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“[My time at ACA] prepared me very well for the position that I took following that with the State Department, where I then implemented and helped to implement many of the policies that we tried to promote.”
– Peter Crail
Business Executive for National Security
June 2, 2022
March 2000
Edition Date: 
Wednesday, March 1, 2000

The Knesset Debates Israel's Nuclear Program

March 2000

For the first time in its history, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, held a discussion of Israel's nuclear program February 2. Issam Mukhul, an Arab member of the communist Hadash Party, spurred debate on the controversial and previously off-limits subject by petitioning the Israeli Supreme Court to allow a hearing in the face of stiff opposition from the Knesset leadership. But before the Supreme Court could rule, the leadership agreed to a very limited public airing of the issue.

The abbreviated debate, which lasted just under one hour, featured loud exchanges between angry parliamentarians who objected to public discussion of the nuclear issue, and Mukhul and other Arab members who strongly criticized the program on environmental and security grounds. Chaim Ramon, the government's minister for Jerusalem affairs, reiterated Israel's long-standing policy that it would not be the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

While neither Israel nor the United States has ever officially acknowledged the existence of an Israeli nuclear weapons program, Israel is widely considered a de facto nuclear weapons state. Estimates of the size and composition of the Israeli arsenal vary from 50 to hundreds of warheads. Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The Knesset Debates Israel's Nuclear Program

CD Deadlock Continues as U.S. and China Square Off

Wade Boese

IN A MOVE THE UNITED STATES and China reiterated competing negotiation priorities and sharply criticized each other at the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) during February, lowering the likelihood that the 66 conference members will soon reach the required consensus on a work program to start negotiations. Beijing is seeking formal negotiations on the prevention of an arms race in outer space, while Washington, the sole country blocking outer space negotiations, wants to commence work on a fissile material cutoff treaty.

Chinese Ambassador Hu Xiaodi declared on February 10 that the conference should negotiate a legal instrument to prevent the weaponization of outer space by prohibiting the "testing, deployment and use of any weapon system and their components in outer space" and limiting the "use of satellites for military purposes."

U.S. Ambassador Robert Grey responded on February 17 that a fissile material cutoff treaty remained Washington's first priority and that the time was "not ripe" for outer space or nuclear disarmament negotiations—another priority of China, as well as the Group of 21 non-aligned movement. The United States, according to Grey, is prepared to discuss these topics in a "suitable context," which is understood to mean in ad hoc working groups.

A proposal, circulated in late January by the conference president, that all three issues be addressed in ad hoc working groups would be a "step backward," Grey said, pointing out that the CD agreed on an ad hoc committee for cutoff negotiations in 1995 and 1998. Conference subsidiary bodies and negotiations do not carry over to the following year; rather, they must be renewed by a new work program each year.

Grey characterized recent conference statements lamenting the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament as "too negative an appraisal." He noted the United States had dismantled 13,000 nuclear warheads over the past decade and that Russia and the United States were exploring lower weapons levels in START III. Washington is seeking a range of 2,000 to 2,500 deployed strategic warheads, while Moscow wants to reduce to some 1,500.

Responding to a January 27 Chinese statement that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) had been "trampled on," Grey acknowledged that the U.S. Senate's October 13 rejection of the treaty was a "setback." Grey stressed, however, that President Clinton has made it "abundantly clear that the fight is not over" and that, in the end, Clinton is convinced the United States will ratify the CTBT.

Grey defended U.S. efforts to amend the 1972 ABM Treaty to permit deployment of a limited national missile defense (NMD). He argued that weapons of mass destruction and advanced delivery means had regrettably spread and concluded that "those who allowed it to happen should have known what the consequences would be."

Deflecting a Chinese charge that the United States exercises a "double standard towards arms control and disarmament agreements," Grey said four of the five nuclear-weapon states had reduced nuclear weapons holdings and increased transparency, while one state was modernizing its forces and not increasing transparency.

Hu gave a rebuttal the next week, arguing that for a country "always taking the lead" in developing nuclear weapons it was "hypocritical" to criticize others for modernizing arsenals. Hu challenged the United States to commit to a no-first-use policy, while warning that a U.S. NMD would "open the door to the weaponization of outer space."

The CD will break for a recess on March 24 and resume on May 22, following the April 24-May 19 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty five-year review conference.

Sparking a Buildup: U.S. Missile Defense and China's Nuclear Arsenal

Charles Ferguson

"A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it." —Chinese proverb

Currently, China is exploring how to modernize its aging nuclear forces as it simultaneously finds itself adapting to the circumstances presented by the U.S. development of advanced theater missile defense for East Asia and national missile defense for the United States. The concurrence of these two events could lead to China shaping a significantly larger nuclear force that could strike the United States unless Washington decides that missile defense deployment is not in its best interest and China continues to adhere to a minimum deterrent posture consistent with its currently small arsenal.

More than simply finding ways to preserve China's nuclear deterrent, the vociferous Chinese opposition to U.S. missile defense plans symbolizes the more significant strategic clash over the roles of the United States and China in the world. Just at the time when China is starting to develop economic and military muscle and is successfully emerging from a century of foreign domination and humiliation, which stretched from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th, it is increasingly alarmed about the United States as a global hegemon that is growing without bounds.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin articulated the strategic clash between China and the United States in a speech commemorating the Chinese who died as a result of the May 1999 U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo. "Relying on its economic, scientific, technological, and military prowess, the United States continues to practice hegemony and power politics and wantonly interferes in the internal affairs of other countries. What it has done has heightened the vigilance of more and more countries and people," he said.<1>

Making explicit the perceived connection between missile defense and the United States' encroachment on China's sovereignty, General Zhang Wannian, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated, "Any country selling the theater missile defense system to China's Taiwan or incorporating Taiwan in the theater missile defense program will directly or indirectly put Taiwan in the framework of Japan-U.S. security cooperation, which will be a grave infringement in China's internal affairs." He made this statement at a June 9, 1999, meeting with Marshal Sergeyev, Russia's minister of defense, who "expressed satisfaction with the development of friendly cooperation between the two armed forces [of China and Russia]," according to Zhang. He added that "Russia is resolutely opposed to the U.S. attempt for world hegemony."<2>

From the U.S. government's perspective, its "leadership has never been more needed, or more in demand. And so it is perplexing that the United States finds itself today being accused of both hegemony and isolationism at the same time," according to Samuel Berger, assistant to the president for national security affairs.<3> In the same speech, he elaborated, "Among our many friends and allies around the world, the dominant vision of the United States still is one of a country whose leadership is essential to peace and prosperity and which exercises leadership for the greater good." Concerning China, he called for balance, asserting that "we should not look at China through rose-colored glasses; neither should we see it through a glass darkly, distorting its strength and ignoring its complexities."

To follow Berger's advice on China, each side needs to understand the other's security concerns. The coincident timing between China's nuclear force modernization and the United States' missile defense development presents a critical moment for the United States and China to attempt to reach a strategic understanding. It is not clear whether or not the United States will decide to deploy a national missile defense, but U.S. intentions toward China seem ambiguous at best, and hostile at worst. China is modernizing its nuclear forces, and there are several courses of action that it could take to defeat a U.S. national missile defense (NMD)—options Washington should be aware of before making its decision. To avert nuclear escalation, both sides must enter a sustained exchange of views on their intentions about missile defense and force modernization, in particular, and their roles in the world, in general. This dialogue should culminate in actions that reduce the risk of either planned or accidental nuclear conflict.

America's Unclear Intentions

In trying to determine if U.S. missile defense is designed for China, Chinese leaders hear two distinct political voices. The Republicans forcefully announce that missile defense is intended for China, but the Clinton administration takes a more ambiguous position. While the administration has clearly stated that the United States needs an NMD system to defend against so-called "rogue" nations, such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq, and to shoot down a handful of missiles from an accidental launch, it has not explicitly mentioned China as one of the driving forces behind NMD. Despite this ambiguity, current U.S. NMD plans appear sized for the small Chinese ICBM force.

The Clinton administration has spent considerably more effort courting Russia on accepting U.S. missile defense than it has openly put forth addressing Chinese concerns. For example, in discussing the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in November 1999, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, "The limited changes [to the treaty] we are contemplating would not undermine Russian security," but she failed to explicitly discuss the impact on Chinese security.<4> Although this approach might be expected because the United States and Russia are the parties to the treaty and because Russia has a far larger nuclear arsenal, it only serves to further obfuscate U.S. intentions.

Defense Secretary William Cohen has also carefully avoided any explicit reference to China in U.S. national missile defense designs. For instance, during a talk in January 1999 in which he outlined the missile threat, he never once mentioned China. Following that speech, he also dodged the issue of China when a questioner asked, "Secretary [of Defense Robert] McNamara made a very similar speech 32 years ago that you just went through, except he named China as the rogue nation…. What are your hopes and fears in that line?" Cohen replied, "What we're dealing with here is the question of those nations—rogue nations could be North Korea, it could be others—who acquire a limited capability that could in fact pose a threat to the American people. We intend to develop, are prepared to develop, a system that would give us that limited type of protection against either the rogue nation or the accidental, unauthorized type of launch."<5>

Following a January meeting at the Pentagon with Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai from the Chinese Ministry of Defense, Walter Slocombe, undersecretary of defense for policy, was asked if the administration tried to "convince [the Chinese] that NMD is not designed to take away their nuclear deterrent." He replied, "It's not for us to convince them of that proposition." He later added, "I have said in the past that we believe that our system is designed with respect to rogue states. That is the concern. It is not aimed at China or Russia or any other country, other than the rogue states."<6>

Though the United States has been less than forthcoming in its rhetoric, it has at last begun to engage China in a dialogue about NMD. In February, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott led a high-level delegation to Beijing to explain U.S. national missile defense plans and U.S. views of the emerging missile threat.

Of course, for President Clinton, NMD has another purpose: to shield his chosen successor from charges of being soft on defense. As John Pike, a scholar at the Federation of American Scientists who is opposed to missile defense, has observed, "The president's deployment decision will have more to do with defending Al Gore against George Bush than the American people against North Korea."<7> Indeed, in assessing U.S. intentions and planning its nuclear force modernization, China has to determine not only what the meaning behind the Clinton administration's vagueness means, but also the likely direction of U.S. policy when a new president takes office in less than a year. Chinese leaders need to ascertain if the United States' China policy and missile defense plans will change soon.

Vice President Gore will probably continue the Clinton administration's policy on missile defense if he becomes the president. In a December debate in New Hampshire, Gore expressed the guarded view that "some kinds of missile defense" would be permissible given the current state of U.S. relations with Taiwan and the mainland. When asked by a reporter to be more specific, Gore demurred.<8> He coined a new term "constructive ambiguity" as the hallmark of the United States' success in dealing with China. Despite the studied ambiguity, Gore and his foreign policy team have clearly expressed that they do not want to spark an arms race over missile defense to Taiwan. In contrast, they have been less clear on the impact of national missile defense on China's deterrent vis-à-vis the United States.

Unlike Gore, Bill Bradley has apparently been forging his foreign policy views without as much external input. He was roundly criticized following a town meeting on foreign policy at Tufts University on November 29, 1999. Notably, he spoke little about missile defense or China.<9> However, of all the presidential candidates, Bradley expresses the most caution over the consequences that missile defense could have on arms control and strategic stability.

In contrast to Gore's ambiguity and Bradley's caution, Governor George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, the two leading Republican presidential contenders, are not reticent about their support for deploying missile defense and directing it at China. Both have pledged to deploy national missile defense even if it means abrogating the ABM Treaty.

