鈥淭HE outcome of great battles is often determined by decisions on funding and
technology made decades before.鈥� So says George W. Bush in his policy statement
on defence. But experts in Europe and the US fear decisions the new president
must make soon will mean those battles will be fought using horrific weapons
that other leaders have spent decades trying to control.
Bush鈥檚 policy statements highlight the threat from chemical and biological
weapons. 鈥淏ut the response seems more likely to be in terms of Fortress America
than international controls,鈥� says Oliver Meyer of Vertic, a pro-arms-control
group in London. A key phrase in Bush鈥檚 defence pronouncements has been
鈥渉omeland defence鈥�, a preference for protecting American soil over international
arms control efforts.
Bush has made it clear that a high priority for defending American soil will
be the National Missile Defense (NMD) system鈥攁 scaled-down version of
Ronald Reagan鈥檚 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� programme
(see 鈥淪tar Wars: the new menace鈥�).
But such a system is
prohibited under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed by the US and former
Soviet Union in 1972. 鈥淭he idea of the treaty was that each side promised to be
vulnerable, so nuclear deterrence would work,鈥� says Tom McDonald of the British
American Security Information Council, an arms-control think tank based in
London and Washington DC. 鈥淭he US no longer wants to be vulnerable, or
诲别迟别谤谤别诲.鈥�
Advertisement
Defending this position in the Chicago Tribune last month,
Condoleezza Rice, Bush鈥檚 nominee for national security adviser, wrote that
deterrence only worked during the Cold War. 鈥淭oday, the principal concerns are
nuclear threats from the Iraqs and North Koreas of the world.鈥� To achieve NMD,
Bush says he will either talk Russia into amending the treaty, or will abandon
it.
The danger then will be China, whose few missiles would become useless if NMD
ever works. According to McDonald, 鈥淐hina typically retaliates against moves it
doesn鈥檛 like by selling missile technology to proliferation states,鈥� as it did
to Pakistan recently. 鈥淯S insistence on NMD could end up aiding the rogue states
it is meant to oppose.鈥�
But, says Meyer, opposition to NMD is so strong in Europe that the US may
need to make concessions in other areas to achieve it. One might be to ratify
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a move which was narrowly defeated in the
Senate last year. But the CTBT could still die, says McDonald. China, too, has
not ratified. 鈥淭o counter NMD, China would need missiles with multiple warheads.
Now it has only single warheads.鈥� To scale up, China would have to resume
testing, which in turn might prompt India and Pakistan to resume as well.
The CTBT is under pressure from another direction. Nuclear weapon designers
at US national labs such as Los Alamos are pressing the government to abandon
the treaty so they can test a new generation of small nuclear weapons aimed at
breaking hardened targets such as underground bunkers. Bush has pledged
$20 billion more funding during his term for weapons research.
There is even less optimism about the Biological Weapons Convention. A system
for verifying the treaty, requiring countries to declare biological activities
and submit to inspections of labs, is due to be agreed this year. But the US has
so far blocked the most stringent measures, and a new team may be unlikely to
take a softer line, says Barbara Rosenberg of the State University of New York
at Purchase, an expert on the treaty. 鈥淭hey won鈥檛 offend their friends in the
biotechnology industry by agreeing to intrusive inspections,鈥� agrees
McDonald.
At least one area of arms control seems likely to be supported by the new
administration: the Chemical Weapons Convention, a pet project of Bush鈥檚 father
when he was president. When the US enacted the CWC in 1998, it exempted itself
from the verification inspections required by the treaty, and from the
obligation to allow samples taken during inspections to be tested out of the
country. 鈥淥ne would hope the son will fix what Washington did to his father鈥檚
treaty,鈥� says Amy Smithson of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a defence think tank
in Washington DC.
