Editorials
O'Gara, James
MX & OTHER CHIPS OFF THE BARGAINING BLOCK RIDDLE: When is a missile not a missile? Answer: When it is a bargaining chip. In voting $625 million for development of the MX missile, the decisive...
...They were conceived as a way to insure NATO solidarity, a means to keep Moscow from thinking that the U.S., faced with a threat from Soviet SS-20s, might "fold" rather than up the ante and involve America's own sea- and land-based strategic missiles...
...If the president doesn't keep his end of the bargain, presumably Congress will take his missiles away at a later stage of funding...
...Knock them all out, and you have probably also knocked out any chance of the Soviets' entering the kind of bilateral agreement that might securely dampen and then reverse the arms race...
...The latter has been pushed to the table only by a wave of anti-nuclear agitation...
...In voting $625 million for development of the MX missile, the decisive faction in Congress voted not for a missile but for a bargaining chip...
...And, then, when everybody gets serious about arms control, presumably we can drop the MX altogether...
...It is precisely the kind of missile the Scowcroft commission said we should eliminate - although the commission then turned around and recommended it, like a doctor advising an overweight patient to enjoy one final binge before going on a diet...
...Reagan...
...Shift to the European scene, where the next six months will witness increasing conflict over the deployment of Pershing IIs and cruise missiles...
...A clever theory, but the immediate consequence has been to tatter NATO solidarity more than ever...
...Just to top the oddity off, the MX without an invulnerable basing mode is a weapon that increases the danger of the Soviet first strike it was originally intended to counteract...
...But if Washington is without bargainers, its bargaining chips will be dangerous excuses...
...Bargaining chips, cowchips," one impolite legislator was heard to say during the MX debate...
...Still, something must be salvaged from a bad decision...
...Happy ending, and please don't mention the tooth fairy...
...The bargain, oddly enough, is not with the Soviets, at least not at first...
...The New York Times called this "voodoo arms control," which may have been unfair to voodoo...
...Taken separately, there are ample grounds for opposing the MX, the Euromissiles, the Trident II, the B-1, the soon-to-be-tested, antisatellite rocket...
...So the Euromissiles, too, have been turned into bargaining chips...
...There is no corresponding pressure on the former...
...The evidence indicates that the Kremlin is as shy of serious arms limitations as the White House...
...If the president does get serious about arms control, then presumably he needs the MX to make the Soviets serious about arms control...
...Unfortunately, it's not so simple...
...If Washington is without bargaining chips, its arms control efforts will be futile...
...It is with Mr...
...The problem boils down to that.hat...
...By most serious accounts, those missiles were never required on purely military grounds...
...Congress has offered the president one more step toward building these ten-warheaded monsters in exchange for the president's getting serious about arms control...
Vol. 110 • June 1983 • No. 12
