The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, long the centerpiece of nuclear equilibrium between the US and the Soviet Union and a strong deterrent to other nations with nuclear aspirations, is being officially put to rest.
Barring last-minute court intervention, the 1972 ABM treaty expires today, six months after President George W. Bush invoked a provision allowing either side to withdraw upon such notice. It is 30 years and one month old.
Not gravediggers' shovels, but those of construction workers and Pentagon officials will mark the passing of the treaty at a ceremony Saturday in Delta Junction, Alaska, breaking ground on a test site for the administration's US$64 billion national missile defense system. The ABM Treaty had banned such construction.
"We have moved beyond an ABM Treaty that prevented us from defending our people and our friends," Bush asserts. The president and his congressional allies claim the treaty -- between the US and a nation that no longer exists, the Soviet Union -- outlived its usefulness long ago.
There also are many mourners, among them US allies, lawmakers and arms-control advocates. Until recently, NATO foreign ministers had described the ABM Treaty as the "cornerstone of strategic stability,'' and many Europeans still support it.
"The ABM Treaty pullout, at this stage, appears neither prudent nor necessary," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "Missile defense is an expensive and unreliable method to deal with what is now considered a low-probability threat."
The treaty "has served world security well for 30 years," said Representative Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat. Kucinich was one of 31 House of Representatives members who filed a federal court suit against Bush on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to preserve the treaty.
Still, initial anger on the part of some US allies has given way to apparent resignation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, an outspoken defender of the treaty, relented and signed an agreement with Bush in Moscow last month pledging future missile-defense cooperation.
"The Russians will benefit, we will benefit, the world will benefit. Because this missile defense will basically be aimed at terrorists and rogue states," said Representative Curt Weldon, a Republican who is a longtime missile-defense advocate.
"Civilized nations, and hopefully that will eventually include China, will come together and work on this technology as partners."
The late US president Richard M. Nixon signed the ABM treaty with then Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the Kremlin in May 1972.
Brezhnev "used a red pencil to sketch missiles on the notepad in front of him," as over a three-day period they negotiated both the ABM Treaty and the companion SALT I pact to limit offensive nuclear weapons, Nixon recalled.
"The ABM Treaty stopped what inevitably would have become a defensive arms race," Nixon wrote in his memoirs. "The other major effect ... was to make permanent the concept of deterrence through `mutual terror.'"
The concept was that both countries had enough missiles to destroy each other many times over, with or without a missile-defense system. Any attack by one thus would amount to joint suicide.
That policy of mutual assured destruction, known as MAD, not only produced superpower stability but also helped discourage other nations from becoming nuclear powers, suggest arms-control analysts.
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