Inviting Catastrophe

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Caspar W. Weinberger's announcement Saturday that he will urge President Reagan to sell more arms to Jordan came as little surprise. For anyone at all familiar with the foreign policy tactics of this Administration, the sequence of high-level consultations followed by the announcement of a mammoth arms sale has become distressingly familiar. After taking care of larger and more pressing accounts--including those of Saudi Arabia. Egypt, El Salvador, and Pakistan--it was only logical that the U.S. would get around to other prospective friends with its enticing platter of highly sophisticated armaments.

The sale of weapons has long been an integral part of American foreign policy. Over the last 30 years the U.S. has exported more than $120 billion in arms and concomitant military services, giving it a market share in the global war trade far larger than any other competitor, including the Soviet Union. On occasion, the exported arms have been instrumental in the defense of democracy, as in Israel. Along with much-needed economic aid, particularly to the many arms-purchasing nations from the Third World, weapons have had some value in drawing nations into the American orbit and cementing alliances.

But of late, the pace of the "death trade" has quickened ominously, going from brisk to frenetic. Repudiating the go-slow policies and moral assessment processes of the Carter Administration. Reagan and Co have made arms sales not merely a part of their foreign policy, but the hallmark of it. This year between $25 billion and $30 billion in weaponry will change hands--a massive increase over last year. Considering that among our clients are El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Chile and the Philippines, it appears that America is as far as ever from being the "arsenal of democracy." It is simply the arsenal.

These policies, of course, result from the heady mixture of myth and fantasy--with but a sprinkling of fact--regarding the Soviet Union that Reagan and his advisors have been sniffing for some time. Yet even if one accepts this naively Manichean world-view, it is increasingly obvious that the great arms grab beg is securing few benefits for the U.S. The $8.5 billion Awacs deal, heralded as the coup that would seal the U.S. Saudi alliance, is already looking like a debacle. Within weeks of the Senate's narrow approval of the sale, members of the Saudi ruling family declared that, contrary to the views of the Reagan administration, their true enemy is Israel, not the Soviet Union. More recently, the Saudis--who refuse to have anything to do with the Camp David accord--have implored Oman to deny the U.S. the rights to a strategically essential U.S. naval base, and have also favored a rapprochement with the Soviets. So much for the Administration's highly touted strategic consensus in the Arab world.

Nor is Saudi Arabia the only country where the U.S. stands to have an arms deal backfire on it. The projected deal with Pakistan, which now awaits Congressional approval, is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Ostensibly for the purpose of strengthening Pakistan's northern border with Soviet-controlled Afghanistan, the deal includes the aircraft that would enhance delivery capability for the atomic bomb that the Pakistanis are currently developing. Beyond simply antagonizing Pakistan's nuclear neighbor, India, the deal would make it that much easier for General Zia to lend nuclear weapons to some of his close Arab allies, like Iraq, if they were in a pinch.

IN HIS ONE YEAR in office, President Reagan has not only transgressed the line of prudence, but left it light years behind him. Congress and the nation must curb this sell-off. The pending discussion in Congress of the Pakistan deal and the imminent proposal for Jordan provide just the occasion for reassessment and reversal. Exactly why the Jordanians need more weapons is one more Administration fantasy that could use clarification; they have one of the best equipped and trained armies in the Mideast and have just signed a pact for $360 million in anti-aircraft batteries with--you guessed it--Moscow.

Even in cases where sales are virtually inevitable but where circumstances are unpropitious, as in Egypt, much closer scrutiny is in order. The percentage of arms exported abroad over the last two decades that have fallen into hostile hands--like those of Vietnam and Iran--is horrifying. It is high time the Administration became concerned about who the eventual owners of these arms will be.

The Administration has shown a great interest in the court ship of allies and the forming of alliances. But there are better ways of fostering friendship than turning countries into weapons stockpiles. Economic assistance, which this year will amount to approximately one quarter the sum of the arms trade, offers the Administration the opportunity of making viable allies instead of arms customers. No American governments should be party to the perversity of Third World dictators, who spend billions of dollars on armaments while their land lies fallow and their people starve.

We deplore the freewheeling approach toward arms sales that the Administration has taken. This vision of realpolitik looks too much like a fool's politik, and the U.S. is setting itself up for disaster. If we do not get duped to the tune of $8.5 billion, we still stand a strong chance of watching a huge amount of sophisticated and lethal hardware end up in hostile hands. Obviously, America will be dealing in arms with its allies and those it wishes to be its allies for some time. But the imprudence of the Reagans and the Weinbergers must now end.