Tag Archives: Defense Budget & Expenditures

Hail to the Chief: George W. Bush Demonstrates Couragerous, Visionary Leadership — again — by Jettisoning A.B.M. Treaty

(Washington, D.C.): In his first 11 months in office, President Bush has — to his lasting credit — reestablished "peace through strength" as the guiding principle of American security policy. This has been most evident in his extraordinary leadership in the war on terrorism.

Arguably, an even more important manifestation of Mr. Bush’s determination to be realistic about the threats we face and to respond to them vigorously has been his breathtakingly clear-headed view of arms control. In contrast to virtually every one of his predecessors since John F. Kennedy — and countless others in academia, diplomatic circles, scientific conclaves, think tanks, Congress and the media who have made careers out of producing and/or promoting various arms limitation treaties, President Bush has seen such treaties for what they generally are: Accords that are all too often unverifiable, generally inequitable to the United States and frequently violated by the other parties. As a result, these usually well-intentioned pacts often have very deleterious effects on U.S. national security and interests.

There is no better example of an arms control agreement having such a deleterious effect than the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. As the following op.ed. article by Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., which appeared in today’s Wall Street Journal, makes clear, the fact that this treaty compelled the American people to remain permanently vulnerable to the real and growing danger of ballistic missile attack made it not only a moral abomination; for a nation at war in the 21st Century, it had become an invitation to disaster.

The Center for Security Policy commends President Bush for his principled, courageous and entirely correct view of the need for effective missile defense of the United States and its forces and allies overseas. It applauds him for rejecting the appalling idea of leaving the ABM Treaty in place while somehow pursuing missile defense-related development and testing it prohibited. And the Center joins the vast majority of our countrymen in thanking him for clearing the way at last, by withdrawing from that accord altogether, for the quintessential application of the principle of "peace through strength" — the deployment of such defenses at the earliest possible moment.

 

A Milestone for Missile Defense
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
The Wall Street Journal, 13 December 2001

A year ago, shortly after George W. Bush officially won the presidency, political guru Karl Rove held an informal meeting with Washington policy wonks to discuss the incoming administration’s agenda. I asked him whether we could expect the new president to fulfill his campaign promise to defend the American people against ballistic-missile attack as soon as possible — even if doing so required the United States to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty?

Mr. Rove’s response: "People in this town are going to be surprised to discover that George W. Bush means what he says, and does what he says he’ll do."

Today, Mr. Bush will live up to that advance billing. He will exercise the U.S. right, pursuant to the ABM Treaty’s Article XV, to declare that the accord jeopardizes America’s "supreme interests." Six months from now, America will be free — for the first time in nearly 30 years — to develop and deploy whatever technologies it deems necessary to protect itself against missile attack.

Significant Contribution

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this contribution to the national security. Ronald Reagan launched his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983 out of a conviction that it would be better to "protect American lives than to avenge them" after a nuclear missile attack. President Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, pursued a Global Protection Against Limited Strikes system and, at one point, even had Boris Yeltsin’s public support for jointly fielding such a capability. Yet neither of those presidents chose to withdraw from the ABM Treaty.

Bill Clinton adamantly opposed missile defenses and, not surprisingly, his administration expended most of its related energies trying to make the ABM Treaty — which it called "the cornerstone of strategic stability" — even more restrictive of American anti-missile technology. Although Mr. Clinton was compelled in 1999 by veto-proof bipartisan majorities in Congress to sign legislation making it the policy of the U.S. to deploy a limited, effective national missile defense "as soon as technologically possible," he resisted calls to exercise our Article XV right to withdraw so as to implement that policy.

George W. Bush has now gone where his predecessors declined to go, for one simple reason: Today’s world bears no resemblance to that of 1972, when the ABM Treaty was signed. The global superpower and nuclear peer that was the other party, the Soviet Union, has been out of business for over a decade. In its place is a world awash with weapons of mass destruction and rogue states seeking ever-more-capable means of delivering them via ballistic and cruise missiles.

In 2001, we see even more clearly the validity of warnings sounded in 1998 by a blue-ribbon, bipartisan commission chaired by Donald Rumsfeld: While the Cold War was characterized by relatively predictable, deterrence-based strategic stability, the danger of devastating attacks via long-range missiles could now emerge at any time and with little warning.

President Bush has also recognized another ineluctable reality. The U.S. simply could not acquire, let alone field, an effective anti-missile system for its people and territory within the limits of the ABM Treaty. This was no accident. That’s precisely what the treaty was designed to prevent the parties from legally doing.

For starters, the Treaty’s Article I flatly prohibited the deployment of any territorial defense against "strategic" ballistic missiles. Article V barred the development of the most efficient approaches to defending against long-range missiles (sea-, air- and space-based systems). Various other provisions prohibited techniques that could be used to circumvent the treaty, including cooperation with allies.

Of course, these limitations did not keep the Soviet Union and, after its demise, Russia from putting into place a territorial anti-missile system. As this page has reported in the past, former CIA analyst William T. Lee has accumulated irrefutable, unclassified evidence of a dirty little secret: Those responsible for designing and deploying the Kremlin’s ABM system around Moscow (which was allowed under the 1972 ABM Treaty) were under orders to use its radars and 8,000-10,000 surface-to-air interceptors to assemble an illegal nation-wide missile defense. The existence of this system renders absurd Kremlin complaints about America’s perfectly legitimate withdrawal from the treaty.

Now some, like Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D., Del.), cavil that Mr. Bush "has not offered any convincing rationale for why any missile-defense test it may need to conduct would require walking away from a treaty that has helped keep the peace for the last 30 years." This is especially rich. Sen. Biden is one of those who has in the past strenuously insisted that the U.S. observe the most restrictive interpretation of what the treaty allows and does not.

Hard as it may be to fathom, many of the ABM Treaty’s champions believe it more important to protect that accord than our country. Their theological attachment to what President Bush has properly called an "obsolete" and "dangerous" agreement appears to have little to do with logic or common sense. Rather, it seems to stem from the fact that entire careers in academe and defense circles have been based on this house of cards. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) gave voice to this sentiment in denouncing the Bush decision to withdraw as a "slap in the face for many people who have committed years if not decades" to arms control.

