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June 13, 2002 8:45 a.m. ABM Treaty, RIP The world’s a little less MAD.

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.