INF: Invitation to Cheat?

Its on the INF treaty are the related issues of verification and compliance. The Administration has expressed pride in the fact that the INF treaty contains the most extensive and comprehensive verification regimen ever agreed to by the Soviets. Unfortunately, the nature of this treaty may actually encourage the Soviet Union to violate its terms.

The list of previous Soviet arms control violations is long and includes breaches of SALT I, SALT II, and the ABM treaty. The President has reported to Congress on no fewer than seven occasions that Soviet violations continue. In his March 1987 report to Congress on Soviet non-compliance, President Reagan declared, “Compliance with past arms-control commitments is an essential prerequisite for future arms-control agreements.” Yet the INF agreement was signed in spite of the President’s certification, expressed in the same report, that “the Soviet Union has failed to correct its non-compliant activities; neither [has it] provided explanations sufficient to alleviate our concerns on other compliance issues.” The President’s independent General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament concluded in 1984 that not only was the pattern of Soviet arms-control violations expanding, but the Soviets actually signed agreements with the intention of violating them. Administration spokesmen, however, have never publicly come to terms with the troubling possibility that this was the Soviets’ intent in signing the INF treaty. Nor is the issue addressed in the President’s December report on Soviet non-compliance, which notes perfunctorily that “a double standard of compliance with arms-control obligations is unacceptable.”

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David J. Trachtenberg

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Its on the INF treaty are the related issues of verification and compliance. The Administration has expressed pride in the fact that the INF treaty contains the most extensive and comprehensive verification regimen ever agreed to by the Soviets. Unfortunately, the nature of this treaty may actually encourage the Soviet Union to violate its terms.

The list of previous Soviet arms control violations is long and includes breaches of SALT I, SALT II, and the ABM treaty. The President has reported to Congress on no fewer than seven occasions that Soviet violations continue. In his March 1987 report to Congress on Soviet non-compliance, President Reagan declared, “Compliance with past arms-control commitments is an essential prerequisite for future arms-control agreements.” Yet the INF agreement was signed in spite of the President’s certification, expressed in the same report, that “the Soviet Union has failed to correct its non-compliant activities; neither [has it] provided explanations sufficient to alleviate our concerns on other compliance issues.” The President’s independent General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament concluded in 1984 that not only was the pattern of Soviet arms-control violations expanding, but the Soviets actually signed agreements with the intention of violating them. Administration spokesmen, however, have never publicly come to terms with the troubling possibility that this was the Soviets’ intent in signing the INF treaty. Nor is the issue addressed in the President’s December report on Soviet non-compliance, which notes perfunctorily that “a double standard of compliance with arms-control obligations is unacceptable.”