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‘Star Wars’ Over Geneva

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In a recent speech Brent Scowcroft, former national-security adviser, urged the Reagan Administration to trade restraints on its “Star Wars” program for Soviet concessions “that would make a real difference.” One concession that would make a real difference, he suggested, would be eliminating big, multiple-warhead missiles.

The proposal, which has been made in one form or another by other defense experts as well, makes sense. Unfortunately, though, neither the Reagan Administration nor the Kremlin seems ready to bargain on that level.

U.S. officials blame the Soviet Union for a lack of progress at the Geneva arms-control talks that recessed last week. The Soviets, they say, refuse to discuss U.S. proposals on reductions in offensive strategic weapons until Washington agrees to halt research into the feasibility of a defense against nuclear missiles.

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Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev lays the blame on the United States, charging that Washington is refusing to discuss restraints on the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative.

Scowcroft summed up the situation accurately when he said that the Soviets want to stop the Star Wars proposal without giving up anything, whereas the United States “doesn’t want to put it on the table at all.”

The retired general said that the Soviets are unlikely to agree to a reduction of their huge arsenal of multiple-warhead offensive missiles “if they have to look over their shoulders” at a prospective U.S. defensive system. The United States, he said, should offer to forgo development and deployment of a futuristic missile defense system if the Soviets will agree to eliminate the heavy, multiple-warhead offensive missiles in which they have a clear advantage.

At this point the Soviets are still hoping to pressure the United States into abandoning Star Wars research without paying a price. Washington says that a halt to Star Wars research cannot be negotiated, because there would be no way to verify that the Soviets had ended research on their own Star Wars program.

That may be true as far as the research phase goes. But it would be possible to verify restrictions or prohibitions on the sort of development tests that must be conducted before laboratory breakthroughs can be translated into a deployable strategic defense system. The Scowcroft proposal would be practical if the two sides could agree on what tests should be outlawed.

The squabble over alleged violations of existing arms-control agreements is relevant in this regard.

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In the view of most American experts, Soviet construction of a big new radar installation at Krasnoyarsk is a technical violation of the 1972 ABM treaty (drastically limiting the development or deployment of missile defense systems)--even if the radar is used purely for tracking space vehicles, as the Soviets claim.

The Pentagon, in a recent report to Congress, issued a broad interpretation of the ABM treaty that would allow the United States to conduct extensive testing of Star Wars components without technically violating the treaty.

Experts who met at the Carter Center in Atlanta last month agreed that Star Wars research, as such, cannot be verifiably outlawed. But they urged U.S.-Soviet negotiation of a pact closing gray-area loopholes in the ABM treaty by more precise definitions of permissible and impermissible testing of strategic defense components.

Such an agreement could be used to halt the erosion of the ABM treaty. Application of the same principle could also form the backbone of the package deal, proposed by Scowcroft, by which each side would abandon what the other most fears.

The Soviets are probably not ready to go for a balanced arrangement of this sort. But the United States has nothing to lose from making the proposal. And if Moscow can be ultimately brought around, the increased stability in the nuclear balance would be in the interest of both sides.

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