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The Case Against the ABM Treaty
| Article
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10565 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1986 |
2,204 Words |
| Author
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Daniel O. Graham
Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham is director of High Frontier, a
research and educational organization devoted to strategic
defense and space policy issues. |
The president has stood firm in his commitment to the Strategic Defense Imitative (SDI) at the summit. There still remain, however, rumblings of "unnamed administration officials" who speak otherwise. In fact, efforts to wreck the SDI program by "refurbishing and strengthening" the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) are well represented within the government and certainly outside the administration.
From diverse corners of the political spectrum have come warnings that the President's historic call for a new strategy can be nullified by fatal restrictions on SDI. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger have both become convinced that SDI should not be constrained by agreements with the Soviets. Recently, in a televised interview, Mr. Kissinger stated bluntly that deployment of SDI should be nonnegotiable - not research, not testing, but deployment.
A restrictive interpretation of the ABM Treaty as it now stands would not only mean no deployment: it would continue to impair the research and development required to support a deployment decision. This could deny the United States and its allies the historic opportunity to step off the nuclear treadmill, escape the balance of terror dictated by the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine, and open the path to meaningful arms control.
If men intimately involved in the formulation and prolongation of the ABM Treaty - Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Brzenzinski - perceive the much higher value of SDI over the ABM Treaty, surely others must.
This, then, is the case against placing our trust in the treaty and allowing it to kill off SDI:
I.The ABM Treaty is unconstitutional and never should have been ratified.
II.In 1972, the U.S. Senate, as a condition for ratification, insisted that if the treaty did not lead to reductions in offensive nuclear weapons by 1977, supreme interests would be jeopardized, and that would constitute a basis for withdrawal from the agreement.
III.The Soviets have been violating the ABM Treaty for years.
IV.The treaty attempted to stop the advance of a wide range of defensive technologies at 1970 levels. Newer technology has made it
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