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“For half a century, ACA has been providing the world … with advocacy, analysis, and awareness on some of the most critical topics of international peace and security, including on how to achieve our common, shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.”

– Izumi Nakamitsu
UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs
June 2, 2022
United States

Colombia to Receive 63 Helicopters in U.S. Aid

January/February 2000

The Clinton administration announced January 11 a proposed $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia, including delivery to trained counternarcotics battalions of 30 UH-60L Blackhawk helicopters and 33 UH-1N Huey utility helicopters worth $600 million. The helicopters are for use in an operation to push into coca-growing regions of southern Colombia, which the White House claims are "dominated by insurgent guerrillas."

Another $340 million of the aid package will be devoted to enhancing Colombian interdiction capabilities, such as upgrading airstrips and purchasing radar and aircraft. If approved by Congress, total U.S. aid to Bogota will equal $1.6 billion during the next two years.

Arturo Valenzuela, special assistant to the president for inter-American affairs, told the press in a January 11 briefing that Washington has no intention of getting involved in a counterinsurgency operation, but that the U.S. "concern and interest is to cut back on the capacity of narcotraffickers to produce [and] to ship in Colombia." The U.S. government estimates 80 percent of the cocaine entering the United States originates in or passes through Colombia.

Last fall, the Pentagon informed Congress that Colombia had requested 14 Blackhawks through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Congress opted not to block the sale within the mandated 30-day review period despite existing congressional criticism of Colombia's poor human rights record. It is unclear whether Colombia will still pursue the FMS buy after the announcement of the aid package.

Columbia to Receive 63 Helicopters in U.S. Aid

Confrontation and Retreat: The U.S. Congress and the South Asian Nuclear Tests

In May 1998 was not a good month for U.S. non-proliferation efforts. On May 11 and 13, India detonated five nuclear devices, its first nuclear tests in nearly a quarter century. Not to be outdone, its bitter rival Pakistan conducted six nuclear tests of its own toward the end of the month. These sudden developments, long feared but nonetheless catching American officials and intelligence analysts by surprise, effectively blew U.S. policy toward the South Asian subcontinent to smithereens and laid down a direct challenge to the global non-proliferation regime.

Within the U.S. Congress, non-proliferation advocates like Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) and India-bashers such as Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) voiced outrage and called for the immediate triggering of sanctions under Sec. 102(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, universally known as the Glenn amendment. New Delhi's actions were "reckless, shameful and irresponsible," Markey insisted. Burton urged his House colleagues to "stop subsidizing India's nuclear progress" by cutting U.S. economic assistance to New Delhi. "India took a terrible, terrible step yesterday," Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) told the Senate the day after India's first round of tests. Paraphrasing Franklin Roosevelt, the Iowa Democrat declared that "yesterday is a day that will live in infamy for the Nation of India."<1>

Of greater interest was the response of those who earlier had been among India's most vocal supporters. Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ), perhaps New Delhi's leading champion on Capitol Hill, expressed regret at the tests but insisted they should not derail the U.S.-India relationship. But other lawmakers usually sympathetic to India were less supportive. Many of the leading members of the House's India caucus remained noticeably silent, and some privately suggested that the caucus publicly condemn India. Several legislators, including House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO), canceled plans to visit India. "In light of the nuclear tests," a Gephardt spokesman explained, "we did not want there to be the appearance of business as usual."<2>

The situation was exacerbated 17 days later, when Pakistan conducted its own tests. Aside from the expected condemnations of Pakistan and criticism of the Clinton administration for allowing events to get so out of hand, a number of members voiced anxiety that South Asian tensions could spiral out of control. "This is the most serious situation since the Cuban missile crisis," Senator John McCain (R-AZ) warned, a judgment seconded by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY).<3>

Only days after the tests, President Bill Clinton responded as he was legally obligated under the Glenn amendment, slapping wide-ranging economic and military sanctions on New Delhi and Islamabad. Yet no sooner had Washington taken this stand on behalf of global non-proliferation norms than it began to walk back from its position. Within 18 months, the U.S. Congress swung from applauding strict sanctions to urging the president to waive not only the Glenn amendment, but also the Pressler and Symington amendments, which mandate further penalties for states engaged in certain nuclear activity. (For more information on this legislation, see sidebar.) Earlier convinced of the need to maintain a tough stance as an object lesson for other nuclear threshold states, by the end of 1999 U.S. lawmakers had completely turned their backs on sanctions as a tool of non-proliferation policy. Congressional anger over the South Asian tests had given way to acceptance, even understanding. Congress, it would appear, had abandoned 25 years of non-proliferation activity.

The U.S. Congress was trying to achieve multiple objectives that were not entirely compatible. Concerned about proliferation and wanting a voice in foreign policy that would compete with the executive branch, it had mandated the sanctions. But when faced with post-Cold War national interests, the growing influence of the domestic South Asian-American community and an increasing interest in the subcontinent by U.S. business, the legislators moved non-proliferation to the back burner and renounced with dizzying speed the sanctions on India and Pakistan they had so recently supported. The impact of these steps on the non-proliferation regime is not yet clear. But what is apparent is that Congress' love-hate relationship with sanctions as a tool of foreign policy is far from over.

The Retreat

Discomfort with the Glenn amendment sanctions surfaced shortly after they were imposed on Pakistan and served to trigger a broader discussion of the utility of sanctions in general. It was time "to engage in a serious debate on the merits of using unilateral economic sanctions to achieve foreign policy goals," Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) declared. Observing that the threat of sanctions had deterred neither India nor Pakistan from testing, he worried that U.S. sanctions could destabilize a Pakistan already burdened with enormous economic and political problems. "An unstable Pakistan with nuclear weapons," he added, "is not in our interests."<4>

Other comments focused more narrowly on U.S. economic interests. "Pakistan is not a trading partner we can afford to lose," cautioned the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Robert Smith (R-OR), reflecting sentiment especially pronounced in wheat-growing areas of the Pacific Northwest. "There is no leverage in cutting off our sales," complained Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY). "It does not make a difference on the dinner table in Islamabad, but it sure will in Topeka."<5>

Recognizing this widespread dissatisfaction with sanctions, the Senate leadership created a special 18-member task force, headed by McConnell and Joseph Biden (D-DE), to examine both the way the India and Pakistan sanctions were working, and the larger question of how effective sanctions are in influencing the behavior of other nations. "There's a feeling on both sides of the aisle that perhaps the proclivity to place economic sanctions on countries around the world and with not a clear way of ending those has become a problem," explained Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) in what was clearly an understatement.<6>

It did not take long for this uneasiness over the Glenn amendment sanctions to translate into congressional action. The initial breach in the sanctions regime came in early July, less than two months after the first Indian test. The impetus behind this move was readily apparent. Pakistan was the leading foreign buyer of U.S. white wheat, and the third largest overseas purchaser of all U.S. wheat. But unless Congress acted to permit export financing, U.S. farmers would be unable to participate in winter wheat auctions in Pakistan, scheduled for mid-July.

"We are six days away from a disaster," warned Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) in early July. "Farmers around the country are staring an economic train wreck in the eye."<7> The full Senate apparently agreed, rushing through legislation without the normal committee review and voting 98-0 to give both India and Pakistan a one-year exemption from Glenn amendment restrictions on Department of Agriculture financing for the purchase of agricultural commodities from U.S. farmers.<8> The Senate bill originally contained authority for the president to waive other sanctions as well, but a filibuster threat by Senator John Glenn (D-OH), author of the Glenn amendment and perhaps the Senate's leading non-proliferation expert, succeeded in getting this provision dropped.

Action in the House was equally swift and revealing of congressional priorities. Representatives Robert Livingston (R-LA) and David Obey (D-WI), the chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the House Appropriations Committee, urged a more considered approach, but not even these senior power brokers could slow the stampede. This legislation, its supporters argued, did not indicate any lessening of the U.S. commitment to non-proliferation. To the contrary, by crafting a more focused sanctions policy, it would help secure the domestic base for maintaining sanctions.

Such elaborate rationalizations could not hide the actual intent of most members, however. Hardly a word about non-proliferation figured in the House debate. No one displayed anger at India or Pakistan for violating long-standing international norms against testing. Instead, the debate was all about helping the U.S. farmer, about not losing markets or penalizing American wheat growers. The House's leading non-proliferation proponents were noticeably absent during the debate. Not surprisingly, the House followed the Senate's lead and adopted the measure in time for American farmers to take part in the Pakistani wheat auction.<9>

This modest step was quickly followed by others. The day after the House's approval of the wheat relief bill, the Senate, with the blessing of the administration, adopted the Brownback amendment. The Brownback amendment-named for its author, Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian affairs-provided the president with the authority to waive, for a period of one year, Glenn, Symington and Pressler amendment sanctions, except for those pertaining to military assistance, dual-use exports and military sales.

Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, complained that the Senate had "rushed forward, willy nilly," without adequate review or committee hearings, but chose not to block passage.<10> Glenn, who might have been expected to protest this gutting of his namesake legislation, was conveniently away from Washington training for the space shuttle flight he was to make later in the year. Recalling Glenn's absence sometime afterward, one insider conceded that while not deliberately planned, Senate action on the legislation at the very moment its primary opponent was preoccupied with other matters was more than simply a happy coincidence.

The Brownback amendment (formally known as the India-Pakistan Relief Act of 1998) was incorporated into the fiscal 1999 omnibus appropriations bill and signed into law in October 1998. Following its adoption, President Clinton quickly restored funding for U.S. military training programs in India and Pakistan, as well as government-backed financing and credit guarantees for U.S. firms doing business there. Clinton also lifted restrictions on U.S. commercial loans and credits to both countries and announced that Washington would support a pending Pakistani request before the International Monetary Fund. Encouraged by the absence of opposition to these steps, Clinton then moved to eliminate another long-standing irritant in the U.S.-Pakistani relationship by agreeing to pay Islamabad $325 million in cash and $140 million in goods as compensation for 28 F-16 aircraft that Pakistan had earlier bought, but whose delivery had been prevented by the 1990 triggering of the Pressler amendment. Once more, Capitol Hill acquiesced virtually without dissent.

In October 1999, Congress took a further step by adopting, as part of the defense appropriations bill, another, more sweeping Brownback amendment-sometimes called Brownback II. This measure gave the president permanent authority to waive, with respect to India and Pakistan, all the provisions of the Glenn amendment. In addition, it authorized the president to waive the Symington and Pressler amendment sanctions, which had prohibited almost all U.S. economic and military assistance to Pakistan since 1990. Finally, the legislation stated that the "broad application" of export controls on Indian and Pakistani government agencies and private companies suspected of having links to their country's nuclear or missile programs (the so-called "entities list") was "inconsistent" with U.S. national security interests. Instead, the lawmakers urged the executive branch to apply U.S. export controls only to those agencies and companies that made "direct and material contributions to weapons of mass destruction and missile programs and only to those items that can contribute to such programs."

Brownback II represented an extraordinary reversal of American policy. The measure handed the president the authority to lift all sanctions imposed upon India and Pakistan as a result of their 1998 nuclear tests. More remarkably yet, Congress abandoned even those sanctions it had placed upon Pakistan prior to Islamabad's tests. Seventeen months after its nuclear detonations, Pakistan found itself far better off vis-à-vis American nuclear non-proliferation law than it had been at any time since 1990. Finally, with its statement on export controls, the U.S. Congress appeared to condemn rigorous steps to prevent the transfer of sensitive technology that might be used in the nuclear weapons or missile programs of India or Pakistan, and implicitly authorized the export of materials that might indirectly assist those programs. It was a stunning retreat from Capitol Hill's decades-long reliance on punitive measures to block the spread of weapons of mass destruction.<11>

Never happy about being forced in 1990 to trigger the Pressler amendment, the executive branch saw Brownback II as the achievement of a long-desired objective. Administration officials were pleased with the measure in another respect as well. An earlier draft of the legislation would have suspended for five years the Glenn, Symington and Pressler sanctions, whereas Brownback II, as finally adopted, gave the president the latitude to lift the sanctions only when and if he saw fit. This flexibility, the State Department believed, would strengthen the president's hand in subsequent negotiations with India and Pakistan.

The timing of these proceedings also merits mention. A House-Senate conference committee adopted the defense appropriations bill containing Brownback II on October 11, 1999. The following day the Pakistani military dismissed the civilian government in Islamabad and seized power. On October 13 and 14, the House and Senate respectively took up the defense bill. Both houses adopted the measure by substantial majorities. The military coup in Pakistan was all but ignored during debate over the bill, with only one member of either house troubling to go to the floor to express skepticism about the wisdom of a wholesale abandonment of sanctions against Pakistan at the very moment the Pakistani military was throwing out a democratically elected government. True, Brownback II was but one small provision in a huge bill appropriating over one-quarter of a trillion dollars. Nonetheless, this silence about contemporaneous events in Islamabad suggests just how far Congress had traveled since the South Asian tests 17 months earlier.

South Asia in the Congressional Mindset

All in all, it had been a remarkable year and a half. The United States had imposed extensive sanctions and then just as quickly lifted not only Glenn amendment sanctions, but Symington and Pressler amendment restrictions as well. Initially expressing concern for the global non-proliferation regime, Congress, in less than 18 months, had moved to the position that it should not jeopardize other interests in pursuit of unobtainable non-proliferation objectives. How does one explain this dramatic transformation in congressional attitudes and actions?

The Indian-American community

Part of the explanation is political. As the 1990s unfolded, South Asia, and India in particular, gained increasing prominence on the congressional agenda. This new politically inspired concern for the region partly reflected changes in the Asian-American community. As recently as 1980, there were only 387,000 Indian-Americans in the United States. But the next two decades saw a dramatic increase in the size of this community. By 1997, this number had more than tripled, to 1,215,000. (The total U.S. population during the same period grew by 17.8 percent.) By the later date, the Indian-American community comprised the third largest Asian-American population in the country, surpassed only by Chinese- and Filipino-Americans.

Numbers tell only part of the story. The Indian-American community is also highly educated and prosperous. Fifty-eight percent of the adult community has at least a bachelor's degree. A larger percentage of the Indian-American work force holds a managerial or professional position than any other group in the country, with especially high representation among well-paid doctors, engineers, scientists, architects and computer professionals. As a result, the Indian-American per capita income exceeds that of every other group in the country, including whites.<12>

Until recently, this wealth and status had not translated into political clout, but that is rapidly changing. Since the community is widely and relatively evenly distributed throughout all parts of the country, few congressional districts are without at least a handful of Indian-American families. Even in states such as Kansas, where the Indian-American community is negligible, Senator Brownback notes that they make their presence felt.<13> The largest concentrations, however, reside in the major industrial-urban states of New York, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts. As a whole, the community has avoided identification with either of the two major political parties and gives generously to both. Indian-Americans raised $4 million on behalf of political candidates for the 1992 election, and the figures are almost certainly significantly higher today.<14> "By their engagement and their aggressiveness," Brownback has observed, "they're able to influence things beyond their numbers."<15>

Indian-American organizations now deliberately reach out to their Washington representatives. Professional groups, such as the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, increasingly invite leading congressional supporters to address their meetings. The Indian American Friendship Council-to take but one example-sponsors a legislative conference in Washington each year, which prominent U.S. lawmakers are invited to address. The July 1999 conference, for instance, was attended by nearly 40 U.S. lawmakers and featured speeches by House Minority Leader Gephardt; House International Relations Committee Chair Benjamin Gilman (R-NY); and Doug Bereuter (R-NE), chairman of the House Asia subcommittee.

These congressional addresses do not always feature careful or measured discussion of U.S.-Indian ties. Instead, these events encourage an outpouring of praise for India, condemnation of Pakistani policies and devotion to strong Indian-American ties. The U.S.-Indian relationship, Gephardt told council members at the 1999 conference, is possibly the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Though perhaps harmless, such exuberance may serve to mislead members of the Indian-American community about the current state or future direction of U.S. policy.

An important development for the clout of the Indian-American community on Capitol Hill occurred following the 1992 elections. That autumn, Representative Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY) fell victim to redistricting and lost his congressional seat. The influential chairman of the House subcommittee on Asia had been widely regarded as India's most energetic advocate in the Congress, and over the years had, almost alone among his congressional colleagues, raised large sums of money in the Indian-American community. Solarz's defeat opened the door for a junior New Jersey Democrat, Frank Pallone, who up to this time had displayed no particular interest in either American foreign policy or the Indian-American community.

At first the loss of Solarz was seen as a blow to the community's influence, but Pallone was a shrewd politician who had a need and recognized an opportunity. The need arose from the vicissitudes of redistricting, which had thrown a large Indian-American population into his new congressional district. The opportunity arose from the vacuum created by Solarz's departure. A few weeks after the 1992 elections, Pallone enlisted six other Democrats and Florida Republican Bill McCollum to organize the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. One of the first congressional caucuses devoted to promoting relations with a single country, the group grew far more rapidly than Pallone could have envisioned in even his wildest fantasies. By mid-1999, the India caucus, as it was invariably called, boasted a membership of 115 members, over a quarter of the entire House of Representatives.

Galvanized by Pallone's energetic leadership and considerable skills for publicizing both the caucus and his own role in Indian-American affairs, the organization aggressively argued the case for better U.S.-Indian relations. Pallone's office established an effective information and communications network and made certain that caucus members knew whenever the House was slated to vote on issues of interest to the Indian-American community. The caucus distributed talking points, enlisted floor speakers and lined up votes. It provided India, for the first time, with an institutional base of support on Capitol Hill and, according to one analyst, an "anchor to windward."

