ABM, R.I.P.!
At last.

By James S. Robbins, a national-security analyst & NRO contributor
December 18, 2001 8:15 a.m.

ell it's about time.

Opponents of the ABM Treaty had long been focused on the escape clause, Article 15, the right to unilaterally pull out of the treaty with six month's notice. No say by Congress, the courts, or anybody else: The decision is up to the president alone. But that the clause has caused a standing exercise in frustration. Eight years of the Reagan presidency passed, then four of Bush the Elder, and ABM persisted. The Berlin Wall came down, one of the two signatories to the agreement disintegrated, and it was still there. It seemed as though no one had the political will to make the necessary step. But it took a Texan in the White House to look at this sacred cow and see hamburger. To modify a fairly creepy quote from Paul Begala, "Stroke of the pen, no law of the land." Pretty cool.

The ABM Treaty codified an unsound nuclear strategy. I won't repeat how or why it was flawed, that is a topic I have written on previously in NRO. But the treaty had grown into something more than an element of strategy, it became a symbol of a mentality and an approach to arms control that dominated the strategic debate and derailed any innovative or advanced thinking about missiles or missile defense. It tied all discussion of missile defense to the nuclear issue, which was very damaging because not all missiles are nuclear, for example the medium-range anti-ship missiles that constitute a growing threat to U.S. naval supremacy. And the treaty was not just a relic (as the president noted in his December 13 pullout announcement) but a dangerous, backward, and harmful relic. It gave instant and impenetrable cover to those who did not want to face the increasing strategic and technological complexities of the global arena. An enduring paradox was the fact that supporters of the treaty claimed consistently — from the 1970s on — that missile defense was technologically unworkable; yet they would not consent to any modifications to the R&D restrictions in the treaty that made technical progress virtually impossible. These and other 30-year-old notions were preserved by the treaty like insect in amber, perfect specimens of the extinct. Any attempt to widen the debate met with long-scripted responses, all rooted in the notion that the ABM Treaty was the "cornerstone" of all arms control and strategic stability, a premise that could not be questioned.

The pervasiveness of this mode of thought came home over the weekend when I was discussing the ABM pullout with a physicist. He maintained with downright certainty that our action would force the Russians to go to a menacing "launch on warning" posture because they could not be certain that an incoming missile was not American. If the U.S. had a missile-defense system their only chance of mounting a successful counterattack would be to launch everything they had and overwhelm our defenses. Thus Bush was taking us down an intolerably risky path. This was an old standard line, the "ragged second strike" argument, the details of which need not be repeated. The thing that got my attention was the contention that the Russians would be "forced" to adopt a particular strategy. It was the same mechanistic, value-neutral form of argument the pro-ABM Treaty thinkers had been making since day one. The weapons themselves mandated a logic of power. The objective nature of the game dictated a precise and unvarying response. The fact that the two countries involved are enjoying the best relations in their history is not relevant. In the old days I might have responded with suggestions like letting the Russians beef up second-strike capability by hardening silos, allowing reloading, having mobile launchers, etc., and thereby increasing their MAD comfort zone. But instead I simply said, "Vladimir Putin announced Russia will not change its nuclear strategy." The physicist had no comeback. Reality trumped theory.

President Putin has been refreshingly businesslike in his approach to this issue. He termed the pullout a "mistake," but has not warned of desperate consequences, or put his forces on alert, or made any bellicose statements whatsoever. This is partly because Putin doesn't buy the "arms are destiny" argument. "The improvement of relations between the largest countries of the world, Russia and the United States," he said, "is the chief factor that can give Russians and Americans, and people throughout the world, the feeling of security." Furthermore, Putin displays a type of honesty that ABM Treaty defenders never did. He too doubts the technical feasibility of an anti-missile system, but that is one reason why he doesn't see the abrogation of the treaty as being very significant. If we can figure out how to do it, he'll worry about it then, but for now he is not concerned. And as for the arms race that would "necessarily" attend an ABM abrogation? Don't look for it any time soon. At the same time the Russians were informed of the U.S. intention to withdraw from ABM, Secretary of State Powell reached an agreement in principle to reduce Russian strategic nuclear arms to U.S. levels — a downward trend the old strategic model would never have predicted.

While Russia has responded calmly to President Bush's bold move, other countries have not, and the list of objectors is revealing. China, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and North Korea all met the announcement with dire predictions for the future of peace. These are also the principal countries actively pursuing missile programs. This illustrates an important point that the defenders of the ABM Treaty tried very hard to avoid, namely that the treaty created not stability but instability by making the development of IRBMs and ICBMs a good investment. If we cannot defend against missiles, any country possessing them would have instant bargaining power with the United States, power it could not achieve in any other way. Facing the possible launch of even one nuclear tipped missile could give a president pause when responding to a crisis. A functioning missile-defense system takes this coercive tool out of the hands of potential adversaries. No wonder they are upset.

When the ABM Treaty becomes non-binding six months from now there will be an opening for a new debate over missiles and nuclear weapons, a rich exchange of ideas without the inevitable policy roadblock the treaty represented. New ideas will be put forward, a new Russo-American dialogue will commence (in fact it has already), and countries looking to missile systems as their tickets to the big time will have to reformulate their cost-benefit models. President Bush's decisive and timely move will not only help guarantee the future safety of the American homeland, but it will direct our intellectual energies towards a true understanding of the new global strategic environment. It is a great time to be involved in the national-security debate, unless you are one of those people who stayed relevant by changing the dates on decades-old talking points.