Dear Mr. Putin,

Your visit is particularly welcome at a time when thinking on a crucial issue of the age, the avoidance of nuclear war, is in a state of confusion.

A symptom of confusion is that the United States, which over the decades has contributed so much to arms control in general and to the existence of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty in particular, is embracing missile defence and seeking to escape its ABM treaty obligations.

Those of us who object to this development -- the objectors include senior officials of virtually every nation that has expressed an opinion, including Russia and Canada -- are chided for outmoded thinking.

But what is it that is outmoded? It is still true, tragically, that thousands of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are poised, ready for launching at a few minutes' notice, in both the United States and Russia. It is also true today, as in the past, that the most immediate danger posed by these missiles stems from inadvertent use.

For in order that the missiles cancel one another out in the equation of deterrence, there must be willingness to use them. This leads, inescapably, to the possibility that they may, indeed, be used.

In theory, one can nullify ICBMs by deploying anti-missile defences. But even president Ronald Reagan, an enthusiast for missile defences, recognized that anti-missiles must be phased in bilaterally, through negotiated agreements, so as not to cause a destabilizing imbalance. He left unanswered the question, "Why it is easier to negotiate a bilateral deployment of anti-ballistic missiles, of unknown effectiveness, rather than remove the warheads from the missiles?"

There is a temptation to dismiss these as arguments belonging to the Cold War. It would be good if we could eliminate deterrence from consideration. But you know, Mr. President, that we cannot. The U.S. response to your recent proposal that the number of ICBMs on either side be reduced to 1,500 was that their deterrent needs to remain at a level of 2,000 to 2,500. Deterrence has not vanished from the thinking of either party.

In fact, far from suggesting that we forget deterrence, U.S. defence planners insist that the proposed National Missile Defence (NMD) has been designed to leave it intact. And so it has. As presently configured, with 100 land-based interceptors in the United States, National Missile Defence should not affect the balance of terror.

But this is only a part of the story. Planning is under way for a conversion of this "thin" anti-ballistic missile into a thicker one. For once the door is open to a minimal anti-ballistic missile, it will also be open to a less-than- minimal one.

There is a further door that will be opened if national anti-ballistic missiles are deployed: The arms-control regime will have been breached. Arms control has a symbolic importance that goes beyond the systems it limits. The regime that began in the 1960s, curtails, for the first time in history, the freedom of sovereign states to arm themselves, replacing to some extent the rule of war by the rule of law. If we "modify" the ABM treaty (the first of this regime, which specifically forbids nationwide anti-missile defences), we weaken the fabric of international law on which world peace must ultimately depend.

This is not to suggest that international law is static. It should grow and it should change -- but only with the agreement of those affected, the international community. Since National Missile Defence, being a purely national initiative, fails to meet that test, it is out of step with the times.

A proposal which does meet the test is the Putin-Clinton accord, signed on June 4 of this year, which should become more widely known through your visit. It is a watershed agreement in that it commits the United States and Russia, for the first time, to a permanent military collaboration.

The area of collaboration is, moreover, the most sensitive that exists. Starting in about six months time, there is to be a jointly staffed Russo-American agency located in Moscow monitoring, equally, the missile launches of both countries. It will be called JDEC (pronounced jay-deck), the Joint Data Exchange Centre. The Centre will tap into the best early-warning data currently available, in order that each nation is reassured as to the other's intentions.

This level of co-operation brings to mind the story told about the Gorbachev-Reagan summit in Reykjavik, at the time that Ronald Reagan was arguing so strenuously for shared ABM defences. "Ronnie, you make a persuasive case," Mr. Gorbachev is supposed to have responded, "but would you mind going over the bit about who we are defending ourselves against?"

Regrettably, so long as some nations reserve to themselves the right to have weapons of mass destruction, the answer to the question, "Who are we defending ourselves against?" will be "More and more nations." For if there is an irreducible minimum number of nuclear weapons viewed as essential for security by some, then others will aspire to have that number.

No strengthening of the regime of arms control can be expected to withstand that pressure for long. Nuclear weapons are designed to instill fear, and so they do. To the extent that China possesses them, its neighbour India can be expected to seek them, and following that Pakistan. So it has turned out, and so it will continue.

U.S. defence planners are right in fearing the spread of nuclear weapons, and right also in declaring this to be the major threat to their national security. They are wrong, therefore, in embracing policies that undermine arms control.

But we have all of us been guilty of short-sightedness in failing to see sufficiently clearly that there is no level of nuclear weaponry that can be justified for some nations without inviting imitation by others. The level that we must aspire to, therefore, is zero.

Until now, the goal of eliminating weapons of mass destruction has been regarded as idealistic nonsense. After all, it is said, the knowledge of how to make these weapons will always be with us. And so it will. It will haunt us, but, while it remains no more than a memory, it will not kill us.

What is, in fact, nonsense is the notion that over the long term, a few countries who are deemed "responsible" will retain nuclear weapons, while the many who are irresponsible will abjure them. No less absurd is the claim of some brave academics that, amid the ruins of arms control, we can create a stable regime of nuclear plenty in which all deter all. The recurrent outbreaks of madness on the part of one state after another, and of groups within states, over the past century, give the lie to this complacent view.

The impossibility of any other prescription for a stable future led 187 countries, among them, Mr. Putin, Russia and the United States, solemnly to commit themselves, this past May, to the elimination of their entire nuclear arsenals.

How long can we postpone the logical follow-up question: When?

Sincerely,
John Polanyi

Nobel laureate John Polanyi is a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto. He has been involved in the international arms-control debate since attending a meeting on the subject in Moscow in 1960.

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