The Pakistani-American community

The Pakistani-American population is only one-tenth the size of the Indian-American community. Not surprisingly, it lags far behind its larger rival in its visibility and its clout on Capitol Hill. Pakistan has no congressional equivalent of the India caucus. Various efforts to organize a Pakistan caucus have foundered on congressional indifference and the hard political reality that publicly aligning themselves with Pakistan holds few political incentives for most members of the U.S. Congress.

Throughout the 1980s and the close Pakistani-American partnership against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Texas Democrat Charlie Wilson was an energetic and effective advocate for Islamabad in the House of Representatives. But since Wilson's retirement from Congress in 1996, no one has stepped forward to take his place. The situation is slightly more favorable for Pakistan in the Senate, where several members, including Brownback, Harkin and Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), are viewed as particularly sympathetic to Islamabad. Pakistan's marginally stronger position in the Senate has influenced the legislative strategy of the Clinton administration as it has sought statutory relief from congressionally mandated sanctions against Islamabad. In both 1998 and 1999, with Brownback I and II, the administration focused its efforts on securing adoption in the Senate. Since the equivalent House measure contained no comparable provision, a Senate-House conference committee resolved the issue, neatly sidestepping the potential obstacle represented by a separate House vote and a mobilized India caucus.

The U.S. business community

Constituent pressure, of course, constitutes only one of many sources of influence on members of Congress as they deal with South Asian issues. In recent years, since India began opening up its economy in 1991, economic considerations and the American business community have also assumed a larger role on matters pertaining to the subcontinent. Although its promise still far exceeds its actual performance, the Indian market, with its alluring prospect of several hundred million middle-class consumers, has increasingly attracted the attention of both Wall Street and Main Street.

This new business interest has been reflected on Capitol Hill. Many members of Congress, constantly on the lookout for fresh sales and investment opportunities-which can mean more jobs for constituents and greater profits for local businesses-find their gaze more and more drawn to South Asia and to India above all. Paeans to India's economic reforms have replaced denunciations of Nehruvian socialism as standard congressional rhetoric. Traveling legislators, who once shunned the subcontinent, now regularly pass through New Delhi, the financial center of Mumbai (Bombay) and the Indian Silicon Valley in Bangalore.

Private groups such as the U.S.-India Business Council and the India Interest Group lobby individual members of Congress on behalf of sanctions relief and U.S. government credits and investment guarantees. According to several of Capitol Hill's most knowledgeable South Asia experts, U.S. business and agricultural groups were "key" to the July 1998 rollback of some of the Glenn amendment sanctions.<16> These same organizations also supported the 1998 and 1999 Brownback amendments that further loosened legislative restrictions on India and Pakistan. Combined with a larger, more politically active Indian-American community, American business interests over the past seven or eight years have pushed the U.S. Congress to pay more attention to South Asia and, most strikingly, to foster a more cordial U.S.-Indian relationship.

New threats to American security

Security considerations have contributed as well to this newfound interest in U.S.-Indian partnership. For many years, most members of Congress saw the region primarily in terms of the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union. Pakistan was a valued ally, while India, for reasons most legislators found utterly inexplicable, was entirely too cozy with Moscow. With the disappearance of the Soviet threat, however, congressional anxieties have increasingly centered on two other potential challenges to American security: China and Islamic fundamentalism. The result has been a shift in attitudes toward India and Pakistan.

Confronted with the grim scenes from Tiananmen Square at the very moment the Cold War was coming to a close, many members of Congress, both conservatives and liberals, almost effortlessly replaced their concerns about a Soviet threat to American ideals and interests with similar worries about the People's Republic of China. In the eyes of some, India took on a new importance as a hedge against a China turned aggressive. Others asked if the world's largest democracy and its most powerful democracy did not share a value system fundamentally at odds with that espoused by the communist regime in Beijing. Brownback, for one, is outspoken in his criticism of the manner in which the Clinton administration has handled relations with China and India. The White House, he charged in a speech to the U.S.-India Business Council in June 1999, has consistently rewarded China, "a country that has openly and continually challenged U.S. interests and values," while "first ignoring, and now punishing" India. "The inequity in this situation," he contended, "is both striking and counterintuitive. Why reward the country which is aggressively working against everything we stand for, and at the same time punish and blackmail a country with which we share basic values and interests?"

A growing concern about terrorism sponsored by radical Islamic groups matched this uneasiness about the future course of U.S. relations with China. And fears about Islamic terrorism served to promote anxieties about Muslim Pakistan and, in some quarters, new support for India. More and more, U.S. legislators equated Pakistan with an Islamic fundamentalism that, in their view, posed a serious threat to American interests at home and abroad. Islamabad's support for the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir and, even more, for the radical Taliban in Afghanistan only reinforced such concerns.

Congressional backing for Israel entered into the equation as well. Some of Israel's friends on the Hill voiced concern that Pakistan might share its nuclear know-how with Iran or other Arab states hostile to Israel. Shortly after Pakistan's nuclear tests, a group of legislators circulated news reports highlighting a visit to Pakistan by Iran's foreign minister, and pointedly speculated whether the trip, coming on the heels of Islamabad's nuclear tests, was mere coincidence. "We believe it is vital for the Congress to learn the full story about Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and any possible illegal transfers of information and technology to Iran," they wrote. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) warned his House colleagues that "Pakistan's decision to test a nuclear weapon has raised the frightening specter of an 'Islamic bomb' being directed at Israel."<17>

Limits to U.S. Sanctions

The net effect of this rapid shift on sanctions policy toward South Asia is difficult to determine. At the most basic level, it is hard to escape the conclusion that U.S. non-proliferation policy toward South Asia-the policy of the executive branch as well as of the Congress-has utterly failed if success is defined as keeping nuclear weapons out of the region. A quarter century of American threats, blandishments and exhortations deterred neither India nor Pakistan from moving forward on a nuclear weapons program. The certainty of sanctions did not stop either country from conducting nuclear tests. And having crossed that nuclear Rubicon, neither New Delhi nor Islamabad was compelled to roll back its weapons program because of U.S. sanctions.

These bald judgments, however, demand qualification. The fact that U.S. policy ultimately failed to keep nuclear weapons out of South Asia does not mean that it was without impact. Absent U.S. opposition, India and Pakistan might well have accelerated their weapons programs. The South Asian nuclear race might have heated up far sooner, and with results far more dangerous, had the United States not invested considerable time, energy and diplomatic capital in trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weaponry to the subcontinent. In truth, definitively evaluating the success or failure of America's non-proliferation policies in South Asia is not as easy as it may first appear.

Moreover, in gauging the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions-both the threat and their actual imposition-in influencing the behavior of Islamabad and New Delhi, one must also recognize that the United States never attempted to wield the full force of its economic might. Glenn amendment sanctions were perhaps more notable for their gaps than their comprehensive nature. India, for instance, had been scheduled to receive $54.3 million in development assistance in fiscal year 1998. Of this total, $36.3 million was for activities exempt from the Glenn amendment sanctions-child survival projects, health and family planning programs, environmental projects, and related programs. U.S. food aid to India, which totaled approximately $92 million a year, was also permitted under the Glenn amendment. Ultimately, India lost only $12 million in direct aid and $9 million in housing loan guarantees from its 1998 aid package, and $4-5 million in deobligations from money appropriated in earlier years. Even U.S. opposition to World Bank loans was hedged, as Clinton administration officials argued that the ban did not extend to humanitarian assistance. Pakistan similarly escaped many of the more draconian aspects of a full aid cutoff.<18> For all the hue and cry about inflexible sanctions, the Glenn amendment proved remarkably flexible.

In part, this reluctance to use all the means at its disposal to wreck the economies of India and Pakistan reflected a U.S. recognition that as important as non-proliferation was, the United States had other critical interests in South Asia that deserved protection as well. India and Pakistan occupy a strategic corner of the globe, and regional instability could threaten American political and security interests in the Middle East, central Asia and the Indian Ocean. Important U.S. economic interests required safeguarding. Washington sought to promote economic development for the region and to address pressing social needs. Good governance and the strengthening of democratic institutions were key American objectives. Fostering regional cooperation and combating terrorism and narcotics trafficking were other priorities. In other words, no one objective, no matter how worthy, was so vital as to justify jeopardizing Washington's ability to pursue its many interests in the region.

Pakistan's precarious political and economic situation also placed limits on how hard Washington could lean on Islamabad. Ever mindful of the fact that an economic or political collapse in Pakistan might contribute to the rise of Islamic radicalism, U.S. officials drew back from actions that might push Pakistan over the edge. Augmenting these fears, moreover, was the concern that an impoverished Islamabad might look for ready cash by selling its nuclear technology to Iran or other "rogue" nations, thereby contributing to the very proliferation Washington sought to block.

