Landmark Arms Treaty Dies Thursday, Leaving Mourners as Well as Celebrants

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, long the centerpiece of nuclear equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union and a strong deterrent to other nations with nuclear aspirations, is officially being put to rest.

Barring last-minute court intervention, the 1972 treaty expires Thursday, six months after President Bush invoked a provision allowing either side to withdraw upon such notice. It is 30 years and one month old.

Not gravediggers' shovels, but those of construction workers and Pentagon officials will mark the passing of the treaty at a ceremony Saturday in Delta Junction, Alaska, breaking ground on a test site for the administration's $64 billion missile defense system. The treaty had banned such construction.

"We have moved beyond an ABM Treaty that prevented us from defending our people and our friends," President Bush asserted recently. He was expected to mark its passing with just a written statement Thursday, White House aides said Wednesday, a toned-down gesture in deference to Russia and other treaty supporters among U.S. allies.

Bush and his congressional allies claim the treaty - between the United States and a nation that no longer exists, the Soviet Union - outlived its usefulness long ago.

But there are many mourners, including much of the international community, many U.S. lawmakers and arms control advocates. Until recently, NATO foreign ministers had routinely described the treaty as the "cornerstone of strategic stability," and many Europeans still support it.

"The ABM Treaty pullout at this stage appears neither prudent nor necessary," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "Missile defense is an expensive and unreliable method to deal with what is now considered a low-probability threat."

The treaty "has served world security well for 30 years," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, one of 31 House members who sued Bush in federal court Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to preserve the treaty.

Still, initial anger on the part of some U.S. allies has given way to apparent resignation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, an outspoken defender of the treaty, relented and signed an agreement with Bush in Moscow last month pledging future missile defense cooperation.

"The Russians will benefit, we will benefit, the world will benefit. Because this missile defense will basically be aimed at terrorists and rogue states," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a longtime missile defense advocate. "Civilized nations, and hopefully that will eventually include China, will come together and work on this technology as partners."

President Nixon signed the treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the Kremlin in May 1972.

Brezhnev "used a red pencil to sketch missiles on the notepad in front of him," as over a three-day period they negotiated both the ABM Treaty and the companion SALT I pact to limit offensive nuclear weapons, Nixon recalled.

"The ABM Treaty stopped what inevitably would have become a defensive arms race," Nixon wrote in his memoirs. "The other major effect ... was to make permanent the concept of deterrence through 'mutual terror.'"

The concept was that both countries had enough missiles to destroy each other many times over, with or without a missile defense system. Any attack by one thus would amount to joint suicide.

That policy of mutual assured destruction, known as MAD, not only produced superpower stability but also helped discourage other nations from becoming nuclear powers, suggest arms control analysts.

It provided as well the underpinning for a series of arms reduction treaties, right up through the one in May in which Bush and Putin pledged to cut their long-range nuclear arsenals by two-thirds, to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads, over the next decade.

Republicans have made missile defense a high priority since 1983, when President Reagan outlined an ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative that included space-based interceptors. It was ridiculed by critics as "Star Wars" and GOP efforts to bring it about withered in a succession of Democratic-controlled Congresses.

Then, India and Pakistan conducted back-to-back nuclear tests. North Korea tested a surprisingly sophisticated long-range missile. Evidence suggested Iran was working on a similar capability.

President Clinton, under pressure from Republicans, signed legislation in 1999 to deploy a limited missile defense when one was technologically feasible. Near the end of his term he deferred a decision on deployment to the next president.

Bush ran with it, notifying U.S. allies and Russia early in his term that he intended to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and build a missile defense.

Missile defense defenders said the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent terror alerts only reinforce the need to strengthen defenses and relegate the treaty to what Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., called "the dustbin of history."

But arms control activist Jonathan Schell of the Nation Institute warns of "a whole chain of further consequences" to scrapping the treaty, including putting pressure on China to increase its nuclear arsenal. "And that sends a bad signal to the whole world," he said.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, long the centerpiece of nuclear equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union...

Centerpiece? How about the M.A.D. doctrine?

... and a strong deterrent to other nations with nuclear aspirations, is officially being put to rest.

Absolute B.S. It is no such deterrent at all. Lefty fantasy.

Bump. The ABM Treaty expired of course when the Soviet Union did, although the fiction has been kept alive due to the NON-Fictional Soviet Arsenal now in Russian National hands. The U.S. ABM Treaty participation was officially on the path for termination however when the U.S. Congress voted 3-to-1 and the Senate 99-0 on the 99 NMD Act. It called for the President, upon determining viability, to go ahead and deploy a National Missile Defense, in the 1999 National Missile Defense Act. And Clinton didn't dare do anything other than sign it, after threatening to veto it, and just pretend it would be forgotten after having done so. He fully intended, in typically brazen bad faith, to never agree NMD was viable, and would sabotage the testing program saying the ABM treaty forbade gearing up to do real tests (which was always false, of course...even under the treaty we were entitled to one ABM missile field with 100 loaded interceptors and a 100 spares). Anyways, the NMD Act of '99 explicitly presumes a withdrawal asap from the ABM Treaty upon viability being conceded by the President.

The treaty "has served world security well for 30 years," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, one of 31 House members who sued Bush in federal court Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to preserve the treaty.

I'd like to know more about this. Let me know if you run across details.

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