Like Peas in a Pod

Two political groups—the russian communists and the U.S. Republican Party—are separated by thousands of miles. Yet, like two sets of peas in the pod, both yearn to relive the good old days of Cold War confrontation, when nuclear weapons reigned supreme.

Still, the Russian Duma recently voted in favor of the START II nuclear reductions treaty and the Comprehensive Te st Ban Treaty, suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin has tamed the Communists, at least for the moment. Bill Clinton has had no such luck with the Republicans, who continue to impede important national security efforts and seem intent on helping the Communist Party achieve its goals by blocking further nuclear reductions and the worldwide agreement to end nuclear testing.

The Communists long for the days of a united and powerful Soviet Union and an expansive empire astride Europe and Asia. It was their party that provided the bulk of the “no” votes against START II and the test ban agreement, arguing that the treaties reflect Russian weakness and loss of empire. With nuclear weapons as one of the few remaining icons of Russian superpower strength, they want to retain the massive nuclear weapons stockpile, which they see as the key to resurgent Russian power. They would prefer to reject nuclear arms control agreements and permit Russia to act unilaterally.

Many congressional Republicans also appear to hanker for the “good old days” of confrontation between capitalism and communism, between “good and evil.” Before the 1990s, the Republican Party could always appeal to the voters by championing greater military strength to counter the Soviet menace. Since the end of the Cold War, however, Americans have turned their attention to health care, education, Social Security, and other domestic issues rather than national security tests of strength. As a result, Republican attempts to promote a national missile defense and raise the military budget may influence President Clinton and Congress, but they generate only yawns from an unexcited public.

After the Republican Party succeeded in defeating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty last October, it turned its attention to destroying the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and immediate deployment of a national missile defense (NMD). Many Republicans argued that the ABM Tr eaty is null and void because it was signed with a country that no longer exists. This legally specious argument also has led to Republican objections to any modifications of the treaty.

The same Republicans also want to block the possibility of any Moscow-Washington deal this year that might involve further nuclear weapons reductions, as well as changes in the ABM Treaty permitting the United States to deploy a “limited” national missile defense. On April 17, 25 Republican senators, led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms and Majority Leader Trent Lott, wrote a letter to President Clinton suggesting they would defeat any attempt to modify the ABM Treaty: “Our advice is that you reconsider your administration's current approach to NMD policy and arms control and consult further with us. Without significant changes to your approach, we do not believe an agreement submitted to the Senate for consideration should be ratified.” In their ideological hunger for the nuclear shield of the 1980s, they have focused on the 1972 treaty—rather than the unproven missile intercepting tech-nology—as the principal barrier to their goal.

At the end of April, Jesse Helms promised to kill any arms control agreement that Clinton might negotiate with Russia: “Let's be clear, to avoid any misunderstandings down the line: Any modified ABM Tr eaty negotiated by this administration will be DOA—dead on arrival—at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which, as the Chair knows, I happen to be the chairman.”

Helms added: “To the length of my cable-tow, it is my intent to do everything in my power to ensure that nothing is done in the next few months by this administration to tie the hands of the next administration in pursuing a new national security policy, based not on scraps of parchment but, rather, on concrete defenses.”

Recognizing that the Russians could no longer be trotted out as the great bogeyman to justify their position, Helms and other Republicans decided to spotlight others threats to American security. They continue to hype China as the next great peril. It doesn't bother them that China's 20 or so long-range nuclear weapons compare to a U.S. long-range arsenal of more than 6,000. Nor do they bother to explain that while the Chinese military is huge, it has mostly antiquated equipment and very little power-projection capacity to threaten an invasion of Taiwan or anyone else. And ironically, most of the same Republicans who warn about the rising Chinese threat also voted to extend permanent trade relations to China.

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Republicans have also raised alarms about possible emerging threats from poor, isolated regimes in North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. While those countries may be attempting to develop nuclear weapons, fears of their potential danger could lead the United States to take actions that would undermine the very security that the Republicans claim to uphold. Rather than focusing on the 22,000 nuclear weapons that remain in Russia under less-than-adequate security—vulnerable to theft or illicit sale—Republicans prefer to highlight a threat from what will be at most a very few nuclear weapons from not-yet-nuclear powers. Moreover, those countries almost certainly will never use nuclear weapons against the United States for fear of massive nuclear and conventional retaliation.

As demonstrated by the two votes in the Russian parliament for the test ban treaty and START II, Putin may finally have the Communist Party under control. Next it will be up to President Al Gore or President George W. Bush to constrain their still-bellicose counterparts in the United States. If past history is any guide, Bush would be the more successful of the two. Republican presidents have often corralled the same recalcitrant Republicans who fight Democrats tooth-and-nail on arms control efforts.

In his campaign statements, Bush is proving to be an internationalist in the footsteps of his father. He supported the China trade deal and opposed congressional efforts to force the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Kosovo. In a May 23 press conference, he suggested unilateral cuts in numbers of nuclear weapons and de-alerting the weapons as well—coupled, of course, with a mandatory bow to a massive national missile defense that will surely crush hopes for positive arms control steps.

But if neither Bush nor Gore is able to tamp down the Republican right, the Republican Party may succeed where the Russian Communists have failed—destroying arms control and encouraging the maintenance and/or buildup of vast arsenals of nuclear weapons.