REFLECTIONS
Falk, Richard
REFLECTIONS Richard Falk The World After INF All but the die-hard Right have fallen into line for ratification of the treaty that will bar intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) from Europe. It...
...In his new pose as an aggressive champion of arms control, Reagan may press for a strategic-arms reduction treaty (START) as the next (and last) peace inRichard Falk, a member of The Progressive's Editorial Advisory Board, is Albert L. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University...
...The same double standard applies to the often sticky issue of verification: The INF treaty is safe because it was the United States, not the Soviet Union, that insisted on limiting the inspection arrangements...
...All this poses hard—and urgent-questions for the peace movement...
...pressure to increase their military spending...
...But it would be wishful thinking to expect Washington to seek continuing progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons...
...Perhaps they have concluded that their own strategic position will be enhanced by a heavy U.S...
...Can we mount a political effort that can change policy...
...In answering those questions, we must take account of some extremely dangerous trends in weapons development and deployment...
...If the United States spurns the Soviets' unprecedented effort to put an end to the nuclear terrorism that has gripped the world for forty years, we may be remembered as those who were too rigid or too indifferent even to respond...
...Without a comprehensive test ban, qualitative "improvements" in weapons will continue to be made...
...The summit, despite its upbeat atmospherics, could yet go down in the books not as an achievement but as a lost opportunity...
...Can we create a climate of opinion in this country that is powerful enough to exert decisive pressure not just for small steps in arms reduction but for denuclearization and peace...
...A portion of the B-52 fleet is already being retrofitted, at great cost, to permit reliance: on missiles with nonnuclear warheads, and the NATO nations are under mounting U.S...
...Such "disproportionate reductions" make it possible for the Reagan Administration to depict the treaty as a great victory...
...More and more countries can be expected to acquire the capability to launch nuclear weapons...
...Perhaps the Russians believe their own military space program can keep pace...
...That stance, it seems, does not unduly trouble the Soviet leadership...
...And the INF treaty will serve as the pretext for increased spending on conventional arms...
...Are we being deceived by a periodic dose of arms-control euphoria...
...How important is the 4 per cent nuclear-arms reduction embodied in the INF treaty, even if it is soon followed by a 50 per cent reduction in the strategic nuclear force...
...American public opinion treats a disproportion in arms reductions as natural and reasonable, so long as the extra burden is placed on the Soviet side...
...The peace movement thus faces its greatest challenge since the Vietnam war...
...The world after INF may be more dangerous, not less...
...investment in an enterprise that is doomed to failure...
...On the other hand, Soviet-American relations may be at the point of transformation...
...At the same time, he holds to an unwavering and apparently nonnegotiable position on Star Wars...
...In either event, Mikhail Gorbachev can appear to give Reagan the discretion to proceed with SDI, and Reagan in turn can claim another victory...
...itiative of the Reagan Presidency...
...How great is the danger posed by SDI...
...Even the complete denuclearization of Western Europe is more than we can expect as a result of the INF treaty...
...Our bottom line on SDI is simple," Reagan said in mid-December...
...That question is not addressed to Washington but to each of us...
...It seems clear, in fact, that if the terms were reversed and the United States were on the short end of those numbers, the treaty wouldn't have a chance of ratification, and the President who negotiated it would face impeachment proceedings— perhaps on charges of treason...
...After meeting with West German leaders...
...Immediately after the early-December summit meeting in Washington, Secretary of State George Shultz went to Europe to proclaim that militarism was alive and well...
...It is not plausible that Gorbachev will continue to make all the concessions...
...He says deep cuts in the strategic nuclear force—reductions of about 50 per cent—are the next step in the arms-control process, and even alludes to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons...
...Even under the most optimistic reading of further arms-control steps that may be in the offing, the superpowers will retain thousands of missiles and warheads...
...What is at issue is not so much our capacity for constructive diplomacy as our commitment to the democratic process...
...We will research it, we will test it, and when it is ready, we will deploy it...
...It is, after all, an easy sale to Americans—a treaty under which the Soviets have agreed to scrap 1,752 of their missiles against 859 of ours...
...A Soviet disengagement from Afghanistan and a Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia could help build the diplomatic momentum for further steps toward denuclearization...
...In the atmosphere engendered by the December summit, tensions can be reduced, making crises less likely (though not impossible...
...But the aggressive posture of the United States in Central America and the Persian Gulf also has a bearing on the prospects for peace...
...Shultz told reporters at a news conference in Bonn, "We all recognize that the nuclear deterrent has kept the peace in Europe for the past forty years, and so far as anyone can see ahead we're going to have to continue to rely on nuclear deterrence...
...Still, the treaty gives President Reagan an opportunity to portray himself as a nuclear abolitionist while he remains a fundamentalist on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI...
Vol. 52 • February 1988 • No. 2
