-40-

missiles of fifty percent does not reduce the danger of a
first strike if American missiles are reduced proportionately
(for technical counting reasons even more so). A fifty
percent reduction to contribute to strategic stability should
therefore eliminate the SS-18s altogether.

3. If the United States seriously intends to proceed with a fifty percent reduction of strategic forces it must urgently develop the Midget man single warhead missile which would enable us to increase the number of targets a Soviet first strike would have to cover thereby reducing the danger of surprise attack.

## Regional Conflicts

Lip service is being paid to the resolution of regional
conflicts but their treatment lacks any sense of urgency. And
yet international tensions are the result of political conflicts
where vital interests intersect. It is dangerous to emphasize
symptoms while neglecting causes.

-41-

Moreover, the regional conflicts which are being discussed almost exclusively deal with crises that have already broken out. But if we look fifteen years ahead, we see a world radically different from the current one. By then, Japan will be substantially armed, China will be much stronger, India will be the key country in South Asia, the Islamic world will have and radical transformation. Europe will be united or irrelevant; some of the countries of Latin America may have fulfilled their historic promise.

These transformations cannot possibly occur smoothly. Hence crises are inevitable. And US-Soviet relations will be a key factor in maintaining the peace. Arms control is nearly irrelevant to that process. Yet there is no evidence that this incipient revolution has received systematic attention either within the US government or by the summit participants.

After the transformation is completed there will emerge a radically changed world in which the present superpowers will

-42-

play a totally different role. There is no evidence that either
superpower has addressed this role individually much less
in its impact on each other. Yet it is certain that this
transformation of the world equilibrium will in the long
run be even more important than the technical issues that
occupied the summit these past few days.

## The Role of Gorbachev

The euphoria sweeping Washington can be explained primarily
then by the impact of the personality of Gorbachev. He has
emerged as the deus ex machina to solve all the West's dilemmas
-- a Communist leader who will bring peace and tranquillity
without any real effort on the part of the free countries.

But is that nostalgia realistic or even fair to Gorbachev?
Admittedly, listening to this obviously thoughtful seemingly
openminded General Secretary, it is easy to forget that he has
emerged at the top of what must be the toughest competition
in the world in which nice guys finish last and losers are

-43-

rarely heard from again.

But even granting him good intentions, it is possible
that the West's near obsequiousness destroys the best oppor-
tunity for peace. I cannot judge whether Gorbachev is sincere
in his avowed desire for a new climate of international relations;
perhaps he does not know himself. The fact is the free countries
tendency to equate foreign policy with psychiatry deprives
us of the opportunity of ever knowing the answer. Reality no
doubt imposes at least a respite on Soviet foreign adventurism,
perhaps even an end to it. At the same time, Gorbachev, as
any prudent leader, is unlikely to court unnecessary domestic
problems. He will not volunteer changes in political and
strategic arrangements which parts of his bureaucracy would
find unpalatable. Obviously, he will push those programs
most advantageous to his own country. I do not know how
he would have reacted if presented with a comprehensive
program that linked the various elements of military power,

-44-

nuclear and conventional, or to a serious discussion on political
relationships in trouble spots around the world or to an attempt
to discuss the US-Soviet role in the world only a decade or so
ahead of us. I am convinced that he has the sort of intelligence
that could make a constructive contribution to such a dialogue
if he chose to do so. And if he refused, we would understand the
challenge we face better than we do now.

The failure to test Gorbachev seriously may cause the summit
to appear in the end as a missed opportunity. There is still
time to restore a balance to the East-West dialogue. But the
prerequisite is the recognition that Gorbachev cannot save the
democracies; they must do that themselves.

NEWSWEEK ARTICLE

December 10, 1987

Due to the courtesy of President and Mrs. Reagan, I was enabled to participate in the first day's public functions of the Gorbachev visit to Washington from the arrival ceremony to the state dinner. And I was invited by the Soviet embassy to a reception by the General Secretary for what the Soviets call public figures which in the Soviet Union seems to embrace the gamut from rock stars to former cabinet members.

The mood of euphoria was overwhelming. It was moving to observe a President about to leave office in the twilight of his life seeking to fulfil the quintessentially American dream by way of a series of anecdotes: that history, whatever its record of Russian and Soviet expansionism, could be stopped by strenuous good will, that the principal obstacle to peace was the Soviet's ignorance of the goodness and quality of American life. "A stranger is a friend you have yet to meet" Reagan said in his welcoming statement.

One could not imagine Gorbachev, urbane, subtle, energetic

C Y J

-2-

to utter such a thought. As much a product of his tradition that prides itself on seeing through "subjective" factors as personalities to the underlying "objective" reality, he was in obvious pursuit of a strategic objective: to accelerate the dismantling of the relevance of American strategic power. His principal theme was unvarying: nuclear weapons must be abolished in this century; the INF agreement to destroy medium and short range weapons must be followed in short order by a fifty percent reduction in strategic forces. He had also come prepared with an extremely clever formula whose practical consequence is to spell the end of the President's Strategic Defense Initiative without asking the President to sign its demise.