Mr. Bush is under no illusions about the ABM Treaty. He has been formally advised by the Pentagon that continued adherence to it has required developmental tests to be curtailed, dumbed-down or otherwise made less useful than they could, and should, be. These warnings confirm what U.S. missile-defense program managers and engineers have known for three decades: You simply can’t acquire militarily valuable and cost-effective missile defenses of the U.S. and its allies overseas within the confines of the ABM Treaty. So it should come as no surprise that we are still without a fully deployable missile-defense system, despite many years and billions of dollars spent on related work — all done within the ABM Treaty straightjacket.

The challenge now is to capitalize on the opportunities created by ending the ABM regime. Specifically, President Bush should direct not only a far more aggressive and unfettered development program but the deployment of anti-missile systems (even if their initial capability may be quite limited) in keeping with the mandates of the 1999 Missile Defense Act — that is, as soon as technologically possible.

Start With Aegis

The really good news is that, thanks to roughly $60 billion invested over the past 30 years, the U.S. Navy today has a fleet of 60 cruisers and destroyers equipped with the Aegis air-defense system. If the president directs that these ships and their existing sensors, missiles and communications systems be immediately upgraded as a matter of the utmost priority, a dozen or so of these vessels could be given limited capability to intercept ballistic missiles roughly six months after the ABM Treaty expires. The prior investment in infrastructure makes this far and away the most cost-effective, flexible and rapid means of fielding limited anti-missile systems, leaving ample funds available to bring other, complementary missile-defense technologies on line in due course.

By withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, Mr. Bush has proven himself a man of his word. If he now directs the Defense Department to get started on the deployment of the defense he promised the American people, we may just have one in place before we need it.

Mr. Gaffney was responsible for missile-defense policy in the Reagan Defense Department. He is currently the president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

Is the Cold War Over’?

(Washington, D.C.): In his syndicated column in Monday’s New York Times, William Safire offers an ominous assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the signal successes he has achieved since President Bush started looking “into his soul” and declared that he “trusts” his Kremlin counterpart.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bush, as alarming as the Safire critique is today — concerning, for example, Russia’s machinations, at U.S. and Western expense, on NATO, Chechnya, oil prices, weapons sales to Iraq and other state-sponsors of terrorism, etc. — the record could become even more damning if Secretary of State Powell has his way.

Reading Putin’s Mind’

Bill Safire rightly worries that the “new relationship” being forged at President Bush’s behest between Russia and the Atlantic Alliance will translate into Moscow having access to NATO’s military secrets and an effective veto over its conduct of operations. He notes that Putin’s ruthless repression of the Chechens has now been legitimated as just another front in the global war on Islamist terrorism.

Safire wonders about Russian double-dealing on oil prices, too. He notes that Moscow at first declined to go along with production cut-backs sought by OPEC, but has recently signaled a willingness to make more-than-token reductions in supply so as to jack up the price-per-barrel. And he observes that, while the Kremlin was only too happy to have us attack its enemies in Afghanistan, Moscow will want no part of our doing the same in Iraq or other Russian client-states.

The Powell Gambit

These concerns are hardly unjustified. If press reports are correct, however, the gravity of their implications may be greatly compounded by Secretary of State Powell during his personal diplomatic mission to Moscow this week.

According to the Washington Post, Mr. Powell told reporters enroute to Russia that “a deal between the United States and Russia to sharply reduce nuclear weapons is just about done,’ and the two countries are now looking for ways to verify that they abide by the proposed limits.” Specifically, they are “focusing on how to apply verification measures included in the earlier START I and START II arms control treaties to the new limits proposed for offensive weapons.”

In other words, President Bush risks having a unilateral decision to reduce American strategic nuclear forces by two-thirds over the next decade morphed by his Secretary of State into a binding bilateral agreement, replete with verification mechanisms carried forward from earlier arms control treaties.

This would be a very bad idea on several grounds. First of all, the number of strategic arms President Bush has decided to retain a decade from now — 1700-2200 weapons — may prove inadequate to future targeting requirements. One of the distinct advantages of making that decision as a matter of unilateral U.S. discretion is that it could relatively easily be revised down the road. That is not the case with understandings formalized by accords (treaties, executive agreements, etc.) between countries.

Second, the START I and II verification measures are predicated on elaborate and artificial counting rules. For instance, a given long-range missile may have fewer warheads aboard it than the number it can carry but, in the interest of arms control monitoring, a larger number is automatically assigned to each missile of that type. Should such rules now be applied to the President’s projected force levels — something explicitly rejected in their formulation and adoption — the practical effect would be that the United States could field still fewer weapons than even he thought necessary.

Finally, and most troubling, Secretary Powell’s efforts to get a “deal” on strategic arms violates a fundamental principle of the President’s approach to Russia: The Cold War is over. The State Department’s preference for arms control agreements with the Kremlin — replete with arrangements for verifying each others’ compliance with such accords — amounts to a direct repudiation of Mr. Bush’s concept of a new post-Cold War era. The affront would only be compounded were Mr. Powell to sign onto another “deal” that would perpetuate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty but somehow allow the U.S. greater latitude to conduct missile defense tests it prohibits.

The Bottom Line

In the world President Bush has envisioned, massive American nuclear reductions are possible. U.S.-Russian cooperation on intelligence, counter-terrorism, drug enforcement and maybe even missile defense are imaginable (if debatable). Who knows, in such an environment, it might actually be possible to “trust” Russia with access to NATO’s innermost councils, to maintain stable energy prices, to end its dangerous ties with rogue states, etc.

If, on the other hand, what is really going on here is a State Department-abetted, Russian gambit to make the most of changed circumstances so as to pursue the Kremlin’s abiding agenda — weakening the United States and improving Russia’s relative power, then the indictment served up by Bill Safire will be but a foretaste of what is to come.

President Bush can’t have it both ways. Either his Administration will put the Cold War — and its relics, like negotiated offensive arms control accords and the ABM Treaty — behind it and insist on a genuinely different relationship with Russia and, for that matter, a different Russia. Or he will find himself getting the worst of both worlds: in effect rewarding his “friend,” Vladimir Putin, for persisting in behavior antithetical to vital U.S. security and other interests.

