Mujtaba Ali mali@media.ucla.edu
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Last December President Bush announced that the United States
would unilaterally walk away from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
signed with Russia in 1972. The treaty prevents the two
countries from implementing defense systems that shoot down
incoming missiles before they reach their target. Bush’s
intention is to revive Ronald Reagan’s failed Strategic
Defense Initiative, (aka “Star Wars”) that used
space-based, laser-equipped satellites to track and destroy
warheads aimed at American targets.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was created in a hope to quell
the possibility of imminent “mutually-assured
destruction” of the USSR and United States during the Cold
War. The Bush administration’s decision to abrogate the
treaty poses several problems. In addition to jeopardizing
diplomatic ties with several countries, abandoning the treaty
increases the risk of reigniting a decade-old arms race between the
U.S. and other nuclear powers. The action also has risky
economic and domestic implications.
One of the main reasons the Reagan administration and subsequent
presidents chose to scrap development of a ballistic missile shield
was the simple fact that it did not work. Some anti-ballistic
missile systems function on the idea of “hitting a bullet
with a bullet,” firing a kinetic hit-to-kill projectile to
collide with the warhead. Other methods, such as laser
interception, are also not sufficiently advanced; both tests of
Reagan’s SDI in the 1980s and tests of current systems have
resulted in failure.
In an article in MIT’s Technology Review, Professor
Theodore Postol explains that anti-ballistic missile systems
currently in development have failed to distinguish between decoys
and actual warheads. The inability of the current systems to make
this fundamental distinction renders them effectively
useless. Furthermore, it was discovered that missile defense
contractors Boeing and TRW manipulated data from a 1997 test in
order to overstate the capabilities of the ABM system (The
Nation).
The U.S. government demonstrates arrogance in its willingness to
walk away from a legitimate international agreement. Many nations
have criticized Bush’s decision to abandon the ABM
treaty. The Swedish foreign ministry remarked that such an act
presents “serious consequences for the future of
international disarmament”(BBC News).
Russian President Vladimir Putin strongly opposed the
U.S.’s decision because it would weaken all previous attempts
at arms control agreements. The ABM treaty succeeded in retaining
the status of nuclear weaponry as a deterrent rather than an
offensive military option. Anti-ballistic missile systems (if they
don’t fail) make the U.S. less vulnerable to missile
attack. This means that the U.S. will be free to launch an
atomic warhead at any nation and worry less about facing a
retaliation.
Recent legislation such as the Nuclear Posture Review confirms
the United State’s intention in transforming the role of
nuclear weapons in foreign policy to one of offensive
implementation.
By abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and shifting
thinking about nuclear weapons toward a first-strike offensive
stance, the U.S. is on the verge of disrupting the worldwide
nuclear balance. So far, only Russia and the United States
have agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenal to prevent this
disruption. However, the U.S. has since made clear that it
will place even some of these weapons in storage, rather than
destroy them (BBC News). If the U.S. is to proceed in its
development of the missile defense shield, the inevitable
consequence would be for nuclear powers like China to respond by
increasing their arsenal, as increased numbers of warheads could
overwhelm any U.S. defense system. Other nuclear powers would
follow, and the result would be a resurrection of the nuclear arms
race of the Cold War.
The U.S. government’s actions revive Cold War era feelings
of insecurity and vulnerability. Aside from the threat of an
impending nuclear arms race, it is not comforting to know that a
missile defense system with untested technology and a tendency to
malfunction is soon to loom over our heads. Postol states that
if the U.S. government insists on deploying a dysfunctional missile
defense system, “thousands or even hundreds of thousands of
people could get killed” by errant hit-to-kill
projectiles.
Development of the ballistic missile shield is expected to add
$230 billion to an already over-funded military. As a result,
social programs such as state-provided health care are suffering.
Time magazine reported that the number of uninsured people is up 2
million from last year and that the federal government has rejected
many states’ requests for aid so that it can fund its
military exploits.
Bush employs primitive, Cold War rationale in thinking that the
expensive, nonfunctional missile defense system is necessary. Many
critics of the missile defense program argue that the chances of a
terrorist group or “rogue state” using a ballistic
missile to strike the U.S. are very slim since a truck or suitcase
bomb presents a much easier option than the technology involved in
a ballistic missile.
Walking away from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty poses a
threat to world peace and nullifies decades of progress in arms
reduction and control. Unless the U.S. government recognizes
the consequences of this unilateral act, it may very well set the
stage for a new Cold War.