I could sympathize with the near ecstasy of the American delegation at the culmination of years of dedicated work. I had been there before. I was also very much impressed by Gorbachev -- so much more flexible in argument than the worn-out men who had preceded him. And yet, in the end, it is results which last. Moods are ephemeral.

-3-

And in my day in Washington, I was seized by a melancholy
feeling that I might be watching the end of America's postwar
role in international affairs. The President, I am convinced,
will realize his goal to have made a difference in foreign
policy. This most conservative of all postwar Presidents will
have presided over a revolution in our strategic position and of
the concepts and practices that have shaped Western strategy and
alliance policy for four decades. For four decades it has been
assumed that nuclear weapons were needed to balance Soviet
conventional preponderence. That policy is in the process of
being abrogated whatever formal declarations to the contrary.

The Soviet strategy is clearly to complete most of that process
before reducing their conventional threat -- and conventional
arms control is in any event an intellectually difficult process
which has received inadequate conceptual discussion.

Whether that Reagan revolution can yet be turned into a
positive direction depends on whether America and its allies

-4-

are prepared to face the realities of the world they are in the
process of creating. These realities include:

a. The INF agreement has political and strategic implications which alter both political and military relationships within the alliance.

b. These difficulties cannot be cured by the failure of the Senate to ratify the treaty. Indeed non-ratification would compound American problems in Europe.

c. Remedies must be sought in developing urgently a new concept for both strategy and arms control policy for the Alliance as a whole.

d. In the absence of an agreed strategy, a fifty percent cut in America's strategic forces would compound the problems of the INF treaty. It must not be rushed in the last year of a lame duck administration.

e. The de facto abandonment of SDI is a decision of major magnitude requiring a national debate. A fifty percent cut

in strategic forces is not an adequate quid pro quo.

f. Conventional disarmament must take place in tandem with nuclear disarmament or else the Soviets will lose all incentive for an equitable settlement. At a minimum, the West must see a concrete Soviet scheme so that it knows whether there is any reality to this prospect.

g. The United States must not forget that the world in the year 2000 will be radically different from today's. It must not be deflected from thinking about that future by becoming totally absorbed in the "bean counting" approach to foreign policy -- of balancing warheads and missiles while the political ground is shifting.

For the entire post war period, America provided world leadership because it offered military protection to distant countries with its military, largely nuclear might and economic growth with its dynamic industry. Both these pillars are in crisis simultaneously. Some of these changes

were inevitable and American statesmanship should help guide this
change. But there is a difference between promoting evolution
and de facto abdication. An American abandonment of its historic
role -- albeit in new conditions -- would in time end all the
hopes so euphorically being celebrated in Washington this week.

The INF Treaty

I have repeatedly stated my concerns about the INF treaty.

It is a largely symbolic gesture to satisfy those who believe that the reduction of nuclear arsenals is of such symbolic significance that it requires no analysis of its substance. The trouble is that the treaty's symbolism runs the wrong way. It does not reduce the nuclear threat for Europe because the Soviets will have a surfeit of nuclear weapons (even after a follow-on agreement) for that purpose. It does not reduce the nuclear threat against the United States because these weapons were always out of range of our country. It does eliminate the American capacity to retaliate against a Soviet attack on Europe from European soil.

-7-

In the minds of most defense minded Europeans -- the people who have sustained the Atlantic Alliance for forty years against often violent domestic opposition -- this could amount to the beginning of decoupling-- the emergence of a Soviet capacity to blackmail Europe while sparing the United States.

But it is pointless to rehearse once again arguments dealing with an accomplished fact. The very grave dangers of the INF treaty cannot be avoided by the Senate's refusal to ratify the treaty; they must be overcome by a serious effort on the part of the Alliance to restructure its defenses in the new conditions and to agree for once on common arms control policies that reflect geopolitical necessities rather than domestic pressures.

Were the Senate to refuse to ratify the treaty, American leadership in the Alliance would suffer another grievous blow. In the space of five years, the United States would have induced Allied leaders, at heavy political cost to themselves, to deploy these missiles; then to endorse their withdrawal, once again at heavy, sometimes humiliating, cost only to

-8-

inform them in the end that a minority of the Senate (more than
a third, but less than half) blocks implementation. It is
certain that they would insist on the removal of the missiles
the Administration has declared superfluous. We would then
wind up with yet another agreement that is being implemented
though not ratified, casting further doubt on America's serious-
ness in international affairs.

The Senate, then, must not undo the agreement. But it
has a responsibility to engage in a debate that brings out all
its implications, strategic and political. There is an over-
whelming national need to face our real dilemma: the Adminis-
tration did not accompany the important build-up of US military
strength with insisting on the elaboration of a new strategic
doctrine reflecting changed technological realities. It is
now dismantling the only strategic doctrine that exists in the
name of arms control. That process, if not arrested, will
lead to disaster. The Senate should insist on an adequate

-9-

explanation of Western military strategy, not as a condition
of ratifying INF, but as a condition for proceeding with
follow on agreements.

