Well, you haven't heard a lot of crowing these days from the warhawks. The warhawks had been demanding that Bush abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, perhaps hoping to provoke Russia into some outrageous act, such as nuking the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
What the warhawks didn't realize was that the ABM treaty prohibited the Russians from defending themselves against strategic ballistic missiles too. So when Bush killed the ABM treaty, the warhawks were unprepared for the Russian reaction, which was subdued jubilation.
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Thirty years ago, President Nixon and Communist Party Chairman Breznev each agreed to render their respective homelands absolutely defenseless against attack by "strategic" ballistic missiles. The ABM treaty prohibits even the development or testing of any mobile land-based, sea-based, air-based or space-based ABM systems and their components that could be used to defend the United States or Russia (nee the Soviet Union) against "strategic" ballistic missiles.
What is a "strategic" ballistic missile? ABM treaty strategic ballistic missiles were assumed to be those that could deliver a nuke warhead halfway around the world to the heartland of either America or Mother Russia. Since only the Soviet Union and the U.S. had such missiles, the ABM treaty was written in such a way that it is where the strategic ballistic missile warhead actually impacts – or was intended to impact – that really matters. Insofar as the ABM treaty is concerned, it doesn't matter who launched the ballistic missile at Russia or from where he launched it.
The options for taking out any ballistic missile and/or its warhead are to attack it (a) before launch, when the missile is in a silo or aboard some mobile launcher; (b) shortly after missile launch, while it is in the boost phase; (c) after booster burnout, when the warhead has been detached and is in its exo-atmospheric trajectory or (d) when the warhead is re-entering the atmosphere for its "terminal" dive.
Most of the ABM treaty provisions were about "terminal" defense, but all four options were prohibited, effectively preventing us or the Russians from defending ourselves in any way against anyone's ballistic missiles. In particular, President Clinton wasn't able to get away with claiming – as he tried to do – that the exo-atmospheric attack system he intended to site in Alaska was allowed by the ABM treaty since (a) it was not a "terminal" defense and (b) its purpose was to defend us against North Korean, not Russian, ICBMs.
Then came Sept. 11. Russia immediately became our first and perhaps most important ally in our search-and-destroy mission in Afghanistan and elsewhere for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network. Russia has been supplying – at our behest – tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and other weapons to the Northern Alliance, and has been providing bases for – and military intelligence assistance to – our special forces on the ground.
Now, just suppose Osama bin Laden had somehow got a ballistic missile – complete with nuke warhead – from Pakistan or Iran, as some experts feared he might have done. That ballistic missile – with a range of hundreds, not thousands, of miles – would have been no threat to us. But such a missile – launched in Afghanistan – might have just enough range to reach Russian oil fields in the Caspian.
Further, suppose one of our Hellfire-armed Predator unmanned aerial vehicles – acting upon information provided by the Russians – came upon it just as bin Laden's men were in the process of launching it. Well, guess what? If that missile is aimed at Russia, then it is presto-chango a "strategic" ballistic missile, and our Predator qualifies as an air-based ABM system as defined by the ABM treaty. It would be a violation of the ABM treaty for either us or the Russians to destroy bin Laden's missile. Now that's crazy.
Although it turned out that Osama bin Laden didn't have ballistic missiles, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan and an increasing number of countries all around Russia do. We've known for a long time how crazy the ABM treaty is. And, if they didn't know it before Sept. 11, the Russians have also become acutely aware of how crazy it is.
What has probably happened is that Putin pretended to drag his feet on abrogating the ABM treaty in order to get promises of U.S. support in developing Russian ABM systems. If he got them from Bush, all the more reason for all that jubilation deep in the heart of the Kremlin. There ought to be quite a lot of jubilation deep in the heart of Texas, too.