The Rise and Fall of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty: A Study of U.S. Decision-Making

Abstract

Abstract : On 13 June 2002, the United States formally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Arms control advocates throughout Russia, Europe, and the U.S. had routinely referred to the ABM Treaty as the cornerstone of strategic stability and had predicted abrogation would trigger a new nuclear arms race. Yet the international community greeted the treaty's termination with muted resignation. Russian President Putin responded the next day by declaring his nation no longer bound by the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), a largely hollow gesture since START II never entered into force by either party and, just one month earlier, Russia and the U.S. had concluded the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty which reduced offensive nuclear weapons far below the START II goals. How was it possible that the ABM Treaty, regarded as crucial to nuclear stability and world peace, expired with so little political fallout or even fanfare? How was the Bush administration able to achieve, if not world-wide consensus, then at least widespread acquiescence towards its missile defense proposals? This paper will attempt to answer these questions by examining the political, technical and strategic considerations that produced the consensus against missile defenses in 1972 and then determining how these considerations had changed by late 2001 in favor of missile defenses. To limit the scope of this paper, I've chosen to examine only two periods in the history of missile defense: the 1957-1972 period preceding the adoption of the ABM Treaty, and the 1991-2002 period resulting in the treaty's termination.