**The 50 percent Reduction of Strategic Forces.** This is particularly important because the next phase of arms control has irrevocable consequences. Gorbachev and his skillful outsiders in Washington have skillfully managed to convey the idea that an agreement on reducing warheads by fifty percent is practically in the bag and they have dangled the prospect of a Moscow summit in early summer as its culmination. They have thrown in a clever formula for the de facto abolishing of the Strategic Defense Initiative. It is a fateful step that must not be rushed in the last year of a lame duck Administration. The INF agreement shifts the responsibility for the nuclear defense of Europe almost entirely to Washington and would require almost exclusively the use of nuclear weapons based in the continental United States or at sea.

The projected fifty percent reduction -- unless drawn with an

-10-

imagination beyond my comprehension -- help reduce the credibility
of our nuclear deterrent even further for any challenge short of
a direct nuclear attack on the United States.

Numbers are boring but essential to an understanding. The advent
of multiple warhead missiles has brought about a situation in which,
by definition, there are always more warheads than launchers.
Under such circumstances, there are always incentives for striking
first, destroying the enemies' arsenal before it can be launched
in retaliation. The potential victim seeks to overcome this
threat by mobility, hardening the target or -- perhaps -- by
strategic defense.

As the accuracy of warheads increases, fixed landbased
missiles become increasingly vulnerable. The Soviet Union has
sought to reduce this vulnerability by making two of its new
missiles (the SS24 and 25) mobile, while hardening the sites
of the third (the SS-18). One of these missiles -- the SS-25 --
has only a single warhead.

-11-

For our part, all US landbased missiles are in fixed silos.
Hence a fifty percent reduction of warheads would not change the
disproportion in favor of the attacker. In fact, because all
<u>modern</u> US landbased missiles have multiple warheads, we are
certain to retire the 500 single-warhead Minuteman II missiles,
thereby reducing the number of aiming points the Soviets will
have to take <u>in</u> to account. Thus, the proportion of warheads the
Soviets can aim at our fixed missiles will be increased from about
three warheads per missile to about five warheads per missile.
But since so many Soviet landbased missiles are mobile and/or
single warhead (hence more numerous) the reverse equation does
not obtain. Indeed, the relevant proportion will be 1:1, not
nearly enough for a preemptive strike. The proposed reduction,
far from contributing to stability, would make the US landbased
missile force <u>more</u> vulnerable. This will be true even if the
Soviets reduce their heavy missiles by half; the US targets will

-12-

shrink faster than Soviet warheads.

The situation is even more worrisome with respect to sub-
marine launched missiles. At present, the United States has
36 missile-firing submarines, of which at least 25 are at sea
at any moment. After an agreement, (depending on complicated
counting rules for warheads) the United States would possess
between 12-15 missile-carrying submarines, of which a maximum of ten
can be kept at sea at any one moment. Since the Soviet anti-sub-
marine force is not part of the agreement, the vulnerability of
the American submarine deterrent -- already increased because fewer
boats would be at sea -- could be further eroded in the event the Soviets
could achieve a technological breakthrough in anti-submarine warfare.

Depending on methods of calculation, these proportions might
be changed marginally, but not enough to alter the basic reality.

In summary, at the precise moment that the United States moves
the nuclear defense of the Atlantic Alliance substantially to
its own territory, it seems to be speeding an agreement that

-13-

would leave civilian devastation as our only feasible deterrent strategy. This would be either incredible, or if believed, could tempt a Soviet preemptive attack for which their capability after arms control would far exceed ours. Whatever the euphoria that would greet such an outcome, a grave sobering up would inevitably follow. How would the United States defend Berlin in such circumstances? What is the operational significance of the nuclear guarantee to NATO? How will the Soviets interpret this state of affairs?

The dilemma will become unmanageable if the Administration and some of our allies persist in proclaiming the destruction of all nuclear weapons as the ultimate goal of their policy. The President, for example, never tires of emphasizing that the chief virtue of the INF agreement is that it abolishes two entire categories of nuclear weapons. But since these weapons represent only about three percent of the total, the "benefit" rests largely in setting a precedent for the eventual abolition of all nuclear

-15-

signature on an agreement to that effort. But they have come
up with a formula brilliantly designed to achieve their objective
by indirection. They propose to extend the non-withdrawal clause
of the existing ABM agreement for ten years. The United States
has countered by offering seven years. A compromise is clearly
in the cards, likely to be supplemented by another "compromise"
to the effect that the end of the moratorium period, another
negotiation would start about a new regimen for SDI.

These clauses have the practical consequences of killing
SDI -- or to put it kindly, postponing it indefinitely --
without requiring a Presidential signature to that effect.
Leaders owe it to their public to expose the implications of what
they are doing first to themselves, then to their publics.
They cannot afford to fool themselves and they will not retain
confidence if they fool their publics.