Finally, the refusal of the international community to follow the American lead in imposing penalties on India and Pakistan undercut the impact of U.S. sanctions and reduced congressional incentives for plugging the loopholes in the American sanctions regime. Japan and several European nations did suspend loans and grants or apply other economic sanctions following the May 1998 tests, but like U.S. sanctions, the global regime was noteworthy more for its exceptions than its inclusiveness.

This combination of circumstances has led most South Asian experts-though not necessarily non-proliferation specialists-to conclude that a U.S. policy built around the threat or use of sanctions has failed to advance the American national interest.<19> This judgment reflects the congressional consensus as well. In a speech on April 3, 1999, Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who had replaced Pallone as the Democratic co-chair of the Indian caucus earlier that year, spoke for many of his congressional colleagues when he observed, "Sanctions are too blunt a weapon to be used by us against a sister democracy such as India. Sanctions aren't good for India; and they aren't good for America either."

Not even new Indian and Pakistani provocations slowed Capitol Hill's headlong repudiation of sanctions. The publication by India in mid-1999 of a draft nuclear doctrine envisioning the creation of a nuclear triad of air-, sea- and ground-launched nuclear weapons-a plan roundly condemned by the Clinton administration and a handful of legislators-had absolutely no effect on congressional support for Brownback II. Instead, India partisans such as Pallone took the publication of the draft doctrine as another indication of New Delhi's transparency and political maturity. India, Pallone insisted, had good reason to seek a credible deterrent, considering the provocations of Pakistan and China.<20>

Similarly, Pakistan's reckless involvement in and responsibility for the Kargil incursion, which in the summer of 1999 briefly revived fears of a full-scale conflict between South Asia's nuclear-armed rivals, failed to derail congressional approval for Brownback II. Tests of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles by both countries went largely unnoticed on the Hill. Finally, the October 1999 coup in Islamabad did not halt the drive to free Pakistan from Pressler as well as Glenn amendment restrictions. Congress, it would seem, was hell-bent on lifting sanctions on its South Asian friends, come what may.

The Sanctions Paradox

Given the remarkable backpedaling that so rapidly followed the imposition of the Glenn amendment sanctions, one might reasonably ask why Congress adopted legislation mandating such sanctions in the first place. Few regional specialists believe Washington's nuclear-related sanctions have worked. Most contend that congressional legislation has produced faulty policy based on a failure to understand South Asia's regional dynamics. Sanctions, many would add, have even been counterproductive to the achievement of U.S. non-proliferation objectives. So has the South Asian experience disillusioned Congress about the utility of sanctions as a foreign policy tool?

On the contrary, there has been a dramatic increase in sanctions legislation in recent years. From a congressional perspective, sanctions and the threat of sanctions are not the illogical or misinformed initiatives many foreign policy experts assume. Such measures meet various congressional needs. First, they give Congress a voice in determining U.S. foreign policy, in a sphere in which the executive branch wields most of the power. To complain, therefore, that sanctions are a blunt instrument, as many critics do, misses the point. They are better than no instrument at all.

Second, sanctions can represent a legitimate effort to warn foreign governments not to take particular actions or cross certain lines. Few people in 1985 thought that the Pressler amendment would ever be triggered. Its principal purpose was to caution Islamabad not to push its nuclear development too far.

Third, sanctions sometimes reflect a congressional distrust of the executive branch. Congress might legislate non-proliferation sanctions, for instance, because it believes that the White House is not giving this issue sufficient priority.

Finally, the enactment of sanctions can serve political or partisan needs. By including a presidential waiver in sanctions legislation, Congress can in effect have it both ways. Legislators can appear to be taking a tough stand on an issue while actually placing ultimate responsibility upon the president for imposing sanctions and for the negative consequences the sanctions might produce.

Although South Asian developments suggest that some members of Congress have now begun to rethink the wisdom of this wholesale reliance on sanctions, particularly those of a unilateral nature, legislation threatening sanctions meets too many congressional needs to be removed from the legislative arsenal in the near future. Indeed, in the very month that Clinton imposed Glenn amendment sanctions on India and Pakistan, the House adopted the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which by some estimates could result in new sanctions on as many as 75 countries.<21>

So we are left with something of a paradox. Congress appears to have little stomach for maintaining sanctions against India or Pakistan, either to punish them for their tests, to coerce them into reversing the direction of their nuclear programs, or more generally, to send a message to other nuclear threshold states that may be tempted to emulate the Indian and Pakistani examples. Nor does the Hill appear prepared to hold out for a deal in which the United States would lift sanctions in exchange for specific Indian or Pakistani steps short of a complete nuclear rollback, such as signing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Legislators are unwilling to pay the domestic price sanctions frequently entail, particularly since sanctions hold no assurance of success in achieving U.S. non-proliferation objectives. Members, moreover, have a legitimate fear that a punitive approach toward Islamabad and New Delhi will preclude the achievement of other important U.S. objectives in South Asia, strain Washington's relations with friends and allies, or push Pakistan over the precipice into the clutches of Islamic radicalism.

Nonetheless, members of Congress will almost certainly continue to insist on their right and responsibility to exercise a voice in the conduct of the nation's foreign policies, as indeed they should. With different political constituencies and constitutional duties than the president, they will frequently disagree with the executive in their definition of the national interest, and in their judgments as to the best means for preserving and promoting that interest. And they will remain attracted by the apparent advantages sanctions legislation offers.

So the paradox is likely to remain, recalling the old adage that everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. Congress will continue to encroach upon the executive's freedom of action, to mandate sanctions-and to recoil at the consequences. U.S. policy, in short, is likely to replay the strange gyrations that marked congressional efforts in 1998 and 1999 to fashion a policy to meet both the new nuclear realities of South Asia and the new political realities of Washington. Whether American policy will also advance the global non-proliferation agenda is rather more in doubt.


NOTES

1. Edward Markey, draft letter to President Clinton, May 12, 1998; Dan Burton, Dear Colleague letter, May 12, 1998; Tom Harkin, Congressional Record, May 12, 1998, p. S4680.

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2.Congressional Record, May 12, 1998, p. H3081; Eliza Newlin Carney, "Another Kind of Arms Race," National Journal, June 6, 1998, p. 1306.

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3. Jim Abrams, "Asia: U.S. Says Situation Serious, Calls for Global Efforts," Associated Press, June 1, 1998.

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4. Richard Lugar, Dear Colleague letter, June 4, 1998.

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5. Robert Smith, Congressional Quarterly, June 6, 1998, p. 1544; Mitch McConnell, Congressional Quarterly, July 11, 1998, p. 1891.

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6. Tom Raum, "Senate Panel to Study Effectiveness of U.S. Sanctions," Associated Press, June 27, 1998.

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7.Congressional Quarterly, July 11, 1998, p. 1891.

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8. In addition, the legislation permanently removed medicines, medical equipment and fertilizer from the application of sanctions.

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9. Public Law 105-194, the Agriculture Export Relief Act. U.S. wheat farmers won the contract.

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10.Congressional Record, July 15, 1998, p. S8184.

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11. The export control provision of this measure was even more startling for coming at a time when congressional Republicans were inflamed over possibly illegal transfers to China that might have assisted Beijing's missile development efforts.

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12. Sharon M. Lee, "Asian Americans: Diverse and Growing," Population Bulletin, June 1998; Karen Isaksen Leonard, The South Asian Americans (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997). The author is indebted to Joanna Yu for her research assistance in compiling these statistics.

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13. Author interview with Senator Sam Brownback, August 3, 1999.

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14. Carney, "Another Kind of Arms Race," p. 1306.

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15. Brownback interview.

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16. Barbara Leitch LePoer, et al., "India-Pakistan Nuclear Tests and U.S. Response," CRS Report for Congress, November 24, 1998, p. 35; Brownback interview.

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17. Gary Ackerman, et al., Dear Colleague letter, June 11, 1998; Robert Menendez, Dear Colleague letter, June 16, 1998.

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18. LePoer, et al., pp. 22-26.

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19. See, for example, Richard N. Haass and Gideon Rose, eds., A New U.S. Policy Toward India and Pakistan (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997); and Richard N. Haass and Morton H. Halperin, eds., After the Tests: U.S. Policy Toward India and Pakistan (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998).

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20. Aziz Haniffa, "Pallone Hails New Delhi's Transparency," India Abroad, August 27, 1999.

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21. Public Law 105-292.

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Confrontation and Retreat: The U.S. Congress and the South Asian Nuclear Tests - Key Legislation

Confrontation and Retreat: The U.S. Congress and the South Asian Nuclear Tests

by Robert M. Hathaway

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Symington Amendment

Adopted 1976. Sec. 101 of the Arms Export Control Act, formerly Sec. 669 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended.