In a recent foreign policy interview, McCain discussed his policy on national and theater missile defense. He said, "What we need is to build modest systems and improve on them. For example, I'd like to see us develop a sea-based system that we could station off Taiwan, if necessary, in international waters." He was then asked if that would provoke China. In response, he said, "We would only do that in case the Chinese were acting aggressively toward Taiwan, which would be a violation of the one China policy, which they are committed to, because the one China policy calls for the peaceful reunification of China."<10> McCain believes in addressing China with unabashed realism. He has characterized Chinese leaders as "determined, indeed ruthless, defenders of their regime, who will do whatever is necessary, no matter how inhumane or offensive to us, to pursue their own interest."<11>

Unlike McCain, Bush has not served in Congress and lacks McCain's depth of experience in foreign policy. Nonetheless, Bush has built foreign policy muscle by enlisting a formidable team of advisers on whom he is apt to rely heavily. Concerning China, they appear divided. In particular, Condoleezza Rice, a key adviser in the Bush administration's National Security Council, takes a realist stance and remarks that "China has its own interests. It's a great power in the traditional sense. You need a broadly based policy, try to encourage economic liberalization, compete where you must on security issues."<12> However, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, two other Bush advisers, see China in a more hostile light. Significantly, in July 1999, they signed a Heritage Foundation document that called for the United States "to deter any form of Chinese intimidation of the Republic of China on Taiwan and declare unambiguously that it will come to Taiwan's defense in the event of an attack or a blockade against Taiwan, including against the offshore islands of Matsu and Kinmen [Quemoy]." Notwithstanding their somewhat different stances on China, all the advisers support missile defense.

In a November interview with The New York Times, Bush spelled out his views on missile defense deployment and transfer of missile defense to Taiwan. Concerning deployment, he said, "I think we ought to give Russia a reasonable period of time...if not, we ought to abrogate the ABM Treaty." He specified that a reasonable period is "months," not years. In response to a question concerning whether or not he has decided about selling missile defense to Taiwan, he replied, "You mean, when we deploy the Aegis cruiser system, for example, will we sell the technology to Taiwan? Depends on how the Chinese behave."<13> Trying to split the difference between menacing and coddling China, he said, "[China] will be unthreatened, but not unchecked."<14>

China's Perspective: Back to the Future

After the bombing of Kosovo, Chinese leaders are worrying where the United States' humanitarian and democratic missions—backed by military power—will venture next. In 1997, China regained Hong Kong, and last December it reacquired Macau. Chinese leaders have clearly stated that Taiwan is next in line for reunification. However, U.S. military aid to Taiwan serves to stymie those plans. While the U.S. government supports the one China policy, thereby not advocating Taiwanese independence, the United States is required to equip Taiwan with weapons for its self-defense, in accordance with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and the three communiqués. Recently, a majority in the House of Representatives voted to increase military aid and ties through the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, which the Clinton administration has threatened to veto.

Taiwan has expressed strong interest in receiving advanced theater missile defense (TMD) from the United States. Although the United States has sold the Patriot Advanced Capability-2, a limited TMD system, to Taiwan, it has not decided whether to provide more advanced TMD, if such systems are developed. In March 1999, during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, Secretary of State Albright reportedly stated that "there would be less need for [TMD] if China stopped pointing its missiles so aggressively at Taiwan or were more helpful in restraining North Korea."<15> These remarks were tempered when she explained that "a decision...has not been made to deploy defensive technologies that do not yet exist."<16> On November 12, 1999, State Department spokesman James Rubin said that Washington does "not preclude the possible sale of TMD items to Taiwan in the future." However, the United States does not support Taiwan's development of long-range ground-to-ground ballistic missiles.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province. Although China is unlikely to invade Taiwan in the near future, it has not relinquished the option of using military force against Taiwan. Regarding missile defense for Taiwan, China is adamantly opposed and concerned that it will embolden Taiwan's leaders to declare independence. Taiwan's desire for U.S. missile defenses from the United States represents only one of the outstanding elements of the U.S.-Chinese-Taiwanese missile diplomacy triangle. During this past year, reports have surfaced that China has deployed as many as several hundred short-range ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan. Although some Chinese officials have openly denied that China is targeting Taiwan with missiles, the Chinese missile firings just north and south of Taiwan prior to the 1996 Taiwanese presidential election removed any doubt that China would use missiles to try to influence Taiwan's behavior. In response, the United States demonstrated resolve by positioning two aircraft carrier battle groups near Taiwan.

To Chinese leaders, potential enhanced military ties between the United States and Taiwan flashes back to the time of the 1954 Taiwan Strait Crisis and the events preceding it. The Korean War ended in 1953 with the Korean Peninsula divided between the North, backed by China, and the South, supported by the United States. Although the United States and allied forces lost tens of thousands of troops, China suffered even greater losses, with perhaps up to 1 million soldiers having died.

During the Korean War, China felt coerced by the United States' threat of nuclear attack. This nuclear blackmail contributed to China's fears of U.S. containment that were further inflamed by events over Taiwan. Soon after the Korean War, the United States moved to bring Taiwan into a mutual defense pact. Fueling China's concerns over encroachment of its sovereignty, in late 1953 and early 1954, Taiwanese warships hijacked some merchant ships belonging to or headed for China. In summer 1954, the United States sent two aircraft carrier battle groups into the East China Sea. Closely following these events, on September 3, 1954, China began an artillery bombardment of the offshore island of Quemoy, which was claimed by Taiwan. These and other increased tensions led to the signing of the mutual defense pact between Taiwan and the United States on December 2, 1954.

On January 15, 1955, China committed itself to building nuclear weapons to prevent further nuclear blackmail and to try to counter the United States' containment strategy. During that time period, Chairman Mao Zedong characterized the atomic bomb and U.S. imperialism as "paper tigers." Recently, Ambassador Sha Zukang, China's top arms control official, borrowed the term when referring to China's perception of missile defense. "Once you have got the [missile] shield, others will develop a spear strong enough to penetrate it.… Using Mao's words, it's a paper tiger—fierce enough to frighten away cowards only," he said.<17>

This past history demonstrates that when China has experienced nuclear threats and containment, it has reacted by developing nuclear weapons, thereby undermining U.S. security. In a reminiscent manner, China's current perceptions of infringements on its sovereignty through deployment of a U.S. NMD system and possible fortified military ties between the United States and Taiwan, including advanced TMD, could lead to a strengthening of China's missile force and nuclear arsenal. Such a reaction would also undercut U.S. security.

China's Potential Response to NMD: More Missiles, More Warheads

If the United States erects an NMD system, how many more ICBMs and warheads capable of striking the continental United States would China want to deploy?

Despite the fact that China is a developing country, it has the financial wherewithal to build as many missiles and warheads as it believes are necessary to oppose projected NMD plans. For instance, one Chinese analyst has estimated that China would have to spend less than one-tenth of what the United States would spend in order to maintain parity between Chinese missiles and U.S. missile interceptors. Building 200 ICBMs would cost about $2 billion. This expenditure could be spread over several years and would represent less than 2 percent of China's current foreign currency reserve.<18>

Chinese military planners would probably decide on the number of warheads and missiles to build based on worst-case assumptions about the effectiveness of the U.S. NMD system. Although the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) is not planning on achieving 100 percent effectiveness for its missile interceptors, Chinese planners may start with the assumption that each interceptor could be this effective.

They would then have to consider BMDO's firing doctrines. BMDO's canonical doctrine of two-on-one, shoot-look-shoot means that for every incoming warhead two interceptors will be initially launched, followed by two additional interceptors if the first two miss.<19> This doctrine implies deploying four interceptors for every expected warhead. However, if the Chinese military anticipates the first volley working essentially perfectly, China would choose to build at least two warheads for every four interceptors.

Under more rigorous testing than has yet transpired, BMDO may determine that it cannot adhere to an effective shoot-look-shoot firing doctrine because this tactic is too technically demanding. Instead, BMDO could rely on a barrage firing doctrine in which a volley of four interceptors would be launched for each warhead.

In the ultimate worst-case scenario, Chinese military planners would assign 100 percent effectiveness to each interceptor and assume that BMDO would rely on a single shot firing doctrine of one interceptor per warhead.

Table 1 lists the number of additional Chinese warheads on ICBMs that would be built based on the above firing doctrines and worst-case assumptions. It assumes that China believes that the two dozen ICBM warheads in its current arsenal are sufficient for China's nuclear deterrent without missile defense. However, China may be planning on building more ICBM warheads regardless of missile defense. In either case, more transparency about China's intentions for its future arsenal is needed.

Could the latest generation of Chinese ICBMs carry these additional warheads in a multiple-warhead mode? The United States and the Soviet Union developed multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) for their missiles as a means of overwhelming anticipated missile defenses. But MIRVs are not the only method to ensure penetration of defenses. Other feasible options include building more missiles with single warheads, in addition to deploying decoys and other countermeasures on missiles. However, MIRVs could be a less expensive method compared to deploying more missiles.

If deployed in sufficient quantities, MIRVs can provide the capability to destroy a significant portion of an enemy's missile force, thereby limiting damage from second or follow-on strikes. The Chinese would not pursue MIRVs for this reason because they have too few warheads for counterforce strikes against the United States or Russia. Both the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals are more than 15 times the size of the total Chinese force. Further, China lacks the fissile material to build enough warheads to countenance a counterforce strategy, according to best estimates.<20>

China's new mobile missiles, once fully developed, will strengthen the survivability of China's nuclear force because they will be harder to target than the older silo- and cave-based missiles. But the newer solid-fueled missiles have significantly smaller throw-weights (payloads) than the previous generation of liquid-fueled missiles—a fact that could severely limit China's ability to MIRV these missiles.

While the May 1999 Cox Report and its proponents have trumpeted China's MIRVing capability, other intelligence community reports and analysts have raised doubts about whether China has the ability or the motivation to MIRV its missiles. The 1998 National Air Intelligence Center's Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat report states that China's DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs will not be MIRVed. Moreover, the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released in September 1999 notes that deployment of MIRVs on "a future mobile missile would be many years off."

To help set bounds on the possible number of multiple warheads that the Chinese missiles might carry, Table 2 lists the relevant characteristics of U.S. ICBMs. Using Table 2's data and assumptions, Table 3 shows the maximum number of warheads that each Chinese solid-fueled missile might hold.

For a relatively heavy warhead, such as the W88, China would only be able to place two or three MIRVs on its latest missiles.<22> In contrast, it would increase the MIRVing capacity by a factor of two to four by opting for a lighter warhead, such as the W68. The trade-off for more MIRVs involves a decrease in yield. Some U.S. defense analysts have argued that because smaller-yield warheads must be more accurate, China might not be able to MIRV.<23> On the contrary, accuracy should not be a major impediment as long as China subscribes to a countervalue doctrine of aiming warheads at cities. For example, a W68-type warhead that explodes even hundreds of meters away from the center of a populous city will probably kill hundreds of thousands of people.

However, this discussion should not be construed as advocating MIRVs on Chinese missiles. From an opponent's perspective, as the number of MIRVs increases per missile, the missile's value as a target also increases. From China's perspective, therefore, fewer or no MIRVs would enhance the survivability of its missile force.

Citing a further reason why China may not want to MIRV, physicist Richard Garwin has written, "MIRVs are not the optimal weapons if China anticipates encountering a U.S. national missile defense (NMD) system.… Instead, China is far more likely to use effective countermeasures (such as light-weight decoy balloons) rather than multiple RVs on its future missiles."<24> Although such countermeasures would provide a significant penetration capability of a limited NMD system, Chinese military and political leaders may decide that these measures are not adequate by themselves and that more missiles with more warheads might signal greater Chinese strength, thereby serving as a more effective political weapon. Nonetheless, several reports indicate that China has been testing decoys and other countermeasures on its latest generation missiles. Further, expanded military ties between Russia and China could lead to China's purchase of missile defense penetration aids from Russia.

Nuclear Risk Reduction Needed

If the United States deploys a limited NMD system, it will, in effect, eviscerate China's currently small deterrent. This action will pressure China to engage in an nuclear arms buildup. Although such an increase could be gradual, based on the pace of China's past nuclear force modernization programs, it is threatening nonetheless: the end result would be a significantly larger Chinese nuclear force able to strike the continental United States.

To mitigate these increased nuclear dangers, the United States and China should implement risk-reduction measures. While such steps cannot resolve the security dilemma posed by missile defense, they will enhance the security of both nations, even if the United States chooses not to deploy an NMD system.<25>

During the Cold War, Russia and the United States developed several agreements to reduce the risk of nuclear war between them. These agreements included confidence-building measures to increase communications, prevent incidents at sea and in the air, and prevent missile test-firings from sparking an inadvertent war. China and the United States should seriously consider implementing similar agreements.

While China and the United States have taken tentative steps toward some of these agreements, they have not done enough to construct more meaningful accords and enhance existing ones. Current agreements include the January 1998 Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, the May 1998 Hotline Agreement and the June 1998 Nuclear Weapons De-Targeting Agreement.

