USA WITHDRAWS FROM ABM TREATY

[RAMBO]

I hope this isn't a blow to USA - Russians relations!

Things were going so good....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Dec11.html

[RAMBO]

President Bush made it official today: The USA has withdrawn from the ABM Treaty.

Many American and Russian politicians are unhappy:


December 13, 2001

Business and Finance - Europe

Russia's Putin Is Likely to Weather
U.S. Departure From ABM Treaty

By CARLA ANNE ROBBINS and GUY CHAZAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


While Russian politicians angrily protested President Bush's decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, U.S. officials predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would easily ride out any domestic crisis and said he has committed to matching Mr. Bush's pledge of a two-thirds reduction in offensive nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials said that they have spent months preparing the Russian leader for the move. At their November summit in Washington Mr. Bush told Mr. Putin "One day I'm going to call you and say it's time," recalled a U.S. official. On Friday, Mr. Bush made that call.

Since then U.S. diplomats have worked with the Russians to orchestrate statements intended to minimize the political fallout -- both for Mr. Putin and for Mr. Bush, who Wednesday was strongly criticized by Democratic leaders for abandoning the treaty.

U.S. officials said that in a statement Thursday Mr. Bush would give formal notice that the U.S. is withdrawing from the 1972 treaty that bans national missile defenses but also would strongly affirm the "broader" U.S.-Russian relationship. Mr. Putin, in turn, was expected to express his disappointment but also affirm the relationship and back it up with a commitment to match or better 2,200 long-range nuclear weapons.

1Bush Is Expected to Announce Withdrawal of U.S. From Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (Dec. 12)

"I expect the Russians will have numbers of their own, or say they're ready to meet President Bush's," said another U.S. official, adding that Mr. Putin's statement "should undermine any arguments that this will fuel a new arms race."

However, the initial Russian reaction Wednesday was far from enthusiastic. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov told reporters in Brasilia that Russia "would very much regret if [the U.S.] left the treaty," Reuters reported. "What worries us is strategic stability."

Russian politicians from across the political spectrum were furious, predicting that the move would be seen as a major defeat for Mr. Putin and the aggressively pro-American policies he has pursued since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Russians were just beginning to believe they could have a strategic partnership with America and now this happens," fumed Vladimir Lukin, a liberal deputy and former Russian ambassador to the U.S. "The U.S. has shown that it will always do exactly what it wants, whenever it wants, without ever taking our opinion into account." Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of parliament's foreign-affairs committee, warned that Russia could respond by pulling out of other arms-control agreements.

Since Sept. 11 Mr. Putin has been willing to break Cold War taboos, most dramatically by agreeing to the stationing of U.S. troops close to Russia's borders in Central Asia and endorsing the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.

Mr. Putin has received tangible benefits in return, including Mr. Bush's commitment to deep nuclear-weapons cuts and support for Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization. This week, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the two sides would work to codify weapons cuts in some formal agreement, as Mr. Putin has been insisting. The first U.S. official said that Washington will look seriously at purchasing Russian "components" for the Pentagon's missile-defense program.

The official also said that U.S. efforts to postpone a withdrawal by negotiating an agreement that would allow the Pentagon to test technologies banned by the treaty had quickly foundered over Moscow's insistence that it be allowed to vet each test. "If this decision had come eight months ago, I think it would have been a real problem in U.S.-Russia relations," said the official. "But we've had a period of time now in which a lot of the elements are coming into place for a new relationship."

But many politicians and commentators in Russia say that Mr. Putin -- who has built his reputation on tough-mindedness -- hasn't gotten nearly enough and looks increasingly the loser in his dealings with the U.S.

In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) warned that the withdrawal would strain relations with Russia and China just when Washington needs their support for the war on terrorism. "I think it undermines the fragile coalition that we have with our allies," he said.

Write to Carla Anne Robbins at carla.robbins@wsj.com2 and Guy Chazan at guy.chazan@wsj.com3

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I think I'll post a couple of reactions here from different sources (the ones I respect). Please note that I've bolded or italicized some parts in the articles.

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fm 'The Los Angeles Times'

