ABM Departure
Are the liberals cracking?

June 15, 2001 1:10 p.m.

t just might be that the liberal establishment's religious attachment to the ABM treaty has finally cracked, at least the slightest bit.

Here's the New York Times in an editorial Friday, mouthing the old verities: "The Bush Administration would have Americans believe that the treaty is a discredited cold-war relic that bars the way to a new era free from fear of nuclear missile attack. That is bad history and bad policy."

Here's the New York Times Friday, acknowledging reality: "Since the end of the cold war, new kinds of missile threats have arisen from smaller, more erratic nations, and new defensive technologies have been designed that may prove able to counter them. Those technologies still need further testing. But if they do prove workable, the treaty would have to be modified or replaced to permit building them."

So, it turns out that the Bush administration is wrong to call the ABM treaty a Cold War relic, even though strategic realities have changed in a way that requires modifying or replacing the ABM treaty!

In other words, the ABM treaty is not a relic and is a relic at the same time. We shouldn't be too tough on the Times — abandoning old pieties is difficult, and usually has to be done piecemeal, even at the cost of contradictions and illogic.

What the Times isn't willing to give up is the notion that the ABM treaty still has an important role in reducing the number of offensive missiles. The theory here was that the Soviet Union — in order to maintain nuclear "stability" — had always to be assured that it had a force that could survive an initial U.S. strike. The presence of U.S. defenses would increase the number of missiles the Soviets needed for such a "survivable" force; hence the ABM treaty by banning defenses reduced the need for offensive missiles.

Or so went the theory. Whether it really held in the Cold War or not is debatable, but now it's insane. 1) It's impossible to imagine any circumstances in which the U.S. would now launch a first strike against the Soviet Union. 2) The Russians can't afford to maintain the offensive missiles they have currently, let alone start a new arms race.

The threat of a new arms race bandied about so often in the missile-defense debate is therefore almost entirely fanciful. And much of the discussion is informed by the oldest of liberal fallacies — the idea that weapons cause hostilities between states rather than the other way around. The important thing isn't how many warheads the Russians have but whether or not they have any inclination to use them, and so long as they don't they have nothing to fear from a U.S. defense.

One of the more amazing aspects of the Times editorial is that it argues that the ABM treaty is still central, then advocates that we must negotiate with the Chinese over it. Memo to the Times: China isn't a signatory to the ABM treaty! This is just another sign of, even if you accept the Times's terms, how outdated the treaty is.

It's also a sign of how wacky the New York Times is. Under its arms-control theory — the one involving "survivability" — the Chinese should have nothing to lose if we ditch of the ABM treaty because their offensive force isn't survivable now and won't be anytime soon, whether the U.S. builds defenses or not.

But, theories aside, China simply wants to be able to threaten us, and fears that defenses would make that more difficult. As the Times puts it, "China has more immediate fears that even a limited missile defense could nullify its far smaller number of long-range missiles." Incredibly, the Times says, "These concerns are legitimate."

But by what right should China have the capability of destroying L.A.? If its concerns that its force will be neutralized are legitimate, why can't the same be said of those of North Korean or Iraq? If it's illegitimate for the U.S. to block Chinese missiles, by what standard is it sensible for it to block those of any other power bent on threatening us?

Maybe the Times will figure that out in another year or two. In the meantime, we should be grateful for any shreds of common sense regarding the arms-controllers' fast-disintegrating holy writ.