The first agreement established a consultative mechanism "to promote safe maritime practices and establish mutual trust [such] as search and rescue, communications procedures when ships encounter each other, interpretation of the Rules of the Nautical Road and avoidance of accidents at sea." While this agreement is an encouraging first step, it is lackluster in comparison to the detailed 1972 Incidents at Sea (INCSEA) agreement between the former Soviet Union and the United States.<26> Importantly, the original INCSEA agreement stipulated that each side should refrain from "simulating attacks" against the other. In the Taiwan Strait flashpoint, these restraints would lessen the risk of misconstruing the other side's intentions.

The second agreement provided for a direct communications link between the heads of government. Presidents Jiang and Clinton first tested it as part of Clinton's visit to China in June 1998. Building on this agreement, both sides could construct nuclear risk reduction centers in both China and the United States that would enhance diplomatic communication channels during times of crisis. These centers would facilitate other crisis reduction data exchanges.

The third agreement specifies that both sides agree to not target each other's nuclear forces. However, it is largely a symbolic gesture in that China reportedly maintains its nuclear weapons capable of striking the United States in a low-alert condition with warheads reportedly off the missiles and China has repeatedly declared a no-first-use policy.

A more meaningful confidence-building measure would be a de-alerted U.S. nuclear force.<27> Many arms control scholars have championed taking U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert to lessen the likelihood of accidental nuclear war. In the context of the U.S.-Chinese nuclear relationship, a de-alerted U.S. nuclear force could reduce Chinese fears of a first strike that could decimate China's retaliatory force and a U.S. missile defense system that could shoot down whatever remained. A de-alerted force that provides a mutually assured survivable deterrent and ensures that any re-alerting would be detected with sufficient advanced warning would give China adequate confidence that the United States does not intend to direct a first strike at it. Nevertheless, China should take steps to secure the survivability of its deterrent because a de-alerted U.S. force would not be sufficient to guarantee the viability of China's deterrent.

In addition, China and the United States should enact predictability measures that would achieve greater transparency between their militaries, such as annually exchanging data about force levels and plans. Such measures would build upon the resumption of high-level military-to-military contacts, as exemplified by the January talks at the Pentagon with Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai, the deputy chief of the People's Liberation Army's general staff.

While the United States and China are presently headed toward a strategic collision over missile defense, they still have time to avert a wreck. The next few years represent a critical period. China will be deciding the size and composition of its nuclear arsenal, taking into account U.S. missile defense plans. In parallel, the United States will be evaluating whether or not the criteria of missile threats, impact on arms control, technological readiness, and financial costs dictate missile defense deployment.

To help reduce the perceived need for these defenses, as one of North Korea's few friends, China can exert whatever influence it has on North Korea to curb that nation's missile program. Moreover, China can continue to make clear the adverse effect of missile defense on arms control and reductions. In the United States, the near-term policy on China and missile defense depends strongly on which political party will control the next presidency. The policy choice now appears to be either acrimony or ambiguity. However, the United States cannot afford to be acrimonious or ambiguous when it comes to its intentions concerning China and missile defense. Either option could lead to more Chinese nuclear warheads able to strike the United States.


NOTES

The author would like to thank several colleagues, especially Li Bin and John Pike, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

1. "Text of Jiang Zemin 13 May Speech," FBIS-CHI-1999-0513, May 13, 1999.

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2. "Zhang Wannian Holds Talks with Sergeyev," FBIS-CHI-1999-0611, June 10, 1999.

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3. Samuel R. Berger, "Speech before Council on Foreign Relations on American Power," USIS Washington File, October 21, 1999.

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4. Madeleine Albright, "A Call for American Consensus: Why Our Arms-Control Leadership Is Too Important to Risk in Partisan Political Fights," Time, November 22, 1999.

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5. Department of Defense News Briefing, January 20, 1999.

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6. Department of Defense News Briefing, January 27, 2000.

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7. Elizabeth Becker and Eric Schmitt, "Delay Sought in Decision on Missile Defense," The New York Times, January 20, 2000, p. A13.

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8. Jim Mann, "In Asian View, Gore Is the Wild Card," The Los Angeles Times, December 22, 1999, p. 5.

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9. Mike Allen, "Bradley the Loner: A Campaign Liability?" The Washington Post, December 11, 1999, p. A4.

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10. George Weeks, "McCain: Clinton's Policy 'Feckless'," Detroit News, November 18, 1999, p. A13.

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11. "Remarks of Senator John McCain to National Jewish Coalition," December 1, 1999.

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12. Jacob Heilbrunn, "Condoleezza Rice: George W.'s Realist," World Policy Journal, Winter 1999/2000, p. 49.

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13. William Safire, "Pre-selling a Speech," The New York Times, November 18, 1999, p. 25.

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14. Dan Balz, "Bush Favors Internationalism: Candidate Calls China a 'Competitor,' Opposes Test Ban," The Washington Post, November 20, 1999, p. A1.

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15. "That Elusive Chinese Spring," The Economist, March 6, 1999, p. 27.

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16. Anthony Spaeth and Jaime A. FlorCruz, "Wanna Dance?" Time South Pacific, March 15, 1999, p. 40.

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17. Jim Mann, "China Snarls Again at 'Paper Tiger'," The Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2000, p. 5.

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18. Private communication with Dr. Shen Dingli, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

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19. For a more detailed discussion of missile defense effectiveness, read Dean Wilkening, "A Simple Model for Calculating Ballistic Missile Defense Effectiveness," CISAC Working Paper, August 1998.

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20. Lisbeth Gronlund, David Wright, and Yong Liu, "China and a Fissile Material Production Cut-off," Survival, Winter 1995/1996.

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21. Although the Poseidon submarine launched ballistic missile was tested with 14 MIRVs, the average deployed number of MIRVs was 10. With 14 MIRVs, the Poseidon essentially had little footprint crossrange. In other words, it could not cover spread out targets and thus had no real MIRVing capability. See: Graham Spinardi, From Polaris to Trident: The Development of the U.S. Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 106-107.

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22. According to the Cox Report, China stole design information for the W88. This allegation has not been proven. Moreover, China claims that its weapons scientists are capable of producing these type of warheads without any help from espionage.

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23. Zalmay Khalilzad et al. , The United States and a Rising China: Strategic and Military Implications, RAND, 1999.

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24. Richard Garwin, "Why China Won't Build U.S. Warheads," Arms Control Today, April/May 1999, p. 28.

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25. These ideas are based on discussions with John Pike and a presentation, titled "Russian-American Risk Reduction with Chinese Characteristics" by the author given at the Eleventh International Summer Symposium on Science and World Affairs in Shanghai, China on July 30, 1999.

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26. Julian Schofield, "The Next Step: The Military Maritime Consultative Agreement and a Sino-American Incidents at Sea Agreement," Korean Defense Journal, Summer 1999.

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27. Michael O'Hanlon, "Star Wars Strikes Back," Foreign Affairs, November/December 1999, advanced a similar notion in the Russian-American context.

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Charles Ferguson, a physicist, directes the Nuclear Policy Project at the Federation of American Scientists. [Back to top]

Wary of the West: Russian Security Policy at the Millennium

Celeste A. Wallander

On Russia's national security policy is defined by opposition and diversity, ideas and interests, power and geopolitics. It is affected by elements of Russia's Soviet past, by the cultural struggle to define its post-Soviet identity, and by the new economic and political interests that have served as the agents of change in Russia's transition from communism. It is also, of course, shaped by the limits of Russia's post-Cold War power and its relationship with the United States.

On January 10, Acting President Vladimir Putin approved a new national security concept detailing Russia's political security policy. A draft military doctrine, a more specific policy paper dealing with military issues, was approved by the Russian Security Council in late February.<1> Both the concept and the doctrine mix elements of Russian exceptionalism, great power prerogatives and concerns, and material interests in the international economy. The documents are not binding—they can be (and have been) changed, amended, and even ignored—but they are important for understanding Russian security policy nonetheless because they reflect the priorities, assessments, compromises, and negotiations within the Russian political and security elite.

America's most important interests can be managed well only in a fundamentally secure environment made possible by the passing of Cold War confrontation. Russia is not the Soviet superpower, and bipolar competition will not return. Russia nevertheless remains the only country that can destroy the United States in a single large-scale nuclear attack—a threat that will remain even if the United States deploys a national missile defense (NMD) and even if economic factors drive Russia's nuclear force downward to only 1,000-1,500 warheads.

It is not enough if Russia is simply not hostile to the West. The United States needs active Russian cooperation in order to achieve its non-proliferation goals. Given the state of Russia's economy, unauthorized sale of technology for missiles or for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons poses a major challenge to the non-proliferation and export control regimes the United States counts on to prevent countries such as Iraq or terrorists like Osama bin Laden from acquiring weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. The West needs a Russian government—supported by its society—that deems cooperation in this area a priority worth economic and political resources. In particular, the West needs a professional Russian military willing to work with Western security professionals in areas of national security and military sensitivity.

Russia's security concept and military doctrine also define what is possible in conventional and nuclear arms reductions. The recently adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty will not be successfully implemented if Russia's security elite believes that NATO is hostile to Russia, is expanding its capabilities by enlarging its membership, and views the war in Kosovo as a stepping stone to a larger European role. Ratifying START II and moving on to START III requires convincing the security elite that the United States is a reliable partner, subject to international law and respectful of its treaty commitments. And any prospect for an agreement on NMD that will avoid sparking a new multilateral nuclear arms race (involving not only Russia and China, but also possibly India and Pakistan) cannot succeed unless Russia believes that it can enhance its security more by working with the United States than by assuming the worst about American intentions and falling back upon unilateral remedies.

Analysis of Russia's new security concept and military doctrine conveys how likely Russian cooperation on these fronts will be and offers insight into how Russia's threat perceptions could complicate multilateral efforts. Unfortunately, in tracing Russia's security assessments from those articulated in the early 1990s through those put forward this year, one finds a growing tendency away from "liberal" attitudes of promoting cooperation with the West toward a traditional "statist" view that is more guarded—a shift spurred by domestic and international developments in 1998 and 1999, especially NATO's intervention in Kosovo. Cooperation is still possible—and in some respects may be easier than before—but Russia's trust of the West has certainly been weakened.

Debate and Consensus: 1992-1997

As Russia began to formulate its national security policy in the early 1990s, multiple views emerged based upon diverse sets of political, economic and societal interests. With liberal beginnings incorporating optimistic predictions of cooperation with the West, Russia's security elite debated the utility of multilateral institutions and Russia's role in them. However, divisions soon developed between the liberals, who held to their cooperative approach to the West, and the newly resurgent nationalists, who saw the West in a more threatening light. By 1997, the Yeltsin leadership had developed a synthesis that still emphasized cooperation and integration, but incorporated a strong measure of Russian Eurasianism and great power thinking, rooting the policy in a more traditional cast.

Russia's first security assessment, articulated by Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev in February 1992, emphasized Russia's need to become part of the "civilized" world and seek its true interests through partnership and cooperation with the West.<2> But his view became less tenable over the next year as relations with the United States proved more difficult than anticipated. Conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the effects of the Soviet Union's disintegration on stability and economic well-being, and the breakup of Yugoslavia provided ammunition for critics of Kozyrev's line.<3> However, despite some retreat from the more optimistic elements of Kozyrev's liberal approach, Russian policy and practice remained oriented toward the objective of integration and cooperation with the West. In policy areas such as peacekeeping in Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, conventional military arms control and measures to support the post-communist transition, Russian-Western cooperation was the standard.

In 1993, Russia issued a military doctrine that reflected its concern with emerging local and regional conflicts, as well as post-Cold War security problems, such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and international crime. The military doctrine did not identify any countries as direct threats to Russian security, reflecting Russia's turn from the Soviet Union's Cold War rivalry with the West. However, acknowledging Russia's post-Cold War geopolitical reality and the decline in Russian military power, the military doctrine adopted a policy allowing Russia to use nuclear weapons first in an attack by a nuclear-weapon state or any country allied with a nuclear-weapon state.<4>

Over the next four years, Russian security assessments sorted roughly into four categories: liberal, statist, derzhavnik and nationalist. Liberals included Western-oriented proponents of cooperation and integration and were joined by a commercial and financial elite in supporting the Yeltsin leadership's focus on economic and political change at home, complemented by an accommodating policy toward the West. At the same time, the government included statists, such as former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and former Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who supported cooperation with, but not subordination to, the West in international affairs.