It’s Time to Move Beyond’ the A.B.M. Treaty

(Washington, D.C.): With the third successful “hit-to-kill” intercept of a simulated ballistic missile warhead high over the Pacific Ocean last night, the question is no longer “Can U.S. technology provide protection for the American people against missile-delivered attacks?” To its credit, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) has once again demonstrated that it can produce and put into space exo-atmospheric kill vehicles (EKVs) capable of discriminating between realistic targets and a decoy — and completely destroying the former.

Moving Right Along

Rather, the relevant question now is: “What is the most efficient, cost-effective and expeditious way in which to bring this and related technology to bear in an operational missile defense system?”

There is nothing academic about this new characterization of the challenge we face. In fact, the law of the land requires that it be answered. The Missile Defense Act of 1999 established that it is the “the policy of the United States to deploy, as soon as is technologically possible, an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack.” (Emphasis added.)

Faithful implementation of that policy will require the Bush Administration to seize upon the opportunity afforded by last night’s success to adopt a much more aggressive approach to the development, testing and deployment of missile defenses. Absent such a change, it will be at least three more years before even a rudimentary anti-missile system will be brought on-line.

To realize the maximum effect from a redoubled effort, however, President Bush will have to end U.S. adherence to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union — a nation that ceased to exist a decade ago. The ABM Treaty’s first article prohibited altogether the fielding of a territorial defense of the United States against long- range ballistic missiles. Other articles either barred outright or grievously impeded activities required to bring the most flexible and cost-effective anti-missile technologies to bear (e.g., sea-, air- and space-based sensors and kill-vehicles). For these reasons, among others, Mr. Bush has rightly called the Treaty “outdated,” “obsolete” and “dangerous” and promised to “move beyond it.”

The Bottom Line

Importantly, one other article — Article XV — grants either party the right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty on six-months’ notice. As a result, even if President Bush were to act immediately and provide such notice, missile defense tests and developmental activities would continue to be made less valuable than they otherwise could — and should — be until at the earliest June 2002. For example, the $100 million test conducted last night was unable to make use of sea- and land-based sensors that could have enabled BMDO to acquire additional, valuable data, data that might enhance the effectiveness of any systems deployed in the future. If Mr. Bush is serious about defending the country, and acting in conformity with the law, he must minimize to the greatest degree possible any further penalties associated with the ABM Treaty.

In addition to withdrawing from the ABM Treaty forthwith, President Bush should advise Congress that he will veto the Fiscal Year 2002 defense spending bill if it is sent to his desk without restoring the funding he requested for the missile defense program’s “top-line,” and in particular for the Space-Based Infrared Sensor (Low) program, sea-based boost-phase experiments and the space-based laser development effort. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has already indicated that he would recommend “that [the President] veto” the 2002 defense authorization bill if it did not include a go- ahead for the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program. Ensuring that the United States is defended against ballistic missile attack “at the earliest possible time” is at least as worthy of a presidential veto as efforts to dismantle military infrastructure deemed excess to present and foreseeable needs.

The New Gender Gap: American Women Even More Supportive Than Men of Need for Missile Defense

(Washington, D.C.): In yesterday’s Washington Times, columnist Todd Lindberg reported on a poll conducted by — of all people — the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pew Center for People and the Press. Its results confirm what previous opinion research undertaken by the Center for Security Policy and others has long documented: American women intuitively appreciate the need for anti-missile defenses and are vociferous in their support for building them once they learn that no such defenses are currently in place.

According to the new CFR-Pew poll, 64% of those polled want to be defended against ballistic missile threats — up from the significant majority of 56% in early September (i.e., before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon put into sharp focus just how vulnerable the Nation is to deadly attacks). An even more dramatic surge in support has occurred, however, among women: Whereas 52% of women expressed their desire for missile defenses in early September (again a majority), now fully 64% of women do. Of particular significance is the intensity of their support: Half of the women sampled say they want anti-missile protection as a matter of urgency, compared to only 29% before the attacks.

The message for President Bush and the Congress should be clear: The American people — male and female alike — are now seized with the fact of their unacceptable vulnerability and the willingness of enemies of this country to exploit it, even if they will die in the process. As Mr. Bush has repeatedly made clear, the attacks of 11 September have shown that the United States needs to be protected against missile attacks, as well as those involving airplanes, anthrax-bearing letters, suitcase bombs and other threats.

The bottom line is that neither the national security nor the public will tolerate any further delay in bringing missile defense capabilities to bear. The latest poll confirms that it is no more politic than it is prudent or responsible to allow the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to continue precluding us from doing so; President Bush must exercise forthwith our right to withdraw from this treaty, which he has properly characterized as “obsolete,” “outdated” and “dangerous.”

Missile Defense’s Feminine Mystique

By Tod Lindberg

The Washington Times, 27 November 2001

Like most people who write about Washington politics, I operate from a bifurcated point of view whose components are A) a set of positions I favor on a variety of issues and B) a curiosity about how the Washington animal works. One must be vigilant against allowing the former to interfere with one’s investigations into the latter. But, of course, this is not an easy thing.

In the aftermath of September 11, it struck me that the devastating attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon would buttress the case for a missile defense system. Here, after all, was an example of a determined enemy out to inflict as much damage on the territory of the United States as possible. If such an enemy had a missile capable of reaching us, there is no reason to think he wouldn’t fire it.

But on further reflection, did I mean that the attack would buttress the case for missile defense or that it should buttress the case? Long ago, after all, I had reached the conclusion that it made sense for the United States to build and deploy such a system.

Meanwhile, it quickly became apparent in the Washington salons of national security and foreign policy that people who had never been in favor of missile defense took the meaning of the September 11 attack to be just the opposite with regard to the issue. For them, here was proof of the folly of spending money on an expensive and (to their minds) unworkable defense system. If your enemies are determined to reach you, their weapons will be utility knives capable of transforming airliners into fuel bombs. Missile defense is no defense against the more plausible avenues of attack. Thus for them, September 11 would (make that “should”?) tend to undermine the case for missile defense.

Thanks to a survey conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, we now have some data to help us untangle the “would” from the competing “shoulds.” Support for missile defense has, in fact, increased significantly over levels found in an early September pre-attack survey. Sixty-four percent of Americans now say they favor a missile defense system, up from 56 percent.

