Freeze No, Deployment Yes

In an extraordinary burst of democratic brainstorming, the American political system has generated hundreds of plans for a nuclear arms freeze, including the one that is before the House. While vague in their details and varying in their language, all convey the same message: enough is enough.

The freeze movement reflects a populist impatience both with the arms race and with the traditional arms control that has failed to stop "the madness." Rather than running faster or haggling over rules for the next lap, say the freeze advocates, the superpowers should simply stop where they are. No more new nuclear weapons on either side, period.

The sentiment is understandable, but in the view of many nuclear experts, the proposed solution is impractical and unwise. While most freeze resolutions call for measures that are "mutual and verifiable," a comprehensive freeze, almost by definition, would meet neither of those criteria. If the U.S. agreed to suspend all production of new nuclear weapons, then congressional watchdogs, Pentagon whistle blowers and investigative reporters would make sure that the ban was observed. There would be no similar self-policing in the secrecy-shrouded, security-obsessed U.S.S.R. Also, it would be extremely difficult for American intelligence agencies to monitor Soviet compliance with a ban on production, as opposed to deployment, of new weapons.

But the far greater problem would be reconciling the simplicity of the freeze concept with the complexities of maintaining true mutuality and stability in the U.S.-Soviet nuclear competition. Despite President Reagan's alarmism about the Soviets' supposed across-the-board "margin of superiority," the U.S. and the Soviet Union are in a relationship variously described as parity, rough equivalence, or "offsetting asymmetries." The Soviets are ahead in some categories, while the U.S. is ahead in others. But parity is not a static condition; it is dynamic. It is subject to shifting trends in areas that on the Soviet side could not, and on the American side should not, be frozen.

For some years, the Soviets have been building up a sizable, potentially destabilizing advantage in land-based, highly accurate, highly destructive ballistic warheads. The U.S. is seeking to preserve a balance by modernizing the land-and sea-based legs of its strategic triad with the MX and the submarine-launched Trident II missiles. The Soviets are constantly improving their formidable antiaircraft defenses. That makes it harder for U.S. bombers, the airborne leg of the triad, to be sure of getting to their targets. That, in turn, makes it all the more important that the U.S. develop two types of weapons: a new, faster, "penetrating" bomber, like the B-1 or Stealth; and cruise missiles, which can sneak in under Soviet air defenses.

Yet the new American weapons--the MX, the Trident II, new bombers and cruise missiles--would all be canceled by a freeze, while the Soviet offensive inventory and defensive network would not be affected.

An even more pertinent flaw in the freeze idea has to do with the prospective deployment of new American missiles in Europe. The Soviet Union brought about an asymmetry with its SS-20 program, and that asymmetry must now be offset by the U.S. NATO has been committed since 1979 to installing 572 Pershing II ballistic and Tomahawk cruise missiles later this year.

There is room for argument over whether the Pershing II and the Tomahawk are the best military answer to the problem, and whether NATO leaders three years ago should have linked their deployment, in carrot-and-stick fashion, to the Geneva arms-control negotiations. But the balance of power includes an element of political resolve as well as military might. The political imperative of following through on the 1979 decision ought to override historical second-guessing, technical quibbles and protest posters in the streets about the deployment. The freeze movement, if it had its way, would probably prevent the Euromissiles from going in--much to the satisfaction of Moscow and to the detriment of East-West stability. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.