The opposition fell into two broad categories. Great power Eurasianists (often referred to as derzhavniki for their emphasis on Russia as a great power) were not content with Russia's limits as they stood and advocated a reconstitution of the Soviet Union, in part because of their more strongly ethnic definition of Russian identity. They included retired general Alexander Lebed and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov. On the extreme, but nonetheless important in debates on Russian security and military doctrine, were nationalists, who advanced ethnically based conceptions of Russian citizenship and nationality and demanded a role in protecting ethnic Russians wherever they might live in the former Soviet Union. Their most visible advocate has been Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

The liberal security assessment first articulated by Kozyrev in the early 1990s was therefore strongly challenged by other elites who tended to view international structure in terms of the traditional role and influence of the great powers. The statists viewed Russian participation in multilateral forums as the sine qua non of Russia's great power status and influence.<5> Without Russian participation in the Contact Group and the prospect of Russian restraint in the UN Security Council, they argued, the West would not be constrained at all in its dealings with Yugoslavia, Iraq and others. But the statists disagreed with the liberals as to whether the institutional rules were sufficiently neutral and even-handed to allow Russia to prevail in diplomacy and bargaining when its policies differed from those of the West. Liberals argued that they did; statists argued that they did on balance, though not always and not without Russian effort.

In contrast, the derzhavniki and nationalists saw no benefit to Russia cooperating with the West and viewed the Contact Group and the Security Council as forums for Russian co-optation and subordination. Lebed's prescription for dealing with NATO enlargement was to ignore it as irrelevant and to focus on rebuilding Russia's military capability and seeking alliances and better relations with Russia's neighbors, particularly Belarus. Zhirinovsky ridiculed the Yeltsin government's subordinate role in ostensibly multilateral efforts such as the Partnership for Peace.<6> Worst of all, of course, they saw the International Monetary Fund as an instrument of Western determination to bring down Russia by destroying its economy.

Despite these elements, the liberal perspective played a central role in the government's policy during the 1990s, even in traditional security matters. The clearest example was the decision to accept NATO enlargement through the NATO-Russia Founding Act, signed in May 1997, despite clear statements by Yeltsin and Primakov declaring NATO enlargement as completely unacceptable for Russia's security interests. Russia's acquiescence was aimed at achieving some kind of influence in NATO matters through the Permanent Joint Council, acceptance of Russia at the new "Summit of the 8" (the enlarged G-7), settlement of Russia's payments arrears with the Paris Club, and renewed focus on Russian entry into the World Trade Organization.

The National Security Concept of 1997

The watchword of the Russian security elite's view of the international structure in the 1990s therefore became "balance"—with the outcome essentially a liberal-statist compromise. Statists emphasized that international order must be based upon the development of Russia's relations with a wide range of countries. Liberals did not advocate dependence on the West, but their desirable international order was one in which Russia became fully integrated as a major economic power and held the status of a great power in the more traditional sense. Statists pointed to the dangers of being reliant on good relations with the West, particularly the United States. The experience of NATO enlargement at Russian expense proved to the statist security elite that the United States was unreliable.

The compromise between these groups was clear in Russia's national security concept, signed by Yeltsin in December 1997.<7> The concept declared that "in the present time the situation in the international arena is characterized first of all by the fundamental tendency toward the formation of a multipolar world," thus reflecting the clear consensus of elite views.<8> From there, however, the concept took a distinctly liberal turn. It stated that the most important threats to Russian security lay not in the international system but in Russia's internal conditions. Since Russia's internal threats arose from economic decline, instability, and societal problems, such as poor health and unemployment, they must be addressed through economic reform. Although economic reform was primarily an internal matter, it could be supported by a non-threatening international environment and by Russian integration into international economic institutions.

This liberalism was tempered, however, by insistence that Russia did not come to the international community as a subordinate member, but as one of the major players. The 1997 concept acknowledged difficulties for Russian participation and involvement—particularly the problem of NATO enlargement—but held that effective multilateral means for cooperation and coordination of international affairs ultimately could be achieved only with Russian involvement in organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It based this confidence on Russia's status as the only truly Eurasian power.<9>

None of this came as surprise, given the terms of the elite debate and the gradual emergence of the statist view and its influence in the Russian government. What was surprising was how directly and forcefully the concept placed the internal threat to Russian security ahead of international threats and how it focused on the centrality of societal and state interests in reform, stability, and development. The document was clearly a marriage of liberal and statist views, with liberal influence in defining national security in terms of domestic well-being and reform, and statist influence in articulating the kind of assertive and pro-active Russian foreign involvement that would shape and make best use of the opportunities in the international system to support Russia's primarily internal security tasks.

This is not to say that more traditional international security interests were absent from the 1997 concept. They were spelled out in statist terms: Russia's interests in participating as a great power and as one pole in a multipolar world, in fighting transnational crime and terrorism, in developing good relations with members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in defending the territory of the state, and in maintaining security from military aggression on the part of other states.<10> But mention of these threats came after the internal threats and tasks.

Furthermore, the concept cautioned that the need for military forces to protect Russia's international interests had to be balanced with the economic requirements of managing the other threats and challenges Russia faced. That is, recognition of real foreign, defense and military problems were not to overwhelm the priority on liberal economic reform. The concept acknowledged that assuring Russia's security required a military capability but maintained that that capability must be based upon "rational expenditures for national defense," and explicitly stated that Russia does not need to reach military parity with the West.

It was truly astonishing that the national security policy of such a large and important country considered internal threats to security more significant than external threats. The 1997 policy appeared to signal that the Yeltsin leadership had made its choice: liberal economic reform at home, international economic integration abroad, self-interested cooperation with the West in a range of security affairs, and patient development of a new kind of Western-oriented Eurasianist security identity.

Russia's New Environment

The 1998-99 period was a turning point for Russian assessment of its international environment, and for the composition of its governing coalition. The liberal-statist balance of political elite interests was shattered by the August 1998 financial crisis and, more importantly, by the Western war in Kosovo. The August crisis undermined liberal views by exposing Russia's vulnerability to the international economy and financial markets. The fundamental sources of the crisis were internal policy failures and economic weakness, but it was precipitated by the vulnerability of the ruble to speculative international financial markets. At the same time, because Russia's economy had done so well in the aftermath of the decision to devalue the ruble and implement limited debt defaults, the crisis reinforced statist arguments that a less Western-dependent, more state-directed policy of economic reform could be Russia's path to stability and eventual prosperity.

Even more significant for Russia's national security policy, however, were the implications of the American use of NATO to impose a military solution for Yugoslavia's violation of Kosovar political and human rights. Russia's uneasy acceptance of NATO's membership enlargement was based in part on the assumption that Russia held a veto over NATO missions that went beyond collective self-defense of members' territories. The Russian leadership believed that the United States and NATO had committed themselves to adopting non-collective defense missions only if they had a United Nations mandate. This would mean that Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would have influence over any such mission.

The United States and NATO proved unwilling to live by this restriction in Kosovo, and that choice thoroughly discredited the liberal rationale for substantial and wide-ranging security cooperation with the West. Articulate liberal security analysts such as Duma member Alexei Arbatov had worked hard during the 1990s to argue that NATO enlargement, while foolish, did not threaten Russian security. NATO's war in Kosovo was evidence that the post-Cold War NATO was not merely about enlarging the community of democratic states, but was also about using military force in pursuit of its members' policies. The issue of the expansion of NATO's membership was difficult enough for Russia; with Kosovo, it faced the expansion of NATO's mission, unrestrained by the UN. The expansion of NATO's mission to encompass unilateral intervention to settle an internal ethnic conflict and enforce Western human rights priorities created the potential for something even worse than membership enlargement. Given instability on and within Russia's borders in the Caucasus, Caspian, and Central Asia—areas in which the United States has expressed both economic and geostrategic interest—the expansion of NATO's mission could threaten Russia's territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

The war in Kosovo undermined the liberal argument for "partnership" in order to gain Western support for Russia's international economic integration. The lesson appeared to be that the United States would be constrained by its international commitments only when convenient and that it would act unilaterally in important security matters when Russia did not agree with American policies. Kosovo signaled that American and Russian priorities were not in sync and that the United States was more willing than the 1997 concept had assumed to use military force closer to Russian borders for a wider variety of purposes. Kosovo helped to undermine the liberals' security argument for partnership and reinforced the arguments that the West's intentions toward Russia were not benign.

The National Security Concept of 2000

The national security concept Putin signed into law in January 2000 had been in the works since the spring of 1999.<11> Although signing the concept was one of Putin's first official decisions, this development should not be misunderstood as tied solely to Putin's views or personal leadership. The new concept has been developing for at least a year and is the result of the elite debate and consensus. The concept is a substantial change from the December 1997 national security concept and is a significant shift from liberal elements in former President Yeltsin's political coalition. The shift is not a product of mere leadership politics. It is the result of the events of 1998 and 1999 and is based on the statist security elite that now occupies the large, moderate middle in Russian politics. In the unlikely event that Putin loses the March presidential election, the weight of this political coalition will remain the primary influence on Russian security policy.

The most significant aspect of the new concept is that it elevates the importance and expands the types of external threats to Russian security. The document still devotes a great deal of attention to internal threats, arising primarily from the difficulties of its post-communist transition and its unsuccessful economic reforms. In contrast to the 1997 version, however, the new analysis emphasizes terrorism, societal discontent and disharmony, the uneven benefits of economic reform, the criminalization of Russian society and the lack of a rule-based state to guarantee the safety and well-being of Russian citizens to a greater degree. Unlike the 1997 concept, which appeared to call for staying the course of political-economic reform, the characterization of internal threats in the 2000 document justifies a reform policy with greater emphasis on the role of the Russian state in shaping the economy, safeguarding stability and regulating social and political life.

Even more substantial changes have been made in Russia's assessment of the international environment and external threats to Russian security. The concept no longer claims that there are no threats arising from other states' deliberate actions or aggression. It provides a substantial list of external threats, including:

• the weakening of the OSCE and the UN;

• weakening Russian political, economic and military influence in the world;

• the consolidation of military-political blocs and alliances (particularly further eastward expansion of NATO), including the possibility of foreign military bases or deployment of forces on Russian borders;

• proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery;

• weakening of the CIS, and escalation of conflicts on CIS members' borders; and

• territorial claims against Russia.

In several places, the concept emphasizes the post-Cold War shift toward a multipolar world in which relations are based upon international law and a proper role for Russia. It argues that against this tendency and under the guise of multilateralism, the United States and its allies have sought to establish a unipolar world outside of international law. The document warns that NATO's policy transition to using military force outside its alliance territory without UN Security Council approval is a major threat to world stability and that this trend creates the potential for a new era of arms races among the world's great powers.

Given the greater significance the new concept accords external threats, it is not surprising that it calls for greater emphasis on traditional security instruments. The main task of Russia's security policy in the external realm, it says, is to secure the country's territorial integrity, especially in preventing terrorism and threats to Russia's borders. To deal with America's unilateralism, the concept sets Russia the task of consolidating its position as one of the great powers and influential centers in the world. It is here that the concept drops Russia's earlier call for a "partnership" with the West and replaces it with a more limited call for "cooperation," with an emphasis on international measures to prevent proliferation and cope with the spread of international terrorism and crime.

In military-defense terms, the concept's focus is on preventing "scientific and technological dependence" and achieving a level of military capability sufficient to prevent aggression in local wars and prevail against groups of opposing forces in regional wars. Russia must keep its nuclear weapons as a guarantee against aggressors or coalitions of hostile states and may resort to nuclear weapons to defend itself and its allies against nuclear-armed states or their allies. The concept stresses this point by lowering Russia's threshold for permitting the use of nuclear weapons. Whereas the 1997 concept contemplated nuclear use only "in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation," the new concept permits nuclear use to "repulse armed aggression, if all other means of resolving the crisis have been exhausted."

This development is clearly related to assessments after Kosovo of NATO military options. In June 1999, Russia held military exercises to simulate a Western conventional military attack on Russia's Baltic province of Kaliningrad. Having failed to halt the attack by conventional means, the Russian forces succeeded in defeating the simulated attack by resorting to nuclear weapons.<12> In short, Russia appears to have lowered the nuclear threshold as of 2000 because the Russian-NATO balance of conventional military forces deteriorated so terribly that Russian military officials are no longer confident that their conventional options are likely to be successful in the event of armed conflict against Russia or its allies (that is, Belarus). Combined with its Kosovo-based assessment that NATO is more disposed to use military force in the European region, Russia's new nuclear doctrine reflects Russia's complicated geopolitical assessments of the new NATO, rather than a re-evaluation of nuclear options per se.