Prohibits most U.S. assistance to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards. President Jimmy Carter found Pakistan in violation of the Symington amendment in 1979 because of Islamabad's clandestine construction of a uranium enrichment plant. U.S. aid to Islamabad was possible between 1982 and 1990 only through the use of presidential waivers.

Glenn Amendment

Adopted 1977. Sec. 102(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, formerly Sec. 670 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended.

Prohibits U.S. foreign assistance to any non-nuclear-weapon state (as defined by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) that, among other things, detonates a nuclear explosive device. President Bill Clinton imposed Glenn amendment sanctions against India on May 13, 1998, two days after New Delhi broke its self-imposed 24-year moratorium on nuclear testing. On May 30, 1998, Clinton invoked similar sanctions against Pakistan, following Islamabad's six nuclear tests on May 28 and 30.

Pressler Amendment

Adopted 1985. Sec. 620E[e] of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended.

Originally banned most economic and military assistance to Pakistan unless the U.S. president certified, on an annual basis, that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device, and that the provision of U.S. aid would significantly reduce the risk of Pakistan possessing such a device. In October 1990, President George Bush was unable to issue this certification, which triggered the Pressler amendment prohibitions. In 1995, the Brown amendment exempted most forms of economic assistance from the Pressler amendment prohibitions.

Brownback I

Adopted 1998. The India-Pakistan Relief Act of 1998, incorporated into the fiscal 1999 omnibus appropriations bill (Public Law 105-277).

Provides the president with authority to waive, for a period of one year, Glenn, Symington and Pressler amendment sanctions on India and Pakistan, except for those pertaining to military assistance, dual-use exports and military sales.

Brownback II

Adopted 1999. Incorporated into the fiscal year 2000 defense appropriations bill (Public Law 106-79).

Gives the president indefinite authority to waive, with respect to India and Pakistan, all the provisions of the Glenn, Symington and Pressler amendments. States that the "broad application" of export controls on Indian and Pakistani government agencies and private companies suspected of having links to their country's nuclear or missile programs is "inconsistent" with the national security interests of the United States, and urges the application of U.S. export controls only against agencies and companies that make "direct and material contributions to weapons of mass destruction and missile programs and only to those items that can contribute to such programs."

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U.S. Issues Chemical Industry Regulation

On December 30, the Commerce Department issued regulations specifying procedures for submitting U.S. chemical industry declarations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), effectively ending over two years of technical U.S. non-compliance with the 1997 treaty. Full U.S. cooperation with the convention's industry provisions, however, is likely to be complicated by several stipulations made by the department that may delay inspections by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the treaty's implementing body.

The new regulations require civilian U.S. facilities that produce, process, consume, import or export toxic chemicals or precursors covered by the CWC to submit initial declarations of their activities to the Commerce Department by March 30. They must also allow the OPCW to conduct verification activities on their grounds. The declarations will be transferred to the OPCW via the State Department, the "national authority" responsible for coordinating U.S. implementation of the CWC, which issued its own set of regulations dealing with issues such as sample-taking during inspections and enforcement provisions.

The CWC requires states-parties to destroy all their chemical weapons within 10 years and to declare civilian chemical facilities to the OPCW. Chemicals covered by the treaty are divided into three "schedules," based on the relative possibility of their being used in weapons. The United States expects to submit its industry declarations to the OPCW for Schedule 1 (the highest "risk" category) and Schedule 2 facilities by April 28, three years after the convention's entry into force, and inspections are expected to begin in May. It will submit declarations for Schedule 3 facilities and unscheduled-chemicals facilities at a later date.

The regulations' publication was the culmination of years of delay and bureaucratic wrangling between U.S. agencies. Even though initial industry declarations were due by July 1997 (three months after the CWC's entry into force), the Clinton administration failed even to sign national implementing legislation until October 1998. That action was eventually followed up with a June 1999 executive order requiring U.S. agencies to draft implementing regulations. (See ACT, June 1999.) Draft regulations were published in July and issued after comments were received in August.

The long delay in U.S compliance has taken its toll on the OPCW's operations. Expecting U.S. declarations at an earlier date, the OPCW had scheduled industry inspections in the United States for 1999. When it became apparent that these inspections would not occur, the OPCW rescheduled some of them to take place in other countries, generating resentment among other states-parties, who objected to the fact that their chemical industries were subject to more inspections than U.S. facilities.

Problems Persist

The fact that the regulations have cleared the way for industry inspections does not mean OPCW dealings with the United States will now proceed smoothly. Washington plans to send a host team-consisting of officials from the Commerce Department, the FBI and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency-to accompany each OPCW inspection team. The Commerce Department, claiming budget shortfalls and insufficient staffing, is not planning to host nearly as many industry inspections as the OPCW wants to conduct. Furthermore, citing concerns over the protection of commercial proprietary information, the department is not planning to support sequential industry inspections or industry inspections that occur within one week of each other. Also, the department does not intend to host more than one OPCW team at a time.

The Commerce Department has contacted the OPCW on its plans, which threaten to seriously slow the pace of already-delayed U.S. industry inspections and will most likely cause concern by other states-parties that have become frustrated with U.S. implementation practices. The OPCW has made no public comment on U.S. plans.

U.S. Wants Strengthened CCW Landmines Protocol

At the first annual conference of states-parties to the amended landmines protocol (Protocol II) to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), the United States proposed strengthening protocol restrictions on the use of landmines, particularly anti-vehicle mines, and developing measures to resolve charges of non-compliance. The initiatives generated little reaction at the conference, held December 15-17 in Geneva, but Washington hopes to build support for the proposals before a 2001 CCW review conference.

The amended protocol, which was adopted in May 1996 and entered into force in December 1998, differs from the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines (APLs), in that the protocol considers mines to be legal weapons. For that reason, some countries, including the United States, China and Pakistan, subscribe only to the protocol. U.S. policy is that it will sign the Ottawa Convention in 2006 if it can successfully identify and field suitable alternatives to its APLs and mixed anti-tank systems (a combination of anti-vehicle and APL devices).

Specifically, the amended protocol outlaws non-detectable APLs and prohibits non-self-destructing and non-self-deactivating APLs unless planted in monitored, perimeter-marked areas. Exporting mines to non-states-parties is proscribed, as is the use of mines that detonate in response to mine detectors and those that have anti-handling devices that remain active after the mine itself deactivates. Restrictions also apply to remotely delivered mines, such as those delivered by aircraft and artillery.

Current protocol requirements that mines be detectable and that remotely delivered mines have self-destructing or self-deactivating mechanisms apply only to APLs. At the conference, the United States proposed expanding these same criteria to anti-vehicle mines.

In addition, the United States called for increasing the "reliability" of the self-destruction and self-deactivation mechanisms on remotely delivered mines. Current technical specifications set a standard that only one in 1,000 mines can remain active after 120 days. Washington wants to raise this failure standard to one in 10,000.

Lastly, the United States proposed adopting a "regular procedure," including the possibility of on-site inspections, for handling non-compliance allegations. Rather than create a formal secretariat, the United States suggested a process similar to that in the Ottawa Convention. Under Ottawa, countries may raise compliance questions with the UN secretary-general, who can call for a meeting of states-parties, which can then authorize a fact-finding mission.

Charges of non-compliance were made at the conference. Canada accused Russia, a signatory, of indiscriminately using landmines in Chechnya-to such an extent that Russian mines were reportedly scattered in Georgia. Canada also sought clarification on reports that Pakistan, a state-party, attempted to sell mines to a private citizen in Britain. Pakistan, in a December 17 statement, reaffirmed its commitment to the protocol's export moratorium.

While voicing hope that having two APL instruments, the amended protocol and Ottawa, is a "temporary situation," Canada, which wants all countries to join Ottawa, endorsed improving the protocol's anti-vehicle mines and compliance provisions. Of the current 47 states-parties to the amended protocol, 42 are Ottawa states-parties or signatories.

Ottawa states-parties-now totaling 90 out of 137 signatories-are required to destroy stockpiled APLs in four years and all APLs in 10 years, though a renewable 10-year extension can be sought. On December 20, France joined a growing list of countries, including Canada, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany and the United Kingdom, that have completed destroying their stockpiles more than three years ahead of schedule.

"Go Slow": The People Speak on Missile Defense - Chart

In an election year, the political barriers to substantive accomplishments in Washington are higher than ever. Political overtones color all issues and tend to thwart compromises necessary to win legislative majorities in both houses of Congress and secure the president's approval. This policy gridlock is especially severe in the last year in office of a two-term president.

With prospects unlikely for action this year on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) or further nuclear reductions, arms controllers will look to unlock the policy gears in 2001, when a new president, a fresh set of advisers and a changed Congress are in place. However, even those longer-term hopes could be soured by decisions and events in 2000. This is particularly true if the Clinton administration opts to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) and announces that it will abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty if it fails to conclude an agreement with Russia on treaty modifications.