SDI cannot possibly survive these provisions. They require
a moratorium on deployment for two administrations and then it

CJD

-16-

could be accomplished only by abandoning the fifty percent re-
duction treaty which by then would have achieved a sacrosanct
quality. Moreover, no moratorium has ever been abandoned by
the United States; we are still substantially observing the Salt II
treaty which we refused to ratify, which we are accusing the Soviets
of violating and which would have lapsed by now had it been
ratified. Moreover, in a period of shrinking budgets, the military
will lose their enthusiasm for a program which they cannot test
and will probably never deploy. For the Senate has already
sustained the so-called "strict" interpretation of the ABM agreement
whose practical consequence is to make it impossible to test the
advanced space-based element of strategic defense. In the end,
we will have traded SDI for a fifty percent reduction of strategic
forces not self-evidently in the Western interest -- at least
before substantial asymmetrical Soviet conventional disarmament.
Agreement becomes an end in itself.

This is not the occasion to discuss the strategic merits of

-17-

SDI. A serious debate has in fact never occured. President Reagan who deserves enormous credit for putting forward the concept weakened his case by excessive claims. He presented SDI as a means to achieve perfect defense of the population against the total Soviet arsenal. It was easy for opponents to punch holes in so extravagant a vision -- especially as no new weapon in history would ever have been built had it been subjected to the test demanded by SDI opponents: demonstrating perfect feasibility before allocating further resources (at the same time proscribing testing) clearly a new weapons system cannot survive if it is prevented from evolutionary progress.

The absolution of the opposing camps has prevented a thoughtful examination of the real options: defense of ballistic missile sites against major attack; defense of the population against small scale "terror attacks"; defense of the population against third countries.

It is a fateful decision for a democratic society to proclaim that it will leave its population deliberately defenseless

-18-

against an entire range of foreseeable dangers while basing its
strategy on the very weapons that produce this danger. In
these conditions, pacificism and unilateral nuclear disarmament
sentiments seem nearly inevitable.

The behavior of our European allies towards SDI is nearly
incomprehensible. On the one hand they insist on the undiminished
importance of nuclear deterrence. Simultaneously, most of them
oppose SDI or urge the sort of "compromise" which will kill it.
For Britain and France, the reason may be to maintain the
deterrent threat of their small nuclear forces; for others the
principal motive may be to remove what Soviet diplomacy has
defined as "progress" towards arms control. Arms control and
strategy, in short, are on different, perhaps incompatible tracks.

## Strategic Controversies

The West is sliding into a situation where even what remains
of its nuclear capacity will become the subject of endless
controversy. It is clearly foreseeable that once the INF agreement
is ratified and as negotiations for major cuts in strategic

-19-

forces proceed the Atlantic Alliance will face major controversies
at both ends of the nuclear spectrum. Some German leaders --
in both government and opposition -- are already urging a third
zero option: the removal of tactical nuclear weapons from German
soil. Britain and the US -- for the moment at least -- are
adamently opposed, but there are French leaders who may prefer
to see Germany totally dependent on its allies in the nuclear
field. At any rate, as the implications of the INF decision
confining tactical nuclear war to German territory sink in,
pressures within Germany for the removal of those nuclear weapons
will multiply.

Should a fifty percent reduction be agreed upon during the
waning days of the Reagan Administration, a new US President will
be under great pressure to make another comparable step. At
that point, the Soviets will insist that British and French
forces be counted as well -- a maneuver that will either force
disproportionate American reductions in order to compensate

-20-

for British and French forces that remain untouched, or involve us in a bitter confrontation with our allies as we seek to force them to agree to reductions. The next step in arms control could, therefore, involve us in conflicts with each of our allies and of our allies with each other. And in the end, arms control would have brought neither political nor military stability.

## Conventional Disarmament

Is a purely conventional defense of Europe than the answer? The Atlantic Alliance should take great care not to make the world safe for conventional war. Whenever a nuclear accord is in the offing, studies appear magically "proving" that conventional deterrence is almost within sight. But history is a more reliable teacher than systems analysis. For millenia, conventional armies that on paper were evenly matched fought each other because the leaders of the warring parties drew difference conclusions from the same data. One lesson is

-21-

clear; numerical equality whether in men or equipment is not
enough for deterrence. All of history demonstrates that
victory in conventional conflict goes to him who best concentrates
his forces and most ably capitalizes on initial success derived
from that concentration. Mrs. Thatcher has understood the
dangers of the accord nearly agreed to at Reykjavik and now
being sold retail by a persistent and skillful Soviet diplomacy.
She insists on retaining a nuclear option, and on that point,
at least, she represents the consensus of the defenseminded in
Europe.