But this is not so much where the question gets settled as where it gets interesting. Support among men for missile defense hasn’t changed from early September levels. All the movement in the survey is attributable to women, who have long lagged men in support for such a system but have now eliminated the gender gap in its entirety, increasing their level of support from 52 percent in early September to 64 percent now.

But it’s not just missile defense on which women’s opinion has moved. Support for increased spending for the military is also up for both men and women, but most sharply among women. In early September, 24 percent favored more spending on defense; by now, that figure is 47 percent (support among men moved up from 39 percent to 53 percent over the same period). And there is a greater sense of urgency among women now than previously. Half say they want a system now, up from 29 percent, again closing the gender gap with men.

But if you scratch a little further in the survey, you do find a gender gap. It arises in relation to perceptions of threat. Sixty-three percent of men think another terrorist attack is imminent, whereas eight in ten women do. About 34 percent of women say life has returned to normal, compared to 48 percent of men. And one in five women think life will never return to normal.

In short, women feel more threatened than they did before and than men do now. This is the point at which supporters of missile defense should take note. I think it’s probably reasonable to interpret women’s increased support for missile defense not as a sudden increase in enthusiasm for missile defense as such but as part of a sharp secular swing in favor of increased security measures in general.

This also makes sense in the context of the long-running debate over the issue. There have always been, in effect, two arguments going on. One, of course, was over the particular likelihood of a missile attack on the United States and thus the necessity of trying to develop a capability to stop it. But that particular debate also served as a proxy for an underlying argument, which was over the broader question of how threatened the United States really was.

It’s the second question on which people’s opinions have shifted decisively since September 11, especially women’s opinion (and especially among mothers, the survey shows). Smart policy-makers and dare one say, smart politicians? will respond to the entirety of this shift, not just the particular elements they have long favored.

Now Hear This’: Does the President Mean What He Says?

(Washington, D.C.): Every skilled government official knows the magic words: “What the President meant to say is….” And with good reason. This turn of phrase allows any presidential policy pronouncement with which the unelected, unaccountable and generally faceless bureaucracy disagrees to be subverted, if not undone.

Over the years, this practice has been raised to an art form in the State Department, particularly when the President in question was of a relatively conservative stripe, like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. The permanent government types over in Foggy Bottom are much given to explaining to their foreign interlocutors statements and policies of which they disapprove in terms that contradict the clear meaning of the President’s words.

The Case of Colin Powell

Rarely has that tendency been on more regular, public and troubling display, however, than under Colin Powell’s tenure at State. This case of what might be considered chronic insubordination is put in the most flattering, indeed fawning, light in an 8,000-plus word paean to the Secretary of State published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

The essay by Times columnist Bill Keller was headlined “The World According to Colin Powell” and based on several lengthy interviews with the Secretary of State. The main thrust of the piece is that Mr. Powell’s view of the world is a lot more to the liking of the New York Times than is George W. Bush’s. It is described as one “comfortable with alliances, treaties and international institutions, less assertive in the promotion of American values abroad, more Realpolitik in its judgments, more sandpapered’ in its language as one aide put it. Powell is the standard-bearer for this camp, which includes most of the upper ranks of the State Department and some sympathizers in the White House, along with an outside chorus that notably includes the President’s father.”

A Bill of Particulars

This “camp” unmistakably applauds Secretary Powell’s efforts to recast and, in some cases at least, to redirect the President’s policies. Consider the following illustrative examples:

  • Missile Defense: When Mr. Bush says the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty is “outdated,” “obsolete,” “dangerous” and something we need to “move beyond,” what he means — according to Mr. Powell — is that it should be preserved for the foreseeable future. As the Keller article reports, “The important thing, [Powell] said, was to avoid abandoning the treaty altogether, with the probable high price in Russian, European and congressional good will. He argued that a concession to the Russians on the formalities of the ABM Treaty would be more than repaid in other ways….”

    Of course, President Bush is not the first occupant of the Oval Office to find Mr. Powell a determined opponent of missile defenses and advocate for preserving the ABM Treaty. Keller recounts how Secretary Powell mockingly “rolled his eyes” as he recounted how Mr. Reagan — for whom then-General Powell worked as the National Security Advisor — actually believed that the Strategic Defense Initiative could transform the nature of the security threat we faced from the USSR. Never mind that silly old Ronald Reagan actually succeeded in doing just that, despite Colin Powell, by using his SDI to accelerate the demise of the “Evil Empire.”

  • The War on Terrorism: When Mr. Bush declares that if you “harbor…train or arm…or feed or fund a terrorist, you’re a terrorist,” what he meant to say — according to Secretary Powell — is that you are not a terrorist if you are “on” our side. Thus, nations that the State Department itself lists as sponsors of terrorism, such as Sudan, Syria and Iran, are not terrorists; at the very least they must be “good terrorists” (a status the President also clearly didn’t mean to say didn’t exist).

    As with missile defense, Secretary Powell continues to exhibit the bad judgment with respect to Iraq that caused him to be on the “wrong side of history” in an earlier administration. Though “Bush 41” heatedly denies it in the Keller piece, his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, was influential in arguing against going to war with Saddam Hussein in 1990 and in leaving him in place at the end of hostilities in 1991. Now he is assiduously sowing confusion about whether warnings from “Bush 43” to take the war to each and every terrorist-sponsoring nation actually applies to one of the most dangerous, namely Saddam’s Iraq.

  • Solving’ the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: Secretary Powell is working hard to arrange a similar pass for Yasser Arafat. If Mr. Powell succeeds in transforming the proto-state Palestinian Authority — which harbors, trains, arms, feeds and funds terrorists every day — into an actual terrorist-sponsoring state of “Palestine,” President Bush will be surprised to discover that his commitment to an Israel living as a “Jewish State” “in peace and security” in the Middle East will be rendered meaningless.

The Bottom Line

The irony is that President Bush has been, by and large, saying all the right things and engendering the popular support he needs and deserves for doing so. While the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats, the media elite and the so-called “international community” might prefer Secretary Powell’s interpretations, the Nation’s interests — to say nothing of the President’s credibility — demand that what Mr. Bush says and what he means be the same thing.