Ironically, it is the election-year politics that will stall action on other matters of consequence, which could push President Clinton into making this disastrous decision. Defense strength is a traditional Republican issue, and the possibility that the Republican nominee will use hesitance on NMD against the Democrats is high. President Clinton may feel that he has to support deployment for no other reason than to protect the Democratic candidate for president.

However, recent polling data show that the American public is not overly supportive of missile defense, especially when compared with issues like education and Social Security and even when compared with other defense issues, like troop readiness. Though not providing the president the opportunity to ignore the missile defense issue or blithely reject deployment, an appreciation of how the American people feel about missile defense could make it easier for Clinton to accept arguments critical of NMD and delay a deployment decision until the next administration.

Momentum Gained

After years of grudging steps toward national missile defense deployment, the Clinton administration pressed hard on the accelerator in early 1999. Secretary of Defense William Cohen gave national missile defense deployment a great financial and rhetorical boost at a January 20 press conference at which he announced a $6.6 billion increase in the national missile defense budget, bringing the total to $10.5 billion between fiscal years 1999 and 2005. Cohen spoke of a deployment determination in 2000, initial construction in 2001 and the first operational interceptors by 2005. A Pentagon deployment readiness review is currently scheduled for summer 2000.

Congress added to the momentum with a series of votes beginning in mid-March. On March 17, the Senate voted 97-3 in favor of a measure introduced by Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) mandating national missile defense deployment "as soon as technologically possible." On March 18, the House adopted the Weldon-Spratt bill, which also endorsed missile defense deployment, by a vote of 317-105. Two months later, the House adopted the Senate version of the bill by a 345-71 vote, and on July 23, the president signed the measure.

The bill appropriated no funds, but it did change the dynamics of the missile defense debate in Washington and increase the pressure on the president to commit to deployment. However, in signing the bill, the president stated that four factors would influence any decision to deploy an NMD system: the readiness of the technology, the extent of the emerging missile threat, cost and arms control considerations.

The next major development came on October 2, when the Pentagon conducted its first national missile defense intercept test over the central Pacific Ocean. The Pentagon declared the test a success: a prototype interceptor launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands struck a re-entry vehicle that had been launched on a modified Minuteman missile from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. Subsequent information, however, revealed that the test was only a partial success because the system originally homed in on a decoy and only then acquired the target warhead.

Despite that recent revelation, the failure of a second intercept test on January 18 and the fact that there is only one more test scheduled before the Pentagon readiness review, the president is still slated to receive a Pentagon recommendation on deployment in June and to make a decision the following month. And though neither the president nor the bureaucracy has come to a firm conclusion on the wisdom of deployment, most observers expect Clinton to give national missile defense the go-ahead, primarily for political reasons.

With the presidential race now in full swing, analysts believe Clinton will try to protect the Democratic nominee-be it Al Gore or Bill Bradley-from charges of leaving the country vulnerable to missile attack. The Republican candidate, of course, will be looking to accuse the Democrats of being soft on defense, of failing to protect the country from "rogue states" like North Korea, Iraq or Iran.

Indeed, the Republicans have already started an assault along those lines. George W. Bush told a Citadel gathering September 23 that his administration would deploy both theater and national missile defenses "at the earliest possible date." He went on to term the ABM Treaty "an artifact of Cold War confrontation" and concluded that if Russia refused to amend the treaty, the United States should "give prompt notice" that it would withdraw from the treaty. John McCain has been equally vociferous. In a major address after receiving the Intrepid Freedom Award in New York on December 7, he argued that "ballistic missile defense is now a national priority" and openly worried that "the administration might find an excuse to delay deployment."

Under these conditions, many analysts think President Clinton will approve missile defense deployment in July simply to take the issue off the table. The reasoning is certainly plausible. Clinton has proved a master at hijacking Republican issues during his seven years in office, taking welfare reform, deficit spending and crime and turning them into Democratic talking points. But the widespread expectation about the president's course of action on missile defense is based on deeply flawed logic.

The Republicans will try to make missile defense an election issue in 2000-as they have twice before-but it will likely not make a difference in the minds of voters. In 1996, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole tried desperately to raise the missile defense issue against Clinton, abandoning it when it became clear that voters were not paying attention. And in 1998, Republican Senate candidates in California, Washington, North Dakota, North Carolina and elsewhere tried the same gambit to win votes against Democratic opponents, but the issue again proved of no political benefit.

Have American attitudes changed so dramatically that voters will punish Democrats for being slow to endorse national missile defense? They have not, as a careful examination of polling data and focus groups demonstrates. The Mellman Group, a well-regarded polling firm, conducted two focus groups in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 12, 1999. It then conducted a national survey of 1,000 adults at the end of August.<1> The results should put to rest the notion that the president must say "yes" to missile defense in order to save Gore or Bradley.

The Polling Data

The starting point for any analysis of the data is the clear evidence that defense and foreign policy issues are not high priorities for Americans compared to domestic concerns. The Mellman poll disclosed that Americans believe the most important issues facing the country are improving education (26 percent), protecting Social Security and Medicare (21 percent) and maintaining U.S. economic strength (14 percent). Only 7 percent of Americans believe that maintaining a strong military is one of the most important issues facing the nation, and a mere 1 percent believes building a national missile defense system to be one of the most important issues.

When faced with a trade-off on spending priorities, Americans would rather spend money on education, Social Security, cutting taxes and fighting crime than on national missile defense. A whopping 77 percent of the public would spend more on education, compared to 14 percent that would spend more on building a national missile defense. Similarly, 72 percent of Americans believe that saving Social Security and Medicare is more important than missile defense, while 17 percent would opt for missile defense. Fighting crime tops missile defense 69 percent to 20 percent.

Even when asked to place missile defense within a range of military issues, the public does not consider it particularly important. When asked what the top defense priority should be, 34 percent, a plurality, responds that the United States should develop a defense against terrorist attacks. Twenty-one percent of Americans say that increasing the readiness of our troops to fight should be the top defense priority. By contrast, only 10 percent says researching, developing and deploying a national missile defense should move to the top, barely more than the 7 percent that says modernizing U.S. conventional forces should be the top priority.

The survey then moved on to policy choices, comparing missile defense with specific defense budget programs. Fifty-nine percent of the public favors spending more on military training and pay compared to only 24 percent that favor missile defenses. Similarly, spending to develop a defense against terrorist attack is considered more important (56 percent) than is spending on missile defense (28 percent). Only spending to improve U.S. conventional weapons arsenal is deemed less important (35 percent) than missile defense (42 percent).

Especially interesting is the fact that self-identified Republicans consider each of the spending priorities that were tested more important than national missile defense. They gave the highest margin (40 points) to spending on education (64 percent for education, versus 24 percent for missile defense) and the slimmest margin (3 points) to spending on conventional weapons (40 percent for conventional weapons, compared to 37 percent for missile defense).

The survey and focus groups show that support for a national missile defense is broad but shallow. The public generally supports national missile defense but accepts most of the criticisms advanced by its opponents. Those advocating postponing a deployment decision until next year at the earliest argue that it is a mistake to make a decision after only three of 19 scheduled tests of the NMD system have been conducted. Sixty-two percent of the public accepts that argument; only 11 percent do not. Republicans (64 percent) are more likely than Democrats (59 percent) to want all missile defense system tests completed before a decision on whether or not to deploy is made.

The most compelling argument against missile defense, which 74 percent of the public finds convincing, turns out to be cost. The government has spent $120 billion on all missile defense programs since the 1950s, and the systems produced have failed the majority of recent tests. Seventy percent of the public also agrees that missile defense technology is difficult to develop and that the United States should not spend money to deploy the system until it is sure the defense will work. (It should be noted that these data reflect the public's opinion before the January 18 test failed and before the Pentagon revealed that the October 2 test had been only a partial success. Presumably, these arguments would now seem even more convincing.)

The public also wants proof that the system will work as promised and a high degree of accountability attached to spending on missile defense. Fifty-four percent of Americans would require an independent body to annually certify that substantial progress is being made on missile defense as a condition for additional funds and would halt funds if progress could not be demonstrated.

Sixty-six percent of Americans also find convincing an argument that defense contractors and lobbyists are the driving force behind the NMD program, doling out political contributions to politicians so they can "make money" while the "taxpayer is stuck with the bill." Seventy-five percent believes that with the Cold War over, terrorists smuggling weapons into the country pose a more likely threat than a nuclear missile attack.

Other arguments used by skeptics are widely accepted, although by lesser majorities. By 67 percent to 27 percent, the public believes that even if the United States develops a missile defense system, "it is only a matter of time before our enemies develop decoys and counter-measures to evade our defense." Sixty-three percent of Americans agree that "a national missile defense system will create a false sense of security because our enemies can commit acts of terrorism from within the U.S. rather than risk the uncertain success of launching a missile."