But with all her admirable leadership qualities, she will
face a daunting task until the Western alliance comes up with
some new and coherent concept. Those who advocate a nuclear-
free zone in Europe will be driven -- if they are not also
there -- to a no first use concept because otherwise weapons
from outside the area could be used to conduct a nuclear war
there. That no first use theory already has many impressive

backers. Its clear implication is however that the denuclearized
part of Europe will accept defeat with conventional weapons
rather than use nuclear weapons. The Finlandization of Central
Europe is an unjust term of art -- the goal of Soviet policy for
forty years will then be nearly complete.

It is therefore reckless to proceed with nuclear disarmament
beyond the INF treaty without first taking a step towards
conventional disarmament. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in
a process in which Goliath proposes an arms control agreement
to David which begins with the elimination of slingshots.

The Soviet leaders have thrown out vague hints of a
readiness to explore "asymmetrical" reductions in the conventional
field, hopefully a synonym for abandoning at least some of
their conventional preponderence. This must be reduced to a
precise scheme -- at least enough to give an indication of
their approach. Otherwise current negotiations will remain
inherently unequal because they focus on the weapons on which

-23-

the West depends more than the Soviet Union.

## A Coherent Strategy

We must not make the mistake of ascribing all difficulties to a diabolic Soviet scheme. Most of our problems are in fact self-inflicted. The agreement reached and the negotiations in prospect largely grew out of Western proposals. It makes no sense to blame the Soviets for accepting what we propose because they understand our vulnerabilities better than we do.

We will not overcome these problems until we develop a coherent strategy for both defence and arms control.

We have come to this pass because in too many Western countries domestic politics have taken precedence over the analysis of strategy and because arms control theory has developed a life of its own without an adequate relationship to security policy.

DEC. 10 '87 12:52 KISSINGER ASSOCIATES N.Y.

P.012

C]3

A

-11-

Europe entirely to decisions made in Washington and ~~ weapons
based in the continental United States or at sea. The follow-on
~~strategic arms reduction~~ our nuclear detente agreement would reduce the credibility of this threat even further~~ and if not, it might well temp a Soviet preemptive strike~~

The advent of multiple warhead missiles has brought about a
situation in which, by definition, there are always more warheads
than launchers, creating inherent incentives for a first strike which
~~Under such circumstances there is always~~ this threat
The potential victim seeks to overcome by mobility, hardening the
target or -- perhaps -- by strategic defense.

As the accuracy of warheads increases, fixed landbased missiles
become increasingly vulnerable. The Soviet Union has sought to
reduce this vulnerability by making two of its new missiles, mobile,
(the SS24 and 25) and hardening the fitted (the third (the SS-18)). One of
these missiles, the SS-25, has only a single warhead, aiding P for our part,
All US landbased missiles are in fixed silos. Hence a fifty percent
reduction of warheads would not change the disproportion in favor of
the attacker. In fact, because all modern US landbased missiles can be
striking first, destroying the
evenier arsenal if for some reason it can be launched in a talation.

DEC. 10 '87 12:53 KISSINGER ASSOCIATES N.Y.

P.013

[Y]

B
multiple warheads,

-12-

MIRVed, hence we are certain to retire the 500 single-warhead
Minuteman II missiles, ~~This will increase the proportion of~~ with increased
warheads the Soviets can aim at our fixed missiles, from about
three warheads per missile to about five warheads per missile.
But since so many Soviet landbased missiles are mobile and/or
single warhead (hence more numerous) the reverse equation does
not obtain. Indeed, the relevant proportion will be 1:1, not
nearly enough for a preemptive strike. The proposed reduction,
far from contributing to stability, makes the US landbased missile
force more vulnerable. This will be true even if the
Soviets reduce their heavy missiles by nearly half; the
US targets will shrink faster than Soviet warheads.

The situation is even more worrisome with respect to submarine
launched missiles. At present, the United States has 36 missile-firing
submarines, of which at least 25 are at sea at any moment. After
an agreement, depending on complicated country rules for warheads,
the United States ~~will~~ will possess between 12-15 missile-carrying submarines,
of which a maximum ~~of~~ can be kept at sea at any one moment.

+

DEC. 10 '87 12:54 KISSINGER ASSOCIATES N.Y.

P.015

one of the chief virtues of the INF agreement that it is the first
to abolish two categories of nuclear weapons. But since these
weapons represent only about three percent of the total, the "benefit"
rests largely in setting
is to set a precedent for the total abolition of nuclear weapons --
a goal often avowed by President Reagan and put into concrete form
by General Secretary Gorbachev. Such a declaratory policy is
inconsistent with the action strategy of the Western Alliance; it
also is as unachievable as it is undesirable. So many nuclear
weapons have been produced by the superpowers, and their territories
are so vast, that the complete abolition of nuclear weapons is would be
utterly unverifiable. Each country would have to insist on retaining
a number of weapons as a hedge against cheating and against the
emergence of new nuclear powers.
We should then be

We should then be
emergence of new nuclear powers.
back to all the existing dilemmas of nuclear
strategy.

