This month a new phase of the nuclear arms race will be launched. The site for this event will not be a top-secret laboratory in California or a missile-testing range on some remote Pacific island. It will happen around a conference table in Geneva, Switzerland, when the United States and the Soviet Union commence a new round of arms control talks.
Instead of plutonium, hardened silos, and submarines, the tools of battle in Geneva will be bluff and bluster, public deception, and, perhaps the most deadly nuclear weapon, protracted stalling. For the citizens of both superpowers, the results will likely be the same.
For some months now, a debate about arms control has raged within the Reagan administration between the "hard-liners," mostly in the Department of Defense, and the "pragmatists" in the State Department. The hard-liners want the United States to dispense with the illusion of arms control, build whatever kinds of weapons it wishes in whatever numbers it can, and let the Russians make of it what they will.
The pragmatists, on the other hand, recognize that arms control talks represent the only politically viable route for attaining their nuclear goals which, when examined, turn out to be virtually identical to those of the hard-liners. They want to build the MX missile, complete the Euromissile deployment, fill the oceans with Trident submarines, test and eventually deploy a sophisticated, new anti-satellite weapon, and move unhindered toward the development of Star Wars machinery.
But unlike the hard-liners, the pragmatists realize that the United States is not (so far) a country where generals can unilaterally impose their will on the Congress and the people without consultation. For instance, there is a very real chance that the 99th Congress will refuse any funds for the MX missile system. But the beginning of arms control talks gives Pentagon lobbyists a "patriotic" argument for the MX. They can sell it to Congress as a necessary "bargaining chip" for the Geneva talks.
History suggests that weapons systems taken into negotiations as bargaining chips are more likely to be ratified in the subsequent treaty than bargained away. The most infamous example is that of the MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle) program and the SALT I talks. MIRV, a program to place several nuclear warheads on each of our strategic missiles, was initially accepted by Congress only as a bargaining chip to be traded away in SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) negotiations. But the SALT I treaty finally gave both the United States and the Soviet Union virtually free rein to "MIRV" their entire arsenals.
A similar bargaining chip strategy may be used regarding the "Star Wars" program, officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). But at this writing there is still debate within the administration about just how negotiable Star Wars development will be in Geneva. The president seems convinced that Star Wars is the final solution to the deterrence stalemate.
The theory behind SDI is that laser, particle beam, or X-ray weapons stationed in orbit around the earth would destroy incoming Soviet missiles in outer space before they can hit our missile silos or cities. Reagan claims that SDI would give the United States a viable defense against nuclear attack. Mutual destruction would no longer be assured and the United States, and eventually the world, would be free from the threat of nuclear war.
SDI is a very shaky basket in which to hold so many strategic eggs. Most non-partisan experts agree that the chances of a workable system in this century are very slim. Development of the program will be incredibly expensive, perhaps $1.2 trillion, according to some independent government studies. And even in the best-case scenarios, enough missiles would leak through the system to wreak unparalleled death and destruction.
Despite these overwhelming technical obstacles, U.S. commitment to the search for a Star Wars capability seems firm. The president's strategists may not believe the rosy tales he spins of ending "the immorality of Mutual Assured Destruction." But they do recognize that a workable strategic defense system would ensure unchallenged U.S. military superiority long into the future.
From the Soviets' perspective, U.S. development of a Star Wars system would leave them effectively disarmed in the face of more than 11,000 U.S. strategic warheads. They are likely to respond by working feverishly to develop their own parallel system. In the interim the Soviets would probably insist on deploying huge numbers of new strategic missiles to overwhelm the Star Wars system.
The result will be a sharply escalated arms race, on earth and in the heavens, and a dangerously unstable military and political environment. By insisting on Star Wars, the Reagan administration is effectively sabotaging prospects for any semblance of arms control and laying the groundwork for blaming the possible failure of the Geneva talks on the Soviet Union.
ONE OF THE arguments Reagan administration hard-liners have used against engaging in arms control talks is that negotiations lull the American people into complacency about the Soviet threat. But the real danger is that the Geneva talks will lull the populace into complacency about the threat of nuclear war.
It has to be admitted that the 80 percent support for the nuclear freeze proposal indicated in public opinion polls is not mainly the result of sophisticated analysis. People have supported the freeze because they believe very strongly that something has to be done to prevent a nuclear war. By entering negotiations with the Soviets, the president is trying to demonstrate that his administration is doing "something."
The U.S. peace movement faces an enormous educational and organizational task in the months ahead. The disarmament strategy put forward by the movement, which calls for a mutual freeze on the testing, production, and deployment of all new nuclear weapons, is still the sanest and soundest one available.
This year Congress is being pressured to move toward a freeze by enacting an immediate halt of nuclear testing. While the political atmosphere created by Geneva makes the rallying of public support for that demand more difficult, it also makes the task more necessary and urgent.
Plans are already afoot for a variety of lobbying, protest, and direct action events calling for genuine steps toward nuclear disarmament. The proposal to halt nuclear testing will be a major focus of the large April 20 mobilization being planned for Washington, D.C. And if Congress refuses to exercise its responsibility to stop the nuclear arms race, there will be a nonviolent occupation of the U.S. nuclear test site in Nevada on August 6, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
These and other actions deserve the full support and participation of all who believe that the nuclear arms race is not a problem to be managed, as the arms controllers say, but a sin that must be abolished.
Danny Collum was an associate editor of Sojourners magazine when this article appeared.
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