The Wrong Message, the Wrong Time

By J. PETER SCOBLIC

President Bush reportedly will announce--possibly as early as today--U.S. withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which limits the testing and deployment of strategic missile defenses. The myriad arguments for and against missile defense aside, such action would be a mistake for one simple reason: It will yield absolutely no benefits in the short term while threatening key diplomatic relations at a time of military crisis.
The president argued Wednesday that the ABM treaty is restricting U.S. missile-defense testing and that we must withdraw because we need a missile defense to counter the threats of the 21st century. But testing that is compliant with the treaty can continue for years. Forcing the issue will only cripple our most pressing security initiative: the war on terrorism.
The ABM treaty permits testing of fixed, land-based antimissile systems like the one the U.S. successfully tested last week. The more exotic sea- and air-based technologies that the Bush administration wants to explore will not be ready for field testing for years. In other words, substantial advances must be made before the treaty would become an obstacle. As Philip Coyle, who headed the Pentagon's testing office until earlier this year, testified to Congress in July, "In the near term, the ABM treaty hinders neither development nor testing." There is literally nothing to be gained from leaving the treaty now. The United States can continue to pursue the land-based system and aggressively test other platforms. The Russians, who want to preserve the treaty, even are willing to consider amending it to allow the U.S. to conduct tests the treaty forbids--amendments that President Bush promised he would seek but now is refusing to consider.
The likely costs of pulling out of the treaty, however, are readily apparent. Even if one discounts the argument that Russia and China would react by building up their nuclear arsenals and blocking nonproliferation efforts, it should be patently obvious that antagonizing Moscow and Beijing at this time would only hinder our paramount foreign policy objective: winning the war on terrorism.
Exiting the treaty just as we have asked for international help in rooting out Al Qaeda and combating global terrorism would be nothing less than a slap in the face of the world community. It shows that despite the willingness of other states to take risks to help the United States and to cultivate long-term international stability, the U.S. will retain a narrow view of its own interests and ignore the legitimate security needs of its partners.
The obvious consequence is that others will feel free to act without regard to U.S. interests. Responding Tuesday to the prospect of U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, one former Russian official echoed the tone of President Vladimir V. Putin's remarks in recent months, saying, "It is bad for the rest of the world. It is bad for Russia, but it's your decision."
That may sound like grudging acceptance, but expect to hear that same laissez-faire attitude turned against U.S. interests frequently in the coming months and years. For example, if the United States asks Russia to stem its nuclear technology transfers to Iran, a known sponsor of terrorism, the response could well be, "We understand that you think it is bad for the United States and the world, but it is our decision."
In short, expect a world in which short-term, narrowly defined national interest trumps long-term nonproliferation efforts and stability, a world in which global cooperation will decrease at the exact moment we need it most to combat terror and ensure that weapons of mass destruction do not find their way to the likes of Al Qaeda.
The ABM treaty will not impede U.S. testing for years, and withdrawing now will simply incur most of missile defense's costs immediately while doing nothing to bring its still-theoretical benefits any closer. Withdrawal from the treaty at this particular moment is unnecessary and dangerous.

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fm 'the New York Times'

Tearing Up the ABM Treaty



With his decision to junk the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, President Bush is rolling the diplomatic dice. If he is lucky, the Russians will live with the decision and relations with Moscow will continue to improve while Washington freely experiments with new missile defense systems. If he is not, Mr. Bush may alienate the Kremlin and give rise to a dangerous new arms race with Russia and possibly China as well. Why he would choose to take that risk at a moment when he badly needs Russian cooperation in the war against terrorism is baffling. It is not as if the lesson of Sept. 11 was that the United States is vulnerable to a missile attack.
Mr. Bush has been sold on the idea of disowning the ABM treaty since the earliest days of his presidential campaign. The idea is the foreign policy equivalent of his large tax cut for the wealthiest Americans — he remains wedded to it even though circumstances have changed and the idea is not in the best interests of the nation. Long after the war against terrorism winds down, the world will still face the problem of managing the nuclear weapons of the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and other nations. Mr. Bush's disdain for the ABM treaty — and other international agreements — hardly sets a constructive precedent for controlling these weapons. Giving Russia and China an incentive now to build more missiles so they can defeat an American shield that may not be perfected for years does not make sense.
Mr. Bush's decision will severely test his budding friendship with Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, who has taken considerable political risks at home by embracing the West in recent months. At their last meetings Mr. Putin seemed prepared to work out a nuclear bargain with the United States that included modifications of the ABM treaty. As part of the new framework, America and Russia would also cut their offensive weapons. The reductions have already been outlined, and a written agreement to ensure that the retirement of weapons can be verified is under discussion. But Mr. Putin, faced with strenuous opposition from his generals to altering the treaty, has not proved flexible enough on that front to satisfy Mr. Bush. In his haste to press ahead with missile shield tests, Mr. Bush overruled Secretary of State Colin Powell, who favored a negotiated resolution.
Russia is not eager to invest billions of dollars to modernize all its nuclear weapons, but it can renounce other nuclear arms treaties and rather easily add multiple warheads to some of its missiles as a quick counter to the American decision. Mr. Putin can also respond in other arenas. Without his acquiescence, American forces would be unable to use bases in several nations bordering Afghanistan that were once Soviet republics, including Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Mr. Bush will certainly need Russian support if he hopes to get international arms inspectors back into Iraq.
Even if the Russians choose not to respond immediately, it is hard to see why Mr. Bush feels the need to push them. The ABM treaty leaves Washington free to continue the testing of ground-based interceptors. Given time, Mr. Putin seemed likely to agree to revisions that would permit development of sea- and air-based technologies, and he might have eased his demand for detailed discussions with Washington about each American test. Mutual abandonment of the accord might even have been possible. The hardest move for Mr. Putin to absorb is an unnegotiated American withdrawal, the step Mr. Bush plans to take.
President Bush is right when he says the United States and Russia should develop an enduring friendship, free of cold-war policies. It is also reasonable for the United States to explore new technologies to better defend itself against foreign threats, including a missile strike by a rogue nation like Iraq. But those goals can be achieved without scrapping a treaty that has played a critical role in keeping the peace.

