The Collapse of the ABM Treaty Regime
and Global Strategic Stability
Will the world be more secure under Bush's new concept of deterrence?

Shih-min Chen
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
National Taiwan University

President Bush announced on December 13 that the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. He pledged to deploy a National Missile Defense system (NMD). This move signifies the collapse of the ABM Treaty Regime that has been seen as the cornerstone of global strategic stability for the past 30 years. Bush has proposed a new strategic framework that rely on both offensive and defensive forces. Debate is now focused on whether this new strategic framework will be better suited to the current international environment and better able to promote global peace and stability. Faced with this sea change in thinking on how to maintain global strategic stability, the question of what impact this will have on Taiwan, which is heavily reliant on U.S. security guarantees, should not be overlooked. We should first understand why Bush views the old strategic framework as a cold war relic and ask whether it really is unsuitable in the post-cold war world. Then we should question whether the new strategic framework would be better able to preserve global peace.

Deterrence rather than defense has become the foundation of western security strategy due to the speed and destructive capability of nuclear missiles and the difficulty of defending against them. In the early 1960s, by which time the U.S. and USSR had each acquired the military power to guarantee destruction of the other, whichever side made the "first strike" would have had a massive strategic advantage since, with an opponent obliterated in the first hour of an attack, a clear military superiority or global preeminence would be ceded to the attacker. Faced with this imbalance, and the inability of anti-missile defense technology to guard against such an attack, the ability to inflict unendurable damage on the attacker via a retaliatory strike came to be seen as a vital means of deterrence. The simultaneous signing in 1972 of the ABM treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) was intended to maintain the strategic balance between the U.S. and USSR and to guarantee that the two sides ability to retaliate to an attack would not easily be damaged. With the advantage of making a first strike reduced, strategic stability was be maintained. First strikes would be averted and each side would be far less likely to mistakenly conclude that the other intended to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Imperfect anti-missile defense would be incapable of offering "absolute security" or survival guarantees but, since it could damage the mutuality of "mutually assured destruction," missile defense was seen as destabilizing to strategic relations, which were founded on deterrence. In renouncing defense, the ABM treaty signatories guaranteed each other's offensive deterrent capability and thereby maintained the balance of terror and the peace that stemmed from it.

While the peace maintained by this way of thinking was based on terror and was immoral, many people thought that the cold war peace between the nuclear powers was to some extent guaranteed by the resilience of the two sides' ability to retaliate and that this reduced the possibility of them using their nuclear weapons. Before George W. Bush became president, every nuclear power abided by this logic for maintaining global strategic stability. Even former U.S. President Clinton, who was planning to deploy NMD, intended only to amend the ABM treaty; several times before leaving office, he and the Russian president reiterated that the treaty was the cornerstone of global strategic stability. However, after taking office, Bush said repeatedly that the logic of the cold war strategic framework was a relic no longer applicable to the post-cold war world. His main point is that Russia is no longer an enemy of the U.S. The greatest threat to the U.S. now comes from the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction in "rogue states." The deployment of NMD, which contravenes the ABM treaty, is a precaution against a future attack on U.S. soil consisting of up to a dozen missiles from a rogue state. Following the breakdown of the cold war strategic order, is the ABM Treaty Regime that it produced as out-of-date as Bush claims?

Although the cold war is over, nuclear weapons have not disappeared. While relations between the U.S. and Russia are currently good and nuclear conflict between them is now unthinkable, no one can guarantee that relations will not deteriorate in the future. As long as a large number of nuclear weapons exist, there is a chance they will be used. This is a serious menace to the whole world. Although Bush has announced that the U.S. is willing to make huge cuts in its nuclear arsenal, the one or two thousand warheads that would remain are still sufficient to devastate the world several times over. As long as it remains hard to defend against nuclear missiles, deterrence will probably remain the most effective means to avert nuclear war in a crisis. Consequently, if, as Bush says, the ABM Treaty ignores the fundamental breakthroughs in technology during the last 30 years, the crucial point is whether these advances allow the construction of a flawless anti-missile defense. Few experts in the field have so far been bold enough to make such a claim. Furthermore, the U.S. has repeatedly stated that NMD is intended only to defend against an attack of only a dozen missiles from a rogue state and not against Russia's arsenal of over a thousand warheads. Without this assurance, we could not but worry that the deployment of an imperfect anti-missile defense system after the ABM treaty is scrapped may lead to instability in relationships of strategic deterrence. Since an imperfect missile defense is probably better thought of as designed to counter a second strike rather than a first strike, enemies would fear that their ability to retaliate had been reduced and could suspect that the anti-missile defense deployer, protected behind it, was planning a first strike. The enemy may then consider making a pre-emptive strike. Thus, the strategic advantage of making a first strike would be increased, leading to instability in the balance of deterrence. Although the U.S. has made repeated assurances that it does not intend to upset its strategic relationship with Russia and that NMD is meant only to counter attacks from rogue states, if the ABM treaty is scrapped there will be, as Russian President Putin has said, "a legal vacuum in the sphere of strategic stability." History shows that few policy makers would found their national security on the well-intentioned undertakings of another country.

