STAR WARS AT THE CROSSROADS

By Richard Stengel.

At the moment, the Strategic Defense Initiative is a starry vision rather than an actual weapons program. It exists only in the mind's eye of Ronald Reagan and on the blinking computer screens and slide projectors of an array of purposeful scientists. Yet the President's concept of a space-based shield against nuclear weapons--the most radical plan put forward by any Administration since the dawn of the nuclear age--has become the single most powerful force affecting Soviet-American relations. It is also becoming the chief element in an intensifying showdown, within the Administration as well as at the bargaining table in Geneva, over the future of arms control.

Ever since Reagan propounded his Star Wars proposal in March of 1983 as part of a campaign to win support for his defense budget and arms-control policies, the fundamental goals and purpose of SDI have been cloaked in a protective shroud of ambiguity. Yet now, as Congress prepares to decide whether to provide increased funding, SDI is approaching a moment of truth, not because of any scientific breakthroughs or the lack of them, but because a series of changes in the turbulent political and diplomatic atmosphere makes it imperative to come to grips with what is the most important strategic issue of the decade: SDI's role in shaping the future nuclear balance.

Among the events that have raised the stakes for SDI is a barrage of assaults on the arms-control environment from which it emerged. Reagan has announced plans to jettison the limits on offensive weapons in the unratified 1979 SALT II agreement unless the Soviets are more forthcoming on new arms-control initiatives, and last week he awkwardly tried to explain what this posture really means. His Administration is split on how to apply the 1972 ABM treaty, which limits development of antimissile systems, but Pentagon hawks have gone a long way toward undermining any restraints the treaty might place on SDI. Both Congress and the NATO allies are trying to pull the U.S. back from an unconstrained arms race that they fear may be provoked by any tinkering with the status quo. And in the midst of this turmoil, the Soviets have tabled proposals in Geneva to cut their offensive arsenals in return for restraints on America's defensive initiatives.

At a conference in Washington on SDI sponsored by TIME on June 3, the discussions revealed that fundamental disagreements still exist about the nature of the program. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle and Chief SDI Scientist Gerold Yonas agreed that SDI should not initially be regarded as a way to protect the nation's population from nuclear attack, as Reagan has envisioned. The purpose, said Perle, is "the defense of America's capacity to retaliate." Paul Nitze, the Administration's senior arms-control adviser, disagreed. "Maybe it's (Perle's) view," he said, "but I can't see the rationale for it."

Discussing the ABM treaty, Lieut. General James Abrahamson, director of SDI, said that his program might confront "a problem in terms of the narrow interpretation of the treaty somewhere in 1989," two years earlier than previous Administration estimates. Perle declared that a new, looser interpretation of the ABM treaty, one that would permit the development of SDI technology, "is going to happen within the lifetime of this Administration." Although Nitze assented that the less restrictive interpretation was correct, he denied that it was Administration policy to apply it to SDI.

The latest Soviet offer in Geneva may force Reagan to resolve these disputes over the nature of SDI and its role in arms control. At a special session of the two delegations, Chief Soviet Negotiator Viktor Karpov presented proposals that made an explicit connection between reducing offensive weapons and limiting strategic defense programs. The plan amplifies an informal one the Soviets made last month that sought to set limits on America's SDI program through maintaining continued adherence to the ABM treaty. In making their offer, the Soviets have done precisely what U.S. officials have been wanting them to do for months: quietly present a serious plan that contains points of flexibility and possible concessions. "In the past few days," said Nitze at the TIME conference, "there have been a number of indications that the Soviets may be moving to a more flexible position than anything that they have exhibited during the long four rounds of negotiations."

One apparent concession is that in setting a numerical limit on each side's arsenal of strategic warheads, Moscow would no longer insist on counting America's "forward-based" nuclear weapons systems, such as those deployed on carrier-based warplanes and on planes and missiles based in Europe. However, instead of cutting the limit on strategic warheads from the 3,600 they previously proposed, the Soviets now want to include all cruise missiles in the total and set the ceiling at 8,000. Since the U.S. is first and foremost interested in slashing the number of warheads deployed on big land-based missiles, which form the backbone of Moscow's threatening arsenal, this aspect of the Soviet plan is likely to present a problem.

At his press conference last week, the President was guarded about the Soviet moves. But he seemed to go out of his way to sound conciliatory. In answer to a question about a recent speech, Reagan said that he must have "goofed someplace" if it appeared that he had linked Mikhail Gorbachev with Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat and Muammar Gaddafi. The President twice described Gorbachev as "the first Soviet leader to my knowledge that has ever voluntarily spoken of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons." (Not quite: Moscow's long-standing position has been that it would someday like to see the elimination of all nuclear weapons.)

In his attempts to sound accommodating, Reagan further muddled the issue of whether he had in fact decided to abandon the SALT II treaty. The Administration is in the process of dismantling one missile-carrying submarine, thus keeping the U.S. within the pact's ceilings. But it asserted that it would breach the limits late this year, as more B-52 bombers were equipped with cruise missiles. It is possible, however, said Spokesman Larry Speakes, that another submarine might be decommissioned when the cruise missiles put the U.S. over the SALT II limit. Exactly what are you going to do on SALT? Reagan was asked at his press conference. "We've got several months before we reach that point," Reagan answered, adding that he was waiting to see what the Soviets did on arms control. He and his advisers spent the next day trying to clarify his less than explicit remarks. "The SALT treaty no longer exists," said Speakes brusquely. Said a Soviet spokesman at a news conference in Washington: "Actual abandonment and withdrawal from the treaty will affect the entire situation in a most seriously negative way."

Some in Congress who are eager to preserve SALT II point to assessments suggesting that abandoning the agreement could backfire on the U.S. According to a report prepared by the CIA for the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, the Soviets would be better suited to capitalize on the scrapping of SALT II because of two basic advantages: active production lines for manufacturing ICBMs, strategic bombers and submarine-launched missiles; and the greater throw weight of Soviet missiles, which would allow them to be loaded up with many more warheads. House Armed Services Chairman Les Aspin says the Soviet production-line superiority would permit Soviet strategic forces to grow 65% by 1989, compared with 45% for the U.S. The House Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution last week urging the President to adhere to the limits, and legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate to block funding of any weapons that would exceed the terms of SALT II.

Congress is involved in an intense tug-of-war with the Administration over SDI funding. The Administration is asking for $4.8 billion in SDI research money for 1987, an increase of 72% over this year's budget. No way, says a bipartisan group of 48 Senators who have signed a letter asking for a $2 billion cut in money for SDI, arguing that funding should be kept to "approximately 3% real growth." Some legislators are reluctant to fund SDI because they see it as the death knell of SALT II, the ABM pact and arms control in general. Aspin predicts that Congress will freeze this year's $2.8 billion SDI budget. The members of the House Armed Services Committee, he says, rank SDI as a low priority. In the Senate, a subcommittee working on the SDI funding proposal cut $800 million from the Administration request last Friday, with conservative Republican Orrin Hatch joining those seeking more substantial slashes.

In order to preserve funding for SDI, the Administration will have to determine more precisely what role Star Wars will play in the strategic balance. Is it an umbrella against Armageddon, an expensive set of exotic gadgetry to protect missile silos or merely a Buck Rogers fantasy? Could it be the ultimate bargaining chip to exchange for deep reductions in threatening missiles or the catalyst for an arms race beyond the fears of reason? Long before the scientists begin to perfect SDI's technologies, policymakers must grapple with these questions. The answers are essential to the future of arms control, a stable nuclear balance and a secure foundation for Soviet-American relations.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary and Barrett Seaman/Washington