A Great But
Disturbing Rocket Secret
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON-- Not much in the dark arts of
international relations is purposely kept more opaque than
the Missile Technology Control Regime. Although a western
creation, founded by the U.S., Canada, France, Britain and
Germany in 1987, one might conclude from its byzantine
penchant for secrecy it was designed by Russia which signed
up only in 1995 or even by Turkey which signed last year.
Its purpose is to limit the diffusion of the know-how for
building rockets that can deliver nuclear weapons. Anyone
these days can build a nuclear weapon, but delivering it by
long-range missile remains an art mastered by a restricted
inner circle.
Thanks to a small group of American and
Russian scholars working under the auspices of the
London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies,
but sheltering under the dispensation granted by the
comradeship of the Russian-American space cooperation
effort, we have been given a dispassionate, but quite
frightening, account of how the Missile Control Regime
DOESN'T work. In short, Russia, by sheer dogged persistence,
has steered a coach and horses right through it. At the same
time it has been rewarded for compromises that were not
worth the paper they were written on by the space deal and
permission to access the lucrative market for western
civilian telecommunication satellites looking for cheap
launch facilities.
In enormous detail the four authors
show how both in the Gorbachev era and now in Yeltsin's time
any top Russian official who favoured an honest deal with
the U.S. was brow beaten, bypassed or overridden, such is
the influence of the Russian rocket/space establishment.
The story begins in 1980 when India
successfully launched its first satellite. Correctly,
Washington perceived that the day would not be long in
coming when India would have the ability to hurtle nuclear
weapons half way across the world. Spurred by this threat,
and also by similar programmes in Israel and South Africa,
the Administration decided the time had come to get a lid on
such developments. For this to be assured western export
controls on the technology of ballistic and cruise missiles
had to be both rigorous and widely observed. In the
beginning there was some success- France cancelled a
contract to sell liquid-fuel rocket engine manufacturing
technology to Brazil.
Yet despite a degree of Russian
self-interest in joining the Missile Control Regime- it was
worried about Israel's rapid progress on the Jericho missile
that could reach parts of Russia- on balance Moscow
preferred to stay outside what it saw as being an instrument
for ensuring western hegemony in technology exchange and
also because Washington failed to address what Moscow
rightly considered just as dangerous, the sales of advanced,
nuclear bomb- capable, aircraft to Israel and Pakistan.
The inevitable clash of interests came
to a head with the first Soviet, incipient-capitalist,
attempt to commercialise its foreign sales of rocket engine
technology with an agreement to sell cryogenic engines to
India in 1991. These give a spectacular high performance for
engines of such modest weight. They would enable India to
lop 15 or so years off its programme to develop
inter-continental ballistic missiles. Washington hit the
roof, saying that the deal violated the very essence of the
Missile Control Regime. The U.S. imposed sanctions on
Glavkosmos, the marketing organisation of the Soviet space
and missile industry.
Then followed, first under President
George Bush, then under Bill Clinton a labyrinth of secret
negociations between Washington and Moscow, each one more
layered and obfuscatory than the one before. Each time the
outcome was the same, a promise by Moscow to dismantle the
deal in return for Washington bringing Moscow into the
western space and rocket fraternity.
The amazing tale of how Moscow managed
to get away with breaking undertaking after promise for so
long, all for the sake of a deal with India that at the most
was worth $350 million, simply boggles an outsider's
imagination.
By sheer dint of bloody-mindedness the
Russian rocket export establishment managed to outmaneuver
its political masters, waiting for the ever-changing cast of
characters in Moscow to move on and allow one more chance to
make their case and push the politicians and diplomats to go
into the ring for yet another round of negociations with
Washington.
In the end a weary Clinton
Administration settled, against all the White House's early
demands, for 7 engines to be sold. Only the technical advice
that would allow India to build further engines itself was
withheld. India got what it wanted, rather more than less,
and is today effectively on the verge of becoming an
inter-continental ballistic missile power, even though the
actual nuclear warheads are undeclared, "in the closet".
Maybe if Washington had been a bit
more generous with financial aid in the crucial late years
of the Gorbachev era Moscow would never have felt so pressed
to scrimp and save so that every $350 million deal was worth
so much. We'll never know. What we do know is that with this
deal mankind took one more dangerous step towards the
nuclear abyss- and 99.99% of the public is totally unaware
of it.
April 15, 1998, LONDON
Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172; fax
+44 374 590493;
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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