Rumsfeld on ABM Treaty: A Sugar Coated Red Herring?
Statement has both Positive and Negative Elements
Press Release: 25 October 2001
Contact: Chris Madison - 202.546.0795 ×135; Luke Warren - 202.546.0795 ×127
Washington, D.C. - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s statement today on national missile defense tests is both encouraging and discouraging, according to the pro-arms control group Council for a Livable World.
In a statement released today, Council president John Isaacs stated: “The positive sign is that the administration has sent a signal to the Russians and the rest of the world that the United States will not violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.”
“On the negative side,” Isaacs added, “the Administration continues to insist that the treaty is a significant obstacle to the missile defense program and that it must get beyond the treaty, with or without the Russians, and soon. We disagree.”
The tests cited by Rumsfeld that would have “bumped up” against the treaty involved the use of Aegis radar to track ballistic missiles in flight. While these tests are prohibited by the treaty, they are not crucial to development of missile defense at this stage. At a Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation press briefing last August, Philip Coyle, former head of operational testing and evaluation at the Pentagon, called the Aegis radar tracking tests a “red herring” that “are just getting people riled up…by picking this test, they picked a technical area that’s not really a problem for them.”
In fact, the tests appeared to have been scheduled earlier this year more to destroy the ABM Treaty, or to create an excuse to abrogate the treaty, than to develop an effective national missile defense.
However, Rumsfeld’s statements do show the administration’s increasing respect for multi-lateralism. Chris Madison, director of the Center for Arms Control’s national missile defense project, commented: “We applaud the administration’s recognition that a unilateral move to violate the treaty now could jeopardize the international coalition against terrorism.
“We hope the administration takes the time needed to negotiate an agreement with Russia while avoiding unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty,” Madison continued.
“However,” he noted, “there were strong signals from last weekend’s Bush-Putin meeting that the Administration was prepared to announce in January that it was giving six month notice of withdrawal from the treaty. Such a move would be a serious setback for arms control and U.S. security.”