And we should think twice before seeking to make the world safe
for conventional warfare. The studies that emerge so magically
whenever a nuclear accord is in the offing "proving" that conventional
deterrence is almost within sight, prove that history is not subject

⊕

DEC. 10 '87 12:55 KISSINGER ASSOCIATES N.Y.

017

T/J

-16-

from German soil. Britain and the US are adamantly opposed, but there are French leaders who may prefer to see Germany totally dependent on its allies in the nuclear field. At any rate, as the N.R.S. is denying, confining the implications of a deployment that continues to be tactical nuclear war to German territory sink in, these pressures within Germany for the removal of those nuclear weapons will multiply.

At the same time, once the fifty percent reduction is complete, Warting days of the Reapar Administration, plotted, a new US President will be under great pressure to make another comparable step. At that point, the Soviets will insist that British and French forces be counted as well -- a maneuver that will either force disproportionate American reduction or involve us in a bitter confrontation with our allies. The next step in arms control is thus likely to involve us in conflicts with each of our allies and of our allies with each other. And in the end, arms control would, as now conceived, will have brought neither political nor military stability.

⊕

P. 016

[Y]

For millenia, conventional armies that on paper were evenly matched fought each other because the leaders of the warring parties drew different conclusions from the same data. One lesson is clear: numerical equality whether in men or equipment is not enough for deterrence. To achieve a breakthrough, conflict goes to who best employs strategy, force, and will; it is only necessary to concentrate at the point of attack. Mrs. Thatcher has understood the dangers of the accord nearly agreed to at Reykjavik and now being sold retail by a persistent and skillful Soviet diplomacy. She is insistent on retaining a nuclear option, and on that point, at least, she represents the consensus of the defensemined in Europe.

What is happening in US-Soviet relations, which threatens the long-term cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance. Whether the Soviet leaders planned it that way, or slid into it by Western default, they can now exploit Allied confusions at both ends of the spectrum of nuclear weapons. Some German leaders have already begun urging the third zero option -- the removal of the tactical nuclear weapons

⊕

NEWSWEEK ARTICLE

December 9, 1987 as corrected 12.10

By the nature of his office, the American President knows more than anyone else about the horrors of nuclear war and of the anguish its prospect causes to those charged with leading our nation. Every President wants to enter history books as having made a difference in easing international tensions. Ronald Reagan, for decades the scourge of the "evil" Communist empire and those who dared to deal with it, is no exception. Indeed, being an intensely personal, even sentimental, man, he is especially nearly consumed by that goal.

And he has a good chance to realize the ambition of making a difference. Unencumbered by traditional theories, he is about to achieve a sweeping transformation of the concepts and practices that have shaped Western strategy and alliance policies for four decades. The most conservative American President of the postwar period is producing a revolution in America's strategic position. The fact that no particular theory seems to underpin it changes neither the reality nor the discomfiture of old friends or current

critics.

I do not belong to either category: I have great regard for the manner in which President Reagan restored America's self respect in the first six years of his Presidency. But I confess to be deeply troubled by the forces he may have unleashed in his rush to end four decades of confrontation. That unease may seem captious in the wave of euphoria sweeping the world. But in the end, history tests achievements, not words. And I cannot convince myself -- much as I would like to -- that the agreements already reached or those in prospect improve the security of the free countries. In some regards they worsen it and they bid fair to unleash political processes America in its present condition is not well equipped to manage.

President and Mrs. Reagan did me the great honor of inviting me to participate in the public activities of the General Secretary's first day in Washington, including the state dinner. I also attended a reception at the Soviet embassy which enabled me to exchange a few words with Gorbachev. I came away from these

encounters with profound melancholy. I was moved by the touching
sight of a lame duck American President in the twilight of his
life invoking at every occasion the quintessentially American dream
that history could be stopped, that a new dawn was as simple as
the dedication to it. He seemed unencumbered by reflections on
the geopolitical implications of centuries of Russian expansionism
under Tsar and commissar as he told a string of anecdotes on the theme
that the principal challenge was the removal of distrust; the
principal obstacle to peace the Soviets' lack of knowledge of the
goodness and quality of American life. "A stranger is the friend
you have yet to meet" was the way President Reagan expressed it
in his statement welcoming Gorbachev.

Gorbachev, the representative of a system that prides itself
on its capacity to analyze "objective factors" such as balance of
power or economic relations permitted himself no such personal
digressions. His occasional reference to "the people" were abstract;
they related not to incidents, but to an inexorable movement of

-4-

history. Urbane, energetic, subtle, he reiterated unrelentingly
his principal theme which a bevy of subordinates/spread all over
Washington: Nuclear weapons must be abolished; the agreement to
order
destroy medium and short-range weapons must be followed in short/ by
50% reductions in the strategic forces of the two sides together with
clever arrangements whose practical consequence spells -- to put it
kindly -- the indefinite postponement of the President's Strategic
Defense Initiative to provide some protections against ballistic
missile attack. Other measures were mentioned that might follow
including some conventional arms reductions. But they lacked both
the urgency as well as the precision that attached to his other
propositions which President Reagan with unintended irony called
"disarmingly simple". Throughout the formal exchanges I could not
rid myself of the melancholy feeling that we were indeed being
disarmed -- on the human level by this remarkably intelligent and
skillful Soviet leader and on the strategic level by bringing about
in the name of arms control a balance that forces us over time

C43

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either to put the defense of distant friends on a new basis
or to abandon it.

