ABM ABC’s
Time to move on.

By Henry F. Cooper, chairman of High Frontier. Cooper was SDI director during the first Bush administration and President Reagan's ambassador and chief negotiator at the Geneva Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union.
October 29, 2001 8:30 a.m.

ast summer, Bush administration officials began noting that the Pentagon's programs to develop and test systems to defend U.S. citizens against ballistic-missile attack would soon "bump up" against ABM Treaty constraints — and then, as National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told Washington Times editors on August 1, the president had pledged that "since we don't plan to violate the Treaty that would mean we would have to withdraw."

Well, we're indisputably now at that point.

Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld announced last Thursday that, because of treaty constraints, the Navy would not be able to use its existing Aegis sea-based radar to track upcoming tests of strategic missiles.

There is more to this development than first meets the eye.

Developing sea-based defenses was, I believe, the most important initiative of my watch as director of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) during the first Bush administration. It was obvious then (and it still is) that the Navy's existing Aegis system can be rapidly and relatively inexpensively improved to provide wide-area defenses for our overseas troops, friends, and allies — and also for Americans at home.

There's only one significant problem — and it is a major one. Article 5 of the ABM Treaty bans development, testing, and deployment of sea-based defenses for America. And Article 6 prohibits testing of sea-based "theater defenses" against so-called "strategic" missiles. Sea-based defenses to protect our overseas troops, friends, and allies are permitted, but those defenses cannot be used to protect Americans at home — at least under the ABM Treaty.

My plan was to build an effective wide-area sea-based defense for our overseas troops, friends, and allies within four years — which is permitted by the treaty — and then improve it to protect the American people. I could not imagine that American s would tolerate their tax dollars being used only to defend others when that system, with relatively minor system improvements, would also defend them.

The Navy agreed to start a serious development.

Before leaving the Pentagon in January 1993, I warned the chief of naval operations, Admiral Frank Kelso, to be careful in developing a sea-based theater defense, because the ABM Treaty lawyers would block even its development and testing if there were any hint that system was intended to protect Americans at home.

No doubt the Clinton administration, which was devoted to the ABM Treaty, understood the inherent capability of such sea-based defenses and effectively scuttled the program I left to them — which had been fully funded to provide an initial capability as early as in 1997.

Congress supported development of sea-based defenses — especially after the 1994 elections — and added funds each subsequent year to push the system ahead. But, year after year, the Clinton administration delayed program execution by holding up funds and conducting over a dozen studies — all of which concluded that sea-based defenses made sense.

When serious development was finally undertaken, they "dumbed-down" the system. As Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch indicated in 1995, the Clinton Navy theater-wide system could not intercept strategic ballistic missiles and therefore would be consistent with the ABM Treaty.

What he didn't choose to elaborate was that they slowed down the defensive interceptor rocket, did not use the most capable state-of-the-art interceptor sensors, precluded use of external sensor fire-control data other than from the co-located Aegis radar, and adopted a firing protocol that precluded intercept attempts until after the target rockets engines burn out — so nearby defensive interceptors would be in a tail chase after a faster strategic rocket and of course could not catch up.

These are ludicrous constraints from a technical and military perspective — and they were well known to the new Bush administration, which — as yet — has done little to relieve them.

Bear in mind that the Bunker Hill, the Navy's oldest Aegis Cruiser, tracked Chinese ballistic missiles launched to intimidate the Taiwanese during their first democratic presidential election in 1996. The same software improvements that made tracking possible then, would have permitted an existing Aegis cruiser to gather useful data in the upcoming missile-defense tests — except for the treaty.

More important is that this is a most timid "bump up" against the treaty. Far more important conflicts with the treaty would be resulting soon, if they had not already been evident, had the new Bush administration resurrected Bush I missile-defense programs canceled by the Clinton administration — and thus moved ahead on an urgent schedule to develop sea- and space-based defenses as quickly as possible.

For some unexplained reason the administration has kept these most effective and less expensive options for global defenses on the backburner while they have expanded, with relatively minor modifications, the much more expensive and less effective Clinton ground-based defense plan, which was designed to fail.

I have testified to Congress on how treaty constraints had, on my watch and earlier, cost us time and money and if not removed could one day cost us lives. Secretary Rumsfeld's announcement last week makes clear the current Bush administration is continuing this unwise practice.

Hopefully, President Bush will soon keep the campaign promise he made on May 23, 2000:

At the earliest possible date, my administration will deploy antiballistic missile systems, both theater and national, to guard against attack and blackmail. We will offer Russia amendments to the Anti-Ballistic Missile [ABM] Treaty — an artifact of the Cold War confrontation. Both sides know that we live in a different world than in 1972 when the Treaty was signed. If Russia refuses the changes we propose, we will give prompt notice, under the provisions of the Treaty, that we can no longer be party to it. I will have a solemn obligation to protect the American people and our allies, not to protect arms control agreements signed almost 30 years ago. Given today's realities, we can no longer drag our feet on building and deploying a missile defense system; nor can we allow Cold War arms control agreements to restrict America's ability to defend itself and its allies.

The president should have fulfilled this 18-month-old promise by now. And surely, after September 11 proved there are people who will happily die to kill Americans, it is intolerable to continue dumbing down our defenses because of the ABM Treaty. All adversaries simply are not deterred by threats of retaliation.

As President Bush said after meeting with Russian President Putin in Shanghai, "The events of September 11 make it clearer than ever that a Cold War treaty that prevents us from defending our people is outdated and, I believe, dangerous."

Indeed, September 11 has changed everything. No one now argues the benefits of vulnerability — or that no one would dare attack us for fear that we would retaliate. Deterrence does not work against terrorists. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban knew we would find out they was behind September 11 and come after them.

The president says we are after the terrorists and states that harbor them. His "coalition" strategy gets in the way of going after them all at once. But they must be on our target list if we are to rid the world of terrorism. Does anyone believe that Iraq, for instance, is not in cahoots with bin Laden? Perhaps Saddam Hussein provided the Anthrax and/or know-how that has shut down both houses of Congress and killed innocent Americans. And remember that Saddam said in 1991 he would have attacked American cities had he the missiles to reach them. Do we doubt him?

Make no mistake — many who argue against American defenses, including Russia and China, are involved in proliferating weapons of mass destruction and missiles to deliver them.

And as Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld told journalists during his recent visit to Russia, "A weapon of mass destruction can be delivered over intercontinental range by a ballistic missile that has less than intercontinental range. . . [One technique] is to put it on a ship, peel back the cover, use a transporter-erector-launcher, and fire it from a distance shorter than ICBM range. . . . a rogue state has done that." He declined to identify which specific country, but said, "Certainly you would include in that category North Korea and Iraq and Iran and Libya. . . ."

This threat exists today. And more threats of longer range are surely coming.

We dare not continue to tarry. We need to be free of the ABM Treaty now — and to build the most effective defenses we can, as soon as possible. The only question at the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas should be whether Russia will join us in building global defenses to protect Americans and others around the world.

But the ABM Treaty must go now.