Although Washington pledged at a recent NATO meeting that it would take the views of its allies into consideration in deciding on NMD deployment, recent statements by Defense Secretary William Cohen indicate that the Clinton administration is on a path toward approval regardless of allied skepticism. 

Key U.S. partners in NATO continue to express strong concern about the U.S. plan. Allied leaders are worried that it will undercut the integrity of international arms control efforts, especially if the United States chooses to unilaterally abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia in order to rush ahead with NMD deployment.  After a meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French President Jacques Chirac declared, “Germany and France have the same analysis of the terrible consequences a NMD system could have on the ABM treaty.” 

Even if the United States manages to convince Russia to accept an NMD network under ‘amendments’ to the ABM treaty, the move by Washington to embrace an expensive, high-technology race for the elusive goal of a missile shield is certain to damage global disarmament efforts.  It would undermine international commitments to arms control and nuclear reductions by the world’s five nuclear states, which recently were reaffirmed at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York.  The nuclear five committed themselves to the promotion of “a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies, to minimize the risk that these weapons ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination.” 

But building a counterforce to perceived threats from so-called rogue states instead signals a lack of interest by the world’s most powerful nation in the only sure-fire method to remove the threat of nuclear war: elimination. The focus on an offensive-like defensive shield furthermore acts to reaffirm the importance of nuclear weapons to those looking to prove a credible threat to U.S. and allied interests. 

“The impending U.S. decision will let the proliferation genie out of the bottle,” said Christine Kucia, BASIC analyst, noting recent Russian and Chinese statements.  Russian defense officials spent most of last week countering the U.S. position that rogue states pose a threat in the short term, including a threat by Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Force,  that Moscow would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty negotiated by the United States and Soviet Union in 1987. 

China, which until recently billed its arsenal as a deterrent to a first-strike nuclear threat, is stepping up efforts to modernize and expand its arsenal, according to recent Pentagon statements.  “China, in particular, fears NMD – which, if it actually works, would in its first stage be able to intercept some 20 warheads – is a direct threat by the United States to its strategic deterrent,” Kucia explained. 

The imminent enhancement of China’s nuclear capability was foretold by Chinese arms control official Sha Zukang, who in 1999, stressed that if the United States deploys a missile defense “other countries will be forced to develop more advanced offensive missiles. This will give rise to a new round of [the] arms race, and will be in nobody's interest.”  He emphasized at this year’s NPT conference that NMD development “is tantamount to a nuclear arms build-up, which will not only bring severe damage to… the global strategic balance and stability, but also… impede the international nuclear disarmament process, and thus shatter the prerequisite and basis for international nuclear non-proliferation.” 

Russian anger at jeopardizing international agreements and the Chinese threat to reinvigorate its nuclear weapons program show that the U.S. government’s goal of maintaining “strategic stability” would be compromised with NMD deployment.  President Clinton, at a minimum, should postpone making an initial deployment decision in order to allow the next U.S. administration to more fully consider its options. However, a more important decision is in the balance: is the United States willing to risk strategic instability for the sake of a technically unproven ‘umbrella,’ bound to encourage a destructive arms race? 

“The post-Cold War world will get a lot colder if the Clinton administration freezes out NATO allies, Russia and China, and strides toward a missile defense decision,” said Theresa Hitchens, BASIC’s research director.  “U.S. government officials should instead re-focus themselves on the need to address the causes of proliferation, and work harder to forward the cause of disarmament.”