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fm 'The Guardian Unlimited', London, UK

"Keeping the peace
The ABM treaty works; why withdraw?"

Defence policies are like insurance policies. If you pick the wrong one, you find yourself without cover for the risks which your country really faces. After September 11, there seemed to be a chance that the Bush administration would moderate its extreme enthusiasm for missile defence.
The attacks reinforced the argument that it was far more likely that weapons of mass destruction, should they ever be used against the United States, would be delivered by ship, truck, civil airliner or other mundane means, rather than by long-range missiles. Insofar as there is, or could be in the future, a missile threat to the United States from rogue states the best protection against it is the same as it is for the established nuclear powers that might conceivably aim their weapons at America - the knowledge that the attacking regime would have that any strike would be instantly traceable to it and that there would be immediate retaliation.
But the administration insisted that the need for defence against what now had to be seen as the more likely danger did not mean that there should not also be a guard against the less likely contingency, and it remained unswervingly committed to the development of a substantial missile defence system. It made a somewhat more serious effort to persuade Russia to agree to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, so that the United States could go ahead with the programme, at least for a while, without having to abandon that agreement. But Colin Powell's trip to Moscow this week apparently marked the end of that effort, and reports from Washington have confirmed that President Bush has informed Congress leaders of America's intention to withdraw from the treaty.
The real danger of such a move is not that it will provoke intense hostility from Russia and China. Both those powers can derive some advantage from such an American decision. Vladimir Putin can satisfy his own military constituency, less than keen on more concessions to the Americans, by refusing to agree to amendments. At the same time he can maintain his new, cosier relationship with the United States by making only a limited fuss about withdrawal from the treaty. The Chinese leaders would get some international justification for what they were planning to do anyway, which is to modernise and increase their own strategic missile force.
The American decision to withdraw produces a situation in which the bigger nuclear powers will all make their decisions in a more unilateral way, with less frankness and transparency. It will make it almost inevitable that both Russia and China will keep their weapons on high alert, increasing the chances of an accidental launch. The example to lesser nuclear states like India and Pakistan will be a bad one. And the prospects for the kind of continuous cooperation between all states that is needed to prevent proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction will be reduced.
While there may be no immediately dramatic effect on strategic stability, in other words, in the longer term the security of all, including Americans, will be diminished. Even in narrow military terms, the United States is ill served by such a decision. Missile defence will divert resources from other forms of military power and from the worldwide preventive programmes - in intelligence, hearts and minds, and education - that everybody now thinks necessary. Withdrawal from the treaty does not mean the end of the world, or of arms control, but it is very definitely a move in the wrong direction.

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fm 'The Financial Times', London, UK



Editorial comment: Risks of ripping up a treaty
Published: December 12 2001 20:30 | Last Updated: December 12 2001 20:31



President George W. Bush's decision to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is bad for the future of arms control. Even though Moscow seems ready to accept Washington's announcement without strong protests, the US may yet come to rue the precedent it is setting.
Mr Bush is pulling out of the treaty because he would like a free hand in developing his missile shield. His timing is well chosen: after September 11, American voters want extra protection from external threats. His reputation is riding high in the light of the apparent success of the anti-terrorism campaign. And relations with Moscow have rarely been better.
But tearing up the treaty is a mistake. Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, indicated that he was ready to interpret the treaty flexibly to allow the US to continue the missile shield tests. Washington's Nato allies, who have their own reservations about the shield, would have gone along with a formula that was acceptable to Moscow.
Instead, there will be a void. For a while this may not matter. The US and Russia are preparing another round of nuclear warhead cuts, which is welcome even if both parties will remain capable of global destruction.
Other signs are less reassuring, however. Russia's calm response yesterday included a quiet threat to accelerate the development of multiple warhead rockets, despite their being banned by the Start II arms reduction agreement. Since Start II was never ratified, Moscow is free to act unilaterally, just as Mr Bush has done.
Russia will struggle to finance a new warheads programme, so the west need not worry just yet. But the implied threat of a tit-for-tat response shows how easy it could be to damage years of confidence-building. This may not be apparent today, given the warm state of US-Russian ties, but it could prove damaging in future.
Mr Bush is sacrificing a lot for a missile shield that may yet be technologically unworkable. And even if it does work, it is unlikely to protect the US from the threats it now faces. The stated aim is blocking missile attacks from rogue states. But as recent events have shown, rogues do not need missiles to deliver death and destruction.
Also, there is a disturbing return to unilateralism suggested by Mr Bush's decision. He has proclaimed the virtues of multi-lateralism in the anti-terrorism war. But he has yet to show that on issues close to his heart he can bend to the wishes of his allies. He could have finessed the disagreements over the ABM treaty but chose not to. There will be other questions on which Washington will disagree with its Nato allies. Mr Bush should not forget that even if the US needs no outside military support, political backing is invaluable, as the current war has shown.