IMPACTS: LOSS OF THE ABM TREATY MEANS A NEW NUCLEAR ARMS RACE WITH RUSSIA

REJECTION OF THE ABM TREATY WILL DESTROY ALL ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS WITH RUSSIA AND AN ARMS RACE WILL ENSUE

David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, The Washington Post, November 4, 1999, SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A25 HEADLINE: Russia Test-Fires Interceptor Missile; Military Lobs Warning Shot to Counter Talk of U.S. National Defense System // ln-acs-11-11-99

Speaking of the "inviolability" of the ABM treaty, Dvorkin [chief of the military's Central Research Institute and one of Russia's top strategists ] said, "If that stone is removed, the whole system of treaties will collapse."

"The ruins will be as follows," he added. "START I will be dead, all mutual exchanges of information will be ended, hundreds of verification missions that both sides carry out on a reciprocal basis will be discontinued."

"We won't know the state of the U.S. strategic forces and they won't know what we are doing," he added. "This will upset the balance of nuclear forces."

Specifically, Russia has threatened to prolong the life of multiple-warhead missiles outlawed by START II, and change the new single-warhead Topol-M missile to a multiple-warhead delivery vehicle. (The START II treaty signed in 1993 has never been ratified by the Russian parliament.) Dvorkin also said Russia would use "modern means of penetrating anti-missile defense and these are measures that we can afford." One such measure reportedly is deployment of dummy warheads on the new Topol-M missile.

IF ABM TREATY IS VIOLATED RUSSIA WILL REARM ITS EXISTING MISSILES AND WITHDRAW FROM START ONE

David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service The Washington Post November 22, 1999, SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A18 , HEADLINE: New Life for 'Star Wars' Response; Russians Could Revive Soviet Strategy if U.S. Decides to Deploy Missile Defense //acs-ln-12-22-99

But Russian officials have said they could convert the Topol-M into a three-warhead missile. Such multiple-warhead land-based missiles were outlawed by the START II treaty, which has never been ratified by the Russian parliament and may not be. Moreover, Russians have said the START I treaty could also be endangered.

"If this [antimissile] treaty crashes, then there are no problems to increase the launched weight of the rockets," Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, director of the Defense Ministry's Central Research Institute and a leading strategist, said in a recent newspaper essay.

IGNORING ABM TREATY LEADS TO RUSSIAN NUCLEAR BUILD UP

Secretary of Defense William Cohen press conference, January 20, 1999 "ABM Treaty, I believe it's in our interest to maintain that. I think we need to modify it to allow for an NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE program that I've outlined, but the ABM Treaty I think is important to maintain the limitations on offensive missiles. To the extent that there is no ABM Treaty, then certainly Russia or other countries would feel free to develop as many offensive weapons as they wanted, which would then set in motion a comparable dynamic to offset that with more missiles here."