Impasse Continues

Gromyko told visiting West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher last month that arms-control talks with the U.S. could not resume unless the U.S. removed its missiles from Germany and Britain.

The strong implication was that START, as well as the INF talks, would remain stymied by that Soviet demand. If the Soviet Union is unyielding on that point, there may never be a resumption of serious negotiations.

There are a number of reasons the U.S. cannot and should not remove or even freeze missiles deployed in Europe without adequate Soviet concessions. It was the Soviets who upset the balance in nuclear weapons in the key region of the world covered by INF, principally by the deployment of their triple-warhead SS-20 missiles. Therefore the U.S. and its West European allies are justified in deploying the Pershing IIs and Tomahawks in the absence of a negotiated settlement in INF. Also, the Soviet Union cannot be allowed to veto the implementation of a collective decision of the Western Alliance. Nor should the Soviets be permitted to get their way in diplomacy when they resort to ultimatums and nonnegotiable demands.

The situation in START is different from that in the INF talks in two key respects. First, parity still exists at the level of strategic weapons, and proposals in that area must there fore be seen by both sides as equitable in their impact on existing and projected weapons systems; the "front loading" of Soviet concessions in START is harder to justify than in INF (not to mention harder to negotiate). Second, in START, it is the U.S. rather than the Soviet Union that has been hanging tough with an intransigent and unrealistic position.

Not that the Soviet position should be acceptable to the U.S. in anywhere near its entirety. For example, the Soviet of fer of two years ago to reduce launcher ceilings from the SALT II levels would still permit a threatening proliferation of ICBM warheads. Further, that offer was conditioned on the U.S.

cancellation of its plans to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Had the Soviets been willing to remove Euromissiles from the agenda of START and deal only with intercontinental weapons, their position might have led to an accept able compromise. The result could have been significant though not drastic reductions in their ICBM forces in exchange for limitations on American air-and sea-launched cruise missiles.

A number of authoritative Soviets have privately hinted that the troublesome and, from the American standpoint, un acceptable insistence on banning deployment of U.S. Euromissiles as part of a START agreement might eventually have been set aside if there had been progress on other issues in START. But there was none, partly because the American opening position was so objectionable to the Soviets, and was made even more so by the modifications of last year.

Some American and European officials believe that the Soviets will come back to the table on acceptable terms after the U.S. election in November--no matter what the outcome.

If they are confronted with the reality of four more years of Reagan, along with the reality of more American missiles in Europe, they will realize their stonewalling has failed and negotiate a compromise in INF. At the same time, they will return to START in order to secure meaningful limits on American cruise missiles and other new strategic weapons that worry them. So goes the analysis inside the Administration.

That optimism may be pre science or wishful thinking. A second Reagan Administration might be ready to try to engage the Soviets in a meaningful compromise in INF.

Shortly before the Soviet walkout at the end of last year, the Administration had finally abandoned its zero option (cancellation of the NATO deployments in exchange for elimination of all SS-20s throughout the U.S.S.R.); it was inching toward a reasonable compromise whereby the NATO deployments would be scaled back in exchange for a reduction in European SS-20s, with more lenient treatment for SS-20s in Asia. In the INF talks, the major obstacle was, and remains, Soviet intransigence.

In START, it is just the reverse.

The Soviets have from the outset shown signs of being willing to improve on what the Joint Chiefs called SALT IIs "modest but useful" regulation of the strategic arms race, but they have yet to see an American proposal that meets them halfway. What would be required is nothing less than a whole new American START negotiating position, one that offers more in the way of genuine concessions on cruise missiles and demands less in the way of drastic reductions in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces. The best alternative to surface so far is the State Department's framework approach of last year, with its combination of ceilings on launchers (including bombers) and warheads (including cruise missiles).

Whether a second Reagan Administration will adopt a new, more realistic START policy will be determined to some extent by the President's own goals, but he had laudable goals as a candi date and as a newcomer to office. Given his apparent inability to engage himself in the arms-control policymaking process, much will depend on the team to which he delegates the task of realizing his objectives. His current team is dominated by individuals who have proved themselves unable, or unwilling, to pursue strategic arms control in a way that yields progress with the Soviets or that generates support from Congress.