THE SPECTATOR
SUMMIT PROSPECTS
The British government, in common with several others in Western Europe, is at present bracing itself for a possible announcement that a Reagan-Gorbachev summit will be held before the end of the year. For any such summit, at Soviet insistence, will only be held if it is possible for the two leaders to sign a treaty on Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF). And such a treaty, particularly if it is hastily prepared, could leave Nato with some intractable problems and perhaps bitterly divided.
Of the two leaders it is probably Presi- dent Ronald Reagan who seems under the greater pressure to secure an early summit. For, in the wake of the Irangate scandal, he desperately needs to be able to claim a spectacular achievement before his pres- idency assumes full lame-duck status in the electioneering year of 1988. Yet the prize may easily elude him. True, he received a recent timely boost when Helmut Kohl was prevailed upon to fall in with Soviet demands that West German-owned Per- shing 1-As be included in any super- powers' INF deal. But there still remain serious doubts about the prospects.
Above all, the entire verification regime for the double zero plan still remains to be negotiated. The potential problems should not be underestimated. For the US Senate (where a two-thirds majority for any treaty is of course necessary) has traditionally insisted that stringent on-site inspection be required in any case of arms control where so-called national technical means (i.e. overhead satellites) cannot be guaranteed to provide assurance against cheating. And Intermediate Nuclear Forces are sufficient- ly small that it is at least arguable that the number to be destroyed has not been adequately recorded by satellite. Fortu- nately for Reagan, however, the Soviets seem to have undergone a genuine conver- sion on this point and may prove willing to allow whatever number of annual on-site challenges is deemed necessary to allay US Senate fears.
Solving this aspect of the verification problem, however, may only succeed in creating a no less formidable obstacle. For what if the Soviets see fit to insist that the annual on-site challenges to which they would be entitled must cover not only US national territory but also Great Britain, West Germany, Italy and the Low Coun- tries? After all, it is in these latter countries that the US cruise missiles and Pershing 2s have been recently stored. What, then, could be more reasonable than that the Soviets should ask whether the Americans might have introduced more such missiles than the former Nato agreements required and that they should accordingly propose that challenge on-site inspections should apply to the Nato (and Warsaw Pact) host countries no less than the superpowers? Superficially plausible though it may seem, such a Soviet line would almost certainly wreck Reagan's plans for an early summit (or rather for any summit at all during his presidency). For at least the British gov- ernment (and possibly other Nato host governments as well) will surely resist demands to give the Soviets carte-blanche to visit any defence-sensitive place they wish on the pretext that they suspect American cruise missiles are hidden there. The appropriate response would be for the Western Europeans to insist that the Soviets must know how unlikely it is that democratically accountable governments would have collectively connived at sys- tematic cheating. Hence they could argue that the Soviets should be satisfied with visiting only the designated US missile sites to witness the dismantling or removal of the publicly stated number of missiles.
This is, however, a line that some West European governments might have diffi- culty in sustaining in the face of both domestic and American pressures. True, the Italians could be expected to take a vigorous line against extensive intrusive inspection — particularly as they are known to have insisted from the outset that US cruise missiles should not be stationed on their mainland territory but should be confined to the island of Sicily. But their Netherlands and Belgium would be espe- cially vulnerable to the activities of the respective peace movements and West Germany's dependence on Washington seems to be growing at a time when Western Europe is showing some signs of flirting with Gaullist assumptions.
In Mrs Thatcher's case, however, she is well placed simply to refuse point blank to discuss the matter further. She could reasonably cite as grounds Great Britain's independent nuclear weapon status which could not be compromised in any way by a mere superpower INF agreement. This would leave Moscow and Washington with a relatively straightforward choice of call- ing off their deal or making appropriate modifications with some loss of face and unpredictable consequences for the Senate ratification process. But Mrs Thatcher has another rather tempting option. She could agree in principle to consider Soviet de- mands for intrusive inspection but insist on a British voice in the negotiations over the details. This condition, if met, would almost certainly be fatal for Reagan's hopes of a summit. For once at the negotiating table British delegates might try to introduce new and complicating `linkages'; and even if they seemed too blatant they could surely cause endless delays by tactics which are second nature to any competent diplomat.
The fate of Reagan's summit, then, may turn decisively on the degree of single- mindedness on the INF issue possessed by the Soviet Union. The summit and the INF Treaty will, in short, come about if Mos- cow is prepared to go to whatever lengths are necessary to satisfy both the Senate and Mrs Thatcher on verification. That will probably mean much more far-reaching provision for American inspection of the territory of the Soviet Union than for the Soviet inspection of British territory. Perhaps this will turn out to be Moscow's ultimate line. But so far the evidence is that the Soviets have difficulty in resisting the temptation to play off Nato allies against each other.
Our expectation is that we shall soon hear Soviet proclamations that Great Bri- tain is standing in the way of an INF Treaty. But we also believe and hope that Mrs Thatcher is made of sterner stuff than Mr Kohl (and, unlike him, she has of course an unassailable position in Parlia- ment). And if the result is the collapse both of the INF Treaty and of president Reagan's self-serving summit we further believe that most of the Nato elite will breathe a collective sigh of relief.
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