Russia's new military doctrine, a separate document not yet signed by Putin but approved by Russia's Security Council in February 2000, not only reinforces these assessments, but goes a step further: it permits nuclear weapons use in the event that a conventional military attack by a non-nuclear power threatens Russia's territorial integrity or sovereignty. Unlike the previous, more cautious formulation, which required an explicit alliance link between a non-nuclear and a nuclear country to justify a nuclear response to conventional aggression, the new formulation does not require that the non-nuclear aggressor have a formal alliance tie to a nuclear-weapon state. On the one hand, this formulation eliminates the negative security assurances Russia gave in 1995 that it would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, unless attacked by a "non-nuclear-weapon-State in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State." On the other hand, since the conventional scenarios Russia has in mind involve possibilities such as joint NATO-Baltic actions, this may be a distinction without much of a difference. It is important to note that the Russian military doctrine explicitly rules out using nuclear weapons to deal with internal conflicts.

The good news is that the concept preserves the argument that Russia's national interests and security will be served primarily by international law and "can only be achieved by the development of Russia's economy" through long-term integration into the world economy. The economic reform this leadership has in mind differs from previous policy: It places greater emphasis on support for the scientific, technological and defense sectors of the economy. It appears to prescribe a stronger state role in facilitating equity and social stability and in regulating as well as creating market conditions. And it emphasizes that the goal of Russia's international economic integration is to open foreign markets to Russian products.

This signals that the emphasis at home will be on greater state involvement and an economic policy closer to an industrial policy, focusing on the advanced defense sector and export promotion. This surely means a stronger state and greater state involvement in society. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that market reform and international integration—although of types that will be less subject to Western blueprints and priorities—remain a strong priority.

Putin's statements since becoming president have reinforced this mix of views. He has emphasized that Russia's future lies in economic reform and international economic integration. He has called for progress on Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, has cut back on restrictions of important Russian raw materials exports and has taken steps against Russian energy firms that have not paid taxes or paid for government services. He has called for private ownership of land, an overhaul of the Russian tax system and ratification of START II. At the same time, Putin leads a government that has prosecuted a brutal war in Chechnya and has issued a revised, tougher security policy that identifies the United States as a potential threat to Russia.

There is no contradiction between economic reform and a tougher line on the Russian state and its national security policy. Putin is a Russian statist, and his leadership reflects a broad elite consensus that supports integration and cooperation with the West, but not at any price. He is willing to seek international integration and prosperity, but not at the cost of territorial integrity and national sovereignty or the West's complete dominance in the nuclear and conventional military spheres. Russia's leadership has not abandoned internal reform and international integration, but it does not trust the West to protect Russia's interests.

Implications for the United States

Despite reports about the enhanced role nuclear weapons appear to play in the 2000 security concept and military doctrine, it is important to recognize that a clear implication of the new policy for the United States is that the potential for cooperation remains on important security issues, such as non-proliferation, anti-terrorism and conflict management. Furthermore, in one sense, the potential may be better than in the 1990s: the current Russian leadership has a broader and more stable base of support and will probably implement measures to increase the competence and capacity of the Russian state. That means Russia can be a reliable partner in controlling weapons of mass destruction, missile technology and international crime. This is an improvement over the 1990s, when it was far from clear that Russia could control the actions of its citizens and agencies, even if the government wished to do so.

Nevertheless, Russia is not going to be as easy to deal with as it was in the 1990s. Elements of its industrial policy and greater state regulation of the economy will make trade negotiations and financial transactions more complicated and will cause problems in American domestic politics for certain sectors in which Russia can compete, such as steel. Russian defense spending will increase, partly in order to stem the crisis in Russia's conventional forces, partly in connection with the defense sector portion of the economic development policy. In order to prosecute the war in Chechnya, the Putin leadership found $1 billion: unlimited funds are not available, but a shift in priorities can support levels of defense spending greater than those in recent years. This increased defense spending is not a direct threat to U.S. security in itself, but it has indirect implications for American security policy, including an increase in Russian efforts to sell arms on the international market, the shift in military balances that will concern Russia's neighbors, and the effects on Russian democracy and the state itself.

Most problematic will be negotiations in the area of nuclear arms control, particularly concerning American hopes for modification of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in order to deploy a form of national missile defense. Given the heightened threat assessment in the new security concept and the increased emphasis on the importance of Russia's nuclear deterrent to cope with threats against itself or its allies, Russian defense officials have become very sensitive to any developments that might erode the strength of that deterrent capability. In addition, Russia's belief that the United States violated past assurances and agreements when it enlarged NATO's membership and mission makes Russian defense officials skeptical that the United States would abide by any negotiated restrictions that proved inconvenient in the future. Russian analysts do not fear that American plans for NMD to cope with "rogue" state threats erode Russia's deterrent, but they do believe that such systems will provide the United States with a "break-out" capability that may prove tempting in the future, given the trends toward American unilateralism in international affairs. If the United States hopes to gain Russian agreement on modifying the ABM Treaty, the absolute minimum deal will depend on clear and reliable provisions that are directed explicitly and narrowly on the North Korean scenario. To do this, not only must interceptors be limited in number and range, but the Russian military will demand provisions for transparency and assurances so that it can plan for a reliable, long-term strategic nuclear force with retaliatory capacity against both the United States and China.

The most important implication for U.S. policy is the need to understand that the Russian security leadership links national sovereignty and territorial integrity, terrorism and WMD, instability and conflict in the Caucasus and Caspian regions, NATO's membership and mission enlargement, and U.S. unilateralism. The United States may not agree that these elements are connected. However, it will not be able to devise a successful Russia policy unless it understands that the Russian political leadership will base its security policy on this assessment into the 21st century. The most important policy implication of this connection is that NATO's primary security mission for the next few years must be repairing relations and trust with Russia. Putin has signaled interest in thawing the freeze on the NATO-Russian relationship, which was Russia's response to Kosovo. Both Russia and the United States have to decide that they will make the mechanism for discussion and consultation between NATO and Russia—the Permanent Joint Council—a meaningful forum for confidence building and discussion of European security issues. It is difficult for the United States to involve Russia in NATO, but the 2000 security concept and military doctrine makes clear that Russia's relations with NATO have global implications in a range of issues, including non-proliferation and control of WMD.

The American approach to security cooperation and arms control with Russia has to be based on an understanding that the wide-ranging Russian debate of the 1990s has produced a relatively stable consensus among Russia's security elites supporting a more limited range of security cooperation, based on a more Eurasianist, great power variant of Russian interests than were at work in the 1990s. Russian relations with the United States will be shaped by the ongoing task of dismantling the communist legacy within Russia itself, Russia's Eurasian history and geopolitics and Russian society's own definition of its security interests.


NOTES

The author would like to thank Samuel Huntington, Nikolai Sokov and Kimberly Zisk for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

1. Putin has not yet signed the draft doctrine, but he is expected to do so this spring.

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2. Andrei Kozyrev, "Vystupleniye na prakticheskoi konferentsii 'Preobrazhennaya Rossiya v novom mire'," February 1992. Reprinted in International Affairs (Moscow), April-May 1992.

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3. Sergei Stankevich, "Derzhava v poiskakh sebya," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 28, 1992, p. 4; Aleksandr Rutskoi, "Ya - tsentrist, derzhavnik i liberal," Argumenty i Fakty, October 1992. Derzhava means literally "power" but connotes "great power."

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4. "Osnovnye polozheniia voennoi doctriny Rossii-skoi Federatsii," internal Russian government document, November 1993.

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5. "Perviy god diplomatii Primakova proshyel bez provalov i proryvov," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 9, 1997, p. 1; "U nas svoye litso, i my nigde ne skatyvalis," Izvestiya, December 23, 1997, p. 3.

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6. Andrei Baturin, "Tanets s metloi v ispolnii Zhirinovskovo," Izvestiya, February 1, 1994.

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7. "Kontseptsiya natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossiy-skoy Federatsii," ukazom Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 17 dekabrya 1997 g. , no. 1300 (internal Russian government document). It was also published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 26, 1997, p. 4-5.

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8.Ibid. , p. 1.

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9.Ibid. , p. 3.

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10.Ibid. , p. 7-8.

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11. "Kontseptsiya natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossisy-skiy Federatsii," Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Oboz-reniye, January 14, 2000.

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12. "Rossiyskaya armiya gotovitsya k otrazheniyu agressii," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 23, 1999.

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Celeste A. Wallander is associate professor of government at Harvard University and faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Davis Center for Russian Studies. [Back to top]

U.S., Russia Negotiate Spent Fuel Reprocessing Moratorium

Philipp C. Bleek

DESPITE DENIALS BY a high-level Russian official, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says that it has reached an agreement "in principle" to suspend Russia's reprocessing of civil reactor-generated spent fuel. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced the "new initiative" in a February 7 statement accompanying the release of DOE's fiscal year 2001 budget, which requests an additional $100 million for non-proliferation efforts in Russia. The timing of the announcement appears to have been intended to ease congressional approval of the requested funds. However, following Richardson's speech and press reports indicating that a deal on a moratorium had already been concluded, Richardson's Russian counterpart publicly denied that any agreement existed.

News of the deal first appeared in The New York Times, which reported February 7 that Russia had "promised to stop" producing plutonium by reprocessing civil spent fuel. The following day, Richardson was quoted by The Washington Post as saying, "We have an agreement in principle. The Russian assurances are strong enough so that we put it in our budget." A reaction from Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov quickly followed. "There are no agreements with the United States on plutonium, there have not even been any official talks to that end," he said in an interview with Interfax published February 9.

Senior DOE officials maintain that an agreement on a reprocessing moratorium had evolved in negotiations over the past several months and was reportedly confirmed during a January visit to Moscow by Undersecretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. However, as a result of the premature U.S. announcement, Adamov appears to have come under fire from other ministries in the Russian government and been forced to state publicly that no agreement had been formally negotiated.

Persuading Russia to stop reprocessing spent fuel from civilian reactors has been a stated U.S. policy goal since President Carter announced in 1977 that the United States would cease reprocessing civil spent fuel. Despite U.S. persistence, Russia has continued reprocessing spent fuel from some of its 29 civilian reactors, as well as spent fuel returned from Eastern Europe, generating almost a ton of weapons-usable plutonium every year.

Through ongoing high-level negotiations, Washington has introduced various incentives into a deal on a possible moratorium. The agreement currently under negotiation, first presented to Russian officials last summer, offers $100 million to fund bilateral threat reduction efforts in Russia (in addition to the $250 million DOE currently spends on such programs), including $45 million for spent fuel storage and material protection, control and accounting; $20 million for joint long-term research on "developing nuclear fuel cycle options that maximize technological barriers to proliferation"; $30 million for new efforts to safeguard military-origin material; and $5 million for research into long-term spent fuel storage options.

While DOE officials remain optimistic that the agreement can be formalized in the coming months, a number of key issues will need to be resolved. Portions of the funding are contingent on Russia curtailing its nuclear cooperation with Iran, but it remains to be seen whether the relatively small amount of aid the United States is offering will be sufficient to convince Russia to cut back its lucrative nuclear ties with Iran, which are potentially worth several billion dollars.

Also at issue is the length of the moratorium. DOE seems to be seeking a long-term commitment to end reprocessing of civil spent fuel. Russian officials have stated that they are considering a moratorium for a decade or two but would reserve the option to resume reprocessing once plutonium-utilizing power reactor technology has matured. It is also unclear whether the moratorium would apply only to spent fuel generated in Russia's reactors, or whether Russia would also have to cease reprocessing spent fuel returned from Eastern Europe, a practice that currently generates significant revenue for Russia's nuclear industry.

According to a senior DOE official, the United States has indicated to Russia that agreement on a moratorium and curtailed nuclear cooperation with Iran are stepping stones to increased U.S.-Russian civilian nuclear cooperation, including a possible international spent-fuel repository in Russia and development of a proliferation-resistant nuclear power reactor, initiatives currently sought by Russia.

