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John B. Rhinelander was legal adviser to the U.S. SALT
I delegation that negotiated the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty. Mr. Rhinelander served in the U.S. Army with the first-generation
missile defense (NIKE Ajax) and was a Supreme Court clerk after
law school. He is a lawyer, former government official, teacher
and businessman. He is senior counsel at Shaw Pittman, a Washington,
D.C. law firm and a member of the Board of Directors of Lawyers
Alliance for World Security (LAWS). Rhinelander divided his discussion into four parts: 1. The relevance of the ABM Treaty to today 2. The status of the current negotiations with Russian on the ABM Treaty 3. The deployment decision expected in the Summer of 2000 4. The consequences of U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty 1. The relevance of the ABM Treaty to today If you believe that North Korea, Iran and Iraq are the chief threats to the security of continental U.S., then the ABM Treaty is irrelevant or a barrier to a necessary defense. I question that assumption, because at most those countries may develop one or two or a handful of nuclear weapons, probably not deliverable by long-range missile. If, however, you believe that the many thousands of Russian nuclear weapons -- deployed and non-deployed -- and its nuclear materials are the main threat to U.S. survival today, then the ABM Treaty remains a cornerstone of U.S. security. Based on a Harvard study, Russia today has sufficient plutonium and highly enriched uranium to produce up to 100,000 nuclear weapons. Russia today is at the edge of chaos and it may take another generation to turn the country around. Thus the U.S. should keep its eye on what is critical, the nuclear weapons situation in the former Soviet Union. We should be working toward reducing, dismantling and de-alerting Russian nuclear weapons and its immense stock of nuclear materials, rather than focusing on a much lesser threat while exacerbating the larger threat. The ABM Treaty is central to these priorities. There are other prime factors to consider, including the fact that China is likely to react in ways that undermine U.S. security if we terminate the ABM Treaty or deploy Theater Missile Defense systems in North East Asia, and that our NATO allies are less than sure that a National Missile Defense is a positive move. In fact, there is some talk that if the U.S. moves in that direction, there may be a "decoupling" between NATO and the U.S. Moreover, Great Britain and Denmark may not approve the changes sought by the U.S. in radar facilities located in the U.K. and Greenland that are a part of any National Missile Defense we are considering deploying. The problem of misplaced priorities is heightened by the weakest leadership on arms control and security issues in a long time in both Russia and the U.S. Moreover, if past history is any guide, it will take a year for a new Administration to be up and running to tackle these problems. 2. The status of the current negotiations with Russia on the ABM Treaty The current negotiations between the U.S. and Russia to modify the ABM Treaty are stalemated. Despite the optimism of the Clinton Administration, the talks are likely to remain stalemated through the Presidential elections in each country. Russia is not going to blink before then. To Russian leaders, the U.S. is proposing an agreement to limit defenses for 10 years; after the 10-year cutoff date, the U.S. would be free of meaningful constraints. If the U.S. proposed only deployment at one site in Alaska, Russia might accept. But the U.S. has already made it clear that within five years of the original deployment, we plan to deploy at a second site, plus upgraded radars, space-based sensors, links to a sea- based system, and more. This effectively requires gutting the various buffers in the treaty, the ban on a "base" being one, permitting quick "breakout" thereafter. The stalemate also extends to negotiations on further nuclear arms reductions. The U.S. refuses to negotiate START III before the Russian Duma approves START II. The Russians may be down to 1,000 nuclear weapons or fewer in 10 to 15 years, and feel themselves vulnerable to U.S. conventional "smart weapons." Smart weapons plus a missile defense would guarantee American superiority, and leave Russia vulnerable, in the eyes of many Russians. The only possible deal is for the Russians to be permitted MIRVed warheads on its newest ICBM, that would otherwise be banned by START II, in return for approval of a one-site National Missile Defense with all key components ground-based and in Alaska, but that kind of deal is a non-starter. The atmosphere between the two countries has already been poisoned by NATO expansion to include former Warsaw Pact countries " in violation of a clear agreement between the U.S. and Russia, Russian leaders feel " plus NATO's military engagement out-of-area in Kosovo. The Russians don't even have binding legal assurances that nuclear weapons will not be moved to the newest NATO member states. 3. The NMD deployment decision expected in the Summer of 2000 A decision to deploy a National Missile Defense that is now expected by July 2000 is totally unnecessary. Only three of 19 tests will have been completed by that time. It would be logical to leave the deployment decision until the next Administration. However, the decision is and will be saturated by politics. It is likely that the U.S. will decide to deploy next summer, but not start any construction on the ground. Even such a limited decision could have a substantial impact on Russian politics, particularly the June presidential election in that country, if announced before then. In light of the politics in Russia, if the U.S. announces a deployment decision before the June Russian election, Russian leaders may well feel compelled to declare START II null and void, and announce a decision to maintain MIRVed SS-18 missiles and to MIRV the new TOPOL missiles. 4. The consequences of U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty There are major negative consequences of a U.S. decision to withdraw from the Treaty, which can be done legally on six months' notice. A decision to withdraw, or even its anticipation, combined with the Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, could roil the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference scheduled in April 2000 and quite possibly lead to one or more countries withdrawing from the NPT. In addition, strategic stability would be undermined. The U.S. will give to the rest of the world the appearance of being opposed to any international treaties that limit U.S. freedom of action. The end of the ABM Treaty, following hard on the heels of the test ban defeat and the Kosovo military action unsanctioned by the United Nations, provide several examples that the U.S. is moving to a lawless state internationally. There is a danger that the U.S. might pull out of some existing treaties and certainly not ratify various high-visibility accords. There are some extreme Republican voices advocating precisely this step. This direction would be despite the fact that the world has been made truly safer by a series of "rules of the road" embodied in international cooperation through treaties since World War II. If other countries follow our example of avoiding international treaties, the world will be less safe. One consequence is the likelihood is that weapons of mass destruction will spread.
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