In terms of broader policy choices facing the United States, the public still strongly supports arms control, even as an alternative to missile defense. Seventy percent of the public continues to support either the complete elimination (44 percent) or reductions (26 percent) of nuclear weapons, support levels consistent with other polls in past years. Only 14 percent believes that the United States should maintain the number of nuclear weapons currently in its arsenal, and another 14 percent believes the United States should modernize its nuclear forces. There is strong bipartisan support for eliminating or reducing nuclear weapons, with 62 percent of Republicans in favor of elimination (35 percent) or reduction (27 percent), and 75 percent of Democrats in favor of elimination (49 percent) or reduction (26 percent).

When asked to make a choice, 56 percent of Americans agree that "the United States should continue to pursue international agreements to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide, implement a nuclear test ban treaty to prevent other countries from developing more sophisticated nuclear weapons and continue helping Russia dismantle its nuclear arsenal." Half as many, 27 percent, instead would have the United States "spend money to research, develop and deploy a national missile defense system to protect the United States from nuclear missiles launched from another country."

There is another area in which the public urges caution before proceeding with a national missile defense. While supporters of national missile defense have tended to downplay some or all of the Clinton administration's criteria for a deployment decision (status of the technology, threat, cost, arms control considerations), the public agrees to each and every one. The respondents were asked whether each factor is a very important consideration, somewhat important, not too important or not important at all. (See chart.)

As the president moves into the final stages of the deployment decision-making process, technical and policy considerations may well be cast aside for a straight political calculation. On this question, the Mellman Group is crystal clear: missile defense is not an important voting issue for Americans. As is pointed out in the firm's analysis of the data, "Few [17 percent] of even those who support missile defense will vote against a candidate who opposes spending money to deploy such a system." The firm went on to say: "Voters will not use a candidate's position on nuclear missile defense as rubric for determining support at the polls."

Supporting the Polls

The results of the polling data are unusually clear-cut: the public is not going to punish the Democrats in the 2000 elections if Clinton decides to postpone a decision on deployment. But the memory of the Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still fresh in the administration's mind, and the president will want support beyond polling data to face the pressure to approve deployment.

Fortunately, compared to the CTBT vote, there are some significant advantages for opponents of national missile defense. First, in the case of missile defense, the target audience is small and consists of those in and close to the Clinton administration; Congress will not play a direct role in this decision. In the case of the test ban, the target audience was much wider and included many conservatives. Second, missile defense opponents have many good contacts with key decision-makers or those close to the decision-makers. As a consequence, statements and letters from scientists and experts that were ignored by conservative leaders during the CTBT debate are much more likely to have an impact this year on more moderate Democrats. Finally, the summer deadline for action on NMD is clear and still several months in the future, allowing plenty of time for debate, as opposed to the test ban treaty, for which no time frame was defined until two weeks before the Senate vote.

There are a variety of strong arguments for postponement: sufficient technical data will not be available by summer 2000 to make an informed deployment decision; the booster rocket for the system will not be tested until fiscal year 2001; the kill vehicle will not be tested until fiscal year 2003; and only three of 19 planned missile defense intercept tests will have been completed, and those will not have been conducted in "real-world" conditions against a full range of targets and countermeasures that could be used by a country capable of developing long-range missiles.

There are also a number of questions concerning the cost of the new system. Administration cost estimates of an initial deployment of a limited number of interceptors have been low-balled. The Pentagon claims that deployment will cost only $12.7 billion over the next five years. However, the cost of a two-site defense in Alaska and North Dakota with 125 missiles at each site, complete with upgraded radars and warning satellites, will be considerably more than the administration admits. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that an expanded system could cost $30-60 billion or more.<2>

Even more important are the often-overlooked international consequences of a decision to deploy. A very negative reaction is likely from Russia, which is strongly resisting modifications to the ABM Treaty. If the decision to deploy is made without its agreement, Russia could well cancel plans to reduce its deployment of nuclear weapons and refuse to agree to additional reductions under START II and III. Focusing on a potential handful of nuclear weapons that North Korea, Iraq or Iran may develop could come at the expense of efforts to limit the larger threat posed by some 20,000 remaining Russian nuclear weapons.

A decision to deploy a national missile defense would also harm U.S. security vis-à-vis China, which has hinted that it will react by speeding up its deployment of a new generation of nuclear weapons systems. For decades, the Chinese have maintained fewer than two dozen long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons to the mainland United States. A U.S. missile defense system, while ostensibly deployed against a rogue state threat, is perceived by Chinese leaders as designed to undermine China's deterrent force.

Even U.S. allies in Europe, who generally support U.S. foreign policy and security positions, are increasingly concerned about the pending American decision. French President Jacques Chirac was particularly clear in his view that a U.S. missile defense would be destabilizing because it would prompt an arms race: "If you look at world history, ever since men began waging war, you will see that there's a permanent race between sword and shield. The sword always wins. The more improvements that are made to the shield, the more improvements are made to the sword.... These [NMD] systems...are just going to spur swordmakers to intensify their efforts."<3>

Many Europeans see the development of a missile defense system following the Senate defeat of the CTBT as more evidence that the United States is adopting a unilateralist approach to foreign policy, regardless of the consequences to European security. As one NATO diplomat said, "This issue could end up driving a stake through the heart of the alliance. First there is the danger that it will cause the Russians and the Chinese to ratchet up the arms race by finding ways to beat missile defenses. But there is also the fear that if the system works, American and European security interests will no longer be bound by exposure to the same threats."<4>

However, these arguments alone will not win the day in a highly charged political atmosphere. President Clinton will need political cover-more than that provided by the polling data-if he is to go against current conventional wisdom. Some protection has been provided in the form of a report by the National Missile Defense Review Committee (a highly credible, independent panel headed by retired General Larry Welch, former Air Force chief of staff) that raises the possibility of delaying the deployment decision from summer 2000 to 2003. At best, the Pentagon could decide next summer on the program's "feasibility," according to the study, but even that "feasibility" decision might have to be postponed. (For the full text of the "Welch Report," see ACT, November 1999.) The failure of the January 18 intercept test further reinforces the report's findings, a point that has not been missed by newspapers across the country, which editorialized in the final weeks of January that President Clinton should postpone a decision that would be based on so few tests and immense political pressure.

The Republicans themselves have provided some further security. When asked in December whether he would criticize Clinton for leaving the deployment decision to the next administration, Governor Bush replied, "No. I might even praise him."<5> The case for delay was also bolstered by two prominent Republican senators, Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Gordon Smith (R-OR), who argued that the decision should be left to the next administration. Republicans are confident that a Republican will be elected president, and Hagel and Smith expressed publicly what other Republicans are saying privately: let Bush or McCain, whom we trust, make the decision.

Conclusion

Despite the polls, the substantive arguments and the political cover, it is not clear which path President Clinton will choose. While opponents of national missile defense can argue that there is no evidence that the Republicans will successfully exploit the issue in 2000, there is no way to prove that assertion, the polling data notwithstanding. Thus, on the basis of a straight election calculation, without regard to the foreign policy implications, the president could decide that saying "yes" is the politically safe course of action.

There may be another path out of the corner into which the president has painted himself-a "third way" that satisfies neither the supporters nor the opponents of missile defense. The president could announce that the United States will deploy a national missile defense, but take no steps to start the clock on withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and postpone any decision to begin site preparations in Alaska until the next administration. The net effect could be to diffuse the issue with Republicans and Russians at the same time, deferring a second level of decision to the next president.

A few months ago, it appeared likely that the president would favor deployment for political reasons, but that decision is no longer a sure bet. What is certain is that with the polling data, the substantive arguments and the political cover provided by the Republicans themselves, the elements necessary for delaying a decision are there.


NOTES

1. The poll was commissioned by the Council for a Livable World Education Fund and has a statistical margin of error for the sample as a whole of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

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2. "Budgetary Implications of H.R. 3144, The Defend America Act of 1996," Congressional Budget Office, May 15, 1996.

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3. Craig R. Whitney, "With a 'Don't Be Vexed' Air, Chirac Assesses U.S.," The New York Times, December 17, 1999.

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4. William Drozdiak, "Possible U.S. Missile Shield Alarms Europe; Allies Fear Arms Race, Diminished Security Ties," The Washington Post, November 6, 1999.

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5. Jim Hoagland, "Some Sure Answers From Bush," The Washington Post, December 19, 1999.

