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Arms control means threat control; it is defense by other means. For that reason, arms control has become an integral component of U.S. national security policy. Since the establishment of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) in 1961, inaugurating the modern era of arms control, a series of treaties and agreements have eliminated or reduced the threat of strategic nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union, the possibility of major conventional war in Europe, the proliferation of the number of countries possessing nuclear weapons, and the practice of testing such weapons. These achievements and others have made the world a safer place for everyone.

WHERE WE'VE BEEN
The 1960s and 1970s witnessed several arms control successes to limit nuclear weapons testing, stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and restrict their deployment.

Under the provisions of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and other parties to the treaty agreed to ban nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water, thus limiting testing to underground only. The 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty and the 1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty limited such underground tests to a maximum of 150 kilotons. Because of these treaties, the people of the world will no longer be exposed to deadly radiation from unconstrained nuclear tests as they were during almost two decades of atmospheric nuclear testing.

Perhaps the most important of the treaties of this period was the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the cornerstone for many subsequent arms control and non-proliferation treaties. The NPT, which entered into force in 1970, obligated the nuclear weapon states -- the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, and China -- to commit themselves to work toward the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. In exchange, non-nuclear-weapon states foreswore acquiring such weapons. All states thus bound themselves to reduce the global threat of nuclear weapons, without prejudice to their ability to pursue the benefits of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The fact that the number of declared nuclear states today, five, is the same as when the treaty went into force more than a quarter of a century ago demonstrates the success of the NPT in stemming proliferation. As of September 1997, only five nations -- Brazil, Cuba, India, Israel, and Pakistan -- remain outside the NPT regime. Brazil has recently pledged to ratify the NPT in the near future.

Great progress was also made in banning the deployment of nuclear weapons by the establishment of "nuclear-weapon-free zones" (NWFZ) in space, under water, and in certain geographic regions, now covering more than half of the Earth's land area.

Parties to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty agreed not to place in orbit around the Earth, install on the moon or any other celestial body, or otherwise station in outer space nuclear or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction. The entry into force of the Seabed Treaty in 1972 meant its parties could not use the seabed as a new environment for military installations, including those capable of launching nuclear weapons. Finally, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco established the precedent of creating nuclear-weapon-free zones on the surface of the Earth itself. The Antarctic Treaty demilitarized the Antarctic Continent, while the Treaty of Tlatelolco obligated Latin American parties not to acquire or possess nuclear weapons and not to permit the storage or deployment of nuclear weapons on their territories by other countries. The cumulative effect of these and subsequent treaties, such as the 1986 Treaty of Rarotonga, which created a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific, and the 1996 Treaty of Pelindaba, which establishes an NWFZ for Africa, is to place more than 100 of the world's nations in legally binding NWFZ arrangements. The five declared nuclear weapon states have committed themselves to supporting these treaties.

A watershed in arms control was reached in the late 1960s as the emphasis shifted from limiting nuclear testing to controlling the weapons themselves. Over the next quarter of a century, major nuclear and conventional arms control treaties entered into force, ultimately creating a much more stable and secure world than had existed during the Cold War.

The 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) Interim Agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union froze existing aggregate levels of both superpowers' strategic nuclear missile launchers and submarines. A complementary agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, permitted the two nations only two ABM system deployment areas (subsequently amended to one site each), so restricted and so located that they could not provide a nationwide ABM defense or become the basis for one. Taken together, the SALT Interim Agreement and the ABM Treaty guaranteed that neither superpower could attack the other without suffering a retaliatory strike, which would destroy the attacker. The 1979 SALT II Treaty, which did not enter into force but was nonetheless observed by both sides, would have set restraints on strategic bomber aircraft, as well as strategic ballistic missiles.

The reversal of the nuclear arms race began in 1987 when the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the first treaty to enter into force that actually resulted in the elimination of, rather than placing limits on or "freezing," nuclear weapon systems. Under INF, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate and ban for all time an entire class of nuclear weapon systems: all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, covering more than 2,500 such missiles. INF also initiated the most stringent verification regime of any arms control treaty up to that time, including short-notice, intrusive, on-site inspections.