That feeling of melancholy was reinforced during the reception
at the Soviet embassy that afternoon. Gorbachev, speaking extem-
poraneously, made a 50-minute presentation of his approach to both
foreign and domestic policy. Brilliantly attuned to the precon-
ceptions of his audience mostly composed of intellectuals, he
described -- at times movingly -- his aspirations for peace and
economic progress. Listening to this obviously thoughtful, seemingly
openminded man, it was easy to forget that he had risen to the top
in
in one of the most ruthless competitions in the world -- one/which
choirboys were unlikely to succeed. One barely noticed that the
concrete proposals varied little from what he had already put
forward publicly while the generalities were well chosen to elicit
the dream that the intellectuals present shared with their President
whom most of them had both fought and disliked all their adult lives.
These questions -- with one or two exceptions, even making allowances for
politeness -- started from the premise that the United States and

C/3

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the Soviets were already partners (a phrase the Soviet delegation kept pressing), that there was no longer any cause for tension if there ever had been. The implication that the United States government bore a heavy burden of responsibility for East-West tensions was always implicit, not free from condescending suggestions on how it could be helped by the Soviets to overcome its warlike tendencies, for example by placing Soviet civilian orders in American defense industries to reduce the pressures of the military-industrial complex. How the Soviet Union would pay for those orders was not explored.

I thought it a pity that this most intelligent of Soviet leaders dominated so easily any context in which I had observed him. The official Americans reveling in the euphoria of a completed negotiation acted -- whatever their formal declarations -- as if they were at the end of a process not/-- at best -- a small beginning. And the unofficial Americans conveyed by their body language that the whole cold war was either a hoax or a misunder-

CJD

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standing well on the way to being overcome.

All this may make this period appear in retrospect as a
missed opportunity if not a turn towards disaster. A part of
Gorbachev at least appears to be sincere in his avowed desire
for change. Reality no doubt imposes at least a respite on
Soviet foreign adventurism, perhaps even an end to it. At the
same time, Gorbachev, as any prudent leader, is unlikely to court
unnecessary domestic problems. He will not volunteer changes in
political and strategic arrangements which parts of his bureaucracy
would find difficult. Obviously, he will push those programs most
advantageous to his own country. I cannot predict how he would
have reacted if presented a comprehensive program that linked the
various elements of military power, nuclear and conventional, so
that reductions would be symmetrical and the process of arms control
not turn -- by accident or design -- into a process to demoralize
the Western alliance. Or to a serious discussion [were proposed] on
political relationships in trouble spots around the world. I am

CJY

-8-

The Washington summit thus fills me with premonition. I agree
the the Administration's desire to work out a means of coexistence
with the Soviet Union. But I fear that the relaxation of tensions
is being achieved by mortgaging the future of Western defense and
creating illusions about the ultimate challenges ahead of us. For
forty years, American world leadership depended in large part on
our ability and perceived willingness to defend free peoples. This
is now in danger of being eroded.

- including in these pages -
I have repeatedly stated my concern about the so-called INF
agreement abolishing all medium and short-range missiles. Thus
the Administration argument that the Soviets are destroying more
missiles under this agreement than the United States is essentially
irrelevant. The significance of an agreement resides not in what

-9-

is being destroyed, but in what remains. And the INF agreement

no threat to the United States because these weapons

were aimed at Europe. It reduces no nuclear threat to Europe

because the Soviets can target their ICBM's and aircraft on Europe

and will still have enough warheads left (even after a follow-on

agreement) to devastate the United States. What it does largely

eliminate is the United States capability to retaliate from

European soil again major Soviet aggressions. The significance of

that capability being psychological and intangible, is difficult to

quantify. But the overwhelming majority of defense oriented

Europeans -- of the group that sustained the Atlantic Alliance for

a generation -- is extremely uneasy. They fear that conditions are

being created in which the Soviet Union will threaten Europe

while sparing the United States -- "decoupling" in technical terms.

-10-

This is not the place to discuss all the technical issues raised by the agreement -- for example the degree to which aircraft can substitute for the missiles being withdrawn. But the degree to which the political and psychological landscape is being altered by the new arrangements is illustrated by the often-heard argument that even after the agreement, thousands of tactical nuclear weapons remain. But these weapons, mostly located in Germany, are short-range; in practice they cannot reach beyond Germany's borders. Thus the potential victim of attack is being told that in case of aggression, the NATO targets will be not the aggressor's territory, but the victim's. Not surprisingly, the influential circles in Germany far from relying on this prospect are seeking to prevent it; they advocate the removal of the remaining missiles. But a denuclearized force in the vortex of Europe would wreck the strategy of the Western Alliance of forty years.

