ANSWERS: ABM TREATY HURTS USA NATIONAL SECURITY

ABM TREATY ACTUALLY INCREASES THE RISKS POSED BY MISSILE PROLIFERATION

PAUL MANN Aviation Week and Space Technology July 5, 1999 ; Pg. 30 HEADLINE: Historic Turn Eyed In Missile Defense // lnu-acs

Stability is a desirable condition, but it is not an ultimate end and it is not an alternative to defense, asserts Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a high-ranking strategic thinker in the Reagan Administration. ''It is the proliferation of missiles that is of course creating the strategic instability that characterizes the world today,'' and the ABM treaty does not address that. Indeed, in her view, it compounds the proliferation threat to the U.S.

ABM treaty is the repository of all the totemic properties of arms control. It was perhaps once a M treaty is the repository of all the totemic properties of arms control. It was perhaps once a aving been contracted with a state that no longer exists. Its original purpose was to promote strategic stability and prevent an offensive weapons race between the United States and the Soviet Union. But its only effect today is to prevent the United States from building effective defenses against the real threat it faces: limited attack with weapons of mass destruction launched either deliberately by rogue states or accidentally (or without authority) by others.

IT IS TIME TO DECLARE THE ABM TREATY NULL AND VOID

Declare the ABM Treaty null and void. The President should publicly announce that the ABM Treaty is no longer legally binding and will no longer be enforced. He should also direct the Department of Defense to review its missile defense development and deployment programs to determine any improvements that should be made and expedited now that the ABM Treaty would no longer constrain the programs. The Secretary of Defense should report on these improvements within 60 days. The United States, six months prior to the time that it would first exceed the ABM Treaty's limitations, as a gesture of good will should give Russia advance notice.

THE WORLD IS DIFFERENT, THE ABM TREATY NO LONGER FITS IN

Editorial The Jerusalem Post January 30, 2001, SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 8 HEADLINE: Ending the era of vulnerability //VT2002acsln

When asked if he had "disparaged" and planned to "scrap" the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Rumsfeld rejected the "disparaging" label but pointed out, "We're in a very different world. The Soviet Union is gone. The principal threats facing the United States are not the fear of a strategic nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. And it strikes me that we should accept the treaty in that sense." The ABM treaty, in other words, only makes sense today to the extent that it helps address the threats of today's world. Finally, someone has come along and said the emperor has no clothes: The security posture of the West should not be made to fit an outdated treaty, but the other way around.

CUTTING DOWN THE SIZE OF MISSILE DEFENSE DEPLOYMENT TO FALL WITHIN THE ABM TREATY WOULD CRIPPLE ITS EFFECTIVENESS

Justin Brown, The Christian Science Monitor, November 12, 1999, SECTION: USA; Pg. 1 HEADLINE: Forcing a rethink of global security // acs-ln-11-19-99

For the moment, the US is paring down the missile-defense plan to make it more compliant with the ABM Treaty - but critics warn of weakening the system to the point where it no longer justifies a cost of $ 128 billion over 30 years. "We've already compromised the system so much that it's not effective," says Dan Goure, who heads a missile-defense project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies here. Mr. Goure argues that a proper system cannot be built even loosely within the confines of the ABM Treaty and that if the treaty were scrapped, it would take 10 to 12 years to redesign a more thorough system.

NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM WHICH WOULD BE ALLOWED BY THE ABM TREATY IS TOO SMALL TO BE USEFUL

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel May 25, 1999 SECTION: News Pg. 14 HEADLINE: Missile defense no more than a delusion // lnu-acs

Another problem is that any system to protect the entire country from a missile attack would almost certainly violate international law. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty prohibits extensive missile defense systems. A scaled-down defense, which the treaty would permit, would provide only limited protection and, therefore, be of little use.