Speech to the Jersey Shore Branch of the American Association of University Women. Forum on “Peace and Security.” The Presbyterian Church on the Hill, Ocean Township, New Jersey, November 14, 1983.
Having heard of the devastation nuclear explosions inflict, having considered the history of the arms race, our thoughts incline toward arms control. In thinking of arms control, we of course think of safety. To want safety is to experience fear. Fear can concentrate our minds wonderfully, to paraphrase Dr. Johnson. But it can also blur the mind.
Consider, for example, the words of Mr. Jonathan Schell, author of a bestselling polemic titled The Fate of the Earth. “The defense of our nation, or the defense of liberty or the defense of socialism, or the defense of whatever we happen to believe in,” he claims, is morally negligible in contrast to the need to prevent human extinction. Although camouflaged in moralistic language, this is nothing other than the doctrine of survival at all costs, and it’s easy to arrive at: Schell consults his cowardice and calls it ‘conscience.’ For to say that we must sacrifice “whatever we believe in” in order to survive is to destroy any reason to survive. It allows—more, it encourages—the aggression of tyrants, the very war it tries to prevent. Commenting on the false idealism that deluded two generations in Europe after the First World War, Adolf Hitler wrote, “Other people’s illusions about power were my great opportunity.”
Whenever we hear proposals for arms control, we must therefore take care that our fear truly concentrates our minds instead of blurring them. It is not enough merely to recount nuclear horror stories and call for a treaty. We must examine the several kinds of treaties and ask, Which one makes the most sense, not only now but in the long run?
Making sense in the long run means that at least three criteria must be met: stability, verifiability, and enforceability. Stability means that adversaries will have no incentive to start a nuclear war; because they are adversaries, this means deterrence, not trust. Verifiability too cannot rest on trust; it requires reliable, independent, national means of inspection. Enforceability is perhaps the most neglected criterion: The ability to verify a treaty violation means nothing if the United States government lacks the means and/or the political determination meaningfully to penalize the country that commits the violation. Deterrence must hold not only in matters of war but also in matters of peace.
There are three basic types of nuclear arms control treaties: limitation treaties, reduction treaties, and moratorium or ‘freeze’ treaties. Limitation treaties, exemplified by SALT I and II, allow some growth in nuclear arsenals but put a ‘cap’ on that growth. Such treaties were popular in the last decade. But the reduction and ‘freeze’ treaties get more attention today, and they are the ones I’ll discuss tonight. Obviously, it’s possible to devise treaties that combine features of all three types, but for our purposes it’s best to keep things clear.
I oppose the several ‘freeze’ treaties that have gained currency in the last three years. I support several of the ideas for reductions and limitations. Here are my reasons.
Advocates of the ‘nuclear freeze’ argue that a ‘freeze’ on the development, production, and deployment of all nuclear weapons would be easily verified because any nuclear weapons activity at all would violate the treaty. We would not need to worry about technical distinctions between kinds of nuclear weapons. But ‘freeze’ partisans also argue against the deployment of cruise missiles—which, they say, are too small to keep track of. If this is true, then a ‘freeze’ in Europe is unverifiable because most of the nuclear warheads there are on short-range, ‘tactical’ launchers even smaller than cruise missiles. Without verification, treaty enforcement is obviously impossible.
What about a ‘freeze’ on only the larger, ‘strategic’ and intermediate-range missiles? This would run into a major long-term problem, as there are important differences in the ages of the U. S. and Soviet arsenals as well as in the kinds of weapons they contain.
Eight-five percent of the Soviets’ strategic nuclear warheads are on bombers and missiles built after 1970. Less than half of ours are. Moreover, the Soviets’ major offensive threat to us consists of the three kinds of big, land-based missiles that they first deployed in 1974 and 1975—the SS-17s, SS-18s, and SS-19s. There are now over 800 of them, equipped with thousands of powerful warheads; they can destroy most if not all o our land-based missiles and about one-ha of our bombers and submarines. Our bombers and submarines, upon which we depend to deter such attack, are, with few exceptions, five, ten, and some cases fifteen to twenty years older than the Soviets’ new land-based missiles.
The lifetime of a bomber is 25-30 years; that of a submarine is 20 to 25 years. Under a total ‘freeze,’ the Soviets would have no reason to reduce their arms. They could simply wait for our older systems to deteriorate. They’re already deteriorating. Four years ago, we had 41 submarines armed with strategic nuclear missiles; since then, we’ve deactivated ten of them (with a total of 160 missiles and hundreds of warheads) because they were too old. We’ve replaced them with five new Trident submarines, with a total of 120 missiles. By the mid-1990s, under a total ‘freeze,’ we would have only these five submarines as a deterrent. At any given time, only two or three of them would be at sea–inviting g targets for Soviet anti-submarine warfare.
Some ‘freeze’ advocates reply by offering to replace old weapons with new ones of the same kind—ne Polaris submarines for old Polaris submarines, for example. They admit the existence of the difference in age between the U. S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals but say they only want a ‘freeze’ on new types of weapons—no replacing Polaris submarines with Trident submarines.
