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The Case Against the ABM Treaty |
| Section: CURRENT ISSUES / COMMENTARY |
| Author: Daniel O. Graham |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/1986 |
| Size: 2,204 Words, 13,335 Characters |
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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 in...
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...t to codify.
President Reagan has called for a national strategy that deters war by "saving lives rather than avenging them." His goal is to discard the dangerous and immoral MAD doctrine. That goal cannot be pursued while adhering to a treaty designed to codify MAD, let alone with a "restrictive interpretation" of that treaty. The ABM Treaty should be scrapped, not refurbished.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
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Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
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