By Joseph Cirincione *
June 6, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Among other things, the decision by Vermont Sen. James Jeffords to leave the Republican Party, thereby turning control the Senate over to the Democrats, means that President Bush will face increased resistance to his policies on missile defense, arms control treaties, relations with China, cooperation with Russia, and nuclear weapons.
But this is not necessarily a defeat for the president. The moderating influence created by the new Democratic majority in the Senate could, oddly enough, produce political wins for Bush. The resulting policies could garner strong public approval, just as they did for former President Ronald Reagan in his second term and former President George Bush.
During the first four months of the Bush presidency, hard-line conservatives both within the administration and Congress have controlled the discussions. This has resulted in an agenda dominated by talk of trashing treaties and deploying new weapon systems instead of emphasizing the dramatic reductions the president is planning in strategic nuclear forces.
The president's nuclear policy speech last month did not inspire
with its new
vision but rather stirred international apprehensions. The news
is grim from senior officials returning from consultations with
U.S. allies around the globe. They found little support and significant
opposition to deploying missile defenses and abrogating the current
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty..
But the new Senate could rescue the president from this looming
policy disaster. With Democratic such as Tom Daschle as Majority
Leader, Carl Levin as chairman of the
Armed Services Committee and Joseph Biden as chair of the Foreign
Relations
Committee, the Senate is likely to be less enthusiastic about
deploying an untested missile-defense systems and more supportive
of programs designed to reduce existing nuclear stockpiles in
Russia and the U.S.
These senators are more likely to push the administration towards diplomatic resolutions to proliferation threats and allied cooperation, rather than unilateral U.S. action. This could encourage, for example, new talks with North Korea to end that nation's missile program, even as research continues on missile-defense programs.
In the new Senate, one can expect more investigative hearings, livelier debates, more Democrat-inspired policy alternatives and more funding for non-proliferation programs, particularly concerning cooperative threat- reduction programs with Russia (although departing Budget Committee chairman Pete Dominici was already a key supporter of these programs). The atmosphere should be more favorable for consideration of new arms-control agreements, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (although it's still up to the president to submit such a measure for ratification).
History shows that Republican presidents serving with Democratic Congresses have produced most of the treaties and agreements that form today's non-proliferation regime. Sen. Jeffords' decision has shifted the political correlation of forces from the least favorable for non-proliferation policies to the most favorable.
By muting the destabilizing consequences of the president's
most controversial initiatives, such as missile defense, the Democratic
Senate could give greater prominence to the positive policies
that only a Republican president can implement, such as deep reductions
in U.S. nuclear
forces. The end result could be a win for both Democrats and Republicans,
a win for America and for the world.
Joseph Cirincione is Director of the Non-Proliferation Project
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington,
DC.