SDI Makes Arms-Control Effort Work

President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative is the best thing that ever happened to arms control.

It has brought the Soviets back to the bargaining table in Geneva and moved them at last to show flexibility in their proposals. It has prompted the first, long-overdue Soviet proposal for a real cut in offensive missiles. In the face of a long-term, continuous buildup of Soviet strategic weapons, SDI offers the best prospect of maintaining deterrence in an ethical way that slows the arms race.

The history of arms control has not been encouraging. We have always viewed the process as a genuine chance to reduce the risk of nuclear war and enhance mutual security. This view has not been shared by the Soviets. We have negotiated each agreement in the hope and expectation that Soviet moderation would follow. In each case this hope has been dashed.

Instead, each major agreement--SALT I, the unratified SALT II and the anti-ballistic-missile treaty--has actually resulted in the expansion of both Soviet nuclear and conventional capability. As former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown said, “When we build, they build; when we stop building, they build.” The conclusion is unavoidable that the Soviets have used the arms-control process as a cover for a huge offensive buildup and modernization while stalling a Western response.

Much of the Soviet expansion has taken place within the letter, if not the spirit, of the treaties. But any benefit of the doubt as to the Soviets’ intentions disappears when their record of non-compliance with the treaty provisions is examined. This record, set forth at length in presidential reports to Congress, shows that there is not a single major agreement that the Soviets have not materially violated.

It appears overall that the Soviet Union has rejected the notion of deterrence. It is creating a mobile, deceptively based, super-hardened offensive capability while working feverishly on the same defensive technologies in SDI that are now denounced with such fervor. It apparently has the clear aim of gaining--or may now have--a first-strike capacity against our land-based missiles.

These are the alarming circumstances that motivated SDI. The risk of nuclear war was becoming all too real. The failure of the ABM and other treaties to moderate the Soviet offensive buildup, coupled with the failure in the West to respond adequately, raised a growing threat to American lives. The nuclear equilibrium was equilibrium no longer.

We could have tried to match the Soviet buildup, and indeed some of our own offensive missile systems are at long last being modernized. But aggression and offensive threat are not the American way. In SDI, Reagan found the necessary response that is both ethical--defensive measures kill no one--and, it increasingly appears, technically feasible. He found a way to harness a free society’s moral and technological skills.

The Soviet leadership has reacted vehemently to SDI. It has done so because SDI threatens the massive Soviet investment in offensive missiles. Up to now that has been a good investment for them because it has not been countered by any defense. That is why Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev launched his “charm offensive” and why his countrymen have been moving propaganda heaven and earth to stop SDI. Moreover, that is why the Soviets returned to Geneva and, for the first time, have made affirmative proposals for cuts in offensive missiles.

The various new Soviet proposals are still transparently one-sided. What is important, however, is that at last we are seeing some movement--of any kind. Arms negotiations are based not on good will but on mutual self-interest. Without SDI we were in danger of going to the table (if and when the Soviets returned) to face an adversary who had a massive offensive capability and an accelerating defense effort while we had neither. SDI changes this equation. It is not a “bargaining chip,” but greatly enhances the chance of real negotiations because it devalues the Soviet investment in offensive weapons and denies them a monopoly in defense.

Beyond that, SDI is pro -arms control in and of itself. This Administration is committed to real arms control that results in a diminution of the mutual threat, not just endorsement of more bomb-building. SDI offers both us and the Soviets the chance for transition to a defensive balance of power that threatens no one. At long last we may have the means at hand to remove the nuclear sword of Damocles that hangs over an uneasy world’s brow. Gorbachev’s proposals to cut offensive missiles are useful and welcome, as were our own earlier proposals, but they should be analyzed on their own merits and not made dependent on any “reward.” SDI is not going to be bargained away. Its promise means too much.