Will Clinton and Yeltsin Succeed in Springing the A.B.M. Treaty Trap?

(Washington, D.C.): News item: “For the first time, Russia has agreed to discuss changes in
the
[1972] Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that may be necessitated by a national missile
defense system — were we to decide to deploy one.” (Emphasis added.)

National Security Advisor to the President Samuel Berger
Washington Times, 20 June 1999

We have a bridge available for sale to anyone who believes that this statement is going to
lead to
the deployment of effective missile defenses by the United States anytime soon. In fact,
if left to
their own devices, the Clinton-Gore Administration and its friends in the Kremlin will
almost certainly try to use the pretext of these discussions further to fend off such a
deployment.

Don’t Hold Your Breath

This gloomy prognosis is based not only the fact that — as Mr. Berger suggests — the
Administration has made no decision to deploy a missile defense. (Such a statement is
particularly striking in light of President Clinton’s announced intention to sign legislation
recently enacted by veto-proof congressional majorities that makes it U.S. policy to deploy
effective limited missile defenses for the territory and people of the United States “as soon as
technologically possible.” ¹) Pessimism is further
warranted in light of three other realities:

• If the United States were serious about deploying missile defenses, it need not
  negotiate
  the matter with the Russians. Important legal analyses — the most recent by former
  Deputy
  Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and former Justice Department
  attorney
  George Miron — have conclusively established that the ABM Treaty is no
  longer in force. ²
  Under international legal practice and precedent, when the other party (the Soviet Union)
  became extinct, this treaty had to lapse. Consequently, the Clinton-Yeltsin initiative
  should
  be seen for what it is: An effort to breathe new life into a treaty that currently prohibits,
  and will surely continue to impede, the deployment of effective anti-missile
  systems.

• Neither the Russians nor the Clinton Administration really want the United States
  to
  have effective protection against missile attack. For the former, this is a matter of
  strategic
  advantage: The former Soviet Union illegally deployed territorial defenses, the U.S. has none
  and Russia prefers to retain that unilateral advantage. For the Clinton team, opposing missile
  defenses is a central tenet of the American Left’s arms control theology, an artifact of the
  Cold War that lingers on despite completely changed circumstances.

Even if the Russians and Clintonites had actually undergone a change of heart, what
about the Belarussians, the Kazhaks and the Ukrainians? The Administration mounted
an earlier effort in September 1997 to resuscitate the ABM Treaty with what amounts
to a new treaty that would have made these nations successors, along with Russia, to
the original accord. Although this accord is not in force, since Mr. Clinton has yet to
submit it for Senate advice and consent, could the Clinton-Gore team ignore Belarus
and Company’s sensibilities? What about China — a non-signatory that nonetheless
insists there be no change in the ABM Treaty?

• The ABM Treaty is the proverbial sow’s ear. There is, as a practical matter, no
  way to
  “modify” a treaty that is designed to prevent effective anti-missile defense of the United
  States into one that will allow this country to be protected in a cost-effective, robust
  manner. Such a defense can only be mounted from the sea (using the U.S. Navy’s
  existing
  fleet of fifty-five AEGIS cruisers and destroyers) and/or from space.

Instead, the Clinton Administration and the Russians are apparently preparing to
discuss changes to the treaty that would only allow the U.S. to field some number of
ground-based missile defense sites. This approach costs the most, has the greatest
environmental impact, provides the least comprehensive defense and would take
longer to field, certainly than sea-based defenses and possibly even longer than
space-based ones. For these reasons, repeated efforts to deploy ground-based missile
defenses have come to nought and this one is likely to, as well.

Will Congress Allow This Fraud to Perpetuate American
Vulnerability?

It remains to be seen whether the Clinton team will get away with this gambit.
Unfortunately,
many Republicans in Congress have tried, until now, to finesse this issue. They overwhelmingly
support missile defense but many of them have not wanted to address the thorny question of
what to do about the ABM Treaty.

For one thing, most Members of Congress have not troubled to familiarize themselves with
the
Feith-Miron legal analysis. Consequently, they are unaware that the U.S. is adhering to the
ABM Treaty as a matter of policy, not law. ³

Perhaps worst of all, few in Congress appreciate how insidious the ABM Treaty’s
effect is on
U.S. missile defense programs, not only those designed to protect the Nation itself but
even
those intended to defend against shorter-range missiles. This is no accident, comrade; it is
precisely what the treaty’s framers intended it to do.

The Bottom Line

For all these reasons, there has been a tendency on the part of altogether too many on Capitol
Hill to believe that another round of negotiations with the Russians will permit the United States
to be defended without breaking any arms control crockery. If this attitude persists, it
will be
Clinton-Gore Administration that has it both ways — professing an interest in defending
the Nation against missile attack, but assuring that nothing practicable is ever undertaken
to do so.

Messrs. Clinton and Gore talked a lot during the last presidential campaign about building a
“bridge to the 21st Century.” But the idea of negotiating with the Russians to “improve” the
ABM Treaty is a bridge to nowhere. No one committed to defending America should buy into it.

¹ See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Over to You, Mr. President: Congress Enacts
Policy to Defend America; If Clinton Doesn’t Veto, Will Hill Implement? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=99-D_61″>No. 99-D 61, 21
May 1999) and Now That It’s U.S. Policy to Defend America Against Missile
Attack, Let the
Debate Be Joined As to the Optimal Way to Do So (No.
99-D 37, 18 March 1999).

² See Chairman Helms Endorses Center’s
Feith-Miron Analysis Showing A.B.M. Treaty to
Be Defunct (No. 99-D 28, 3 March 1999) and
Definitive Study Shows Russians Have No Veto
Over Defending U.S. (No. 99-P 11, 22 January
1999).

³ For that matter, it is unclear whether the President has done so:
Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Jesse Helms sent their memorandum to him in April, along with a highly
laudatory letter asking for a formal analysis by the executive branch; to date, Sen. Helms has had
no response.