Apart from this, one possible, particularly disturbing consequence of abrogation of the ABM treaty is that it could spark a new arms race in offensive and defensive weapons. For a long time, both Russia and the People's Republic of China have warned that the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of desarmament regime and that if it is damaged they would rethink all previous undertakings on disarmament. Within Russia, which is unable to compete with the U.S. on anti-missile defenses, there have been loud calls to boost the nation's nuclear attack capability to counterbalance the effect of American NMD. In this way, Russia could maintain a strategic balance with the U.S. and prevent the U.S. attaining a first strike capability. This could involve stepping back from the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) or Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and redeploying multiple warhead missiles, which have an enhanced first-strike capability and so could destabilize strategic relations. The value of most of China's roughly 20 intercontinental nuclear missiles capable of striking the U.S. could be also nullified by NMD. This raises concern in Beijing that NMD deployment would grant the U.S. power to launch a first strike against China with relative impunity. It would also focus China's attention on the threat that a pre-emptive attack could wipe out its nascent nuclear weapons development. Again, the strategic relationship between China and the U.S. would be upset. China could only stave off this kind of danger by expanding its nuclear arsenal. In the recent past, establishment scientists and academics in China have repeatedly commented that NMD would compel China to expand its nuclear arsenal and develop multiple warhead missiles and several studies have concluded that China could easily double or triple in size its nuclear arsenal. Many U.S. academics have noted that China will continue modernization of its nuclear forces even if NMD is not deployed. However, for a long time, China's nuclear program has focused on upgrading the quality of its devices rather than increasing their number. If this policy is redirected towards increasing warhead numbers as a result of NMD, there will be a major impact on regional and international security. In particular there would be the danger of a domino effect: India may respond by expanding its nuclear capability, Pakistan could do the same. It is also possible that this domino effect happens between Japan, North Korea and South Korea.

A separate effect of America unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty is on the credibility of the American nuclear umbrella of "extended deterrence" for U.S. allies. From 1983 when the U.S. proposed deployment of its "Star War" program (Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI) to the current debate over NMD, many US allies have expressed concern that, on top of the threat of strategic instability and restarting an arms race, such defenses would have the effect of "uncoupling" the security of the U.S. and its allies. Supposing a flawless anti-missile defense is not possible, SDI or NMD could only increase America's level of security but could not guarantee absolute security. Washington would still be concerned that, in the event of a crisis, U.S. soil could be targeted in an enemy's first strike. After all, most nuclear weapons capable of striking an enemy nation and those weapons' command and control centers would still be located on U.S. soil. If defenses raised the relative security of U.S. territory, how willing would the U.S. be to sacrifice itself to rescue an allied nation? Would this not foster U.S. isolationism? After all, no country has conventional forces capable of threatening the U.S. If anti-missile defenses could substantially reduce the threat of nuclear strikes on the U.S., there would be a natural increase in the American sense of security. However, this increase in the U.S. sense of security could impact on the perceived common security fate of the U.S. and its allies. The basis of this is U.S. allies' belief that Washington would sacrifice New York to save London. And the credibility of this extended deterrence is the cornerstone of the current nuclear non-proliferation regime. Doubts about the planned deployment of anti-missile defenses have been common among the officials and academics of U.S. allies from the time of SDI. Another major reason is fear that U.S. attempts to keep war from spreading to U.S. soil will end up as attempts to confine conflict to the territories of its allies such as those in Europe and East Asia. This explains to some degree why only the U.S., Israel, Lithuania and Micronesia opposed the resolution on "Preservation of and compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty" that Russia and China raised in the United Nations General Assembly in 1999. Almost all of America's allies abstained and France voted to support the resolution. Many U.S. allies still had reservations when Bush announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the treaty and they did not voice support.

This great shift in thinking on maintaining global strategic stability has had a great impact on international security. What will be the impact on Taiwan, which is heavily reliant on U.S. guarantees for its own security? If scrapping of the ABM treaty leads China to expand its nuclear arsenal and this sparks a nuclear arms race and proliferation in Asia, the effect on Taiwan's strategic environment would be considerable. Around the time of the 1996 Taiwan Strait missile crisis when the U.S. dispatched two aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Strait, Beijing indirectly warned the U.S that China believed "you care a lot more about Los Angeles than Taipei." This was of course a threat of a nuclear strike on U.S. soil. An increase in the number of Chinese missiles would naturally impact upon the credibility of U.S. security commitments to Taiwan. Nonetheless, if U.S. NMD could substantially reduce the threat of Chinese nuclear weapons to U.S. territory, the U.S. would be less susceptible to China's nuclear blackmail when fulfilling its security commitments to Taiwan. Just how the relative likelihood of these two scenarios develops will be of most intimate concern to Taiwan in the future. It would also be of great interest whether a breakdown in the nuclear non-proliferation regime in East Asia, as has happened in South Asia, would lead to an easing of U.S. restraints on Taiwan developing its own nuclear weapons.

The September 11 terror attacks once again drew attention to a major post-cold war threat to U.S. soil: not the threat of an intercontinental missile launched from an identifiable rogue state, but the threat to U.S. territory from a smuggled nuclear, biological or chemical device or from an act of terror of unknown origin. NMD would obviously be unable to respond to such threats. If we believe that the old strategic framework was able to deter attack from the Soviet Union's thousands of missiles, why would it not be sufficient to deter a limited number of missiles from a rogue state? Would a rogue state's leaders not fear the annihilation of that nation that could be unleashed as U.S. retaliation? It is understandable that many suspect there may be another factor behind U.S deployment of NMD such as lobbying by the military-industrial complex. This has extra credibility since the current U.S. Defense Secretary has had a close long-term relationship with anti-missile defense contractors. In any case, U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty, has, as Putin has said, "taken the world's nuclear weapons into unknown territory." There is great uncertainty now as the world waits anxiously for the Bush administration to clarify the precise meaning of what it calls "a new strategic framework" and to propose persuasive means for its operation. In addition to this, the U.S. should discuss a new disarmament regime with other nations as soon as possible to avert an arms race that could lead to the collapse of the non-proliferation regime.