Time of Testing

(Washington, D.C.): Testing, testing. That word may be the leitmotif of the next three days — and not only for technicians checking out microphones used at summit photo ops. featuring President Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

In fact, these two men are likely to be testing each other throughout their meetings beginning tomorrow in Washington and continuing on Wednesday and Thursday at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. Testing will also feature prominently in what they will be discussing — and the consistency of whatever understandings they reach with U.S. national security requirements.

Testing Each Other

Certainly, Mr. Bush will be testing his first impression that, having looked into Putin’s “soul” a few months back, he can “trust” the Russian president. In particular, “W.” will be exploring whether the former KGB agent has, in fact, morphed into a reliable partner, willing and able permanently to transform the earlier Cold War rivalry between their two nations into a new “strategic framework” compatible with the pursuit of common interests in Afghanistan and far beyond.

Putin will, for his part, be testing his host as well. He wants to see what he can get from a President Bush grateful for Russia’s early, if conditional, endorsement of the war on terrorism and the Kremlin’s willingness not to object to U.S. use of former Soviet republics for the war against bin Laden and the Taliban. (It is, of course, unclear on precisely what grounds Putin could have objected; these “Stans” are now independent states and Washington should discourage, not encourage, Russian claims that they form a “near abroad” over which Moscow is entitled to exercise influence.)

Specifically, Mr. Bush’s guest will be pushing for a laundry list of American concessions. These will involve: trade (repeal of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment that helped win the Cold War by limiting the economic life-support the Soviets could obtain while maintaining repression at home); energy (Moscow wants the United States to follow Europe’s lead in treating Russia as a reliable supplier, a step that could give the Kremlin undesirable economic/strategic leverage down the road); Chechnya (legitimating Russia’s brutal campaign there on the grounds that it is just part of the war on terrorism); and proliferation (Moscow wants to continue selling what we call “rogue states” but they call “clients” a laundry list of advanced conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction- related technologies).

Testing at Issue

Testing will also feature prominently with respect to an issue expected to dominate the summit: missile defense. Fortunately, Mr. Bush has lately poured cold water on rising speculation that he was going to make a terrible strategic mistake — agreeing to preserve the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty he has correctly called “out-dated,” “obsolete” and “dangerous” in exchange for Russian acquiescence to U.S. experimentation with anti-missile systems not permissible under that accord. Still, the President will be sorely tested by a tag-team of Russians, State Department diplomats and the media elite who hope such a deal will foreclose the deployment of U.S. missile defenses they oppose.

Nuclear Testing

Last, but hardly least, another kind of testing — of the nuclear sort — should be part of the summit agenda. President Bush is expected to announce that he is unilaterally ordering deep cuts in the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. By some accounts he will direct that these forces be reduced to a level somewhere between 1750 and 2200 warheads.

To Mr. Bush’s credit, in so doing, he is explicitly rejecting the practices and follies of traditional arms control. American force levels will be set on the basis of what is deemed by our government to be necessary for U.S. deterrence and security requirements, not determined by the often arbitrary results of protracted negotiations with Moscow. In principle, since no treaty will be involved, should changes occur in the strategic considerations that made such low levels appear acceptable at the moment, the United States will have the latitude to adjust its arsenal accordingly.

In practice, however, it is very likely that this country will find itself hereafter retaining no more nuclear weapons than the level announced by President Bush. He has, therefore, an obligation to ensure that the resulting arsenal is safe, reliable and credible as a deterrent — not only for the duration of his presidency but for the foreseeable future.

For that reason, Mr. Bush should make clear as part of his announcement of deep reductions in American nuclear forces that he is committed to ensuring the future effectiveness, as well as the safety and reliability, of the weapons that remain in the U.S. arsenal. To do so, he will authorize both the most rigorous imaginable maintenance of the strategic “stockpile” and its routine modernization. Both of these activities will require periodic underground nuclear testing.

The Bottom Line

While the decision to resume nuclear testing will provoke criticism, there will be no better time than the present to take such a step. If Mr. Bush combines it with the announcement of deep cuts, his critics will be seen for what they are — irresponsible devotees of complete nuclear disarmament. (The President’s courageous willingness to defy them was on display last weekend when his Administration refused to attend a conference of nations supporting a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing.)

In fact, in the absence of such a commitment to assure the future viability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, it is not clear that the Nation can live with the very low levels of nuclear forces Mr. Bush prefers. It will certainly lack the ability to exercise the option to increase its arsenal should that prove necessary in the future.

The American people have come, rightly, to have great confidence in President Bush’s judgment. We must all hope that he will exercise it to good effect in the time of testing ahead.

Just Do It’: Wall Street Journal Urges President to Jettison A.B.M. Treaty, Not Breathe New Life Into It

(Washington, D.C.): As George W. Bush nears an historic decision on his missile defense legacy, one of the most influential editorial pages in the world has weighed in. The Wall Street Journal today urged the President to stay the course and free the United States, once and for all, from the tyranny of an arms control treaty that requires it to remain vulnerable to ballistic missile attack.

The Journal editorial says all that needs to be said about the folly of thinking it will be easier to get out from under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty’s prohibition on deployment of missile defenses later on, rather than doing it now. In fact, as a practical matter, if President Bush passes up the opportunity to take this step now — when he is at the peak of his personal popularity, with strong public support for his missile defense program and at a moment when Russian opposition, if any, can be safely discounted — he runs a serious risk that he may not be able to deploy such defenses at all during his term in office.

The Journal makes a particularly trenchant and practical point: If President Bush winds up, in effect, “buying” relief from the ABM Treaty’s constraints on development and testing of anti-missile systems with a commitment to cut U.S. nuclear forces to very low (possibly even problematically low) levels — “What does Mr. Bush offer next time?” (i.e., when he needs relief from the Treaty’s prohibition on deployment, which would reportedly be left intact under the deal now in the works).

It would be a travesty if a president committed to defending America were to wind up getting even less than his predecessor, who had no such commitment, but nonetheless sought a “Grand Bargain” with the Kremlin — a compromise that envisioned exchanging deep cuts in strategic nuclear arms for Russian agreement to a limited deployment of anti-missile systems in Alaska.