U.S., Russia Reassess Reactor Conversion Agreement

Philipp C. Bleek

U.S. AND RUSSIAN officials are reassessing a joint project to convert Russia's three military plutonium-production reactors to civilian use. During a meeting in Moscow with a high-level U.S. delegation in late January, Russian officials expressed interest in halting the conversion and instead replacing the reactors with conventional power plants. They asked that the United States stop spending on the conversion effort until the alternative could be adequately studied, according to a senior administration official. In response to the request, conversion has been suspended and an independent assessment of the cost of constructing conventional power plants is being commissioned by U.S. officials.

After a February 13 Washington Post article reported that Russian officials wanted to abandon the core conversion effort, the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry press service quickly clarified the Russian position in a February 15 release: "Russia is not pulling out of the Russian-U.S. project for converting nuclear reactors producing weapons-grade plutonium to civilian needs, but will choose the option that suits Russia best."

Russian officials indicated to the U.S. delegation that replacing the reactors with conventional power plants would cost an estimated $230 million, most of which would be provided by the United States. The cost of converting the reactors, originally slated at $80 million, has expanded to approximately $300 million, making the construction of conventional plants preferable from a fiscal perspective. Although some senior U.S. officials have expressed doubt about Russia's cost estimate, one senior administration official closely involved with the negotiations says that the $230 million figure "tracks closely with current U.S. estimates."

The original agreement to halt Russian military plutonium production, a major Clinton administration non-proliferation goal, was formalized in 1994 and was originally supposed to replace Russia's three military plutonium-production reactors with conventional power plants. Although it has no use for the plutonium they produce, Russia continues to run the reactors because they generate heat and electricity for the closed "nuclear cities" in which they are located, Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7) and Zheleznogorsk (formerly Krasnoyarsk-26). But the agreement was changed to its present form in 1997, after the United States concluded that constructing conventional power plants could cost as much as $1 billion—a sum Congress was unlikely to approve. Instead, the United States and Russia agreed to keep the reactors online, but to convert their cores from natural uranium to highly enriched uranium (HEU) in order to minimize plutonium production.

The reactor conversion effort, while initially finding broad support, became increasingly controversial, and last December, Russian officials formally advised a visiting U.S. delegation led by Michael Stafford, a State Department negotiator with the Bureau of Arms Control, that Russia was considering abandoning the 1997 agreement.

Russian and American nuclear experts had raised doubts about the feasibility and safety of the core conversion project in the months prior to December's announcement. According to a report by Russian nuclear regulators provided to U.S. officials in September, the three military reactors are in such poor physical condition that conversion could result in a Chernobyl-like accident. Several prominent American nuclear experts, among them Princeton University's Frank von Hippel and Harvard University's Matthew Bunn, both former White House non-proliferation advisors, have also argued that because it is easier to construct a rudimentary nuclear weapon with HEU than with plutonium, conversion to an HEU core could actually increase proliferation risks.

The next high-level meeting to discuss the issue is currently scheduled for mid-March.

Shifting Priorities: UNMOVIC and the Future of Inspections in Iraq: An Interview With Ambassador Rolf Ekeus


Rolf Ekeus, Sweden's ambassador to the United States and former executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), was in the headlines this January when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan nominated him to head the newly created United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). Despite strong support by the United States, his nomination did not receive the approval of the Security Council, whose members finally settled on Hans Blix, former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to lead the new organization. (See ACT, January/February 2000.)

Ekeus led UNSCOM from its inception at the end of the Persian Gulf War until mid-1997, when he stepped down to assume his current post. UN Security Council Resolution 687, adopted at the conclusion of the war, had created the inspection body and charged it with discovering and destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The organization operated until December 1998, when all inspections were suspended following the U.S.-British airstrikes against Iraq. After a year of negotiations, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1284 on December 17, 1999, replacing UNSCOM with UNMOVIC and opening the door for new inspections and the possibility of sanctions relief. (For the full text of the resolution, see ACT, December 1999.)

On February 24, Arms Control Today Editor J. Peter Scoblic and Research Analyst Matthew Rice met with Ekeus in Washington to discuss Resolution 1284, Iraq's weapons programs, the humanitarian situation in Iraq, and the political climate in the Security Council. The following is an edited version of their conversation.


ACT: How would you characterize the differences between UNMOVIC and UNSCOM?

Rolf Ekeus: Resolution 687 outlined two principal tasks. One was for Iraq to declare, and for UNSCOM to verify and supervise the elimination of, its prohibited weapons. To make it more clear, it was a sort of search and destroy mission. Iraq's capabilities should be found and should be eliminated. That was task number one. Equally important was task number two—to establish some monitoring of Iraq's capabilities so that no new WMD [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities would be created.

The new resolution refers back to 687, so the elimination element is still there, but the emphasis is now on monitoring. Resolution 1284 gives the impression that the matter of past weapons, which was the focus of 687, is no longer as significant. The new resolution doesn't indicate that there are any existing weapons in Iraq. The emphasis is on monitoring, and by implication that gives the impression that the Security Council is no longer concerned with existing capabilities but more concerned about Iraq's intentions.

ACT: Do you think the Security Council is right to make the assumption that the existing programs are no longer a threat? Absent inspections, what do we know about the nature of Iraq's activities?

Ekeus: UNSCOM was highly successful in identifying and eliminating Iraq's prohibited weapons—but not to the degree that everything was destroyed. The loopholes in the presentation by Iraq and the contradictions in Iraq's declarations mean there is reason to be careful. Iraq did not make a coherent presentation in the biological field or in the chemical field. There was a slightly better one in the missile field, and there was a coherent presentation with regard to the nuclear program.

Without inspectors one cannot be sure. But there is recent information that gives one the impression that something is going on. First of all, the UNSCOM inspectors have solid knowledge of the structure of Iraq's programs and the personnel involved. They are also aware of what was not sorted out in the Iraqi presentations.

You then add information from at least two types of sources. First, new information about procurement efforts by Iraq. The procurement efforts at least indicate in which direction Iraq is looking: what type of items, what type of equipment, what type of machinery, and what type of commodities they are buying or asking for. You get a pattern of what the procurement efforts are.

Secondly, there have been a number of people leaving the country, individuals who in their earlier activity have been involved in Iraq's program. Useful information has been picked up from them. These are the two main sources.

To that there can be added more marginal sources—overhead imagery and so on. If we take all of these data together and put good analytical minds to work, then we have at least a pattern that could be interpreted by people with experience.

That doesn't mean that one knows enough. In the long run, it is unsatisfactory, and it is a problem that there are no inspectors inside Iraq. But important conclusions can be drawn from the continued systematic work that UNSCOM has been doing. UNMOVIC, which according to Resolution 1284 is supposed to take over the assets of UNSCOM, will have access to all of this. I hope that UNMOVIC is wise enough to take on these capabilities and assets for the new organization.

In my view, there are no large quantities of weapons. I don't think that Iraq is especially eager in the biological and chemical area to produce such weapons for storage. Iraq views those weapons as tactical assets instead of strategic assets, which would require long-term storage of those elements, which is difficult. Rather, Iraq has been aiming to keep the capability to start up production immediately should it need to.

ACT: Given that assessment of the program, should the new organization have a stronger mandate than simply monitoring?

Ekeus: As Resolution 1284 is written, it is possible to carry out both elimination and monitoring tasks. It is just that the resolution is written in a way that gives the perception that one of the tasks, elimination, is not that important. In doing so, the resolution sends signals from the council to the new chairman indicating he shouldn't worry that much about it. But it is definitely not prohibited for UNMOVIC to search actively for prohibited capabilities. It is just so that the resolution stresses a strengthened monitoring system. The chairman will probably draw his conclusions when the first inspectors have made their first rounds.

ACT: As UNMOVIC begins work, one of the biggest points of contention will be the determination of disarmament tasks for Iraq. What do you think they will be?

Ekeus: The members of the Security Council appear to have different views. Some will say the tasks should be written in very general terms, say Iraq shall declare fully its past and ongoing biological, chemical and missile activities. Others will say that is too general. One should be more precise. The Security Council has had the same quarrel before. Even during my time, there were efforts by some permanent members to demand tasks that were more limited, time-wise and quantity-wise. I resisted a specific definition, which was also what Iraq wanted because it would make the tasks easier to fulfill. The problem with being too specific is that during the inspection process you detect new facts—the landscape changes with your investigation—so you can't say when you start out on your inspection trip exactly where it will lead you. With Resolution 1284, the Security Council is trying to force the organization to be more precise.

ACT: Some analysts have argued that in trying to resolve the Iraq situation we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, while others have said that watered-down inspections are worse than no inspections at all. Where do you fall in that argument?

Ekeus: It is important that high-quality, professional, competent inspectors carry out the work. In other words, one should not be sloppy. And the reason why is that we're talking about some of the most dangerous weapons—long-range missiles and warheads with biological and chemical agents. There is nothing humane in being generous to Iraq. You must have in mind the potential victims—there were victims of Iraqi chemical weapons before—the Iranians and the Kurds. So a humane position and sense of responsibility toward human suffering demands that you be strict and firm with regard to these capabilities. There is nothing won in being loose and incomplete in inspections.

ACT: Do you worry that if UNMOVIC adopts a monitoring posture instead of a search and destroy posture, it could generate a false sense of security that could actually be more dangerous than a stalemate in the Security Council?

Ekeus: Iraq has been stating that it has declared everything, that there is nothing of the prohibited capabilities left, that UNSCOM was 100 percent successful. UNSCOM people do not boast quite as much about what we did. We believe we did a good job, but I don't think that we were 100 percent successful. As I said, Resolution 1284 evokes that perception a little. However, I believe that one can do a full job of inspections within the parameters of the resolution, including search and supervised elimination. I don't think that it is correct to say 1284 is only about monitoring.

UNSCOM's monitoring operations, which were extensive, formed a highly effective system and did not really lead to any confrontations with Iraq. Monitoring had a routine character. You went to a facility you had been to many, many times before. The facility was known in detail. The production records were available, the inspectors had a detailed list of machines and machine tools, they knew the personnel, and they came and checked off that everything was normal. They looked upon the input and the output, they looked at the raw materials brought in as to how they had been disposed, and if they saw some new engineers or some engineers missing, for instance, they would inquire.

The confrontations were related to UNSCOM's search operations. Under these, UNSCOM inspected new facilities not declared by Iraq. When UNSCOM wanted to investigate the correctness of statements and investigate mobile capabilities and undeclared facilities, confrontations with Iraq occurred, as Iraq hindered the inspectors. The complaints and the difficulties with Iraq came out of the search and destroy task, while there were relatively few complaints about the daily monitoring.

So if you avoid those type of investigative inspections, you will probably have few problems, suggesting good cooperation, which will give the impression that the monitoring system is functioning well.

It is striking that 1284 says nothing about investigation and elimination. The words "elimination" and "destruction" don't appear at all. The reference to Resolution 687 in the beginning of 1284, however, means that everything is possible—by implication, all the rights and duties are the same—but 1284 is very polite. If it had mentioned elimination, it would have implied that there was something to be eliminated. The resolution is very careful not to upset and is phrased in a friendly fashion. It is not confrontational. Resolution 687 really implied that there was something wrong that had to be bettered. Resolution 1284 has no indication that there is anything missing.

ACT: Given the different tenor of Resolution 1284 as compared to Resolution 687 and given that the unity in the Security Council that existed at least early on in your tenure has disappeared, how is the role of the new executive chairman going to be different?

Ekeus: The chairman will have a very difficult task to start with because Iraq has not readmitted inspectors, so the key is to convince Iraq to allow inspectors to enter the country. And there I hope he will have the backing from the council—you have to recall that three permanent members abstained from voting on the new resolution. But I understand that they have declared that they intend to support the implementation of the resolution.

ACT: The secretary-general apparently considered some 25 or 30 names when he was trying to pick an executive chairman and either rejected them himself or was told by the Security Council that they would not be acceptable. Obviously your name was on that list. Why was it so difficult to find someone who would be acceptable?

Ekeus: This job, as it has turned out, is one of the most important in the international multilateral scene. It is of great significance to the UN's status and its role in the future. A failure would harm the organization. A wise decision with regard to the post of chairman is the first challenge.

