A Tactical Move of Strategic Significance : Bush’s proposals are welcome moves toward a safer world

No future history book on international relations will likely be thought complete without an admiring reference to President George Bush’s significant defense speech Friday. In effect, this Republican President--from the party so thoroughly identified with hefty defense spending and hawklike foreign-policy lines--is saying that indeed the fat lady has sung. The Cold War is not only over but the Nuclear Hardware War has to be ratcheted down, too.

The first hard evidence that a new chapter in world relations was being written no doubt came on July 31, when Moscow swallowed hard its remaining reservations and signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). In effect, after staring at each other for 40 years, eyeball to eyeball, armed to the teeth, ready to blast away at a moment’s notice, both sides have looked at how much their relationship has improved in just the past two years and, with a smile, agreed to finally blink.

STRATEGIC IMPACT: But the speech Friday night proposed to go even beyond that. It was a unilateral blink. Bush proposed a basic reduction in the threat of nuclear holocaust and a basic reorientation in U.S. military posture. “I am . . . directing that the United States eliminate its entire worldwide inventory of ground-launched short-range, that is our theater, nuclear weapons. We will bring home and destroy all our nuclear artillery shells and short-range ballistic missile warheads. . . . The United States will withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons from its surface ships, attack submarines, as well as those nuclear weapons associated with our land-based naval aircraft. . . . The bottom line is that under normal circumstances our ships will not carry tactical nuclear weapons.”

Perhaps at first glance the President’s proposal to eliminate so-called tactical nuclear weapons seems like light dessert compared to the heavy main course of long-range strategic missiles that can devastate whole cities in a lightning flash. This is to misunderstand the linked nature of nuclear escalation. Tactical nuclear weapons have long been feared by analysts of all political stripes and national origins not only for the damage they might do in theater combat but as the first bump-ups in a war that would mushroom into an all-out nuclear conflagration. Bush’s unilateral move to eliminate all small nuclear devices thus diminishes one major way an escalating conflict could become the big one.

Moreover, in addition to calling on Moscow to match this unilateral disarmament move, the President advanced proposals that could lead to a world of diminished risk. While the President remains behind his strong advocacy of two high-profile strategic weapons systems--the B-2 bomber and the newer, thinner Strategic Defense Initiative--he has proposed a mutual strategic downsizing that goes beyond START. It includes eventual elimination of ground-based multiple-warhead missiles and of the rail-based MX system. Retiring multiple warheads would greatly diminish the threat of Armageddon.

POLITICAL IMPACT: No doubt Bush’s speech rocked Moscow somewhat. But it must have rocked the Democrats even more. A principal element of next year’s Democratic attack on the President no doubt would be his arguable disinterest in domestic policy and the continuing high-level of expenditures on defense. But Bush--like Cold Warrior Richard Nixon going to China--has gone the route of partial unilateral disarmament. This is something a Republican would have been thought never likely to do. But now he has done it. Whether it will be good for the Republican Party is a question that will be answered next year. But whether it is a good thing for the world is a question that can be answered now.

It is a good thing indeed.