That danger will be especially acute if the Administration rushes into a follow-on agreement reducing nuclear warheads by fifty percent. The INF agreement shifts the nuclear defense of

-11-

Europe entirely to decisions made in Washington and to weapons based in the continental United States or at sea. The follow-on agreement would reduce the credibility of this threat even further; and if not, it might well tempt a Soviet preemptive strike.

The advent of multiple warhead missiles has brought about a situation in which, by definition, there are always more warheads than launchers creating inherent incentives for a first strike which the potential victim seeks to overcome by mobility, hardening the target or -- perhaps -- by strategic defense.

As the accuracy of warheads increases, fixed landbased missiles become increasingly vulnerable. The Soviet Union has sought to reduce this vulnerability by making two of its new missiles mobile (the SS24 and 25) and superhardening the third (the SS-18). One of these missiles (the SS-25) has only a single warhead aiding All US landbased missiles are in fixed silos. Hence a fifty percent reduction of warheads would not change the disproportion in favor of the attacker. In fact, because all modern US landbased missiles are

-12-

MIRVed hence we are certain to retire the 500 single-warhead
Minuteman II missiles. This will increase the proportion of
warheads the Soviets can aim at our fixed missiles from about
three warheads per missile to about five warheads per missile.
But since so many Soviet landbased missiles are mobile and/or
single warhead (hence more numerous) the reverse equation does
not obtain. Indeed, the relevant proportion will be 1:1, not
nearly enough for a preemptive strike. The proposed reduction
far from contributing to stability makes the US landbased missile
force more vulnerable.

The situation is even more worrisome with respect to submarine
launched missiles. At present, the United States has 36 missile firing
submarines of which at least 25 are at sea at any moment. After
an agreement (depending on complicated convention rules for warheads)
the United States will possess between 12-15 missile carrying submarines
of which a maximum often can be kept at sea at any one moment.

-13-

Since the Soviet anti-submarine warfare force is not part of the agreement, the vulnerability of the American seabased deterrent must increase proportionally dangerously/in case of a technological breakthrough.

Other calculations might change these proportions marginally but not enough to alter the basic reality. At the precise moment that the United States moves the nuclear defense of the Atlantic Alliance substantially to its own territory it speeds an agreement that enshrines civilian devastation as the only feasible strategy especially because the proposed agreement postpones SDI indefinitely. This is either incredible, or if believed, may tempt a Soviet pre-emptive attack for which their capability after arms control far exceeds ours. The era of American nuclear protection of distant areas will be rapidly eroding.

This process is being accelerated because the political and psychological framework for a deterrent strategy is being rapidly undermined as well. The Administration constantly emphasizes as

-14-

one of the chief virtues of the INF agreement that it is the first
to abolish two categories of nuclear weapons. But since these
weapons represent only about three percent of the total the benefit
is to set a precedent for the total abolition of nuclear weapons --
a goal often avowed by President Reagan and put into concrete form
by General Secretary Gorbachev. Such a declaratory policy is
inconsistent with the action strategy of the Western Alliance; it
also is as unachievable as it is undesirable. So many nuclear
weapons have been produced by the superpowers and their territories
are so vast that the complete abolition of nuclear weapons is
utterly unverifiable. Each country would have to insist on retaining
a number of weapons as a hedge against cheating and against the
emergence of new nuclear powers.

M

-15-

to systems analysis. For millenia, conventional armies that on
paper were evenly matched fought each other because the leaders
of the warring parties drew different conclusions from the same
data. One lesson is clear: numerical equality whether in men or
equipment is not enough for deterrence. To achieve a breakthrough,
it is only necessary to concentrate at the point of attack. Mrs.
Thatcher has understood the dangers of the framework nearly agreed to
at Rekjavik and now being sold retail by a persistent and skillful
Soviet diplomacy. She is insistant on retaining a nuclear option
and on that point, at least, she represents the consensus of the
defenseminded in Europe.

What is happening in US-Soviet relations thus threatens the
long term cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance. Whether the Soviet
leaders planned it that way or slid into it by Western default
they can now exploit Allied confusions at both ends of the spectrum
of nuclear weapons. Some German leaders have already begun urging
the third zero option -- the removal of the tactical nuclear weapons

-16-

from German soil. Britain and the US are adamantly opposed but there are French leaders who may prefer to see Germany totally dependent on its allies in the nuclear field. At any rate, as the implications of a deployment that confines tactical nuclear war to German territory sink in, these pressures within Germany will multiply.

At the same time, once the fifty percent reduction is completed, a new US President will be under great pressure to make another comparable step. At that point, the Soviets will insist that British and French forces be counted as well -- a maneuver that will either force disproportionate American reduction or involve us in a bitter confrontation with our allies. The next step in arms control is thus likely to involve us in conflicts with each of our allies and of our allies with each other. Arms control, as now conceived, will have brought neither political nor military stability.