIRVed ICBMs, the SS-19. Under the June accord, all such systems would have had to be eliminated. Under START II, however, Moscow may retain as many as 105 deployed SS-19s as long as these missiles are "down-loaded" — a process whereby five of their six warheads are removed. Unfortunately, as long as the former Soviet Union retains replacementwith little fear of U.S. detection rapidly reverse the downloading process. In this manner, the Russians could retain a militarily significant breakout capability. Worse yet, since there are no limits in either START I or II on the number of "non-deployed" SS-19s, the Russians may be able to keep as many of these missiles (even in a fully loaded status) as they wish. warheads, it can

 

• Bomber Inspections and Limitations: Until very recently, the Joint Chiefs of Staff insisted that on-site inspections of the United States’ premier intercontinental-range bomber, the B-2, would be totally unacceptable. The Chiefs cited legitimate concerns about the costs and feasibility of fully protecting sensitive performance-related information. As a direct result of the military’s stance on this score, the United States went to considerable lengths in connection with START I to avoid such arrangements. In the process, the Bush Administration made important concessions on a number of other points.

 

In the negotiating end-game on START II, however, the United States agreed to such inspections in connection with new limitations governing the accountability of long-range bombers as nuclear delivery systems. The cumulative effect of these and other constraints imposed by START I and START II will be to degrade significantly the deterrent value of the air-breathing leg of the U.S. strategic triad.

 

The Bottom Line

In short, the Bush Administration has rushed into a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which — like START I — affords the former Soviet Union militarily significant loopholes, ominous breakout potential and undesirable circumvention options. Unfortunately, such defects matter for the same reason that they have been incorporated into the treaty: the Old Guard return to power in Moscow.

The Bush Administration’s present willingness to accommodate the ascendant hardliners in the Kremlin will not help Boris Yeltsin accomplish the democratic and free market transformation of the former USSR — any more than its concessions on START I in the spring of 1991 assured Mikhail Gorbachev’s survival. In particular, decisions taken in START II that materially undermine the effectiveness and verifiability of the agreement so as to allow the old Soviet military-industrial complex to pose a modified threat to the United States at lower cost to Moscow (i.e., the justification for preserving SS-18 silos for other missiles and fielding a "de-MIRVed" SS-19) are contrary to both Yeltsin’s interests and our own.

Neither will the desired transformation of the old Soviet Union be served by massive new infusions of U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed capital investment (e.g., $2 billion in Export-Import Bank loans to the Russian oil and gas sector), debt relief and commodity credits Mr. Bush seems likely to announce in Moscow. Typically, such concessionary deals are extended as rewards for granting U.S. presidents "history-making" arms control agreements.

In fact, such supine American behavior simply emboldens the opponents of structural reform in the old Soviet Union. It also provides the financial life-support that can enable them to govern without implementing necessary political and economic liberalization. Last, but not least, it puts the U.S. taxpayer at further risk of vast losses when (not if) the former USSR defaults on repayment of these debts.

It is most regrettable that President-elect Bill Clinton has encouraged Mr. Bush to wrap up START II before the inauguration. This suggests that the new team of foreign and defense policy advisors are disposed to repeat the Bush Administration’s errors in this area. At the very least, Governor Clinton is being implicated in his predecessor’s missteps. Unlike President Bush, however, President Clinton — and the American people — will have to live with the adverse strategic, political and financial consequences of such a shortsighted policy approach.

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1. The Center for Security Policy has long opposed "framework agreements" because they frequently are imbued with political significance or legal status they should not enjoy — particularly insofar as they prove to be less than faithful templates for the treaties that follow. See, for example, the Center’s analysis "At What Price Arms Control Agreements?"No. 90-48, 16 May 1990). The Center did argue, however, that the June summit was sufficiently promising as to warrant suspending Senate consideration of the original START deal pending its amendment with treaty language based upon the summit accord. (See an op.ed. article by Director Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. entitled "Amend START First, Ratify Later," The Wall Street Journal, 26 June 1992.) (