A Better Missile Deal

The Wall Street Journal, 6 November 2001

It looks like a deal to revise the ABM Treaty may be in the offing, to be announced when Presidents Bush and Putin meet at Mr. Bush’s ranch next week. In the strongest hint yet, Russian Defense Secretary Sergei Ivanov said yesterday that the two sides have made “clear progress” in their Treaty discussions.

It’s not over yet — Mr. Bush is said to be making a decision this week — but the basic thrust is as follows: The U.S. would agree to delay withdrawing from the Treaty in return for Russia allowing the U.S. to proceed with anti-missile tests the Treaty now bans. In addition, both countries would agree to cut their nuclear arsenals to fewer than 2,000 warheads.

While we wait for the details, mark us down as preferring a complete, final break from the 1972 accord, as permitted under Article 15. Compromises are sometimes necessary, but this is one of those moments in history when a clean break from the “arms control process” would be better for both countries. And the moment may not easily come again.

The ABM Treaty was written when Russia and the U.S. were historical rivals. Today both countries want a closer relationship with each other, and both share the same common threat, which is Islamic fundamentalism armed with weapons of mass destruction. More than two dozen nations either already possess long-range ballistic missiles or will soon have them. If anthrax and Osama bin Laden have taught us anything, it is that arms control and defense are not the same things.

We agree that it would be no small thing if post-Cold War Russia aligns itself more closely with the West. This has been a goal of Russian reformers since Peter the Great, and it’s worth it for America to pay some price to help it occur. But we disagree with the State Department view that Mr. Putin won’t budge unless Mr. Bush gives in on missile defenses.

Debt over defenses

Mr. Putin has his own reasons for pursuing better U.S. ties, most of them well beyond the old Cold War military issues. Some of them are economic, such as the renegotiation or forgiveness of Soviet-era debt, as well as faster entry into the World Trade Organization. The latter requires the repeal of Jackson-Vanik, the 1974 law that links Soviet emigration to trade, and which Mr. Bush has already agreed to push through Congress. The U.S. has already toned down its criticism of Russia’s war in Chechnya.

With his own approval rating at more than 75%, Mr. Putin ought to be able to explain a U.S. Treaty withdrawal to the satisfaction of most Russians. All the more so if he can return to Moscow with significant cuts in offensive weapons. Russia retains thousands of missiles, but the cost of maintaining them is high and he’d like to spend the money elsewhere.

U.S. strategists say our arsenal can safely fall to below 2,000 warheads, down from 7,000 or so today, but Mr. Bush can only cut that arsenal once. It would be a mistake to offer those cuts merely in return for a deal that allows some missile testing today, with more negotiation to come in six months or a year. What does Mr. Bush offer next time?

For his part, Mr. Bush is being told he needs the political cover of Russian agreement to help push missile defense through Congress. But that was before September 11. Domestic political support for missile defense has since soared, especially among women, so Mr. Bush doesn’t really need the Russian’s imprimatur. In a recent Pew Research survey, support has climbed to 64%, and 49% now believe it should be developed immediately. Seventy-three percent of mothers now support missile defense, up from 53% before September 11.

It’s true that the U.S. isn’t yet ready to deploy a missile defense, so waiting wouldn’t have to cripple future efforts. And unlike some of our friends on the right, we don’t doubt Mr. Bush’s sincerity on the subject. At every juncture when he might have wavered, Mr. Bush has pressed for missile defenses without apology. Even last month, amid cries that defenses weren’t needed when terrorists could use a suitcase bomb, Mr. Bush called the ABM Treaty “dangerous.”

But these same circumstances won’t always hold. Mr. Bush’s own political stature might not be as high a year from now, and Mr. Putin might have problems of his own. Far better to strike a deal now, when both sides have the political capital to spare. And far better to set the U.S.-Russian relationship on a path away from the “arms control process” that has dominated it for so long. Arms control is something that exists between adversaries, not friends. The U.S. doesn’t negotiate missile treaties with Germany, or Turkey. If this really is going to be an historic Russia realignment toward the West, then who needs arms control?

By remaining inside the ABM Treaty, even with a wink and a nod, the U.S. would also be living a lie. Mr. Bush would be insisting he can build a national missile defense at the same time that he agreed to abide by a Treaty that pledges us not to build one. That’s no way to defend a nation.

Bush’s Reykjavik Moment

(Washington, D.C.): The U.S. president meets in an unusual location with his Kremlin counterpart. Amidst high expectations of a summit breakthrough, the latter offers the former a totally transformed relationship between their two countries, prominently featuring massive reductions in offensive nuclear arms. There is only one catch: The American leader must abandon his commitment to defend his people against the threat of ballistic missile attack.

Of course, the date was October 1986, not November 2001; the venue, Reykjavik, Iceland, not Crawford, Texas. The American President was Ronald Reagan, not George W. Bush. And the man from Moscow was Mikhail Gorbachev, not Vladimir Putin.

Deja Vu, All Over Again

Yet, if press reports informed by State Department leaks are to be believed, basically the same play is going to be run by the Kremlin team in the upcoming summit at President Bush’s Texas ranch as Mr. Reagan confronted fifteen years ago in Iceland.

Now, as then, the diplomats of Foggy Bottom are encouraging the President to believe that he has an historic opportunity to secure a breakthrough with the old Cold War enemy. Echoed by an international press corps and foreign policy elite that have always viewed with alarm the idea that the United States might actually depart from the 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in order to have missile defenses prohibited by that accord, State is pressing Mr. Bush to make a deal.

Under the terms of this deal, Mr. Bush would presumably have to dispense, for the time being at least, with any further talk about the ABM Treaty being “outdated, antiquated and useless” — let alone “dangerous.” Despite his repeated assertions that the United States has to “move beyond” that accord in order to deploy effective anti-missile systems “at the earliest possible time,” he would have to agree not to deploy any missile defenses for some period and to leave intact the ABM Treaty’s prohibitions on such deployments.

In exchange, the Russians would agree somehow to modify or at least to ignore other provisions of the ABM Treaty that also prohibit development and testing of promising U.S. defensive technologies — notably, sea-, air- and space-based anti-missile weapons and sensors. The Kremlin would also throw in an agreement to cut their strategic offensive forces to around 1500 weapons, provided the U.S. undertook to do roughly the same.