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John Isdaacs is executive director for the Council for a Livable World. [Back to top]

1999 Proposed Pentagon Arms Sales Exceeded $20 Billion

January/February 2000

By Wade Boese

In 1999, the Pentagon notified Congress of nearly $20.8 billion in proposed arms sales to 19 countries, only $2 billion less than 1997 and 1998 combined. Significant proposed sales of advanced combat aircraft and the re-emergence of South Korea as a potential buyer amid its growing recovery from the Asian economic crisis contributed to the sharp climb in the value of possible deals. The total value of all possible U.S. arms deals for 1999 remains unknown because few details of U.S. commercial deals with foreign clients are publicly released.

In accordance with the 1976 Arms Export Control Act, Congress must be notified of all potential arms sales through the Pentagon's Foreign Military Sales program that equal or exceed $14 million. Congress then has 30 days (15 in the case of NATO members, Australia, Japan and New Zealand) to review the proposed deals and, if it so chooses, to block a sale by passing a joint resolution of disapproval. The same rules apply to commercial sales, which are reported to Congress via the State Department.

As in past years, rocket and missile systems were in high demand, accounting for at least $6.4 billion of the notified deals. Unlike recent years, however, a number of countries expressed interest in "big ticket" buys of advanced fighter aircraft. Egypt, Greece, Israel, Norway and South Korea requested up to 194 F-16C/D fighters or fighter kits. Australia, New Zealand and Thailand, which is also recouping from the Asian economic crisis, asked for a total of 57 older-model combat aircraft.

South Korea topped all buyers with weapons requests totaling more than $5.4 billion, including 14 complete Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) anti-missile systems worth $4.2 billion. Greece, which is considering purchasing 70 F-16C/D fighters, ranked second with some $3.4 billion in proposed deals. Israel rounded out the top three potential customers with nearly $2.7 billion in possible buys, including 50 F-16C/D fighters-adding to a notified purchase of some 60 advanced fighters in 1998.

Regionally, Europe sought the most deals, with seven countries seeking almost $7.8 billion in aircraft and missile systems. The congressional notifications emphasized that the proposed sales would increase the interoperability of NATO and U.S. forces. The enhancement of interoperability with U.S. forces is a standard rationale for military sales to Europe, but it has taken on added significance following NATO's air war against Yugoslavia, which revealed a growing gap between U.S. and European military capabilities.

Ranking second, Asia-Pacific nations, including Australia and New Zealand, totaled nearly $7.5 billion in possible deals, though South Korea requested 70 percent of this sum. The Middle East, which accounted for 60 percent of proposed sales in 1998, fell to third in 1999, with four countries (Bahrain, Egypt, Israel and Kuwait) requesting weapons worth $5.2 billion.

Though reported to Congress, not all the proposed deals will result in actual sales. South Korea is considering the Russian S-300 anti-missile system as an alternative to the PAC-3, and Norway will decide on purchasing F-16s or Eurofighter Typhoons later this year. In addition, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, elected in November 1999, has initiated a government review of the proposed buy of 28 F-16A/B fighters.

1999 Proposed Pentagon Arms Sales Exceeded $20 Billion

NATO Ministers Skeptical of U.S. NMD Plans

THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION formally briefed NATO defense and foreign affairs ministers for the first time on the proposed architecture for a limited U.S. national missile defense (NMD) system at the alliance's annual December ministerial meetings. Led by France and Germany, many European allies expressed concerns that the proposed NMD would damage relations with Russia, endanger arms control and decouple U.S. and European security. U.S. officials reassured the allies that no deployment decision has yet been made and that allied views, among other factors, would be taken into account prior to such a decision.

With President Clinton scheduled to decide on the proposed system's location and the awarding of an initial site construction contract in July 2000, many European allies were upset to be officially consulted so late in the process. U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen, however, assured his colleagues at the NATO defense ministers meeting, held December 2-3 in Brussels, that intra-alliance discussions on U.S. missile defenses would continue. President Clinton, for his part, has repeatedly said his July decision will be based on four criteria: technological readiness, the maturity of the "rogue nation" ICBM threat, cost factors and arms control considerations.

Washington delayed formal allied consultations because of incomplete U.S. plans and a desire to first hold strategic discussions with Russia, which has strongly opposed U.S. NMD efforts. Moscow emphasizes that the proposed system would violate the 1972 ABM Treaty, which prohibits a nationwide defense or the base for such a defense and which places specific restrictions on the architecture of any missile defense, including the location of intercept launchers and radars. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the planned system would require treaty modifications. Though the United States and Russia have been holding discussions exploring possible amendment of the treaty since mid-August at the Clinton administration's insistence, Moscow has repeatedly said it will not agree to treaty changes necessary to permit the proposed NMD.

Much of the opposition to the U.S. plans stems from the fact that Russia and many of the NATO allies do not share the U.S. assessment of the need to defend against the so-called rogue nation threat, which Cohen described as "real" and likely to "intensify in the coming years as countries continue to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities." To sway allied opinion, the U.S. provided a threat briefing at the start of the defense ministers meeting based on the latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that warned the United States—and implicitly Europe—would likely face ICBM threats from "North Korea, probably Iran and possibly from Iraq" in the next 15 years. (See ACT, September/October 1999.)

North Korea is cited most frequently by U.S. officials as a growing threat despite a September 1999 pledge by Pyongyang to suspend ballistic missile flight tests while holding negotiations with the United States to improve relations. Though currently abiding by the pledge, North Korea is "continuing other aspects of the [ballistic missile] program," a senior American defense official said at a December 2 press conference.

Secretary Cohen, who reportedly was very frank about the role of U.S. domestic politics in pushing NMD, also sought to dispel impressions that the system is targeted at Russia. He stressed that the system, which would initially field 100 interceptor missiles, would be limited and said that "it would not undercut the Russian strategic deterrent." When questioned on whether Russia would possibly halt the strategic reduction process in response to a deployed U.S. NMD, the senior American defense official claimed that "there is nothing incompatible between our concern with the growing rogue state ballistic missile threat and continued strategic stability and the arms control process."

Some European allies, however, remained unconvinced and raised the same concerns again with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott at the NATO foreign ministers meeting December 15-16. (Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stayed in Washington to work on the Middle East peace process.) Fears that the planned NMD would possibly spark new arms races with Russia, China or others while leaving Europe unprotected continued to top European worries.

While French President Jacques Chirac has been outspoken in his criticism of U.S. NMD plans, NATO would prefer to keep alliance differences to a public minimum. When asked to assess allied views about the proposed system after the December meetings, however, one U.S. government official admitted that "no one is enthusiastic, but no one is absolutely critical, with the exception of France."

Following the foreign ministers meeting, NATO Secretary General George Robertson noted the United States "assured the allies that it will only take decisions on a national missile defense after full consultations within NATO." Cohen stressed at the defense ministers meeting that "only one person can make the recommendation" to go forward with NMD deployment and that it would be "very much premature to speculate what will happen next year."

Mixed U.S. Signals on Israel-China Deal

A Russian-made aircraft destined for the Chinese military arrived in Israel October 25 to be outfitted with the Phalcon advanced airborne early-warning (AEW) radar system, eliciting contradictory reactions from the Clinton administration. While press reports indicated that the White House had raised concerns about the sale and other Israeli military transfers to China, the State Department publicly downplayed the deal.

In a November 12 press briefing State Department spokesman James Rubin said the U.S. government had "no reason to believe" that the Israeli radar contained any U.S.-controlled technology and therefore American law could not prohibit the sale. However, Rubin stressed that the U.S. regularly holds discussions with Israel on arms sales, particularly ones that involve "sophisticated technology."

Though receipt of the Israeli Phalcon radar system, which enables surveillance activities up to a range of 250 miles, will give China its first AEW capability, the benefit to the Chinese air force will be restricted by a number of practical factors, including the limited time that a single plane can be in service. Beijing will also have to train new crews to operate the plane and will be dependent upon Israel for future maintenance. The initial contract, signed in 1996, called for Israel to equip four Russian-manufactured IL-76 planes with the Phalcon radar, costing $250 million apiece, but Beijing may postpone radar installation on and delivery of the three remaining planes for budgetary reasons and to assess the performance of the first plane.

Israel and China have a history of arms deals and military cooperation dating back to 1979, including work on air-to-air missiles and China's latest indigenously built fighter aircraft, the J-10. On an October visit to Israel, Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian reportedly discussed Israeli upgrade of China's aging MiG-21 fleet.

First of 150 Minuteman III Missile Silos Destroyed

In an effort to comply with START I provisions and finish its destruction timetable by November 2001, the United States imploded the first of 150 Minuteman III ballistic missile silos in North Dakota on October 6.

The $12.1 million project, under the direction of the Air Force and the Army Corps of Engineers, will destroy only the 150 silos necessary for compliance with the treaty; 150 other sites remain "in service" in North Dakota, according to an Air Force official.

The last Minuteman III missile was removed from the silos slated for implosion in June 1998 after being taken off alert in 1995. Destruction of all the silos is estimated to take two years.

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