ANTI-BALLISTIC-MISSILE TREATY OF 1972
The Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty of 1972 (ABM Treaty) limited the number of defensive antiballistic missile (ABM) systems that the United States and the former Soviet Union could use in preparation for nuclear war (23 UST 3435: TIAS 7503; 944 UNTS 13, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Treaties in Force, 1993). Restrictions on ballistic missile defenses (BMDs), military warning systems designed to alert and protect a nation, composed the bulk of the treaty’s articles.
The treaty limited each country’s supply of
remote-controlled, long-range nuclear rockets,
or intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in
1991, the Russian Federation continued to
adhere to the agreement. In 2001, however, the
United States announced that it would no longer
abide by the pact.
On May 26, 1972, at the U.S.-Soviet summit
in Moscow, President RICHARD M. NIXON of the
United States and President Leonid Brezhnev of
the Soviet Union signed, in conjunction with the
STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TALKS of 1969–72
(SALT I), the ABM Treaty. The treaty limited
each party to two ABM sites, with no more than
one hundred ABM launchers and interceptors at
each site. One of these sites could protect an
ICBM silo deployment area, and the second
could protect the national capital. The treaty
prohibited the development, testing, or deployment
of sea-based, air-based, space-based, or
mobile land-based ABM systems. Furthermore,
it excluded the transfer or deployment of ABM
systems to or in other nations. The 15 articles of
the treaty were of unlimited duration and would
come up for renewal every five years.
The principles of the treaty explicitly
reflected the policy of mutual assured destruction
(MAD)—the belief that the best way to
control nuclear arms is to allow both sides
enough power to ensure the destruction of both
nations in the event of war. As stated in Article I
of the treaty, each side agreed “not to deploy
ABM systems for a defense of the territory of its
country and not to provide a base for such a
defense, and not to deploy ABM systems for
defense of an individual region” (Durch 1988).
Article II defines an ABM system as “a system to
counter strategic ballistic missiles or their elements
in flight trajectory, currently consisting of
ABM interceptor missiles . . . ABM launchers
[and] . . . ABM radars.” Article III reiterates the
ban on ABM deployment, excepting, for each
side, one deployment area around the national
capital and one around an ICBM launcher
deployment area. This provision was later reduced, in 1974, to just one deployment area
for each country, allowing “no more than 100
ABM interceptor missiles at launch sites.” Articles
IV to XV outline provisions for, among
other issues, nuclear testing, radar deployment,
amendments to the treaty, and the terms of
treaty withdrawal.
After the ABM Treaty was ratified by the U.S.
Congress, legislators refused to authorize funds
for building an ABM site outside Washington,
D.C. In early 1975, the United States deployed its
single permitted system near the Minuteman
Fields at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North
Dakota. Within a year, however, the system was
deactivated by Congress on the ground that it
was not very cost-effective. The Soviets, meanwhile,
used their ABM deployments to protect
Moscow.
Despite attempts to follow the principles of
SALT I, continued limitations on strategic arms
fell apart with the SALT II Treaty of 1979. The
U.S. Congress refused to ratify the treaty, which
had been signed by Presidents JIMMY CARTER
and Leonid Brezhnev. SALT II went on to draw
heavy fire in the 1980s from the newly empowered
Reagan administration. Whereas the Soviets
generally adhered to a strict interpretation of
the ABM Treaty, President RONALD REAGAN
advocated “peace through strength” and pushed
for new weapons programs and policies. Reagan
reinterpreted the treaty liberally, putting it to its
most serious test.His proposal to render nuclear
ballistic missiles ineffective and obsolete, with
the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a spacebased
BMD system popularly known as Star
Wars, caused great debate at home and considerable
alarm in the Soviet Union.
Like Reagan, opponents of the ABM Treaty
believed that its limits were based on one-way
accommodation, that is, allowing the Soviets to
retain their numerical superiority, as seen in
SALT II. The Soviets had previously established
numerical superiority in ICBM deployment,
and the ABM Treaty supposedly held back the
development of further U.S. weapons technology.
Especially troublesome to some was the
Soviet’s Krasnoyarsk radar system in western
Siberia. According to Article VI of the ABM
Treaty, an early warning radar with this orientation
should have been located on the Pacific coast or in the outer Arctic reaches of Siberia.
