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By Douglas M. Johnston
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (here, receiving honors with President George Bush at the May-June 1990 summit) has told his military leaders that they can maintain deterrence at lower force levels and shift much-needed resources to the civilian sector. But he also must reduce the perceived threat to his nation through arms-control agreements and other means, if he is to hold the military in line. We’d like to appear reasonable, but why should we cut back in an area most likely to require future growth?
The resistance of the United States to anything remotely resembling naval arms control is attributed variously to the Navy’s stonewalling tactics or to the belief that it is necessary to reduce ground forces before moving to areas beyond. For the most part, though, the subject itself appears to be anathema to the Navy. After all, what Chief of Naval Operations wants to preside voluntarily over the dismantling of his empire?
Upon closer examination, however, one begins to wonder if it really is a matter of Navy parochialism. Despite Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s prodding at Malta and Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev’s more recent ultimatums before the Senate Armed Services Committee, President George Bush is unlikely to engage in naval arms talks anytime soon. A look at the respective interests and stakes for each of the superpowers reveals why.
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Soviet Interests i
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nonexistent, and the Soviet Union will become increasingly irrelevant to the 21st century. The obvious need to shift resources from the military to the civilian sector has Provided a strong incentive for leading Gorbachev and his advisers to conclude that NATO is unlikely to precipitate an attack against Soviet territory, thereby making it possible to achieve deterrence at lower force levels.
The Soviet military recognizes the need for economic improvement to provide an adequate military-industrial base for the future. Yet, a pressing requirement remains to maintain strategic parity and avoid the possibility of accidental war arising out of instability at the conventional level. Unless Gorbachev can reduce the perceived threat to the Soviet Union through arms control agreements and confidence and security building measures (CSBMs), he wiU have difficulty holding his military to the new doctrinal line. Accordingly, he will continue to seek political advantage from economic necessity, putting pressure on the West through unilateral reductions and bilateral or multilateral proposals, particularly in those areas where the Soviet Union is facing a situation of block obsolescence, whether it be in tanks or submarines.
During the past 30 years, the Soviets have made proposals to reduce naval forces or their presence in certain geographic areas on more than 25 separate occasions. Since 15 of these have occurred in the last three years alone, one can safely conclude that naval arms control is an important ingredient in the Soviets’ current strategy to shift resources from defense production to civilian applications and modernization of the economy.
U.S. Interests
As the Soviet Union is forced to cut back on defense, the United States is presented with an unparalleled opportunity to reduce its own forces in Europe, while preserving its leadership position in the Alliance. Globally, however, one can legitimately question the need to match the consequences of misguided Soviet policies by reducing one’s own capabilities for exerting influence. This holds especially true for naval forces. As the world evolves toward a multipolar framework, the need for such forces will remain high, particularly with the continued erosion in overseas bases and overflight rights. Although some restructuring of U.S. naval forces undoubtedly will be required to meet tomorrow’s threat, the classic arguments for a global maritime presence and freedom of the seas are no less compelling today than they were 200 years ago. It would be a mistake to treat them lightly just because they have been around for a long time.
Despite compelling reasons for not doing so, it will be difficult for the United States to avoid engaging in naval talks at some stage in the arms control process. First, concern is building over the extent to which the Western position on human rights and other important issues will be held hostage to Soviet allegations of foot-dragging on naval issues at the next review of the Helsinki protocol. There is also the specter of world opinion as the Soviets appeal to the West’s sense of fair play in seeking reductions in naval forces as a quid pro quo for their reductions in ground forces. This argument contains a basic Haw, however. The issue is really one of comparability, not fairness.
Fundamental to the security of both East and West in the wake of a fully implemented Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Agreement will be the capability to mobilize one’s forces in sufficient time to thwart a breakout on the other side. This, in turn, will require a secure rear area, which clearly works to the Soviets’ advantage. For the West, this equates to the unquestioned ability to protect the 4,200-mile sea lines of communication between Europe and the United States (and for the United States proper, secure lines to the Far East).
As the Navy properly points out, the parallel that should be drawn is not between ground forces and naval forces, but between roads and rail lines in the Soviet Union and sea-lanes (and the ability to protect them) in the West. An asymmetrical balance between the two superpowers in which the United States has a significantly larger Navy and smaller Army than the Soviet Union is probably sensible and certainly defendable.
Allied Interests
Another challenge for the United States will be that of keeping the Western Alliance in line during future talks. The position of our NATO allies and the neutral non- aligned countries (NNA) on the subject of naval arms control is mixed. Ordinarily, those NATO allies with significant out-of-area interests of their own (Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and, to a lesser extent, Germany) could be expected to side with the U.S. position. However, aside from the French, who are adamantly opposed to any kind of naval arms control, the others have been somewhat soft on the issue. This may be a result of the fact that the dialogue to date has been dominated by their foreign ministries, who want to be seen as forthcoming. Our Nordic allies and the NNA countries have gone even further, already indicating some willingness to accept constraints. The former are driven by a concern that the considerable naval and air activity in their region will become even more intense as the heavy concentrations of ground forces are thinned out in the center; for the latter, it is largely the absence of any naval tradition or abiding interest in freedom of the seas. Politically, the North Atlantic Assembly is already on record as endorsing the study of naval CSBMs.
