Dump the ABM Treaty.(Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty)(Brief Article)

What George Washington called our "blessed location" between two vast oceans can no longer protect America from weapons of mass destruction. Contemporary missile technology is evaporating those oceans. And our failure to develop a defense in response leaves Americans vulnerable to a degree that we have never been vulnerable in the entire life of our nation.

Too many in Congress and among allies abroad are wedded to an "arms control" approach to this threat. They are more concerned with preserving paper barriers like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty than with reliably protecting millions of American men, women, and children. Their strategy does not work.

For example, we hear the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) praised, even though it has actually helped spread the technology needed to produce nuclear weapons. Under the treaty's terms, countries like Iran gained the right to assistance in developing their (supposedly peaceful) nuclear capacities from other signatories like Russia. Iraq was actually on the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency--charged with ensuring compliance with the NPT--at the same time it violated promises not to develop nuclear weapons. In short, a treaty intended to halt nuclear proliferation has been the principal source of that proliferation.

If treaties and diplomatic control regimes actually worked, Iraq, North Korea, India, and Pakistan would not have bombs today. But they do. Nor have countries like Iraq been prevented by various treaties and conventions from developing and using chemical weapons. What happens when a nation violates a weapons treaty? Little or nothing. A country attacked by the resulting weapons, however, will experience devastation.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has not, despite its defenders' claims, stabilized international relations. The country with which we signed the ABM Treaty no longer exists, and when it did exist it violated the treaty--as Soviet Foreign Minister Edouard Schevardnadze admitted soon after the Cold War ended. Today, Russia retains a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and is much less stable than we would prefer.

Meanwhile, China is dramatically increasing the reach and accuracy of her missiles. Her leaders are pushing for preservation of the ABM Treaty--paying lip service to "strategic stability"--while simultaneously using their new power to threaten Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the U.S. The Chinese are also aiding the spread of nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea.

Meanwhile, the number of other countries ...