Authors: Richard Nixon
Second, it must not allow either superpower to have a credible first-strike capability. If both were to have this capability, each would be strongly tempted in a crisis to preemptively attack the strategic forces of the other. What would be worse, if an agreement gave superiority in first-strike weapons to an offensive power like the Soviet Union, it would actually increase the danger of war and of defeat without war.
We should formally offer to share any technology we develop for a space-based missile defense system with the Soviet Union or any other nation that joins us in seeking meaningful arms control. If all nations could deploy the system at once, none would suspect another of wanting to use it as a shield for an attack.
Third, it must provide the means for each side to verify the compliance of the other. We have relied in the past on satellite photography and other national means of verification. But advances in military technology now require that we settle for nothing less than on-site inspection. The Soviets have always rejected such provisions. We must make them understand that the Administration will only be able to muster the two-thirds Senate majority needed for ratification of a treaty if we have absolute confidence that both sides will carry out its provisions.
Fourth, it must restrict the testing of new missile technology that would destabilize the strategic balance. Technology is advancing faster than the superpowers can negotiate controls on the weapons it produces. The danger is that missile accuracy will advance to the point that neither side will have a nuclear deterrent that can survive a first strike. If we limit the testing of new missiles, we can prevent their deployment, because no country would stake its survival on missiles that had not been flight-tested.
Fifth, it must reduce, not just limit, the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers. The United States has proposed such reductions several times, but the Soviet Union has always rejected the idea. The only conceivable reason for each superpower to maintain its nuclear stockpile at today's levels is that the other superpower is doing so. Through arms control agreements, we can retire the aging and obsolete missiles on both sides and reduce the numbers of new missiles as well.
Sixth, it should allow for the implementation of the Scow-croft Commission's recommendation to replace fixed, land-based, multi-warhead missiles with mobile, single-warhead ones. It takes at least two warheads detonated simultaneously to destroy a land-based missile in its silo. If both sides had equal numbers of single-warhead missiles, neither would have enough warheads to launch a successful first strike against the other. If these missiles were mobile, it would make the success of such an attack so doubtful that one side would never risk attacking the other.
The proposal to freeze the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union at current levels is fatally flawed because it fails to meet these six criteria. Its proponents say that their goals are to achieve meaningful arms control and to reduce the danger of war. Their intentions are good, but their judgment is not. If we were to negotiate a nuclear freeze, its effect would be just the opposite of what they expect.
A nuclear freeze would increase the danger of war because it would leave the Soviet Union, an offensive power, with an unquestionable first-strike capability. It would destroy any chance for meaningful arms reductions because it would eliminate the incentives for the Kremlin leaders to negotiate.
The history of the negotiations that led to the 1972 SALT I treaty limiting defensive nuclear weapons illustrates this point. The Soviets already had begun to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system. When completed, it would protect their command centers and missile bases from a nuclear attack. We countered this by asking the Congress to approve funding for an ABM system for the United States. Our critics charged that we were escalating the arms race and destroying the chances for an arms control agreement. Only after intensive lobbying were we able to get the Senate, by a margin of just one vote, to go along with the proposal.
The approval of the ABM program made SALT I possible. It was in the Soviets' interest to stop us from going forward with our system because our technology was better than theirs. They were therefore willing to pay a price to stop us. But if we had lost the Senate vote, I would have had to ask Brezhnev to give up his ABM system without getting anything in return. He would have just laughed in my face.
The Soviets are not philanthropists. Nor are they fools. They are tough, ruthless negotiators who will give nothing for nothing. In negotiating with them, we cannot get something from them unless we have something to give to them.
The greatest threat to peace today is the Soviet arsenal of strategic land-based missiles. It gives them a first strike capability. We have nothing in our arsenal to counter this. They
will have no incentive to reduce that threat through arms control negotiations unless we have a weapons system in place or in production that would at least in part match their capability. That is why it is essential for us to go forward with the MX missile. Without it, we will never be able to reach an agreement based on any semblance of equality.
The nuclear freeze is a fraud. It is a simple answer to a complex problem. We cannot expect to achieve all our goals in one negotiation, but no agreement we sign should freeze them beyond our reach.
Negotiating an arms control agreement that will contribute to real peace will take years. It is fatuous to suggest that such an agreement could be struck through a quick telephone call between an American President and Andropov. We will not be able to reach all of our goals for restoring strategic equality, increasing stability, and reducing the size of the nuclear arsenals in time for a summit meeting in 1984. But we could negotiate a substantial first step toward one or more of these goals and an agreement in principle on the others.
If significant progress is made along these lines before a summit, Presidents Reagan and Andropov when they meet could agree on long-term goals for arms control and establish a step-by-step process for reaching them. New top-level representatives, who would report directly and periodically to the Presidents, should be given the responsibility for negotiating a specific timetable.
The pieces are in place for an arms control breakthrough. The Soviets dealt themselves a strong hand by relentlessly building up their nuclear weaponry in the 1970s. By modernizing our own we have improved our hand through the draw. But we also have an ace in the hole that gives the Soviets an incentive to strike a fair deal: if there must be a nuclear arms race, we will win it through our superior economic strength and advanced technology.
After an agreement is signed, the pundits inevitably speculate about who won and who lost. But for an arms control agreement to contribute to real peace, there should be no losers,
only winners. If the agreement is not to our mutual advantage, it will become politically impossible for the losing side to implement it. Unless both sides reap benefits, the process will falter.
