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December
13, 2001 MEMORANDUM
TO: OPINION LEADERS FROM:
GARY SCHMITT SUBJECT: Defense President Bush’s
decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty is strategically sound. It has
been met by the usual amount of hang-wringing from liberal Democrats.
Among the comments: • Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle: “It’s unfortunate that a matter of this
import would not have been vetted more carefully and completely and with
greater care for U.S. foreign policy than this was.” – Reality: It
is difficult to imagine a policy issue over the past decade that has been
more fully “vetted,” discussed, and dissected by its supporters
and opponents. Moreover, the administration has, to its credit, been clear
from the campaign on that it had every intention of not letting the treaty
stand in the way of its ability to develop a national missile defense
system. The decision was hardly made in haste or without a full debate. • Sen. Tom Daschle:
“I think it undermines the fragile coalition that we have with our
allies.” – Reality: Very
doubtful. Japan certainly believes we need missile defenses, and our NATO
partners are not opposed as long as it doesn’t needlessly complicate
relations with Moscow. (See below) More to the point, missile defenses
will strengthen relations with our allies over the long run. In the absence
of effective missile defenses at home and abroad, there will be increased
uncertainty about America’s willingness to act in the face of adversaries
with ballistic missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction. Missile
defenses will actually strengthen our alliances which depend, at bottom,
on U.S. military dominance. • Senate Foreign
Relations Chairman Joseph Biden: “Russia will not like it.”
– Reality: Perhaps
not. But it won’t lead to a new arms race either. Both the chief
of the Russian general staff and Russia’s prime minister indicated
that the U.S. withdrawal was not a major concern for Russian security.
For some time to come, Russia’s strategic forces will be more than
sufficiently robust to overcome a U.S. missile defense system and will
require no new arms buildup on their part, even if Russia could afford
one. Moreover, it is also possible that, unlike the ABM Treaty’s
defenders here, Moscow has also decided that U.S.-Russian relations shouldn’t
be continue to be defined by a thirty-year old treaty that has little
or no relevance to their own current security problems. – Reality: Apparently,
the senator doesn’t think the country can walk and chew gum at the
same time. If the U.S. is in fact vulnerable to the growing proliferation
of ballistic missiles -- as the bipartisan Rumsfeld Commission unanimously
concluded in 1998 -- then, it should be addressed as soon as possible.
Moreover, as September 11 also made clear, counting on Cold War theories
of deterrence is a risk that no prudent statesman can justify any longer.
• Sen. Joseph
Biden: President Bush’s decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty
is a “White House Christmas present for the right wing who dislike
arms control under any circumstances.” – Reality: Well,
it is a nice present; and, yes, conservatives don’t like arms control
agreements for the simple reason that they rarely, if ever, increase U.S.
security. On the other hand, Sen. Biden and company have never met an
arms control treaty that they don’t like. And, indeed, this gets
to the heart of the matter. For defenders of the
ABM Treaty, the central issue is not U.S.-Russian strategic relations.
However one wants to define the current relationship between Moscow and
Washington, it no longer can be said to revolve around warhead counts
and ICBM throw-weights. The real issue here, and the underlying question,
is whether the decades-long effort to control the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction and the means to deliver them through arms control
treaties has in fact worked. Withdrawing from the ABM Treaty is a tacit
admission that it hasn’t. And whatever can be done to slow or control
proliferation through multilateral treaties in the future, that mechanism
is no longer central. For most of the ABM
Treaty’s defenders, this is a bridge too far. This accounts for their
remarkable tenacity in hanging on to an accord whose specific purpose
-- controlling the strategic balance between two superpowers -- no longer,
as a practical matter, exists. In short, withdrawing from the ABM Treaty
not only represents a sea-change in how we think about the nature of deterrence
but it also marks the end of an era in which it was plausible to argue
that our overall security was best served by a web of parchment accords,
and not our own military capabilities.
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