07-11-95  POST-COLD WAR WEAPONS SPREAD SPURS NEED FOR ARMS CONTROL



TEXT:

(Non-proliferation is a central U.S. focus) (1225)

By John D. Holum



(The author is director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament

Agency. The following article is adapted from a November 2 speech at

Georgetown University.)



With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many expected the need for arms

control to decline as well. In fact, the opposite has happened.



The bipolar nuclear standoff has eased -- which is not to say it has

disappeared. We are only now extracting its sharpest teeth -- by

formally removing thousands of missiles and warheads under START I,

which went into force last December -- and working to ratify START II.



Meanwhile, the Soviet-American arms race has been overshadowed by a

danger perhaps even more ominous: proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction -- whether nuclear, chemical or biological, or the

missiles to deliver them -- to rogue regimes and terrorists around the

world.



-- By reputable estimates, more than 40 countries now would have the

technical and material ability to develop nuclear weapons, if they

decided to do so.



-- More than 15 nations have at least short range ballistic missiles,

and many of these are seeking to acquire, or already have, weapons of

mass destruction.



-- We believe that more than two dozen countries -- many hostile to us

-- have chemical weapons programs.



-- The deadly gas attack in Tokyo's subway earlier this year crossed a

fateful threshold: the first use of weapons of mass destruction not by

governments but terrorists, against an urban civilian population.



-- Recent revelations about Iraq provide a chilling reminder that

biological weapons are also attractive to outlaw governments and

groups.



-- And recalling the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings,

all of us must ponder how even more awful the suffering would be if

even primitive nuclear, chemical or biological weapons fell into

unrestrained and evil hands.



As I've suggested, this remains a decisive time for strategic arms

control between the United States and Russia. As we implement START I,

both countries still must ratify START II -- which will complete a

two-thirds reduction in the number of strategic warheads deployed at

the height of the Cold war.



Once START II enters into force, we have also been instructed by the

two respective presidents to begin working on the next phase in

strategic arms control -- which I hope will deal directly with weapons

themselves, as well as delivery systems.



Meanwhile, nonproliferation has also become a central national focus.

The foundation for all our nonproliferation efforts is the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, and extending it was this year's

paramount goal. This past May, culminating several years of intense

diplomacy, the Treaty's fate was decided at a conference of all 178

members in New York.



Despite many predictions that the cause was hopeless, our view

prevailed and the NPT was made permanent -- a momentous national

security achievement for the United States, and for all nations.



Following the NPT decision, the spotlight has turned to an arms

control priority that dates back to the Eisenhower administration but

is at last within reach: a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing by

anyone, anywhere, forever.



In August, President Clinton made a decision that brings the test ban

directly within our grasp. He called for a true zero yield CTBT --

with no exceptions, even for nuclear explosions with yields of a few

pounds. This decision gives a powerful impetus to the test ban

negotiations in Geneva.



As you may know, we've had in place a partial test ban, preventing

tests in the atmosphere, and more recently a threshold test ban,

prohibiting underground tests of more than 150 kilotons. But at that

level, development of new weapons can proceed unimpeded.



In comparison, a truly comprehensive test ban will make two major

contributions -- first, to help prevent any renewed qualitative arms

race between nuclear powers should favorable trends change ... and

second, to stem proliferation, by preventing other countries from

moving beyond the most rudimentary devices. The CTB will be a very

serious bar to their getting nuclear warheads down to the kinds of

sizes, shapes and weights most dangerous to us -- deliverable in light

aircraft, rudimentary missiles ... even a terrorist's luggage.



The United States has conducted well over 1,000 nuclear tests --

hundreds more than any other country. The value to us of any tiny

increment in knowledge from more tests is heavily outweighed by the

value of preventing tests by others, including rogue states who could

derive quantum leaps of capability from even a few tests.



Whatever the future holds, the CTBT will make us grateful we locked

all nations into place on the nuclear learning curve. Our nuclear

arsenals have been more than sufficiently tested. Now it is we who are

being tested.



For most would-be proliferators, the tallest hurdle is not know-how,

but the fissile materials -- the plutonium or highly enriched uranium

-- needed to make a bomb.



That is why we want to negotiate a global cutoff in production of

fissile material for weapons -- to at least cap the programs of the

threshold states, India, Pakistan and Israel.



And it is why we are intensifying steps to deal with large, vulnerable

stocks of these materials -- particularly the risk that as the former

Soviet Union disarms, immense quantities of weapons-grade material are

being taken out of weapons. You've seen the press reports of material

turning up in places like Czechoslovakia or Germany.



Thus far we know of no thefts of weapons quantities of weapons grade

material -- but we also don't know what we don't know. This danger

justifies a major effort to enhance fissile material security,

accounting, and controls in the former Soviet Union and worldwide,

coupled with vigorous, cooperative law enforcement, to close down this

illicit trade before rogue states or terrorists get their hands on the

raw materials for a bomb.



The United States must lead this year in bringing into force the

Chemical Weapons Convention, or CWC.



The CWC essentially will oblige the test of the world to do what we

are already doing -- for the Congress years ago mandated the

destruction of our CW arsenal, and that is underway. The CWC outlaws

not only the use of chemical weapons, but their production,

stockpiling, transfer, or even possession by any member state. It has

the toughest verification regime of any arms control agreement ever --

including short notice challenge inspections of suspect sites, both

public and private. It will give us new ways to deal with the 25

countries of concern who now can all produce and stockpile chemical

weapons.



This year we are also negotiating vigorously to strengthen compliance

with the Biological Weapons Convention. Our aim is to safeguard every

American from the terrible threat of biological weapons, by

negotiating in Geneva to harness advances both in arms control and in

detection technologies.



There's space only to mention some of the other important matters

we're working on now: implementing the Framework Agreement to freeze

and roll back North Korea's nuclear program; protecting the

Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty; ensuring that we can develop

highly effective theater missile defenses while maintaining the

benefits of the ABM Treaty; advancing the president's landmines

initiative; and working to strengthen and enforce common export

controls on nuclear, chemical, biological and missile technologies and

equipment.



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