TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/073189/07318900.022

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.3 KB | 105 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 24

ARMS CONTROL

An Exercise in Trust


The superpowers take a big step toward "intrusive" inspection

By Bruce Van Voorst/WASHINGTON


    Doveryai no proveryai, or "Trust but verify," was a
favorite Reagan Administration phrase in the arms-control
lexicon, but it is easier said than done. While nobody seriously
proposes signing agreements that can be readily violated,
opinions abound on what constitutes adequate proof that the
other side is not cheating.

    Last week it was learned that U.S. and Soviet negotiators
in Geneva took a major step toward verification arrangements
several weeks ago, when they agreed on inspection controls for
the elimination of chemical weapons. American officials welcomed
the accord as further evidence that after decades of failure,
enormous progress is being made across the board on the thorny
verification issues so central to all arms control.

    A complete chemical-weapons ban may still be years in the
making, but the inspection initiative is a promising sign of
new thinking. Until 1987 the Soviet Union not only refused to
let U.S. inspectors check compliance on the spot, calling it
espionage, but also denied that the U.S.S.R. maintained any
stocks of chemical weapons. Under the influence of glasnost,
Moscow last week announced agreement in principle to on-site
"surprise" inspections of facilities. The arrangement defines
what sorts of installations would be involved and under what
conditions an inspection could be demanded.

    The Soviets have been accelerating their acceptance of such
verification procedures since the 1987 INF treaty, which
eliminated intermediate- and short-range nuclear missiles, set
up procedures for monitoring their destruction. Soviet
inspectors have been present in the U.S. during the demolition
of 326 missiles, and Americans have witnessed the destruction
of 1,088 Soviet missiles. More than two dozen Americans
stationed permanently in Votkinsk, west of the Urals, keep tabs
on a plant that once built SS-20 missiles, and a similar number
of Soviets in Magna, Utah, monitor what was formerly a Pershing
engine plant. Michael Krepon, a Washington arms-control expert,
talks of "a degree of verification unthinkable just a couple of
years ago."

    Verification of an accord limiting strategic weapons
(START) will be even more challenging. The INF category is
comparatively simple to check. Since all missiles of a given
type are to be destroyed, any such weapon spotted later would
be in obvious violation. START will be far more complex. It will
only reduce the numbers of various missiles, and inspectors will
have to determine how many small cruise missiles are carried
aboard bombers and possibly even submarines. Differentiation
must be made between nuclear-tipped and conventionally armed
cruise missiles, even if they look alike. A method will have to
be found to keep track of mobile missiles. With all that, the
supreme challenge will be how to prevent new production of
banned weapons at secret locations.

    Nor will it be easy to monitor proposed reductions in
conventional forces in Europe. Thousands of armored vehicles
and artillery pieces will have to be destroyed by NATO and the
Warsaw Pact, and hundreds of thousands of troops demobilized or
redeployed. The treaty language must precisely define
differences between aircraft capable of carrying either
conventional or nuclear warheads. Under previous verification
standards, that task would be hopeless: satellite photography
and electronic sensors are not sophisticated enough to count
warheads on a missile or peer inside production plants.

    Now the Soviets appear willing to accept increasingly
intrusive inspections. To win U.S. ratification of the 1974
Threshold Test Ban Treaty -- still unapproved because of Senate
doubts about verification -- the Soviets permitted American
teams to monitor an underground test in Soviet Central Asia. In
recent weeks Moscow has allowed Americans to inspect cruise
missiles aboard a cruiser in the Black Sea and sanctioned a
visit to the Sary Shagan complex, which the Pentagon had
claimed, erroneously, housed an antisatellite laser.

    The Bush Administration is ready to test growing Soviet
openness further. Last month Washington proposed a START
verification package to be negotiated and partly carried out
even before a treaty is completed. The initiative suggests
measures to count warheads on missiles, tag weapons at
manufacturing plants and ban such impediments to verification
as encryption of missile test radio signals during launches.
"This isn't putting the cart before the horse," says Democratic
Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, "but putting them next to each
other, where they belong."

    In the end, even the most intrusive measures will not be
foolproof: there is no verification catholicon. But perfect
verification is as illusory as it is unnecessary. National
security requires only that governments be able to detect
militarily significant violations early enough so that they can
do something about them. "Adequate" verification is
indispensable to reducing the risks. Recent reports from the
negotiating tables suggest that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
have awakened to that fact.