Reversal of the strategic nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union began in 1991 with the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The treaty, which entered into force in 1994, is reducing significantly American and Russian strategic nuclear delivery vehicles -- i.e., land- and sea-based missiles and heavy bombers -- and will remove from deployment more than 9,000 strategic nuclear warheads. The 1993 START II Treaty, once it enters into force, will remove another 5,000 weapons.

A historic breakthrough in conventional arms control occurred in 1990, when the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the then Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, signed the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. This landmark treaty set equal ceilings on key armaments deployed in Europe between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ural Mountains -- tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery pieces, attack helicopters, and combat aircraft -- considered essential for initiating a surprise attack. CFE also provided for phased reductions of treaty-limited equipment over three years, and for periodic exchanges of detailed information on military forces, as well as for intrusive, short-notice, on- site inspections.

A related treaty, based upon a U.S. initiative, is the Open Skies Treaty, signed by 25 European states, Canada, and the United States in 1992 to promote transparency of military forces and activities among them. The treaty establishes a regime of unmanned aerial observation flights over the entire territory of its member states, covering the area from Vancouver to Vladivostok. The treaty has been ratified by most signatories (including the United States), and its entry into force awaits only ratification by Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.

WHERE WE ARE
In general, once an arms control treaty enters into force, several years are allotted for full implementation of its provisions. In the last decade of the 1990s, therefore, we have harvested the rich crop of previous arms control successes, while trying to address the increasing threat to world peace and security from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means for delivering them.

The United States and Russia signed the START II Treaty in January 1993, and the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification in January 1996. Once Russia ratifies the treaty and it enters into force, START II, in combination with START I, will eliminate bombers and missiles that carried more than 14,000 American and Russian nuclear warheads. Full implementation of both treaties will increase strategic stability by eliminating all intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin have agreed to go forward with negotiation of a START III agreement, once the Russian Duma ratifies START II.

The ABM Treaty continues to play an essential role in providing for continued reductions of strategic offensive arms. The United States and Russia are committed to maintaining the viability and effectiveness of the ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability. At the same time, both nations recognize that the emerging threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles to rogue or unfriendly states necessitates that the two countries be permitted to develop and deploy effective theater missile defenses (TMD) that do not threaten either side's strategic forces and are in compliance with the ABM Treaty. To fulfill these complementary goals, the United States has been negotiating the related issues of succession of the states of the former Soviet Union to the treaty and the demarcation between ABM systems, which are limited by the treaty, and TMD systems, which are not limited. Once this demarcation is firmly established in international law, parties to the ABM Treaty will be able to develop and deploy highly effective TMD systems without threatening the retaliatory capability of strategic forces.

Early in the 1990s, independent unilateral decisions by the United States and the Soviet Union to dismantle thousands of short-range tactical nuclear weapons complemented the reductions of START I and START II. The United States is dismantling up to 2,000 nuclear weapons a year, the highest rate now physically possible. Both the United States and Russia are dismantling weapon systems well ahead of the schedule established under START I. Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine have turned over thousands of warheads to Russia for dismantling; today, these three nations are free of nuclear weapons.

Through funding provided by the Nunn-Lugar program (so named because it was proposed by former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Richard Lugar, and known also as the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program), the United States has helped the Russian Federation and the New Independent States to transport, safeguard, and destroy their nuclear weapons and to build national systems to secure and safeguard weapons-usable fissile material.

The nuclear arms race is over. With the realization of the CFE Treaty reductions in 1995, European security has improved dramatically. By eliminating more than 51,000 items of treaty-limited equipment and conducting over 2,400 on-site inspections, the 30 members of the treaty have largely removed the threat of armed conflict in Europe, a major issue in East-West relations during the Cold War. Promising negotiations continue to "adapt" the treaty to Europe's dramatically changed security environment.

With the end of the Cold War, the powderkeg of Europe -- the Balkans -- exploded once again, with four years of horrendous violence. However, our experience of conventional arms control in Europe enabled the United States to add an arms control component to the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, which brought about a cease-fire and a structure for peace. This endeavor, integrating arms control with regional crisis management and conflict resolution, may well be a model for other crises or regions.

