Let the United States first cast out the beam from its own eye.

In the fury of condemning India and Pakistan for their recent nuclear tests, the media has largely ignored the more pervasive and dangerous conduct of the United States and Russia. While India and Pakistan possess, at most, a handful of nuclear weapons and no long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation reports that the United States and Russia each have about 10,000 nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them. The environmental and security risks posed by these vast arsenals make the India-Pakistan nuclear problem pale by comparison.

For one thing, there is a long list of historical false alarms that have brought the United States and Russia to the brink of nuclear war--when missiles were readied for launch, nuclear-armed bombers were sent aloft, and fighter planes were scrambled. Because of Russia's deteriorating early warning system, a serious false alarm on January 25, 1995, left Boris Yeltsin with just minutes to decide whether a research rocket launched from Norway was a nuclear missile. Meanwhile, Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott are preventing the U.S. Senate from even considering whether to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

In December 1996, when some seventy retired generals across the world called for steps toward nuclear abolition, the Clinton administration pledged that nuclear deterrence would remain "a cornerstone" of U.S. foreign policy. However, the ongoing commitment to possessing nuclear weapons, improving their design, and threatening to use them has made the United States a model for the militarism espoused by India's Hindu nationalists.

In the past four years, the United States has suggested that it might use nuclear weapons against Iraq, Libya, and North Korea. Such threats of nuclear "first use" against non-nuclear powers dangerously widen the parameters of acceptable international behavior. By having its own nuclear weapons, India can resist similar intimidation by China and the United States, intimidate Pakistan, and gain prestige with fascist blocs in its own society. Pakistan, on the other hand, can show its muscle in a possible regional arms race. With these incentives, is it surprising that India and Pakistan want nuclear weapons when the United States continues to develop and brandish them?

It is ironic that the United States, which is in violation of its obligation to achieve nuclear disarmament under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is imposing unilateral sanctions on India--a country whose testing does not violate any treaty. The NPT, signed by 186 nations (not India, Pakistan, or Israel), requires the United States and other declared nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament. In exchange, non-nuclear countries signing the treaty agree to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Since the NPT came into effect in 1970, the United States has violated the treaty by developing new weapons, performing over 350 nuclear tests, and stockpiling thousands of weapons. Moreover, a 1996 decision by the World Court recognized that threats to use nuclear weapons are illegal in circumstances where the survival of the state is not at stake. Of course, differences in relative power will ensure that proposals to sanction the United States and other established nuclear powers will not see the light of day.

The United States can seize moral and political leadership on the issue of nuclear weapons by demonstrating a commitment to disarmament. It can do so by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, unequivocally renouncing first use of nuclear weapons, redesigning the Stockpile Stewardship Program, and initiating serious negotiations among the seven declared nuclear powers for nuclear abolition. As currently designed, stockpile stewardship enables the United States to continue developing nuclear weapons through sophisticated laboratory experiments, "subcritical tests," and computer simulations based on the thousands of nuclear tests it has already performed.

India correctly contended (prior to its recent series of tests) that banning nuclear testing will prolong the military dominance of China, the United States, and the other declared nuclear powers. With the nuclear weapons states showing no serious commitment to disarmament, universal adoption of the CTBT, in and of itself, provides limited gains toward genuine disarmament. Banning underground nuclear tests will not eliminate existing arsenals and the development of new designs by other means.

To minimize incentives for further nuclear proliferation, the purpose of the Stockpile Stewardship Program needs to be changed from weapons development to weapons safeguarding, destruction, and disposal. Also, without serious multilateral negotiations among all nuclear powers, India's concerns about the nuclear capabilities of China and Pakistan cannot be addressed.

Having fought wars with both Pakistan and China, India cannot ignore this issue. Likewise, Pakistan cannot ignore India's threats. The United States needs to rein in the militarists at home and take positive steps toward world peace. Once America has put its own house in order, it will be in a strong moral and political position to persuade other nations to abandon these "weapons of mass destruction."

J. Whitfield Larrabee is executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action; a civil rights lawyer; and a longtime peace, democracy, and human rights activist. He can be reached at [e-mail]; his website is www.gis.net/~larrabee.