Putin's
disarmament statement
should throw the cat among the pigeons
By JONATHAN
POWER
November 15, 2000
LONDON - Presumably President Vladimir Putin had
prepared the disarmament statement he issued on Monday
for delivery to the next president of the United States.
In the event, he decided not to put it on ice but seized
the moment, perhaps aware that for the first time in
almost a decade the debate about nuclear disarmament in
the American foreign policy community was beginning to
open up after the Clinton-induced freeze ( or was it
simply torpor?).
It was Jonathan Schell's long article two month's ago
in the establishment's favourite foreign policy magazine,
Foreign Affairs, that has brought a simmering debate to
the boil. Schell did this once twenty years ago with an
article in the New Yorker that was quoted the world over
but, alas, to no lasting effect. On this occasion the
magazine of publication is a better platform. Moreover
the timing is perfect. For not only, as Putin makes
clear, is Moscow prepared to drastically reduce its
stockpile of nuclear missiles, there are powerful, often
ex-military voices, in the U.S. advocating the same
course for America. Putin's call was not just for further
cuts than the U.S. suggested ceiling of 2,500 for each
side (there are about 7,000 at present) but for
reductions far below Moscow's previous target of 1,500.
Indeed, from the way Putin put it, he may well have in
mind the same kind of deal that Mikhail Gorbachev and
Ronald Reagan hatched at their summit in Reykjavic, a
stockpile approaching zero.
That momentous unconsummated plan was Reagan's brain
child - he forsaw a world with perfect missile defences
(the so-called Star Wars concept) side by side with the
abolition of nuclear weapons by the superpowers. But the
moment Reagan's advisors got wind of what he was hatching
with Gorbachev they moved to squelch it, arguing its lack
of feasibility and rubbishing its practicality, as they
do regularly with any creative proposal that has wound
its way through the labyrinth of inter agency review.
Interestingly, the only time a major initiative of a
unilateral nature won through was when President George
Bush, very strongly placed after the demise of the Cold
War, secretly hatched a plan to take U.S. nuclear bombers
off alert and remove tactical nuclear weapons from
service- no one in the bureaucracy or the Senate had time
to try and outmanoeuvre him.
According to George Perkovich, writing in the current
issue of Foreign Affairs, 1961 was the last time that the
U.S. government- led then by John F. Kennedy- took
nuclear disarmament seriously enough to explore how to
make it feasible. Although the Clinton Administration
called for a "fundamental re-examination" of nuclear
doctrine the initiative suffered from presidential
inattention and Clinton's "reluctance to challenge
Washington's odd couple of Pentagon bureaucrats and
myopic and doctrinaire senators"
Yet it is not entirely the Pentagon's fault. The web
of civilian experts that stretches from inside the
bureaucracy to the Senate to the universities to the
specialist think tanks to the arms manufacturers produces
a hardened force of opinion, almost immune to any
counter-strike. As General Eugene Habiger, the recently
retired commander in chief of all U.S. strategic nuclear
forces, put it, "We have reached the point where the
senior military generals responsible for nuclear forces
are advocating more vocally, more vehemently, than our
politicians to get down to lower and lower weapons." His
predecessor General George Lee Butler goes even further
both in wanting to totally eliminate nuclear weapons and
in highlighting the savage tactics used by the pro
nuclear lobby to publicly destroy the image and
credibility of any high profile anti-nuclear
campaigner.
Public opinion throughout the western world appears to
be in a state of serendipity when it comes to nuclear
weapons. Something will come along from somewhere and
make the world safe from nuclear war. But reality is far
different. Russian nuclear forces are deteriorating, both
materially and in their command and control systems. By
the day an unauthorised launch becomes more likely. The
Chinese-Taiwan situation could sometime in the next few
years erupt into a major military crisis, pushing the
U.S. to confront China, a situation that could lead to
two nuclear-armed powers firing missiles at each other.
Nuclear proliferation, as we have seen the last two
years, is becoming more and more likely and Kashmir and
the Middle East remain nuclear tinderboxes.
But beyond that is the creeping hostility that much of
the rest of the world feels as Washington presses its
superfluous nuclear advantage. By making no effort to
deliver on what it has publicly and solemnly promised a
number of times- and once again earlier this year- to
initiate serious nuclear disarmament- it encourages other
states to resist American foreign policy goals, given
half a chance. Even good friends such as Canada, France,
Germany and Sweden get gripped with this anti-American
angst from time to time. It doesn't augur well for long
term American interests if the country's leadership is
regarded as arrogant and needlessly militaristic.
President Putin has rightly seized his moment. Can
Bush or Gore seize their's? A statement of intent in
reply, as they hunker in their bunkers awaiting the
electorate's verdict, would be a welcome sign that they
are still in touch with reality.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2000 By
JONATHAN POWER
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