Arms Control, Now Less Central, Demands Shrewdness

Ronald Reagan’s fourth summit meeting with Mikhail S. Gorbachev is not expected to produce a major breakthrough, although the Soviet leader may make some tantalizing proposals. It is not likely to redefine strategic relations (Reykjavik, 1986), nor is it likely to produce a precedent-setting arms-reduction treaty (Washington, 1987). Indeed, it could be almost routine--in practical terms if not propaganda, the hum-drum summit. But that is also its primary virtue and a testament to the distance covered in U.S.-Soviet relations.

Beyond Moscow, Reagan and Gorbachev could yet meet a fifth time, if there were a chance to produce a finished strategic-arms-reduction treaty. The President would like to ensure his “place in the history books,” especially when a crumbling Administration is leaving behind so many less worthy memories. And the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party would like to constrain U.S. missile programs, even with a half-done agreement, rather than risk starting over next year with a new American leader.

Such a scenario would be almost anti-climactic to the work that has been done in East-West relations. A generation ago nuclear-arms control was invested with great urgency. It was seen as vital to drawing the two superpowers back from the brink of war. It was the only hope of beginning to thaw the Cold War and provide a practical basis for mutual survival in the Atomic Age.

Even before Reagan came to office this effort had succeeded. Each year it became harder to conceive that either the United States or the Soviet Union would risk its own nuclear destruction to achieve any conceivable offensive purpose. It became harder to believe that either would unleash the bomb for any reason save to defend its national homeland. Indeed, the awareness of that fact was largely responsible for a succession of crises in Western Europe concerning U.S. credibility--that is, whether Washington would risk the ruination of America in order to defend other countries.

Reagan’s role, played in duet with an unusual Soviet leader, has been to give voice to a reality that had been steadily developing since about the time of the Cuban missile crisis--mankind’s last major experiment with insanity. Reagan astounded everyone at Reykjavik when he expressed a willingness to scrap whole categories of nuclear weapons. Along with Gorbachev, he recast the goals and reshaped the discussion of arms limitations. The idea of a 50% reduction in offensive nuclear weapons now seems ordinary, whereas only a few years ago it was widely dismissed as the nattering of uninformed radicals.

In the past few years a heavy burden has been lifted from arms control. It is no longer required to promote other purposes, to provide a means to keep the two super-powers from marching in lock-step to oblivion. Ironically, that makes arms control less urgent and more subject to careful, painstaking work to dot i’s and cross t’s. Not long ago the Reagan Administration’s obduracy on arms control was seen as a key impediment to reducing the risks, however residual, of U.S.-Soviet conflict. Now observers from many points of the political compass urge caution, lest a rush to agreement produce a treaty that fuels mistrust and damages the political understanding that it is meant to buttress.

The drawn-out ratification debate in the U.S. Senate concerning the so-called Euromissile treaty has thus been useful. By probing to understand the limits of on-site inspection, or to check any Administration’s latitude in interpreting arms-control treaties, the Senate--from both the right and the left--has been creating a more certain basis for treaties that are yet to come. Not serving purposes too far beyond their own declared intent--to reduce the risk that the mechanics of nuclear deterrence will cause a war--these arms-control agreements can be set, slowly, in solid political foundations.

By the same token, U.S.-Soviet political tensions have begun to fall below the level at which this movement needs to be pursued further for its own sake. When nuclear weapons first conditioned U.S.-Soviet relations, even modest tensions were threatening, in face of the risk that politics and weapons would get out of control. Yet as the pendulum of East-West relations has swung from Cold War to detente and then repeated the cycle, the amplitude has decreased: “Crises” are still difficult, but they are far less dangerous, and this phase of improved relations may avoid some of the 1970s’ deceptive euphoria.

Thus the West faces a new challenge in dealing with the Soviet Union. Competition has not become “ordinary,” like that of 19th-Century states. Nuclear weapons, plus the power and pull of the superpowers, remain too important. But the United States, with its friends and allies, must measure acts in East-West relations in terms not just of reduced tensions but also of relative advantage.

Both sides can benefit from a balanced deal. Yet this will not come from pursuing reduced tensions as a continual end in itself, as opposed to the posing of careful tests of Soviet intentions to promote genuine and lasting security for both sides. In Northwest Asia, Afghanistan, Southwest Asia, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the East-West line that passes through Europe--all on the periphery of the Soviet Union--there can be new political bases for peace and stability. But, as in negotiating arms-control agreements, the West must be shrewd in order to succeed.