Pulling Out of Arms Control Doesn’t Solve Anything

By JASON SIBERT

Vladimir Putin’s troop buildup around the borders of Ukraine shows what a threat his leadership is to world peace.

What’s scarier is Russia’s arsenal of nuclear weapons. However, and less mentioned in the mainstream media, there is a way we could have controlled this menace – practical application of arms control. The United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 in the administration of George W Bush. The 1972 treaty was a product of the Richard Nixon Administration, a part of the Cold War arms control infrastructure built by our country and Soviet Russia to keep the Cold War from spiraling out of control. Arms control with an adversary always comes about when you have a military advantage over them, and this was true in the 1970s. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, all the countries that came out of the political configuration entered the ABM Treaty.

When an arms control regime is established, the geopolitical struggle can move out of the military realm, and the threat of war is lightened. However, this is a lesson likely to be forgotten in the hyper-nationalism that dominates today’s politics. When Bush left the treaty, he said that it prohibited our ability to protect our country from “terrorists” and “rogue states.”

It’s clear now that withdrawing from the treaty was a mistake. America’s homeland missile defenses are easily penetrated, - the reason why Washington worries that North Korea is deploying intercontinental ballistic missiles. It must be noted that the United States’ pre-ABM missile defenses provided a counterweight to North Korea. So, it was not necessary to leave the treaty to secure our country against North Korea. It’s also important to remember that our missile defenses have provoked a reaction from Russia and China. Both Beijing and Moscow worry that the United States may be able to deploy missile defenses capable of negating their nuclear forces and leaving them vulnerable to coercion. 

While we continue to hear that domestic spending is too high, our country has poured tens of billions of dollars into missile defense since leaving ABM in 2001, and this has proven ineffective from a security standpoint. President Joe Biden has promised to use arms control as a method of security and has voiced support for limits on homeland missile defenses providing that China and Russia make concessions.

There’s a big lesson here, and it’s stated by writer James Acton in his essay at CarnegieEndowment.org, “The U.S. Exit from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Has Fueled a New Arms Race.” The Iran Nuclear Deal demonstrates that no international agreement is perfect but before withdrawing the US should do more than look at the benefits of leaving.

Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer for the Peace Economy Project.

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2022

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