The conventional weapons being destroyed under the CFE Treaty are not the only ones that pose a threat to world peace. It is estimated that more than 25,000 people a year are maimed or killed by anti-personnel land mines (APL) left behind after regional conflicts have ended. In 1996, the United States led the Convention on Conventional Weapons in producing a series of amendments that, if observed, will dramatically reduce the loss of civilian life from these weapons. The next step: to negotiate a worldwide total ban on anti-personnel land mines. Meanwhile, the United States continues its own moratorium on the production and transfer of APL and urges other nations to join it.

Although the Cold War is over, and with it the threat of a nuclear Armageddon, the world remains a dangerous place because of the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. U.S. arms control and non-proliferation efforts are meeting this threat successfully.

U.S. diplomacy played a critical role in May 1995 in securing the indefinite extension without conditions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- the cornerstone of U.S. efforts to control nuclear proliferation. In 1994, the United States defused a crisis situation on the Korean Peninsula, caused by North Korea's threat to withdraw from the NPT. Under an Agreed Framework signed by the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in October of that year, North Korea's nuclear program, now under international inspection, has been frozen and is to be dismantled.

On September 24, 1996, President Clinton joined the overwhelming majority of the world's leaders in signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) -- for the United States, the hardest fought, longest sought arms control and disarmament objective. We are doing everything possible to see that all nations of the world sign and ratify this treaty. This treaty will ensure that there will not be another qualitative arms race and will also restrain proliferation by denying aspiring proliferators the ability to refine their weapons and make them easier to deliver.

Terrorists' use of poison gas against Japanese subway riders in March of 1995 dramatized the need to eliminate the threat from these indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction. The challenge posed by the need to destroy poison gas stockpiles possessed by sovereign nations is equally momentous. Fortunately, the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, a path-breaking global norm that entered into force in April 1997, outlaws chemical weapons entirely. In addition, the convention makes chemical weapons more difficult to make and easier to trace, and it offers new ways for dealing with the more than 20 countries of concern that, without the CWC, can legally produce and stockpile chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, CW destruction is under way. The United States is destroying its 30,000-ton stockpile by incineration. Destroying the Russian Federation's 40,000- ton declared stockpile will be a major task. Russia is tackling many of the particulars that will be critical to the eventual success of its destruction effort.

WHERE WE'RE GOING
In fulfillment of the rule that no blessing can be absolute, disarmament also has its downside. As we reduce some dangers by dismantling weapons, we add to others because the fissile materials we remove have to go somewhere -- and that destination may not be secure.

There are four essential elements in a global approach to reducing this aspect of the Cold War's legacy. First, states must work cooperatively to stop nuclear smuggling in its tracks and to ensure that all weapons-usable nuclear materials are secure and accounted for. In June 1996, at a nuclear summit in Moscow, participating states agreed on a "Programme for Preventing and Combating Illicit Trafficking in Nuclear Material," to ensure increased cooperation in all aspects of prevention and detection, exchange of information, investigation, and prosecution. The summit also reaffirmed every state's fundamental responsibility to ensure, at the national level, the security of all nuclear materials in its possession -- which includes effective systems of nuclear material accounting and control, as well as physical protection.

Second, states must work together to build security through transparency. Effective verification regimes influence compliance by all parties with the requirements of arms control agreements. Such measures as data exchanges and mutual inspections will build confidence in the irreversibility of arms reductions and in secure control of warheads and fissile materials. Transparency is not an altruistic option, but a practical necessity -- building security by letting others know that there are not unseen threats to be answered. Uncertainty about the ultimate disposition of fissile materials from dismantled weapons must never be an impediment to the prompt completion of nuclear reductions.

Third, we must do everything in our power to prevent excess stockpiling of fissile materials. We should pursue a fissile material cutoff treaty, to cut off production of highly enriched uranium or plutonium and thus cap the amount available for weapons. The growing accumulation of separated civilian plutonium around the world poses proliferation risks of its own. The United States believes that each nation -- whatever its fuel-cycle choices -- should not accumulate excess stockpiles and should begin reducing these stockpiles over time. The Moscow nuclear summit agreement is heartening in that, at least in the context of managing excess weapons material, the aim is to reduce all stocks of separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium through peaceful, nonexplosive use or safe and final disposal as soon as practicable.