The U.S. Position
The U.S. government’s position has been one of uniform resistance to any form of naval arms control. While the consensus remains largely intact, there have been signs of frustration among certain State Department negotiators because of the Navy’s reluctance to provide them with any options. Momentum is also building in Congress for some concessions in this area.
The Navy’s strong resistance to any form of naval arms control is driven by great confidence in its own ability to cope with a Soviet threat at sea, and questionable confidence in the ability of U.S. negotiators (however well- intended) to resist giving away more than they should. The fact that sea-launched cruise missiles, which were to be our hedge against Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) reductions, were subsequently put on the table is cited as a case in point. An additional concern is that the Congress might take license with attempted negotiating positions in its budgetary deliberations, using proposed force levels as new ceilings, irrespective of whether or not agreements are reached with the Soviet Union.
On a related note, there is the argument that the Navy should capitalize on the significant force reductions it is already taking for budgetary reasons (on the order of 100 ships, when comparing current plans with those of several years ago) by negotiating and institutionalizing corresponding reductions on the other side. This line of reasoning overlooks the fact that the Soviets are fully cognizant of our internal processes and astute enough to have already discounted further reductions in U.S. forces. More importantly, it ignores the possibility that we may have unforeseeable unrelated needs that will require us to rebuild at some later date. In other words, why tie ourselves to a diminishing Soviet threat in the very arena in which we are most likely to require future growth?
Regardless of the temptation to talk for the sake of appearing reasonable, there are important reasons that naval arms negotiations should be postponed for as long as possible, if not finessed altogether. Once we cross the threshold of agreeing to engage in such talks, it will become exceedingly difficult to withstand overtures from friend and foe alike to establish exclusion zones or other restrictive measures that will conflict with our longstanding commitment to freedom of the seas. Thus, the long-term consequences are very likely to outweigh any short-term gains.
If naval arms talks become inescapable, however, it will be necessary to construct a framework suitable for such negotiations. Square one would be to determine which Soviet capabilities concern us most and what we would be willing to give up to achieve meaningful reductions. Second, asymmetrical tradeoffs between land, air, and naval forces should be avoided since the benchmarks for measuring relative effectiveness are inadequate. Third, because our maritime requirements are global in scope and multinational in character, insofar as possible all naval capabilities not exclusively designed to deal with the Soviet threat should be placed out of bounds. Finally, we should confine the agenda to those areas in which prospective agreements would not adversely affect our near or long-term security.
To be sure, there are some conceivable agreements under which U.S. security actually could be enhanced, such as negotiating equal levels of attack submarines or eliminating tactical nuclear weapons from surface ships, but there is little reason to believe that such agreements could be obtained at an acceptable price. The Soviets’ attack submarine force, for example, is their navy’s trump card. Reductions there would come very dear, indeed—as evidenced by Akhromeyev’s expressed willingness to trade 100 submarines (obsolete submarines at that) for six
U.S. aircraft carriers. More to the point, it is highly unlikely that the agenda for such talks could, in fact, be limited to our specific areas of interest.
In addition, the jury will be out for some time on the true direction of Soviet policies. The specter of either retrenchment or civil unrest in a country laden with nuclear weapons is unsettling at best. Beyond the ultimate question of Gorbachev’s survival and that of his reform movement, there are the as yet unresolved issues of the CFE talks. For example, the impact of those talks on prepositioned war-fighting stocks could have a significant bearing on the Navy’s requirements for sealift.
We must also keep in mind that the Soviets’ need for arms control agreements in both the strategic and conventional forces domains is considerably greater than our own. Thus, we should not hesitate to call their bluff if they attempt to hold such agreements hostage to our willingness to enter naval arms talks. The fact that Akhromeyev found religion two years ago during his widely publicized visit on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) should not ipso facto compel us to respond to his concerns. After all, those are the very concerns upon which our concept of deterrence rests. Also, the Soviets are likely to continue making major reductions, particularly in naval forces, without significant concessions from the West. Just a short while ago, they were offering to vacate Cam Ranh Bay if the United States would vacate Subic. Yet they now appear to be vacating Cam Ranh Bay without the quid pro quo.
While it may be politically prudent to offer Gorbachev some modest successes along the way to facilitate continuation of his reform agenda, U.S. decision makers must take into account the full range of uncertainties of the future multipolar environment. Even in a bipolar context, no fewer than 187 crises since the end of World War II (excluding the Korean and Vietnam wars) have resulted in the use of U.S. naval power. Whether or not this rate will increase in the years to come is a matter of speculation. With the increased proliferation of high-tech weaponry and so much at stake, we can ill afford to assume that it will not. Put simply, the flexibility to accommodate future threats is not something we should bargain away.
Beyond these concerns lies the reality of an increasingly interdependent world, with its expanding reliance on foreign suppliers. In light of the widely recognized erosion of our defense industrial base, safeguarding these lines of commerce will be more important than ever to our longterm security and economic well-being. Much as the critics might wish it otherwise, on the issue of naval arms control, the Navy’s position and the national interest are one and the same.
Dr. Johnston is Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and also directs the center’s Maritime Studies Program. Following graduation from the Naval Academy in 1960, he served for ten years in the submarine service on both attack and fleet ballistic missile submarines. A former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Dr. Johnston holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, where he was also founder and director of the Kennedy School’s Executive Program in National and International Security. He is presently a captain in the Naval Reserve, serving in the OP-02R Flag Billet as Submarine Reserve Mobilization Coordinator.