Many believed that Moscow was cheating on its
end of the deal, hence the treaty should go.
In the 1980s, tensions between the United
States and the Soviet Union flared. In October
1985, the Reagan administration announced a
new interpretation of the ABM Treaty, under
which the development and testing of “exotic”
ABM systems (those not spelled out in the treaty
itself, e.g., Star Wars) would have no limit. In
1986, with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
(START) talks in full swing, the United States
and the Soviet Union treated the ABM Treaty as
a central bargaining chip. Moscow looked to
maintain the treaty for at least another decade,
with tight constraints on space testing.Washington,
meanwhile, looked to abide by the treaty for
at most another decade and expected lessened
constraints on the space testing of exotic technologies.
The ensuing events of the late 1980s and
early 1990s caught everyone by surprise.
Although the United States’s interest in the SDI
continued into the GEORGE H. W. BUSH administration
years, and persisted through the eventual
breakup of the Soviet Union, both the United
States and the Soviet Union showed interest in
pursuing at least the spirit of the ABM Treaty.
True arms reductions talks developed with the
Soviet demise. In 1991, Soviet nuclear forces
were split up between four countries—Russia,
Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—and
spokespersons on both sides saw revision of the
ABM Treaty as necessary. The START agreements
of 1992 shed new light on older concessions.
As the chief U.S. architect of the original
ABM Treaty, HENRY KISSINGER now joined others
in declaring it obsolete in the new era of disarmament.
As a gesture of GOOD FAITH, the
Soviets demolished their controversial Krasnoyarsk
radar system; a shoe factory now occupies
the site.
In the years that followed, the United States
and Russia both worked together and strayed
from the MAD doctrine. They also turned their
attention elsewhere, mainly to the developing
world. New nations on the list of nuclear powers
included Israel, India, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt,
Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria, none
of which had any formal attachment to the ABM
Treaty. U.S. and former Soviet strategists went
from analyzing BMD research provisions set
forth in the ABM Treaty to setting up safeguards
against attack from other powers.
In December 2001, however, the United
States announced that it would no longer follow
the ABM treaty. The formal announcement by
President GEORGE W. BUSH set in motion a sixmonth
period for ending the pact.He stated that
the ABM Treaty “hinders our government’s ability
to develop ways to protect our people from
future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks.”
The United States’s withdrawal from the
treaty was motivated by the desire to build and
deploy a long-range missile defense system that
would protect the nation from attacks by rogue
nations such as North Korea. The deployment of
the missile shield system was set for 2004. The
withdrawal came after months of failed negotiations
with Russia to jointly abandon the ABM
treaty and to craft a new pact based on the current
world situation. Russian president Vladimir
Putin expressed regret at the decision but did
not signal a move to build a competing system.
FURTHER READINGS
American-Soviet Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic
Missile Systems.May 26, 1972.Moscow.
Assembly of Western European Union. 1993. Anti-Missile
Defence for Europe, Symposium, Rome, April 20–21.
Blackwill, Robert D., and Albert Carnesale, eds. 1993. New
Nuclear Nations. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.
Durch, William J. 1988. The ABM Treaty and Western Security.
Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.
—. 1987. The Future of the ABM Treaty. London: International
Institute for Strategic Studies.
Greenville, J.A.S., and Bernard Wasserstein. 1987. The Major
International Treaties Since 1945. London: Methuen.
Joint Chiefs of Staff. 1994. Doctrine for Joint Theater Missile
Defense. Joint pub. no. 3-01.5, March 30.
Kartchner, Kerry M. 1992. Negotiating START. New
Brunswick, N.J., and London: Transaction.
Mazarr, Michael J., and Alexander T. Lennon, eds., 1994.
Toward a Nuclear Peace. New York: St.Martin’s Press.
Perez-Rivas, Manuel. December 14, 2001. “U.S. Quits ABM
Treaty.” CNN.com: Inside Politics. Available online at
.abm/index.html> (accessed May 30, 2003).
Voas, Jeanette. 1990. Soviet Attitudes towards Ballistic Missile
Defence and the ABM Treaty. London: International
Institute for Strategic Studies.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Arms Control and Disarmament; Bush, George Herbert
Walker; International Law.