Once we conclude arms control agreements, we must do everything they allow us to because we can be sure the Soviet Union will do so. Opponents of arms control claim that SALT I allowed the Soviets to gain nuclear superiority. The facts prove the contrary. In 1972, programs were under way to develop the B-1 bomber, the Trident II submarine, and the MX, cruise, and Minuteman III missiles. It was the Congress, not SALT I, that delayed these programs. Forty billion dollars were lopped off Administration defense budgets between 1968 and 1975. This mistake was compounded by President Carter. In his first years in office, he cancelled the B-1, delayed the MX and cruise missiles, shut down the Minuteman III production line, and cancelled the neutron bomb. The Soviets, not surprisingly, did everything SALT I permitted, stretching some provisions in the process. If we had followed a similar policy, there would be no land-based missile gap today.
While we must seek arms control agreements, we must not overestimate what they can accomplish. A bad agreement will increase the risk of war. Not even the best agreement imaginable would solve all our problems. If the United States and the Soviet Union cut their nuclear arsenals in half, a goal that is beyond the wildest dreams of even the most optimistic arms control negotiator on either side, we would still have enough weapons to destroy each other many times over. If we were to make such drastic arms reductions, a nuclear war would be just as devastating as it would be today.
If we are to reduce the risk and danger of war, we must leapfrog the sterile arms control debate and go to the heart of the problem: the political differences between the United States and the Soviet Union and the policies we can initiate that will deter the Soviets from resorting to war to resolve those differences.
Incentives for Peace
. Only when deterrence is assured can
detente be effective. If the Soviets realize that aggression will not pay, they will have no choice but to behave with restraint. We can then reinforce the effect of the fear of war by providing them with the rewards of peace. Real peace requires a policy that has incentives for peace as well as disincentives for war.
Our economic power dwarfs theirs because our economic system works and theirs does not. The NATO allies and Japan outproduce the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies by a ratio of over three to one. Trade between our systems can give them an economic stake in peace and lead to greater Soviet restraint.
The Soviets need us. We know this, they know it, and we should make use of it. They are more economically dependent on us than we are on them. We largely trade Western technology for Soviet raw materials. The Soviets need access to our know-how if their economy is to grow through the end of the century. If necessary, we can go elsewhere to buy their products, but they have no alternative supplier for ours. This gives us leverage over them. We should use it to further the cause of real peace by stamping our goods with a political price tag as well as an economic one.
We should have no illusions about what trade can accomplish. Trade by itself will not produce peace or prevent war. Some contend that if we trade more with the Soviet Union, they will be less aggressive. But the Kremlin leaders cannot be bought off by trade. In the late 1970s they showed us that they would both trade and invade. At the other extreme, some contend that the increase in Soviet-American trade in the early years of detente helped fuel Soviet expansionism. This claim is preposterous. The level of trade was minuscule then; it could not possibly have affected Soviet military power. Economic relations can never substitute for deterrence. If properly implemented, they can reinforce it.
Lenin contemptuously remarked that capitalists were so short-sightedly greedy that they
would sell the communists the rope by which they themselves would someday hang. Unfortunately, some Western businessmen fit the bill. They would sell the Soviets not only rope, but also the scaffolding and a how-to book for the hangman. By refusing to look beyond the bottom line, they blithely ignore the military power the Soviets are massing on the front line.
Trade should be expanded only in ways that serve our interests. This means that we must not sell the Soviets goods and technology that directly contribute to their military capability. It also means that our trade must not be at subsidized prices or on easy credit terms. The rule should be “trade, not aid.”
Beyond this, we should expand our economic contacts. We should sell them rope, if they want to buy it, but do so in a way that binds their hands and prevents them from reaching out to further their domination. The more we engage the Soviet Union in an intricate network of commercial relations, the more we increase its stake in peaceâand also increase its incentive to maintain good relations with us.
When the Russians marched into Afghanistan, the United States was reduced to boycotting the Olympics in Moscow and imposing a grain embargo that was meaningless because other suppliers were ready to rush in to fill the gap. We would have had more leverage if we had been trading in more things the Russians wanted.
Our leverage with trade will be minimal unless our allies in Europe and Japan join with us in developing a common policy. Acting together economically, the West is a powerful giant. Acting separately, it is an impotent giant.
For economic leverage to be effective, it must be substantial. We must have something significant to give and also to take back. We need both the carrot and the stick.
The Soviet leaders want what the West produces, and they are willing to give up something to get it. The key is to make it very clear to them that there is an iron link between their behavior and the West's willingness to make the trade deals they hope for.
Soviet leaders reject explicit linkage, whether to trade or to arms control negotiations. They will not adopt the principle
of linkage, but they will adapt to the fact of it. We must make them understand that linkage is a fact of international life. The American people will not support arms control and trade initiatives with the Soviet Union at a time when it is engaging in aggressive actions that threaten our interests.
For linkage to work, however, it must be done privately. We should not make statements or take actions that will make the Soviets lose face publicly. For example, Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union increased from 400 in 1968 to nearly 35,000 in 1973 as a result of the private pressure of our Administration. Congress then passed a lawâthe Jackson-Vanik amendmentâwhich put the Russians on the spot publicly by tying trade to emigration policy. The number of Jews allowed to emigrate was cut in half the following year.
Peaceful trade is totally inconsistent with the Soviet Union's aggressive policies. I once heard President Eisenhower remark, “We should sell the Russians anything that they can't shoot back.” When they use their economic ties with the West to finance their expansionist policies, the Soviets are in effect shooting back our assistance. The West cannot be so foolish as to subsidize its own destruction.