October 27, 1999

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: WILLIAM KRISTOL

SUBJECT: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

The Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was Republicans' finest hour in foreign affairs since they won control of Congress. The vote was an affirmation that American security lies in American strength and not in the watery illusions of arms control.

This stand on principle has served conservatives well. They have weathered a storm of White House hysteria and, despite initial assaults in the media, the charges that the Senate acted from petty partisanship and isolationism now lie discredited. The vote has proved a rallying point for those who seek to reclaim the banner of Reaganism.

Alas, some seek to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Arnold Kanter and Brent Scowcroft, two senior strategists in the Bush administration, write today that the Senate's defeat of the test ban treaty has done "grave damage" to American global leadership ("How to fix the CTBT: One easy step to improve the treaty," Washington Times, p. A21). Worried over "the damage we have done to ourselves" and an alleged "international backlash" in response to the vote, Kanter and Scowcroft echo administration propaganda at a most unfortunate moment. The piece serves as a reminder that, in important instances, the distinction between Clintonism and Bush-era realism is a small one, with differences that can be remedied with "one-easy-step" fixes.

But the piece should also remind us that the Senate's vote has drawn the lines for a long-overdue discussion about America's role in the world and a national security strategy to match. These are the lines that Kanter and Scowcroft seek to blur, in search of an empty bipartisanship that would wash away the need for a debate over American power and principles.