Don’t Breathe New Life into the A.B.M. Treaty

(Washington, D.C.) President Bush has an unprecedented opportunity at his upcoming meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to fulfill his oft-repeated promise to the American people to defend them against ballistic missile defense. Unfortunately, that opportunity will be squandered — not realized — if he signs onto a deal that would breathe new life into the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

The President has properly described the ABM Treaty as “obsolete,” “out-dated,” even “dangerous” since it impedes our ability to provide anti-missile protection we must have. His critique is justified, however, not simply because that accord precludes the development and testing of the most promising missile defense technologies — notably, sea-, air- and space-based ones. Even now, certain tests are being dumbed-down so as to comply with the ABM Treaty’s restrictions, wasting taxpayer resources and slowing the pace of progress.

It’s Deployment, Stupid

The still more important reason why the United States must “move beyond” the ABM Treaty though is that this accord prohibits the deployment of any missile defense for our nation’s territory. Were President Bush now to embrace an understanding with Putin that somehow provided relief from the Treaty’s impediments to development and testing of effective anti-missile systems without ending its prohibition on their deployment, he will be handing this country’s enemies abroad and his opponents at home a victory over his presidency of the first magnitude. More importantly, he will be condemning the American people to continued vulnerability for the foreseeable future.

Doubtless, some will argue that — thanks to the sorry state of the missile defense pro grams bequeathed to Mr. Bush by his predecessor — our countrymen have no choice but to remain vulnerable until necessary developmental work and testing is performed. They will contend that, if Putin agrees to interpose no objection to the latter going forward, so long as decisions about deployment are deferred for the time being, the U.S. will get a free pass to do what is possible and needed now, at no cost to the activities that cannot be undertaken until later.

Don’t Go There

Regrettably, this seductive reasoning is likely to prove the kiss-of-death for the President’s missile defense agenda:

• The American people will not be defended by the testing of missile defenses, only by their deployment. Would the President consider testing devices for sanitizing the mail against biological warfare threats, but affirm a prohibition on putting such technology to use? Would that approach be politically tenable even if he were inclined to adopt it?

  While testing is a necessary part of a sensible acquisition program, it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. We are in our present, vulnerable position in no small measure precisely because of an unwillingness (or inability) on the part of successive Presidents to end the tyranny of an ABM Treaty regime that precluded the deployment, and thus undercut the urgency of developing, anti- missile systems contemplated under the SDI, GPALS and NMD programs.

• As Condi Rice has pointed out repeatedly, the ABM Treaty cannot be made acceptable by line- in, line-out changes. By design, the Treaty is from its first article to its last a show-stopper for U.S. territorial defenses against ballistic missile attack. If, instead of adopting a new “strategic framework” that dispenses with the ABM Treaty altogether, the Bush Administration winds up effectively amending it, the unamended parts will continue to constitute unacceptable impediments to the actual realization of protection against missile attack.
• In addition, changes to an existing treaty would inevitably require the Senate’s advice and consent. Under that body’s present leadership, such an exercise would surely translate into an affirmation of the prohibitions on deployment that would be left intact — hardly a legislative history a President committed to defending his people would welcome.
• Another effect of preserving any part of the ABM Treaty would be to establish unequivocally that the Russians are a party to that accord. This would give them legal standing they do not currently enjoy — and confer legitimacy on their future efforts to veto U.S. deployments of which they do not approve. At the very least, such an arrangement flies in the face of all President Bush’s exhortations that the “Cold War is over” and that bilateral arms control treaties are not appropriate in light of the changed nature of the Russo-American relationship.
• The Russians already have a deployed anti-missile system to protect their territory, featuring not only the permitted ABM system around Moscow but thousands of nuclear-armed surface-to-air interceptors and a network of tracking radars available for use in a clearly impermissible way. If Treaty prohibitions on the deployment of missile defenses are allowed to stand, the United States will remain the only one undefended.

The Bottom Line

There is no better time than the present for President Bush to take the one step that will lead to the defense of America against ballistic missile attack: exercising our right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. He enjoys the confidence and support of the American people. There is a war on that underscores the necessity for protecting ourselves against all threats.

As long as Putin is persuaded that the President is determined to pursue missile defenses, with or without Russia’s assent, he will be tractable. Ironically, there is really only one circumstance under which the Russians might try to allow disagreements over missile defense to interfere with the war effort or to jeopardize a successful summit: If they perceive that threats of such behavior will induce Mr. Bush to temper or defer his commitment to building and deploying effective anti-missile systems “at the earliest possible time.”

To be sure, the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post, elite opinion in this country and allied capitals and Democrats on Capitol Hill will hail as statesmanlike any decision by President Bush that has the effect of pulling back from his commitment to defending America against missile attack. History, however, will record such a step as a grievous failing of his presidency — not one of its high-points — if, as seems likely, it ensures that missile defenses are not deployed by this country until after they are needed.