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June
13, 2002 8:45 a.m.
ABM
Treaty, RIP
The
world’s a little less MAD.
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 he
Antiballistic Missile Treaty died today, at the age of 30 — and not
a moment too soon.
This dubious piece
of Cold War diplomacy was based on a dangerous theory. It placed strict
limits on the testing and deployment of antimissile weapons, in the hope
that if the United States and the Soviet Union lay naked before each other,
unable to fend off ICBM attacks, neither would risk a first strike.
The ABM Treaty compelled
one of its critics, Donald Brennan of the Hudson Institute, to invent
a troubling new term with an appropriate acronym: Mutual Assured Destruction,
or MAD. This concept repulsed Ronald Reagan. In 1983, as president, he
proposed an alternative:
"What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their
security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter
a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic
missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? ... Isn't
it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat
of nuclear war? We know it is."
Understanding that
deterrence is no substitute for a real defense, he proposed the Strategic
Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" by its enemies. These
foes were mainly arms-control cultists who worshipped the ABM Treaty and
insisted on its preservation even after the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the rise of rogue states committed to building weapons of mass destruction.
Conservatives spent
these years calling for the realization of Reagan's vision on missile
defense and battling against the ABM Treaty's prohibitions. It wasn't
until the presidency of George W. Bush, however, that a formal withdrawal
from the treaty became possible. "We need a new framework that allows
us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's
world," said Bush in a speech
at the National Defense University last year. "To do so, we must
move beyond the constraints of the 30 year old ABM Treaty. This treaty
does not recognize the present, or point us to the future. It enshrines
the past. No treaty that prevents us from addressing today's threats,
that prohibits us from pursuing promising technology to defend ourselves,
our friends and our allies is in our interests or in the interests of
world peace."
On December 13, 2001,
Bush announced
his intention to pull out of the treaty, exercising an option outlined
in the treaty itself requiring a six-month notice. "I have concluded
the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect
our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks,"
he said from the White House Rose Garden.
The ABM Treaty's
devotees predicted chilly international relations and the advent of a
new arms race if their sacred document were ever abandoned. In reality,
the United States and Russia have warmer relations now than they've had
at any point since the Second World War and both countries' nuclear stockpiles
are set to decrease dramatically.
So today, as the
ash heap of history grows a little taller, the world, in at least one
respect, is on the course to becoming a little less MAD.
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