Fourth, we need to dispose of excess plutonium and highly enriched uranium -- both to confirm that arms reductions will never be reversed and to ensure that this material will never fall into the wrong hands. The United States strongly supports the Moscow summit decision to initiate broad multilateral cooperation to dispose of excess fissile materials. All long-term disposition options are being examined evenhandedly -- taking into account non-proliferation, safety, technical, environmental, and economic factors.

In a September 24, 1996, address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Clinton outlined six U.S. arms control and non-proliferation goals -- in addition to bringing the test ban into force -- to further curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reduce the dangerous legacy of the Cold War weapons stockpiles.

Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC):
The Clinton administration urged the U.S. Senate to consent to the CWC to protect Americans from chemical attack by rogue states and terrorists by helping ban poison gas from the earth. The United States also calls upon other nations to sign and ratify the treaty without delay.

Fissile Material Cutoff:
The United States will press for the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to begin negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty that would end forever the production of these materials for nuclear weapons. This nondiscriminatory ban would add momentum to efforts to cap global stocks of these deadly materials and help fulfill the promise of the 1995 NPT Extension and Review Conference.

Further Reductions in Nuclear Forces:
The United States urges the Russian Duma to ratify START II. At the same time, President Clinton reaffirmed the U.S. intent to begin discussions with Russia on the possibility of further reductions in nuclear forces, including limitations on and monitoring of warheads and fissile materials, as soon as START II enters into force.

Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT):
The United States will push for full compliance with the NPT and strengthened tools -- including new International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards measures such as environmental sampling and access to undeclared facilities -- needed to assure compliance. The United States also urges all nations that have not signed the NPT to do so without delay.

Biological Weapons Convention (BWC):
The United States seeks to strengthen the means to monitor and verify compliance with the BWC through such measures as mandatory declarations and on-site inspections.

Anti-Personnel Land Mines:
The United States will press for swift negotiation of a worldwide ban on the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel land mines.

In addition, the United States continues to press ahead on conventional arms control and confidence- and security-building measures.

The CFE Treaty remains the cornerstone of European security and a model for conventional arms control in other regions. According to the mandate of the 1996 CFE Review Conference, which assessed the operation and implementation of the treaty during its first five years, its 30 members have begun a process of adapting the treaty to the requirements of the post-Cold War era. In their ongoing effort to adapt the CFE Treaty to the requirements of the 21st century, the United States and its NATO allies will ensure that the treaty continues to promote security and stability in Europe. Also, the United States will continue its efforts to bring about military stability at lower levels of forces in Bosnia and the entire region of Southeastern Europe.

Finally, the United States is intensifying efforts to develop, foster, and support regional confidence- and security-building measures in Eurasia, the Middle East, the Asia/Pacific region, Latin America, and Africa. Regional arms control has become increasingly important in the post-Cold War world as we enter a new international security environment marked by regional instability and tensions generated by political, military, ethnic, and religious antagonisms. One way to enhance U.S. national security and regional stability is to promote adoption of arms control measures worldwide. This is a significant area of future arms control efforts by countries affected by such tension. Such efforts will reduce tension, promote or maintain peace, and remove incentives for arms races or development of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.

THE CHALLENGES AHEAD
The United States has an ambitious agenda. But given the challenges the world faces, an agenda any less ambitious would be less than responsible. We all must do everything we can to ensure that what had been our weapons of last resort become the least accessible weapons in the world.

With the Cold War's passing, each nation faces the same conundrum: how best to transform the people, technologies, enterprises, facilities, and entire communities that had been great assets to our defense complexes into assets highly valued once more -- only now in the civilian sector, in a competitive world economy. Such transformations can be painful -- affecting lives and livelihoods, neighbors and neighborhoods alike. But they are necessary steps on the path to greater prosperity.

Our arms control successes have made the world safer. The overriding reality remains, however, that we still live in a dangerous world, one still bristling with overarmament and the persistent danger of proliferation by rogue regimes and terrorists.

The U.S. effort to deal with this threat includes pressing for compliance with international and domestic nonproliferation norms, taking steps to reduce motives for and otherwise impede acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and missiles, and implementing appropriate remedies to prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union.

Our goals are important, and despite great obstacles we are taking long strides to meet them. This is no time for retreat.

The Berlin Wall is long since down. Our consciences call us now to take down as well those weapons of mass destruction that are just as much artifacts of an era that has passed into history. We must render them equally unusable, once and for all.