But, secondly, the job is so difficult that no one wants it. With other high posts in the multilateral system—the heads of the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Commission or the World Bank—there is a tremendous line of candidates. Governments present their own best names, and they fight to get their choice into that job. With UNMOVIC, there were 25 names, say. Only one was proposed by his own government. Instead, governments pointed to people from other countries. The Swedish government didn't propose a Swede. The Dutch government didn't propose a Dutch. It showed how difficult this task is considered. It's so difficult that you don't want it. There was no candidate stepping up saying, "I would like the job," as you have on all other positions.

It's a special job because of its non-UN tradition, its non-UN culture. Namely, it has an element of enforcement. With the UN, almost everything—even 99 percent of Security Council work—is to serve the membership. For the International Labor Organization or the World Health Organization, your purpose is to help people. You help them with labor, you help them with food, you help them with medicine. What you're doing is positive. Even peacekeeping forces go in because both sides accept the peacekeepers. But UNSCOM was a counterculture operation. You implement and you enforce—that was Resolution 687. Of course, now the hard edges of 687 are taken away with 1284, but still the enforcement idea lingers.

The secretary-general's concern was also in light of the resolution, that he understands how important a successful dealing with the Iraq issue is. And how difficult it is politically, physically and in many other respects. But still it is important to the UN to demonstrate that it can handle this new task, that it can move into the new era that has such difficult jobs. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a threat to international peace and security, and the UN should, in my opinion, have a major role in dealing with this threat.

The secretary-general's step in first proposing such an UNSCOM name was in a sense counter to the style of the resolution. He was trying to demonstrate that he didn't want the new organization to be less than UNSCOM was. Iraq is still a serious problem and must be dealt with in a serious manner. And I think he succeeded. I think people understood that he takes Iraq very seriously.

ACT: Why do you think that your nomination was not ultimately accepted?

Ekeus: Well, it is not for me to identify arguments against something containing my name. I can imagine some arguments that could be advanced. Some arguments were wrong, other arguments one can understand. There were many considerations. There was a new resolution and especially a new organization. Why then go back and take an UNSCOM hat? The nomination of Hans Blix, who was an excellent choice, brings someone very strongly associated with the old UNSCOM, but not totally an UNSCOM personality.

ACT: Would you have accepted the job?

Ekeus: I asked Kofi Annan not to put forward my name. But then he outlined what I just said. He said that it is so important that we succeed. In support of the secretary-general, I would have accepted it if the Security Council went along. But with the nomination of Hans Blix, who did an excellent job as director-general of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and who has also been in Iraq, UNMOVIC got someone who also has been around before and has some battle scars.

ACT: One of the reasons for making Resolution 1284 less confrontational was to create consensus within the Security Council. But France, China and Russia all abstained. Why did they do that, and do you think that abstention is the closest to consensus that the Security Council is going to get?

Ekeus: The abstention was a little odd because since the vote was taken, all of them have said that they support the resolution and that they will assist in its implementation. But I think the main problem for them was not the arms control aspect of the resolution but the link to the lifting of sanctions—it was not clear enough. They wanted to have language that was more distinct with regard to the lifting of sanctions. They had hardly any problem with the weapons part. My conviction is that these three major abstaining states all have serious concerns about Iraq's weapons. The Russian military is concerned—there is no Russian wish to have an Iraq with nuclear weapons. The French are concerned about weapons of mass destruction capabilities in Iraq. And the Chinese, too. The three of them all have a concern with Iraq's weapons. However, they also have a wish to get the sanctions lifted.

ACT: You said that Russia, China and France have said that they will help implement the resolution, but Russia has also said that it's not bound to help enforce the provisions of 1284 and the Chinese have said that, in the end, the Security Council is not going to be able to implement this resolution. Given those attitudes, what is the likelihood that there will be full implementation of Resolution 1284?

Ekeus: Even if you abstain on a Security Council vote, you are still bound by a Chapter 7 resolution. My sense is that their intention is to back it. Then it becomes a question of how strongly. And how much clout do they have in Baghdad—how much will their support matter? We don't know where Baghdad will end up, but it will probably begin bargaining over conditions for entering Iraq, and maybe the countries that abstained can help there.

ACT: So you think that Iraq will work with this resolution, that it will not just flatly refuse to accept 1284, which is what it has done publicly to date?

Ekeus: First of all, I believe that Iraq will accept 1284 after some friendly—or less friendly—persuasion from members of the Security Council. It depends a little bit on how Iraq interprets the idea of working with 1284. There is one distinct advantage in 1284. It takes away the ceiling on oil exports.

But Iraq is still not happy with the sanctions aspects of 1284, which do not speak of lifting sanctions but of suspending them. This will create problems for the Iraqi authorities' ability to plan ahead. The language of suspension injects an element of instability and insecurity. That is probably the major reason why Iraq has been withholding its approval of the resolution. In that respect, 1284 is not better than 687. From an Iraqi perspective, that part of the resolution is more negative than 687, which talked about lifting the sanctions. Now it discusses only suspension.

What is positive from Iraq's view is the softer language on the arms position. But, as I have said repeatedly, it is softened language, but that does not mean UNMOVIC is prevented from doing what is necessary because the references back to the old resolution and to the weapons issues give UNMOVIC considerable rights and capabilities to act.

Iraq is again confronted with a choice: does it get anything for cooperation, and is it worth cooperating if you don't get any positive fallout? If the suspension language is deemed okay by the leadership, Iraq will probably cooperate.

ACT: Hans Blix has said that UNMOVIC will be more of a "UN-style" organization. What does this mean?

Ekeus: I don't understand. UNSCOM was a creation of the UN Security Council after the Gulf War. It was a UN operation. Everything was operated under UN resolutions. The staff was, to a high degree, on loan from member governments. This had to do with not wanting to create a permanent bureaucracy. The Security Council wanted to have an efficient, cost-effective, high-quality operation. The people who came in were contracted by me as chairman and had exactly the same obligations under the contract as all other UN field operations staff. UNSCOM was financed in the beginning by frozen Iraqi assets and later by Iraqi money generated by oil sales. No resources were provided from the ordinary UN budget. And there are still not. UNMOVIC will not see one cent from the UN. Everything will come from Iraqi oil money. The new resolution states that the funding should come exclusively from Iraq—from oil money taken from the escrow account. UNMOVIC is identical to UNSCOM in this sense. So, we can say that it is a UN operation. But one should not say that it is more of a UN operation.

ACT: Earlier you said that the traditional UN culture was more cooperative than the culture of UNSCOM. Could Blix have been indicating that UNMOVIC was going to be more cooperative than confrontational?

Ekeus: Yes. Formally, there is no difference. But politically it can be a whole different thing. UNSCOM had the task to control, supervise and somewhat enforce the elimination of WMD capabilities. UNMOVIC is not directly asked to look for WMD. As I said, the language of Resolution 1284 is the language of no suspicion.

ACT: Do you think that it is important to include current UNSCOM inspectors in the new organization?

Ekeus: It is up to Hans Blix. There are those who are advising him not to take any UNSCOM inspectors, and there are those who are advising him to take all of UNSCOM. I can only say that I know the UNSCOM personnel, and they are of the highest quality imaginable. In talking about how staff is to be recruited, Resolution 1284 mentions experience, which suggests UNSCOM.

ACT: Since your tenure at UNSCOM, there has been an increasing attention to the humanitarian impact of the economic sanctions on the Iraqi population and in the last week, two top UN officials have resigned, saying the sanctions are hurting the Iraqi people. If Iraq does not cooperate with Resolution 1284, will the oil-for-food program and the other humanitarian programs in Iraq be sufficient?

Ekeus: There were a few reasons for the imposition of sanctions after the Gulf War. In 1991, we all felt that it was important that Iraqi oil go back on the market, but on the other side, it was felt that the Iraqis, with their gross violation, could not go on as if nothing had happened.

There was deep concern about the Iraqi weapons capability, and that concern only deepened because the problem turned out to be worse than we had expected. Sanctions were the way to convince Iraq to cooperate with inspectors. Why should Iraq have cooperated with inspectors if there was no carrot and no stick? And in this case it was a combined carrot-and-stick approach. Keeping the sanctions was the stick, and the carrot was that if Iraq cooperated with the elimination of its weapons of mass destruction, the Security Council would lift the sanctions. Sanctions were the backing for the inspections, and they were what sustained my operation almost for the whole time.

But there was care taken in humanitarian respects. Witness the resolutions opening up oil sales for food and medicine. The only problem was that Saddam and the Iraqi leadership didn't go along with it. It was offered, it was presented, it was asked, begged. I really have to salute [former UN Secretary-General Boutros] Boutros-Ghali. During his tenure, he spent several years trying to convince Saddam to accept the system of selling oil to buy food. He succeeded in the end, but the delay was exclusively Iraq's fault. I think it is important to remember that.

Under the sanctions as they function today, Iraq is allowed to sell unlimited amounts of oil, probably even if it has not accepted Resolution 1284. Theoretically, even under the earlier resolutions, it is $5.26 billion per six months, let's say $11 billion per year. But Iraq can get, just by saying yes, unlimited sales, as the market permits. But the thing is that payment for the oil sales goes into an escrow account, and from there Iraq can use money to import with some restrictions. The question is then if you lift the sanctions, and give the funds directly to the leadership of Iraq, does it mean that Iraq will use this for food and medicine for its people? I haven't met anyone who believes that the money will be used for the same purpose as dictated by the UN. And that is the message for those who are critical of the sanctions. They have to make the case that if you lift the sanctions system, the Iraqi people will be better off. That the $11 billion will be used to get food and medicine to the people. That is the problem.

It is a problem to get Iraq back to being a normal country. It is an enormous problem, but in the meantime, it is not humane to cancel the oil-for-food program.

ACT: For years, UNSCOM was held up as a model for what collective security and intrusive inspections could accomplish for arms control. But UNSCOM's use as a model seems to have been tarnished by Iraq's apparent ability to outlast the Security Council just in terms of sheer political will. What lessons can we draw from that and apply to UNMOVIC?

Ekeus: There is a simple reason why UNSCOM was a success. The success was due to the quality of the people and to the political element. So that is how it worked: the combination of high-quality practice methods, high technology, wonderful personnel and science. It was the brainpower, not muscles, plus the political backing that gave results. What in the end created problems was not the professional quality of UNSCOM, but problems on the political side. That is the single, dominant and only reason that it failed.

The unity of the Security Council was the political fact that sustained the UNSCOM operation and helped its success. The failure to maintain that unity undermined it. Now the Security Council members are trying to restore unity. The adoption of Resolution 1284 was a first step. The implementation of it will be the first test.

Interviewed by J. Peter Scoblic and Matthew Rice

Iraq Again Rejects 1284 While Pressures Build on Sanctions

Matthew Rice

AMID GROWING INTERNATIONAL concern about the humanitarian situation in Iraq, Baghdad reiterated its rejection of the UN Security Council's new weapons inspection organization, the United Nations Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC), which was created last December under Resolution 1284. On February 10, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan declared, "The so-called inspection teams would not be allowed to return to Iraq because we rejected spies entering under such cover," according to the official Iraqi News Agency.

The statement was made during the visit of Russian envoy Nikolai Kartuzov, former ambassador to Iraq, who reportedly attempted to persuade Iraq to accept the Security Council mandate. Russia, Iraq's strongest ally on the Security Council, had previously stated that its abstention from voting on Resolution 1284 relieved it of the obligation to ensure its full implementation.

In a flurry of interviews over the next few days, Nizar Hamdoon, undersecretary of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, was slightly more conciliatory than Ramadan. "Compromise will only be done when the council itself gets engaged with Iraq in a discussion," Hamdoon told the CNN on February 11.

UN officials did not appear concerned by the Iraqi statements, noting that Hans Blix, the newly appointed executive chairman of UNMOVIC, has yet to begin work. "There isn't an inspection mechanism up and functioning at the moment, knocking on the door, asking to go into Iraq," said John Mills, associate spokesman for the office of the UN secretary-general. Once Blix assumes his post on March 1, he will have 45 days to submit an organizational plan for UNMOVIC to the secretary-general and the Security Council.

Sanctions Regime Targeted

The profile of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq was raised this month when two high-level UN officials in charge of administering the humanitarian program in Iraq resigned. Hans von Sponeck, UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, and Jutta Burghardt, Iraq representative for the World Food Program, both announced their resignations in mid-February, complaining that improving the lives of Iraqis was impossible under the continuing sanctions regime. Von Sponeck also announced his intention to submit a report detailing the impact of the continuing U.S.-British bombing operations on the Iraqi people. A February 1999 report on the same subject brought harsh criticism from the United States, which accused von Sponeck of blindly accepting Iraqi statistics.