Say Whut?

Now, it is far from clear just how this would work. Of course, the Russians — and the Soviets before them — have been adept at ignoring provisions of treaties that prove inconvenient. (In fact, such a practice has allowed the former USSR to deploy a full-up territorial anti-missile defense prohibited by the ABM Treaty). But, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has made clear, Americans don’t violate treaties.

Changing the Treaty to eliminate its constraints on development and testing, however, sounds a lot like the sort of line-in, line-out amending process that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has correctly, and repeatedly, said could not be used with the ABM Treaty. If, instead of adopting the new “strategic framework” that dispenses with the ABM Treaty altogether sought by the new Administration since it came to office, the Bush team winds up effectively amending it, the unamended parts will continue to constitute unacceptable impediments to the actual realization of protection against missile attack.

It is predictable, moreover, that such changes to an existing treaty will be seen by the Democratic Senate as requiring its advice and consent. Under that body’s present leadership, such an exercise would surely translate into an affirmation of the prohibitions on deployment that would be left intact — hardly a legislative history a President committed to defending his people would welcome.

In addition, preserving any part of the ABM Treaty would have the effect of establishing unequivocally that the Russians are a party to that accord. This would give them legal standing they do not currently enjoy (the 1972 accord having been signed with the USSR, not Russia). It would also confer legitimacy on the Kremlin’s future efforts to veto U.S. deployments of which they do not approve. At the very least, such an arrangement flies in the face of all President Bush’s exhortations that the “Cold War is over” and that bilateral arms control treaties (whether governing defensive or offensive forces) are not appropriate in light of the changed nature of the Russo-American relationship.

The Bottom Line

The rejection by Ronald Reagan of Gorbachev’s offer to ban all nuclear weapons if only the Gipper would give up on his Strategic Defense Initiative not only defined Mr. Reagan’s presidency. Despite the Bronx cheers Mr. Reagan got from critics at home and abroad for having missed the opportunity Reykjavik presented for “peace in our time,” even Soviet leaders subsequently acknowledged that his determination to stay the course on missile defense helped catalyze the unraveling of the Evil Empire.

Today, George W. Bush faces an eerily similar test of leadership. To be sure, there will be those at the editorial boards of the New York Times and Washington Post, in the salons of Cambridge and in allied capitals who will revile him for rejecting Putin’s deal — even though it would ineluctably have the effect of perpetuating America’s vulnerability to missile attack, rather than move us in the direction of ensuring it is ended once and for all.

Still, protecting the American people against ballistic missile threats is what Mr. Bush said he would do when he ran for office. It is what he has said since his election he was committed to accomplishing. And it is what he has forcefully declared is even more necessary in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

This is President Bush’s Reykjavik moment. And as with that of his predecessor, a lot more is riding on the decision about missile defense than simply the credibility of the President’s word.

Don’t Breathe New Life into the A.B.M. Treaty

(Washington, D.C.) President Bush has an unprecedented opportunity at his upcoming meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to fulfill his oft-repeated promise to the American people to defend them against ballistic missile defense. Unfortunately, that opportunity will be squandered — not realized — if he signs onto a deal that would breathe new life into the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

The President has properly described the ABM Treaty as “obsolete,” “out-dated,” even “dangerous” since it impedes our ability to provide anti-missile protection we must have. His critique is justified, however, not simply because that accord precludes the development and testing of the most promising missile defense technologies — notably, sea-, air- and space-based ones. Even now, certain tests are being dumbed-down so as to comply with the ABM Treaty’s restrictions, wasting taxpayer resources and slowing the pace of progress.

It’s Deployment, Stupid

The still more important reason why the United States must “move beyond” the ABM Treaty though is that this accord prohibits the deployment of any missile defense for our nation’s territory. Were President Bush now to embrace an understanding with Putin that somehow provided relief from the Treaty’s impediments to development and testing of effective anti-missile systems without ending its prohibition on their deployment, he will be handing this country’s enemies abroad and his opponents at home a victory over his presidency of the first magnitude. More importantly, he will be condemning the American people to continued vulnerability for the foreseeable future.

Doubtless, some will argue that — thanks to the sorry state of the missile defense pro grams bequeathed to Mr. Bush by his predecessor — our countrymen have no choice but to remain vulnerable until necessary developmental work and testing is performed. They will contend that, if Putin agrees to interpose no objection to the latter going forward, so long as decisions about deployment are deferred for the time being, the U.S. will get a free pass to do what is possible and needed now, at no cost to the activities that cannot be undertaken until later.

Don’t Go There

Regrettably, this seductive reasoning is likely to prove the kiss-of-death for the President’s missile defense agenda:

  • The American people will not be defended by the testing of missile defenses, only by their deployment. Would the President consider testing devices for sanitizing the mail against biological warfare threats, but affirm a prohibition on putting such technology to use? Would that approach be politically tenable even if he were inclined to adopt it?

    While testing is a necessary part of a sensible acquisition program, it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. We are in our present, vulnerable position in no small measure precisely because of an unwillingness (or inability) on the part of successive Presidents to end the tyranny of an ABM Treaty regime that precluded the deployment, and thus undercut the urgency of developing, anti- missile systems contemplated under the SDI, GPALS and NMD programs.

  • As Condi Rice has pointed out repeatedly, the ABM Treaty cannot be made acceptable by line- in, line-out changes. By design, the Treaty is from its first article to its last a show-stopper for U.S. territorial defenses against ballistic missile attack. If, instead of adopting a new “strategic framework” that dispenses with the ABM Treaty altogether, the Bush Administration winds up effectively amending it, the unamended parts will continue to constitute unacceptable impediments to the actual realization of protection against missile attack.
  • In addition, changes to an existing treaty would inevitably require the Senate’s advice and consent. Under that body’s present leadership, such an exercise would surely translate into an affirmation of the prohibitions on deployment that would be left intact — hardly a legislative history a President committed to defending his people would welcome.
  • Another effect of preserving any part of the ABM Treaty would be to establish unequivocally that the Russians are a party to that accord. This would give them legal standing they do not currently enjoy — and confer legitimacy on their future efforts to veto U.S. deployments of which they do not approve. At the very least, such an arrangement flies in the face of all President Bush’s exhortations that the “Cold War is over” and that bilateral arms control treaties are not appropriate in light of the changed nature of the Russo-American relationship.
  • The Russians already have a deployed anti-missile system to protect their territory, featuring not only the permitted ABM system around Moscow but thousands of nuclear-armed surface-to-air interceptors and a network of tracking radars available for use in a clearly impermissible way. If Treaty prohibitions on the deployment of missile defenses are allowed to stand, the United States will remain the only one undefended.