This argument overlooks two problems. First, although some ‘freeze’ proponents say that they only want a ‘freeze’ on new kinds of weapons, in fact they never push for the replacement of the old ones. Their inaction speaks louder than their words.
Second, ‘freeze’ advocates fail to see that even with replacement, the Soviet task of attacking will remain simpler than the U. S. task of defending. Bombers (defensive weapons too slow to use in a surprise attack, given the current state of anti-aircraft technology) can be shot down. Techniques are now being developed that will enable both countries to track and destroy submarines more efficiently. In addition, the Soviets are reportedly testing a new anti-missile missile, the SA-12, which may be capable of destroying our Poseidon submarine-launched missiles. Under a ‘freeze,’ anti-aircraft and anti-submarine weapons would not be outlawed because most of them wouldn’t be nuclear weapons. The Soviets could put the money they would save on building nuclear weapons into weapons to use against our submarines an bombers. Meanwhile, we would still need to worry about their land-based missiles, against which a feasible defense will be highly problematic. Land-based missiles constitute seventy percent of their stockpile.
Could we tie a ‘freeze’ to a treaty prohibiting anti-aircraft and anti-submarine weapons? Probably not: Current types of anti-aircraft systems could be monitored, but satellite-based technologies would almost surely be unverifiable. And no one knows how to enforce such a treaty, even if it were verifiable.
Fortunately, reduction treaties, if properly designed, avoid the disadvantages of the ‘freeze.’ The most important of these treaties is called the nuclear ‘build-down.’ Proposed by Democratic Congressman Al Gore, it now has bipartisan support in Washington.
The ‘build-down’ solves the problem of the differences between the U. S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals. It does so by proposing that both sides move gradually toward greater emphasis on smaller, defensive weapons and less emphasis on the large, fast, accurate first-strike weapons. The ‘build-down’ would cut the number of strategic warheads by eliminating multiple-warhead ICBMs by 1994. It would limit the number of air-launched cruise missiles while limiting the range and speed of submarine-launched missiles. It would reduce the power of land-based warheads.
Advocates of the nuclear ‘freeze’ have attacked the ‘build-down,’ in part because they misunderstand it and in part because they understand it all too well. Some have claimed that it allows us to deploy first-strike weapons; this, clearly, is nonsense. They are confusing the proposal itself with the political deal Democrats in Congress struck with President Reagan in in order to make the ‘build-down’ official U. S. policy. Reagan accepted the ‘build-down’ in exchange for Democratic endorsement of such offensive missiles as the MX and the Trident D-5. This endorsement, however, is contingent on the failure of the Soviets to come to an equitable agreement. If the ‘build-down’ is accepted, the MX could not be kept beyond 1994. There would be very little reason to build it at all. If, on the other hand, the ‘build-down’ or some other equitable treaty is not accepted, the U. S. and the Soviet Union will continue the arms race. This, of course, is true of any arms control proposal, including the ‘freeze’; it can’t work if it’s not accepted.
The real reason that some leaders of the ‘freeze’ campaign object to the ‘build-down’ is the one I hinted at earlier. They are using the vehicle of a bilateral ‘freeze’ as a prod to force a unilateral ‘freeze’ on the United States. Adoption of the ‘build-down’ would frustrate this intention.
At the beginning of my talk I criticized the irrationality of those who would sacrifice all their convictions for the hope of survival. I shall end by criticizing not the theoretical arguments of some disarmers, but an equally flawed practical argument they advance.
One reason for their campaign to unilaterally ‘freeze’ U. S. development, production, and deployment of the MX, the Trident D-5, and the Pershing II missile system in Europe is the fact that these are offensive weapons that could, sometime in the 1990s, threaten to destroy Soviet land-based missiles and command centers, just as the Soviets can now destroy our own land-based missiles and command centers. If we deploy such weapons, disarmers say, the Soviets will put their missiles on a computer-based system of alert, so that their missiles can be fired before our missiles strike. Under such circumstances, a computer error would inevitably lead to catastrophe.
The argument ignores two points. First, the Soviets have more than enough time to increase the number and quality of their defensive weapons, their submarines and bombers, thus deterring future U. S. attack. that is exactly what they are doing now, among other things. They also have more than enough time to sign a reasonable treaty. Second, the whole argument assumes that the Soviets would deliberately put their lives at the mercy of unreliable computers. In effect, this would amount to committing sure suicide in order to avoid the risk of being killed. Surely we cannot make our defense policy a hostage to such an incredible threat.
If I can achieve only one thing tonight, it would be to encourage everyone to examine arms control proposals, and the arguments supporting them, with as much care as we examine proposals to build more weapons. Properly understood, defense and diplomacy are the proverbial ‘two sides of the same coin.’ I am not going to stand here in a Christian church and suggest that survival in liberty is a coin of infinite price. This church embodies convictions transcending political liberty and physical survival. Nevertheless, survival in liberty is a coin of high price, worth keeping. Let’s flatter ourselves in thinking that reasonable discussions of “peace and security” will help us keep it.
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