Revenge of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
by Matt Martin
In June 2002, the United States formally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Many supporters of the Bush administration rejected the notion that the ABM Treaty was the “cornerstone of strategic stability� and made much of the fact that the sky didn’t fall immediately after the U.S. withdrawal. However, the ABM Treaty is just one of a host of international agreements on which the Bush administration has either backtracked or refused to move forward; others include the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Treaty on global warming, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Biological Weapons Convention Protocol.
Recent events should remind us of the importance of international agreements and the dangers of the United States refusing to be bound by agreements that bind the rest of the international community.
Having won the war against Baghdad a week ago, the Bush administration is turning its attention to other states with whom we have disagreements, most notably Syria and North Korea. The Bush administration has declared that states sponsoring terrorism and building weapons of mass destruction are the enemy of the United States and the world. The US has warned North Korea not to develop nuclear weapons and Syria to abandon its chemical weapons.
Yet the United States position is a bit uncomfortable when it demands that other countries live up to international agreements while retaining the its own right to opt out of any agreements we don’t like.
There was a long and clear record of United Nations actions against Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and its lack of compliance with the terms agreed upon after the first Gulf War. The Bush administration justified our invasion because of Iraq’s defiance of the international community.
Conversely, no such record exists for Syria or North Korea.
Syria is not a signatory of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and is under no international obligation not to develop or stockpile chemical weapons. Moreover, there are no current UN resolutions condemning Syria. While Syria is now showing a willingness to talk, its main proposal centers around a WMD-free Middle East—which implies a WMD-free Israel. This is not a proposal that is likely to make much progress.
The same holds true for North Korea. Last week, North Korea’s withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty became official. The language of the North Korean declaration was curiously similar to the U.S. announcement in withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Paraphrasing (from the English and Korean), “The international security environment has changed. We must adapt our internal policies in response to those changes.� And like Syria, no UN resolutions threaten North Korea with military action should it fail to live up to its international obligations.
Where does this leave the United States? The Administration has scorned international agreements and declared that any unilateral or preventive action taken in its own security interests is justified. Yet it wants to condemn and sanction Syria for its chemical weapons and North Korea for its nuclear weapons. In addition, the United States is considering developing new nuclear weapons and new rationales and uses for its own nuclear arsenal.
This very much leaves the US appearing as a double-standard bully. Syria and North Korea may be momentarily cowed by the display of military might in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Bush administration has stated that it hopes that its actions will produce a “demonstration effect,� thereby discouraging other countries from moving forward with their own weapons of mass destruction. It is very possible, however, that countries such as Syria and North Korea will learn a different lesson: they may beef up their weapons of mass destruction in order to dissuade the United States from attacking. The best course of action is for the United States to join with the international community to create and strengthen strategic agreements and enforcement regimes. Otherwise, it will create as many new problems as it tries to solve old ones. Such a path will likely lead to less security, not more.