The Bottom Line

There is no better time than the present for President Bush to take the one step that will lead to the defense of America against ballistic missile attack: exercising our right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. He enjoys the confidence and support of the American people. There is a war on that underscores the necessity for protecting ourselves against all threats.

As long as Putin is persuaded that the President is determined to pursue missile defenses, with or without Russia’s assent, he will be tractable. Ironically, there is really only one circumstance under which the Russians might try to allow disagreements over missile defense to interfere with the war effort or to jeopardize a successful summit: If they perceive that threats of such behavior will induce Mr. Bush to temper or defer his commitment to building and deploying effective anti-missile systems “at the earliest possible time.”

To be sure, the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post, elite opinion in this country and allied capitals and Democrats on Capitol Hill will hail as statesmanlike any decision by President Bush that has the effect of pulling back from his commitment to defending America against missile attack. History, however, will record such a step as a grievous failing of his presidency — not one of its high-points — if, as seems likely, it ensures that missile defenses are not deployed by this country until after they are needed.

It’s Official: The A.B.M. Treaty Regime Harms U.S. Missile Defense Programs — So End It, Already

(Washington, D.C.): Last week, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that two upcoming tests of U.S. missile defense systems would be altered to conform to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Some press reports described this action as a “cancellation” of missile defense experiments. Critics of President Bush’s commitment to defending the country against missile attack saw this as a welcome sign that “W.” was — as Margaret Thatcher once said of his father — “going wobbly.” It ain’t necessarily so, and, for all of our sakes, had better not be.

Making Missile Defense Tests Less Realistic, More Costly

Lost in the media buzz, congressional palaver and cork-popping among the professional arms controllers was a simple fact: The experiments themselves are still going to be conducted, with scheduled intercepts of long-range missiles occurring to continue the process of validating anti-missile technologies.

It is just that — thanks to limitations imposed by the ABM Treaty, which President Bush has correctly described as “outdated,” “obsolete” and “dangerous” — the American taxpayer will not get full-value for the $100 million-plus that will be spent on each of these experiments. That is because they will be conducted without the use of sea- and ground-based sensors that would have added significantly to the data and experience generated by such tests.

As a result, operators of the Navy’s Aegis fleet air defense system and radars ashore will be denied the chance to track and assess ballistic missile threats. This is particularly regrettable insofar as Aegis ships have the inherent potential to become formidable missile defense systems in their own right — quite possibly faster, at lower cost and certainly with greater flexibility than ground-based anti-missile approaches now under development.

What is more, in the event some technical glitch occurs in the course of the flight tests (as has happened in several previous experiments of this complex and technologically challenging program), the task of finding and fixing the problem might be made more difficult in the absence of the additional data that these sensors would provide. Missile defense critics relish this Catch-22: By insisting that testing be done in conformity with the ABM Treaty, they can complain that the tests are unrealistic and, if they are not completely successful, proof that the technology involved cannot work.

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that there can no longer be any disputing the fact that the ABM Treaty impedes the development and testing, as well as the deployment, of effective missile defenses. This is no surprise to anyone who has taken the trouble to review the language of this short accord; its prohibitions are clear and definitive with respect to all of the most promising forms of anti-missile systems (namely, sea-, air- and space-based variants). It even precludes the very modest capability that has been proposed for fielding in silos in Alaska. From now on, die-hard supporters of the ABM Treaty at the State Department, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere should find it impossible to continue their dissembling that the United States can achieve a viable missile defense within the Treaty.

The bad news is that, unless Mr. Bush promptly disabuses them, the aforementioned interested parties and, worse yet, the Russians will likely misperceive the Administration’s action on the two upcoming tests. They will construe the continuing subordination of the American missile defense program to the dictates of the ABM Treaty as evidence that — notwithstanding W.’s oft-declared determination to “move beyond” that accord — in fact, like his predecessors, he will recoil from doing so.

This will, of course, only make matters worse. Since September 11, in the face of Mr. Bush’s unwavering advocacy of missile defense, allied governments, congressional critics and even the Kremlin have largely abandoned (at least temporarily) their high-profile opposition. Nothing will do more to reinvigorate their obstructionism than the perception that the President is not serious about actually deploying systems that protect against ballistic missile attack, that he could perhaps be bought off with a deal with Vladimir Putin that somehow allows nothing more than greater latitude for development and testing of anti-missile systems — and perhaps not much of that.

The Bottom Line

The reality is that President Bush was right in saying the case for missile defense is more compelling than ever in the wake of the attacks on this country last month. We now know that our enemies will use anything and everything they can get their hands on — from our own commercial aircraft to deadly biological viruses — to inflict devastation and terror upon us.

It is a matter of time and probably not much longer, before their arsenal includes long-range ballistic missiles that are highly efficient delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction. That prospect will only grow to the extent that we remain defenseless against such missiles.

President Bush is a conviction politician. He has repeatedly and publicly expressed his commitment to defend us, not just against planes and letter-borne viruses but against all threats. Surely W. understands that, in the aftermath of 9/11, public confidence in his word — to say nothing of his leadership and judgment — would suffer a debilitating blow were he now to shrink from taking the legal, programmatic and financial steps needed to build and deploy the missile defenses we require.

If so, Mr. Bush will establish forthwith that the two tests Secretary Rumsfeld described will be the last upon which the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty will be allowed to impinge. By so doing, he will not only clear the way for the earliest possible deployment of effective anti-missile systems. He will also maximize the chances that, at their meeting in Texas next month, Vladimir Putin will agree the ABM Treaty really is a relic of the Cold War — and refrain from pursuing further diplomatic or public gambits designed to breathe new life into it, or give life to some equally malignant variant.