ABM Treaty:  Russia Will Not Concede, Says General

Russia will never make concessions to the United States over the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, said Russian First Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Yury Baluyevsky today.  The treaty prohibits the United States and Russia from developing national missile defense systems, as U.S. President George W. Bush has said he intends to do (see GSN, Nov. 29).  “Russia has not, is not and will not make any concessions on the ABM,” Baluyevsky said.

Russia would continue to discuss the treaty with the United States, but U.S. leaders had not provided convincing arguments for abandoning the treaty, Baluyevsky said.  “Russia’s position is firm—the ABM agreement does not hurt anyone.  The arguments presented by Washington in support of liquidating the ABM are not well grounded,” he said.

U.S. missile tests so far had not violated the treaty, but they were coming close to doing so, the general said.

Baluyevsky said that he approved of Bush’s decision to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal by several thousand warheads (see GSN, Nov. 28), but that any promise on reductions should be in writing or it would not be binding on future U.S. presidents.  “At the very highest levels, we have not received answers to questions like what kind of mechanisms would be used to remove these warheads, whether they would be completely eliminated, and so on,” he said (Agence France-Presse, Nov. 30).

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U.S. Plans:  Missile Defense Test Scheduled

A U.S. missile defense test is scheduled for Saturday to test the ground-based, mid-course interceptor, officials said Wednesday (see GSN, Nov. 21).

The test would fire a missile interceptor from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands to attack an intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with a mock nuclear warhead, according to the Associated Press. The test was originally planned for Oct. 24, but had been delayed (see GSN, Oct. 29) due to technical problems (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Nov. 28).

The test would be the first conducted since a successful test in July and would be done in compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (U.S. State Department release, Nov. 29).  “It’s just part of an ongoing and robust missile defense program,” said Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke (Charles Aldinger, Reuters/Boston Globe, Nov. 30).

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ABM Treaty:  Powell Prefers ABM Amendment

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he preferred a limited missile defense system that does not scrap the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, according to a Sunday New York Times Magazine article.  Powell’s idea of a limited missile defense system would consist of sea-based interceptors.

Regarding the restrictions for developing missile defense systems that the ABM Treaty imposes, Powell said he preferred that the United States and Russia agree to an amendment to the treaty rather than abrogating it, as some other senior U.S. officials, such as National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, have suggested.  A ratified amendment would carry the blessing of Congress and avoid much of the controversy surrounding the treaty.  His second choice would be an informal agreement with Russia that would allow certain tests, he said.

Rice and opponents to the ABM Treaty have argued that an amendment to the treaty would require lengthy debate in the U.S. Senate, and mutual agreements would provide too much leverage to Russia, according to the Times.

Powell said Rice’s argument that legally-binding documents are no longer necessary since the Cold War has ended has some merit.  He added, however, that he understands Russian concerns that without binding agreements, hard-line presidents could come to power and create new security dilemmas. 

“The one thing that scares them—and I’d be scared if I were them [is that they say] … ‘Powell, we love you like a brother … But you’ll be gone one day.  [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will be gone.  [U.S. President George W.] Bush will be gone.  [Russian Foreign Minister] Igor [Ivanov] will be gone.  And we will have made some kind of a deal now, and, great, it’s a limited defense.  Well, one day another president comes in, and he decides: “I’ll replicate it.  I’ll clone it.  I’ll geneticize it.”  And it goes from being a limited defense to: Pow! [former U.S. President Ronald] Reagan’s back.  How do you persuade us that’s not going to happen?  We can’t do this on the basis of personal relations.  It has to be on the basis of our national interest over time.’” 

Do address those concerns, the United States and Russia must codify arrangements, Powell said (Bill Keller, New York Times Magazine, Nov. 25).

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