Just in time for next week's White House summit between President Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Washington and Moscow seem to be on the verge of a big breakthrough toward a major reduction in nuclear weapons.
But don't start cheering yet.Even though both sides generally agree on a 50 percent reduction beyond the lower levels already provided in the new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty - or START - sharp differences remain over the composition of the cuts. The Russians want the United States to start whittling down its arsenal of submarine-carried warheads. The Bush administration wants Moscow to concentrate cutbacks among long-range missiles with multiple warheads.
As usual, many congressional leaders want the White House to settle for what it can get now, then keep negotiating for further nuclear-arms reductions later.
Up to a point, that's good advice. The United States can afford to be generous now because Washington is generally conceded to have gotten the best of the START pact with Russia. The further reduction now being contemplated - to only 4,700 warheads on each side - would still leave the American arsenal with plenty of deterrent power. Moreover, there are limits to how far and fast Yeltsin can go toward further nuclear cutbacks without angering the Russian military and risking a coup that could derail the drive to make the former Soviet Union more free.
But the fact remains that the Russians agreed to the historic de-escalation of the arms race already embodied in the START pact not because Moscow decided to be generous. Rather, this progress was achieved because Washington held firm to its arms-control objectives while the Soviet economy went bankrupt.
Still another indisputable fact is that multiple-warhead weapons are more destabilizing than single-warhead weapons because they give an advantage to the side undertaking a first strike.
This situation poses a delicate challenge for American arms-control negotiators. They should take as much time as needed to make sure any new pact at least takes a significant step toward eventual reduction of multiple warheads, even if that means agreement must wait until after next week's Bush-Yeltsin summit. At the same time, they must not let the arms talks lose momentum just when negotiations are on the verge of delivering cutbacks after just months of negotiations, rather than years.
One way for Washington to help maintain this momentum would be to call at least a temporary halt to underground tests of U.S. nuclear weapons. Russia already has halted such tests. So has France. Congress is on the verge of requiring a one-year moratorium on U.S. tests. Instead of waiting for Congress to tie its hands, the White House should take the initiative on the moratorium, which would save money besides showing Moscow that the United States does not intend to keep developing nuclear weapons technology.
Some such demonstration of good faith may be necessary if the Russian military is to be convinced that Yeltsin can keep negotiating arms reductions with the United States without sacrificing national security. Besides, Americans can't expect a long list of other nations to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons if we insist on endless tests ourselves.