Playing Nuclear Poker

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some chance that the US might still stem the adverse trends in Europe and thus reverse the vicious cycle. The U.S. needs its allies to be more supportive of its negotiating position in order for them also to be more supportive of the deployment program. And the deployment program must appear to be on track for there to be any chance of the Soviets' making a deal. But for all that to happen the Administration would have to make up its mind that the zero option has long since outlived whatever usefulness it once had, and that the time is overdue to propose a more realistic compromise that would induce both the Soviets and the West Europeans to accept some new missiles in Europe.

Once he gets an earful from the NATO allies Bush may counsel something to that effect after he returns from his tour of Europe. Another potentially decisive figure is George Shultz. So far the Secretary of State has not mastered the substance of arms control or asserted a moderating influence in policymaking on the subject He has put his top deputy, Kenneth Dam in charge of overseeing INF and START, but Dam, like Shultz, has yet to come to grips with the technical and bureaucratic morass. The State Department is supposed to take the lead in the work of various interagency committees charged with providing guidance to the negotiators but meetings are rarely productive. The officials involved spend hours haggling over minutiae and discussing uncontentious issues. People are afraid to speak up " explains one regular participant. "They're afraid of the right wing."

Shultz partisans insist that in his own quiet, methodical, gradual way he is taking charge. They predict that in collaboration with the new director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Kenneth Adelman, Shultz will eventually not just counterbalance but replace Weinberger as the predominant Cabinet member on arms-control policy. But even if that happens, it could already be too late.

The Kremlin seems to think so. Last week TASS, the official Soviet news agency, was quick to dismiss suggestions of an interim solution as "absolutely unacceptable." With such pro-American figures as Thatcher beginning to qualify their adherence to the current U.S. position, the Soviets probably figure they have much to gain and little to lose by holding out for their own version of the zero option: no NATO missiles at all in exchange for token reductions on their side. Reagan joked last week about that very possibility. The Soviets, he said, agreed "halfway" with his reduction proposal: "They want us to remain at zero."

That is exactly what the Soviets want, and it is an outcome the West should certainly resist. Another, quite different "interim solution" that the Soviets might happily accept would be for NATO to suspend its deployment of the Tomahawks and Pershing IIs altogether as long as the INF negotiations continue. Some West German politicians have floated the idea of a "postponement option" along those lines.

If NATO were forced to postpone deployment, either because of the German election results or a further breakdown in NATO solidarity, then the game would almost certainly be over, and the U.S.S.R. would have won the whole pot. Its negotiators could simply settle in for an interminably long and unproductive talkathon like the Mutual Balanced Force