Capitol Ideas/Divided Over Defense

...Now the Soviets will try to use the same "verification" argument with George Bush's team in order to eliminate the sea-launched Cruise missile (both conventional and nuclear)—another weapon they don't like...

...defense policy has become MI such adversaries are implicitly law- first of these is now believed to be vul- is not normally called a compromise...

...and then negotiate away both theirs THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1989 11 and ours in an arms control treaty...

...Conservatives have consistently overlooked this point, too, even though there has been a fair amount of breast-beating on the issue by former Reagan officials...

...Brent Scowcroft—the closest thing we have to high level conflict within the administration...

...grounds that the Soviets, once Award " Respect un- for signing on as a co-sponsor of Sen...

...this vulnerability must be repaired...

...This, incidentally, is the great defect of the B-2 bomber...

...strategic arsenal...

...As a result, our so-called de- we will have the option of negotiating planners argue) we must make our mis- ington Post story (by R. Jeffrey Smith fense spending is little more than an them away in the future...

...In a discussion with me earlier this year, Quayle pointed out that from the point of view of the U.S...

...arsenal one of our most advanced weapons—the conventional (non-nuclear) ground-launched Cruise missile...

...decision...

...and it is supposedly the case (and may read: "Obtaining broad backing for a Since then four presidents have submit- well be the case) that Soviet missiles are T t was interesting to note the news missile modernization plan is conted meekly to its provisions, even while now accurate enough to score direct or 1 media/congressional reaction to this sidered by many officials to be a preclaiming that the Soviets have violated disabling hits on them...

...and Soviet negotiadmit to such violations...

...It is basically a World War II weapon, and we are now in a different era...

...The New York Times will report an "alleged" violation on an inside page and the game will proceed as though nothing had happened...

...His support of strategic defense within the administration makes it difficult for George Bush to go back on his own 1988 campaign speeches...

...We have symmetrical rights, of course, but they are in practice meaningless because if we claim to have detected an infraction the Soviets (and therefore the leading U.S...

...The Bush Administration official who understands all this perhaps better than anyone is Vice President Dan Quayle...

...This ended in a treaty that eliminated from the U.S...

...It makes no sense for us to enter arms negotiations whose effect is to eliminate useful hi-tech weapons like the non-nuclear Cruise and to induce the purchase of useless and costly weapons like the mobile MX and Midgetman...

...so (military doctrine teaches) we must Washington Poses page one headline...

...Do readers The tail of arms control is wagging their military forces...

...It seems that the distinction between verification and compliance is too difficult for most Americans to grasp...

...This is how we should make our ground-based missiles more secure—not by trying to move them about...

...Much of this critical technology is already diffused throughout the world, is available for other purposes, or can easily be diverted...

...If it is argued that the new, reformed Soviet Union with its nice leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, makes all this war preparation unnecessary, one answer is to agree and to quote CIA Director William H. Webster, who said last December: "By the year 2000, at least fifteen developing countries will either have produced or be able to build their own ballistic missiles...

...Bush Moves To Compromise requisite to completion of a new arms the same treaty...

...Conservatives insist that arms control treaties be verifiable, mistakenly believing that, once the referee is provided with the necessary rules, he will halt the game if a violation is detected...

...The basic problem is abiding, and therefore not a serious nerable...

...territory...

...how to constrain such missiles and the Joint Chiefs on the peculiar Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) as recipient of the 1989 Strange New verify compliance with the constraints...

...Accurate enough to hit individual buildings from a range of many hundreds of miles, the non-nuclear Cruise was and is the answer to the anti-nuke brigades...

...T he way out is to make use of our 1 comparative advantage, which is to say our technological lead...

...Civil War...

...But the situation is worse than that, as was shown two years ago in the INF negotiations...

...These Third World missiles may be armed with chemical or biological warheads...

...vantage of the change by reconfiguring scheme, the so-called Act for Better Child Care...

...complaints about Soviet violations...

...Quayle's speeches have also criticized the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction...

...lates that the country is safer if unde- need certain new weapons now so that ly be hidden with ease...

...And our military commanders all either grew up in World War II or fought in it...

...officials won't actually come right out and say this is the plan, because if it is to retain plausibility there must be a convincing pretense that the mobile weapons, once purchased, will in fact be deployed...

...On an inside page we signed, and ratified the ABM treaty...

...If two mobile missiles, and we wish they didn't...

...Scow-croft, 64, was at West Point before Quayle was born...

...Our insistence that the treaty be verifiable led the Soviets to riposte that, in that case, we would have to eliminate the conventional (as well as the nuclear) intermediate-range Cruise missile because the two were indistinguishable by normal intelligence methods...

...One reason is that we arms control treaties...

...In that earlier period there was a great revolution in naval warfare, with wind-powered, wooden men THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1989 o' war giving way to steam-powered ironclads...

...Not only have we not given up on mobile...

...Conservatives have any defense...

...If Staff have not been entirely innocent...

...Or is he innocent of the charge...

...Among these fifteen countries: India, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, North Korea...

...My sense is that Quayle grasps the situation that we are in today better than his elders in the administration not because he is smarter, but precisely because he is younger...

...In short, the Joint have other evidence of Sen Hatch's growing sensitivity, the dog of procurement...

...The technological advance that makes missiles more widely available also makes defenses against them not only possible but essential...

...The Soviets, of course, will not tolerate the domestic obstruction of their own weapons...