In the United States, 70 congressmen sent a letter to President Clinton on February 1 urging him to "de-link" military and economic sanctions on Iraq, noting that they have "failed to remove Saddam Hussein from power or even ensured his compliance with his international obligations, while the economy and people of Iraq continue to suffer." State Department spokesman James Rubin dismissed the suggestion that the sanctions were to blame. "They should direct their concern and their blame-casting at the Iraqi regime, which refuses day after day, time after time, to spend its hard currency helping its own people," he said.

The United States also dismissed suggestions, reported in The Washington Post on February 25, that the growing international attention and domestic pressure was pushing the administration to reconsider its hard line on dual-use imports. In its role on the UN sanctions committee, which reviews and may refuse Iraqi import requests, the United States has often denied Iraq's applications for dual-use items. "We are working constantly on using the oil-for-food program to provide humanitarian relief…. We will not clear what we view as dangerous dual-use products to Iraq. That policy has not changed; that policy is not under review, as is our sanctions policy not under review," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said.

Missile Defense Program Under Excessive Pressure, Pentagon Report Says

Wade Boese

IN AN ANNUAL report covering the operational and live-fire testing of 161 military systems, the Defense Department called the current national missile defense (NMD) program high-risk and described the planned deployment readiness review as an "artificial decision point." In the report, released February 14, Philip Coyle, director of the Defense Department's office of operational test and evaluation, assessed the NMD program as being under undue pressure, as well as being driven by "schedule" rather than "event." While evaluating program officials as doing an "excellent job," Coyle warned that schedule-driven pressure has historically resulted in "a negative effect on virtually every troubled DoD [Department of Defense] development program."

Despite the program's January 18 test failure, which the Pentagon now believes resulted from a coolant leak, other high-level officials had contended the program remained on track. President Clinton, weighing such factors as the missile threat and arms control considerations, is scheduled to decide this summer whether or not to approve NMD deployment.

An intercept test—the third of a total 19—is scheduled for mid-May. Noting that the last intercept test failed and that the successful October 2 test was aided by a large decoy balloon deployed with the target, Coyle recommended the readiness review allow for a thorough analysis of the upcoming test.

A complete test analysis consists of three stages and takes 90 days, according to Lieutenant Colonel Richard Lehner, spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), which oversees U.S. missile defense programs. However, Lehner said BMDO is "confident that there should be more than enough information" from the May test and previous tests to conduct the review as scheduled.

However, according to Coyle, review "information based on a few flight tests with immature elements will be limited." The report noted that the next test will be the first to integrate all NMD prototype or surrogate elements together except for the "objective booster," which will be integrated in an intercept test in 2001.

Current testing relies, in part, on data from a Global Positioning System (GPS) beacon on the target ICBM to help plan the intercept, as well as assist in mid-range tracking. Though deeming use of GPS data suitable for early developmental testing, Coyle asserted that such methods do not "stress the NMD system in a realistic enough manner to support acquisition decisions."

Coyle assessed the flight tests as being limited in "operational realism and engagement conditions." Intercept velocities safely permitted during tests, Coyle observed, are "on the low end of what might occur in a real ICBM attack." Coyle also suggested testing targets "may not be representative of threat penetration aids, booster, or post-boost vehicles" that the real system would face, but he attributed that shortcoming to insufficient information about the real threat. Coyle also recommended re-evaluating use of a large decoy balloon during testing and noted that no flight tests against multiple targets are planned.

The NMD program will rely heavily on computer simulations and ground testing to measure the system's capability against more demanding threats. Yet the model for conducting the simulations is unlikely to be completed "in time to allow for a rigorous system analysis" before the review, and the current ground testing methods to measure the EKV's lethality cannot replicate the high closing velocities expected in real NMD intercepts, the report noted.

BMDO Still Confident

BMDO Director Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish testified before a congressional joint subcommittee February 16 that the NMD program has been "executed along a high-risk schedule," though he disputed it was under any "undue pressure."

In his prepared statement, Kadish defended the system and the recent failed test, saying, "We learn a lot from our testing successes and failures." In fact, he argued the most recent test demonstrated the X-band and upgraded early-warning radar systems' and the battle management command/control and communication system's capability under "very stressful conditions."

Kadish attributed the January 18 test failure to a "plumbing problem." A leak or constriction in a plumbing line carrying coolant to the EKV's two infrared sensors is believed to have prevented the sensors, which guide the EKV to the target during the final seconds, from functioning properly. Kadish said fixing the problem should not have a "major impact" on the upcoming test.

When questioned as to how an intercept failure in May would impact the June review, Kadish first observed that "our criteria says we have to have two intercepts to proceed because that's prudent to do." He then noted that should "the leadership" still want to hold the review, BMDO would "present what we knew at the time."

Assessing the Threat

Clinton has stated that his deployment decision will rest on four criteria: the system's technological readiness, the status of the threat, financial costs and arms control considerations. Secretary of Defense William Cohen asserted his view in February that the technology is close, the costs affordable and the threat threshold crossed.

Speaking at an annual security conference in Munich, Germany, on February 5, Cohen touted the U.S. NMD to European defense officials, many of whose governments are not supportive of the proposed system, as a way to guard against being "blackmailed." Cohen explained that the United States never wanted to be in a position of not "responding to any threat to our national security interests" simply because a state has a limited ballistic missile capability. He hypothetically asked how many states would have joined the 1990-91 coalition against Iraq if Baghdad could have struck their homelands using ICBMs with nuclear warheads.

Robert Walpole, national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, testified before a Senate subcommittee on February 9 that in the coming years the United States is "more likely to be attacked with weapons of mass destruction from non-missile delivery means" than by missiles. Walpole further stated that countries working on ballistic missiles would develop "various responses" to missile defenses and could develop countermeasures by the time they flight-test their missiles.

U.S. officials most frequently identify North Korea as the greatest emerging missile threat, but J. Stapleton Roy, assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, described the Pyongyang threat as being at a "tertiary level" to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 2. Roy warned that if Russia or China concluded that Washington "was pursuing interests in fundamental conflict with their own," they could respond, respectively, by halting the strategic reduction process or by adding warheads to existing ICBMs. (See news story.)

Russia and China Still Opposed

Despite administration efforts to convince Russia that the proposed NMD system will not undercut the Russian deterrent, Moscow has refused U.S. proposals to amend the 1972 ABM Treaty, which bans both countries from deploying national missile defenses. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters in Moscow after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on January 31 that it would be a "grave mistake" to amend the ABM Treaty.

Though Albright claimed to be "encouraged" by her first meeting with Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding arms control issues, including the ABM Treaty, she subsequently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 8 that "to date, Russian leaders have opposed any modification in the ABM Treaty." Most recently, Russia told the 66-member UN Conference on Disarmament on February 24 that Moscow wanted to "unambiguously state" that ABM Treaty adaptation negotiations with the United States were not being held and that this position would not change.

During a February 17-18 trip to Beijing, U.S. officials, led by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, made no headway in convincing China, which has only some 20 ICBMs, that the missile defense is directed at so-called "rogue" states. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters after the talks that China viewed the NMD system as harmful to global stability, as well as U.S. interests.

NATO allies have also withheld endorsement of the system. French Minister of Defense Alain Richard told a Washington think-tank in a February 22 speech that France fears a U.S. NMD system could "fuel a new arms race" and that the United States should not commit to deployment without first reaching a "satisfactory outcome" with Russia.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon both stated in recent trips to Washington that the British share the U.S. threat assessment. While Hoon said on January 27 that Britain "will want to be helpful," he cautioned that "there are issues that have to be addressed." The United Kingdom and Greenland, a territory of Denmark, are viewed as sites for two of the NMD's five planned upgraded early-warning radar systems.

U.S.-Chinese Relations Strained Over Taiwan

Wade Boese

IN A MOVE that prompted U.S. warnings that any military action would cause "grave concern," Beijing issued a white paper February 21 expanding the circumstances under which it would use force to reunify Taiwan with China. Couched amid statements promoting peaceful reunification, Beijing's new threat caught U.S. officials off-guard because U.S.-Chinese relations had appeared to be on the mend after military ties between the two countries resumed in January. The timing of the paper precedes Taiwan's upcoming presidential election and follows the passage of pro-Taiwan legislation in the U.S. Congress.

Released by China's State Council just days after the visit of a high-level U.S. delegation, the white paper warned that China would use force if Taiwan indefinitely postponed reunification negotiations. In the past, China had threatened force only if Taiwan, which Beijing considers a part of China, declared independence or if a foreign power occupied the island. China did not attach a time frame to its new threat. According to a State Department official, China had previously stated in private that it would not wait indefinitely for reunification, but this was the first time China had explicitly linked that sentiment to the use of force.

However, Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen denied on February 29 that the white paper signaled a change in China's Taiwan policy and claimed the paper was aimed at "urging the Taiwan authorities to sit down to hold talks and negotiations." The white paper said China would do "its best" to achieve peaceful reunification and that force would be the "last choice made under compelled circumstances." China pledged that Taiwan would "enjoy a high degree of autonomy" after reunification and that troops and administrative personnel would not be "stationed" in Taiwan.

The white paper described Taiwan as the "most crucial and most sensitive" issue between the United States and China. While U.S. officials reiterated long-standing U.S. policy that the content of the cross-strait dialogue is a matter for the two parties involved, State Department spokesman James Rubin described the new formulation as "unhelpful" and "counterproductive." Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979 and acknowledges Beijing's position that Taiwan is part of China.

U.S.-Chinese relations further deteriorated last May following NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, leading China to suspend relations with the U.S. military. With a January 25-26 visit by Chinese Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai to Washington, those ties were resumed. The two sides agreed on a tentative program for renewing high-level visits and confidence-building measures, such as talks to prevent incidents at sea.

Military Balance in the Strait

According to the white paper, no country that has diplomatic relations with China should provide arms to Taiwan. Specifically, China attacked the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on February 1, as "gross interference" in China's internal affairs. The legislation mandates closer ties between the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries, including certification of direct secure communications, and administration reports to Congress on Taiwanese arms requests, the Chinese threat and U.S. contingency planning for the Asia-Pacific region.

President Clinton's advisors would recommend vetoing the legislation if necessary, though it is less provocative than a Senate version of the act that authorizes the president to make specific weapons, including theater missile defense (TMD) equipment, available to Taiwan. Administration officials contend the act would raise tensions and, ultimately, undermine Taiwan's security. The Senate, in which support for the act is tempered by senators who back granting China permanent normal trade relations in line with Beijing's pending World Trade Organization membership, has yet to act on either version of the bill.

According to a Defense Department official, the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries currently "conduct informal dialogue" and Taiwan receives U.S. training for "defense articles and services" supplied by the United States. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are governed by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 Sino-U.S. Joint Communiqué. The former calls on Washington to help Taiwan "maintain a sufficient self-defense capability," while the latter includes a U.S. pledge not to "carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan" and not to sell weapons qualitatively or quantitatively exceeding those supplied in years prior to 1982.

Taiwan's pending request for four advanced U.S. destroyers with Aegis combat systems, designed to counter missiles and aircraft, has angered Beijing, though China is gradually modernizing its own navy. During the second week of February, China received the first of two Russian-built Sovremennyy-class destroyers, which will be equipped with the supersonic, sea-skimming, anti-ship Sunburn missile.

A Defense Department spokesman commented on February 10 that "this is a good ship" but noted that the destroyer would "not significantly change the balance of power" in the strait. Last year, the Pentagon reported to Congress that in 2005 Taipei would still possess a "qualitative edge over Beijing in terms of significant weapons and equipment." A follow-up report is under review.

The possible future sale or sharing of U.S. TMD systems to Taiwan is China's primary concern. Washington has not decided whether to sell such systems, but Walter Slocombe, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, said he made clear in the recent talks with Xiong that TMD is an issue, in part, because of Chinese missile deployments across from Taiwan.

China fired missiles into the waters off the coast of Taiwan prior to the island's first popular presidential election in 1996. Release of the white paper may reflect a more measured attempt by China to weigh in on this year's March 18 presidential election, in which the three major candidates, one of which causes particular concern in Beijing, are running very close.

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