06/21/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09959

BEYOND THE A-B-M TREATY

On June 15^th, the United States took an important step toward the development of a missile defense system. Construction began in Alaska on a facility to test and evaluate a wide range of missile defense support programs and systems necessary to provide a defense against long-range ballistic missiles that could carry weapons of mass destruction.

Two days earlier, on June 13^th, the United States notification of withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty became effective. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the détente period of the Cold War. Then-President Richard Nixon said, "The A-B-M Treaty stopped what inevitably would have become a defensive arms race. The other major effect...was to make permanent the concept of deterrence through ‘mutual terror’."

Since then, the Soviet Union has collapsed and democratic reforms have been introduced in Russia. Today, said U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, "We can now base our relations not on mutual destruction but on mutual interests."

He said the U.S. is "now free to develop, test and deploy effective defenses against missile attacks from states like North Korea and Iran – states that are aggressively seeking weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles."

These states are investing scarce resources to acquire increasingly longer-range ballistic missiles. As President George W. Bush put it, "North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens." Iran is also pursuing such weapons while repressing the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. And the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq continues, said President Bush, "to flaunt its hostility toward America and support terror." As President Bush said, "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger."

Because of the A-B-M treaty, the U.S. was not able fully to develop defenses against these threats. Now, for the first time, the U.S. will be able to test and deploy a missile defense system based on various technologies that can defend the entire territory of the United States. The U.S. will also be able to share without restriction its knowledge and work on missile defense with its allies.

As President Bush said, "We have moved beyond an A-B-M Treaty that prevented us from defending our people and our friends."