...And this means developing and deploying strategic defenses...

...ators have disagreed about whether But then again, the Joint Chiefs of have a "strategic triad" of land-based, Resolving the difficulty of choosing mobile missiles should be allowed...

...The Soviets themselves have put the U.S...

...Within little more than a year, the time elapsed since the end of World War II will be the same as that between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of the U.S...

...He went on to say that "some of my friends in the Air Force want to make sure they can have a man in that cockpit...

...These are placed in fixed silos, tegic arms talks...

...It is expensive because the damned thing has to make a return flight to get the pilot home...

...TB toOcid- rid of them is to get some ourselves, m tator's Washington correspondent...

...For this reason there were no successful dispersal exercises of the Cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe (and this was one of the reasons why we agreed to eliminate them...

...Current weapons some of their own missiles on railroad should have been suspicious at this signed in 1972 an extremely unwise acquisition is driven by prospective cars, others on trucks (the SS 24 and SS point, but few seemed to pay any treaty (the ABM treaty), which postu- arms control treaties...

...So (Pentagon The fourth paragraph of the Wash-fended...

...Against the advice of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, President Reagan accepted this loss rather than lose the treaty...

...And the Soviets now Just as we have earth, air, and water, On U.S...

...The B-2 should probably be cancelled...

...worse than ever...

...This has had the following perverse effect...

...The Soviets now welcome all such arms control proposals, because the experience of the last seventeen years has shown them that they do not have to 12 comply with the treaties they sign...

...111 13...

...By putting them on and David Hoffman) read as follows: elaborately disguised public-works and to be the Pentagon equivalent of the rails, or on roads...

...We would procure both a desire by the administration to resolve Staff, were it not that they are rightly surrounds the vulnerability of our "rail-mobile" MX missile and a "road- the issue soon so it can draft a negotisubordinate to civil authority, and it land-based intercontinental ballistic mobile" Midgetman missile...

...By the same token, we should not even be thinking of deploying mobile missiles on U.S...

...Would the plan, in plain English: the Soviets have that is constrained from acting more senator care to explain why he is not eligible for the award...

...Our weapons today—bombers, submarines, battleships, tanks, aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles—are all World War II weapons...

...We are like an ineffectual referee who continually calls "foul" in a soft voice but is quite incapable of stopping the game...

...Bush decides to pursue the mobile There was some sentiment in the Rea- Strange New Respect weapons, it will presumably pave the gan Administration to repudiate the way for a superpower agreement on ABM treaty, but this was rebuffed by Lucy Rudenborg, a reader in Wisconsin, has nominated Sen...

...Chris Substantial progress on this issue has . constrained by the terms of the treaty, been blocked in the past by U.S...

...Here is the Chiefs believe they face an adversary compassion, etc...

...The latest muddle sive solution...

...weapons plants...

...In recent months he has given two excellent speeches, emphasizing the need to move ahead with strategic defense...

...Therefore, the best way to get readers have any other nominations they should let me know by Tom Bethell is The American Spec- ber...

...and so (to preserve the triad) But that is the word that was used, time that we have something called the cause for concern...

...They can afford to accept any and every verification provision we impose on them, because, in the event that they subsequently ignore these provisions, we do nothing about it...

...We supposedly 25, respectively), and these can obvious- attention...

...Quayle has a good grasp of one of the most serious defects of our present defense structure—Air Force hostility to strategic defenses and to new, computerized technology in general...

...The latter won't work as advertised because the U.S., like Europe, plays host to tens of thousands of anti-nuke fanatics who will follow these allegedly mobile weapons wherever they go and report their whereabouts either to the Soviet embassy or to the newspapers...

...Consequently, they do have a real advantage over us with mobile missiles...

...The press has so far ignored it...

...By making the land-based missile mally enthusiastic about additions to about $300 billion a year, but we do not ever...

...opDodds multibillion dollar income redistribution/social engineering would be better positioned to take ad- position to mobile missile deployment...

...The Soviets, once wary of strict verification, now welcome it, because it permits them to conduct intrusive inspections of U.S...

...media) will pooh-pooh it...

...One Keynesian public-works remedy for a tration pondered this problem earlier getman combination also reflects what would be inclined to recommend the depression: dig holes in the ground and this year and came up with an expen- high-ranking officials describe as a court martialing of the Joint Chiefs of fill them up again...

...The Bush Adminis- "The decision to pursue an MX-Midmiddle-class welfare program...

...Strategic Missiles," was the treaty, because U.S...

...Too many Americans think we are the enemy...

...ating position at the U.S.-Soviet strawas the civil authorities who supported, missiles...

...The between two options by choosing both I is U.S...

...Neither was published by the State Department (which copiously advertised Paul Nitze's nonsense about arms control...

...This turns out siles mobile, too...

...and again, by people who are not norDepartment of Defense, which spends Today the situation is worse than How...

...World War II was not a formative event for him, and he is not emotionally committed to its weapons...

...Probably we have experienced a comparable technological revolution in the past forty years, but our miltary leaders and recent commanders-in-chief seem not to know it...

...In practice, however, as the Soviets now know, the game will proceed in total disregard of U.S...

...This puts him at odds with the national security adviser, Lt...

...Air Force, "the problem with Cruise missiles is that there is no pilot—nobody flies them...

...But we should not try to eliminate this advantage by acTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1989 quiring them ourselves—the fatal premise of symmetry which got us into the arms control mess in the first place...