ABM Treaty: United States to Withdraw

As soon as today or tomorrow, the United States will announce its intention to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, according to Bush administration officials.  The decision followed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Moscow (see GSN, Dec. 11), where he reached no agreement on the treaty after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.  U.S. President George W. Bush apparently concluded that Powell would have little success and told Putin of his intentions in a phone call last Friday, according to the New York Times.

Russia had expressed a willingness to allow the United States to conduct missile defense tests that could be interpreted as violating the treaty, but it wanted the right to approve each test, according to the Times.

That was “something we couldn’t live with,” said a senior administration official.  “It would mean subjecting each test to separate scrutiny, and sooner or later they were going to say ‘no,’” a senior official said.

“In a way, the bigger question is how the Chinese will react,” another official said yesterday.  China, with only about 20 nuclear weapons that can reach the United States, fears that its deterrent capability could be affected by even a limited U.S. missile defense system, the Times reported.

The End of an Internal Battle

The decision to withdraw marks a major policy defeat for Powell, according to the Times.  He had argued that continued testing was still possible under the treaty (see GSN, Nov. 29).  Powell’s efforts were countered by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who argued that the treaty was too limited today and could not be amended to allow the type of testing the Pentagon wants to pursue, according to the Times.  National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice sided with Rumsfeld in the end, several administration and congressional officials said yesterday (Sanger/Bumiller, New York Times, Dec. 12).

Little Inkling From Bush

Speaking at the Citadel military academy yesterday, President George W. Bush gave no specific indication of his decision to withdraw from the treaty, but reaffirmed his interest in developing a national missile defense.

“The attacks on our nation made it even more clear that we need to build limited and effective defenses against a missile attack.  Our enemies seek every chance and every means to do harm to our country, our forces and our friends, and we will not permit it.  Suppose the Taliban and the terrorists had been able to strike America or important allies with a ballistic missile.  Our coalition would have become fragile, the stakes in our war much, much higher.  We must protect Americans and our friends against all forms of terror, including the terror that could arrive on a missile,” Bush said.

“We must move beyond the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a treaty that was written in a different era for a different enemy,” he added (transcript, New York Times, Dec. 12).

Withdrawing From the Treaty

Although the treaty is of unlimited duration, treaty Article XV allows a party to withdraw “if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.”

The withdrawing party can withdraw six months after giving formal notice and must provide an explanatory statement (treaty text, U.S. State Department release).

Russian View

On Monday Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov allowed for the possibility of a U.S. treaty withdrawal.  “In our forecasts, we’re not excluding the possibility that the U.S. may be withdrawing from the ABM Treaty,” he told reporters after meeting with Powell.  “Therefore, in our programs for ensuring national security we are forecasting such an option” (U.S. State Department release, Dec. 10).

Nevertheless, a former adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin criticized the U.S. plans to withdraw.  “It is bad for America.  It is bad for the rest of the world.  It is bad for Russia,” said Vyacheslav Nikonov, adding that Russia could respond by putting multiple nuclear warheads on its newest ICBMs (CNN.com, Dec. 12).

Response in the United States

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Bob Stump (R-Ariz.) praised the administration move.  “There’s all these questions about Russia upholding their end of the treaty anyway, and I just don’t think we should penalize ourselves,” Stump said.  “We shouldn’t delay our ballistic missile defense.  If it takes withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, that’s fine.”

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) criticized the withdrawal decision, saying, “It’s not a good idea.  It would be a real setback for defense and foreign policy to violate the ABM Treaty.”  He added that “it’s a slap in the face for many people who have committed years if not decades” to arms control (Ron Fournier, Associated Press, Dec. 12).

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) issued a statement cautioning that “unilaterally abandoning the ABM Treaty would be a serious mistake.  The administration has not offered any convincing rationale for why any missile defense test it may need to conduct would require walking away from a treaty that has helped keep the peace for the last 30 years” (Biden release, Dec. 11).

John Isaacs, of the Council for a Livable World, said, “Withdrawing from the ABM Treaty now is both unnecessary and unwise….Unnecessary because virtually all scientific experts believe that the U.S. can continue to test a missile defense system without breaking the ABM Treaty for many years to come.  Unwise because it could start a chain reaction that jeopardizes the three decades of progress the United States has made in reducing the threat from nuclear weapons” (Carol Giacomo, Reuters, Dec. 12).

Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, praised the Bush decision.  “President Bush is to be heartily commended for taking the only step vis-…-vis the ABM Treaty that is compatible with his declared purpose of defending the American people against the real and growing ballistic missile threat” (Frank Gaffney, National Review.com, Dec. 11).

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ABM Treaty: Disagreement Remains, Powell Says

While the United States and Russia have made progress toward an agreement to reduce nuclear weapons (see related GSN story, today), little progress has been achieved in the U.S.-Russian dispute over the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, according to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (see GSN, Nov. 29).

“There is still this disagreement with respect to our missile defense programs,” Powell told reporters en route to Moscow for a meeting today with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Increasingly the ABM Treaty constrains what the president feels we must do in order to get our missile defense systems.  We haven’t found yet a way to get through that by their accepting the testing we have to do,” Powell said (Alan Sipress, Washington Post, Dec. 10).

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