MONDAY’S STATEMENT in Geneva to the Biological Weapons Convention conference by John R. Bolton, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, made news primarily because he named names. The U.S. government, said Bolton, is “concerned about potential use of biological weapons by terrorist groups, and states that support them. So I plan to name names. Prior to September 11, some would have avoided this approach. The world has changed, however, and so must our business-as-usual approach.”
This was very un-Geneva-like talk (at least for modern Geneva) and very un-State Department-like talk. Bolton proceeded to list Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria, and Sudan as states pursuing biological weapons programs that have been and are unconstrained by the Biological Weapons Convention. He took note of the efforts by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization to acquire a biological warfare capability and pointed out the obvious: “Neither the Biological Weapons Convention nor the former draft BWC Protocol would stop biological terrorism by groups like al Qaeda or restrain their rogue-state patrons.”
This passage points to the most remarkable aspect of the speech: Its realism about the limits of arms control treaties. Bolton again: “The United States has repeatedly made clear why the arms-control approaches of the past will not resolve our current problems. This is why we rejected the flawed mechanisms of the draft Protocol previously under consideration by the Ad Hoc Group. Countries that joined the BWC and then ignore their commitments and certain non-state actors would never have been hampered by the Protocol. They would not have declared their current covert offensive programs or the locations of their illegal work–nor would the draft Protocol have required them to do so. By giving proliferators the BWC stamp of approval, the Protocol would have provided them with a ‘safe harbor’ while lulling us into a false sense of security. Although the United States has been criticized publicly–both in the media and by foreign governments–for rejecting the draft Protocol, many of those same governments have told us privately that they shared America’s reservations, describing the draft as ‘flawed’ or ‘better than nothing.’ Do we really believe that a Protocol that would allow violators to conduct an offensive biological weapons program while publicly announcing their compliance with the agreement is ‘better than nothing’?”
This is a remarkably combative assessment of the limits of arms control. It also happens to be perfectly in sync with Bolton’s commander in chief. Here was George W. Bush’s response to a reporter’s question on November 13, at his joint press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin, after Bush had announced a unilateral reduction in America’s nuclear arsenal: “I think it’s interesting to note that a new relationship based upon trust and cooperation is one that doesn’t need endless hours of arms control discussions. I can remember watching the news, years ago, and seeing that people would sit at tables for hours and hours and hours trying to reach reduced levels of nuclear armament.
“My attitude is, here’s what we can live with. And so I’ve announced a level that we’re going to–that we’ll stick by. To me, that’s how you approach a relationship that is changed, and different. And we’d be glad to–and I looked the man in the eye and shook his hand, and if we need to write it down on a piece of paper, I’ll be glad to do that. But that’s what our government is going to do over the next 10 years.
“And we don’t need an arms control agreement or an arms control–let me say this–we don’t need arms control negotiations to reduce our weaponry in a significant way. And today you’ve now heard for the first time the level that I think is commensurate with the spirit of reducing our own weaponry, and at the same time, keeping the peace.”
The arms control realism of the Bush administration predated September 11. But events since then have ratified it. Because of course the corollary to Bush’s statement is one that now would command 90 percent approval or more among the American people: In relationships based on distrust and hostility, no piece of paper is going to protect us. The real way to achieve “arms control” is to destroy the arms that threaten us and their owners with them.
Richard Starr is a managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
