Bush shouldn’t press Russia on missile defense

By Andrew Krepps

Monday, October 15, 2001

WASHINGTON -- The Bush-Putin arms control roller-coaster took another turn for the worse last Thursday when President Bush stated in no uncertain terms that he will continue to press his Russian counterpart on the need to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Emboldened by both the Russian support for the war on terrorism and the wartime groundswell of public support for his foreign policy agenda at home, the president is trying to seize the moment and kill the proverbial two birds with one stone. In one fell swoop, the administration hopes not only to implement its “new strategic relationship” with Russia without the ABM treaty, but also speed development and deployment of its missile defense program at home.

Such a move, however, makes achieving the administration's near term goal of deploying a missile defense with Russia's blessing harder, and could cause long-term damage to the U.S.- Russian relationship as well.

Certainly, the blossoming spirit of cooperation that has emerged between the Cold War rivals should be both lauded and encouraged by the Bush administration. Many have noted that Putin, by supporting the war on terrorism, looking the other way at America's use of military bases in Russia's Central Asian neighbors and softening opposition toward the expansion of NATO, may have forever redefined Russia's relationship not only with Washington, but with the rest of the world.

It must be recognized, however, that in aligning itself so clearly with the West, Putin acted against not only the wishes of a significant share of his nationalist-minded electorate, but more importantly against the wishes of many close advisors and senior officers in the military. Pressing Putin full-bore on such a touchy issue as missile defense at this vulnerable moment is likely to prompt Putin to resist as he seek to show his critics that some Russian and U.S. foreign policy interests are not identical.

In the long run, pressing the issue of missile defense so quickly could jeopardize the very type of relationship the administration seeks to build with Russia. Indeed, Russian obstinacy to the elimination of the ABM Treaty could extend to other areas of cooperation.

With the strategic review of U.S. nuclear forces expected sometime in November, the Unoted States could suddenly find Russia less willing to follow further U.S. reductions in its nuclear arsenal. Other threat reduction initiatives already under strain, such as the plutonium disposition program and Nunn-Lugar programs, also could find a less willing Russian partner. Perhaps even more disastrous in the near term, Russia could begin to tire of the U.S. presence in Central Asia and curtail intelligence sharing in the war on terrorism.

It is inevitable that the topic of missile defense and the ABM Treaty will re-emerge in the U.S.-Russian relationship. The re-emergence of the Treaty, however, need not necessitate an immediate rollback or halt of the current cooperative spirit between the two countries. Nevertheless, by choosing to make the termination of the ABM Treaty such a clear and prominent goal so soon into this new and still undefined honeymoon period, the Bush administration may be creating a more difficult situation not only its immediate goals, but for the very relationship that it has worked to foster.

Andrew Krepps is a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.