The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was a treaty between the United States and the
Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile systems used in
defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. Under
the terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of
which was to be limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles.
Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next 30 years. Following the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, in 1997 the United States and four former Soviet republics
agreed to succeed to the treaty. In June 2002 the United States withdrew from the
treaty, leading to its termination. Background
Throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet
Union had been developing missile systems with the ability to shoot down
incoming ICBM warheads. During this period, the US considered the defense of
the US as part of reducing the overall damage inflicted in a full nuclear
exchange. As part of this defense, Canada and the US established the North
American Air Defense Command. By the early 1950s, US research on the
Nike Zeus missile system had developed to the point where small improvements
would allow it to be used as the basis of an operational ABM system. Work
started on a short-range, high-speed counterpart known as Sprint to provide
defense for the ABM sites themselves. By the mid-1960s, both systems showed
enough promise to start development of base selection for a limited ABM system
dubbed Sentinel. In 1967, the US announced that Sentinel itself would be
scaled down to the smaller and less expensive Safeguard. Soviet doctrine
called for development of its own ABM system and return to strategic parity
with the US. This was achieved with the operational deployment of the A-35 ABM
system and its successors, which remain operational to this day.
The development of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle
systems allowed a single ICBM to deliver as many as ten separate warheads at a
time. An ABM defense system could be overwhelmed with the sheer number of
warheads. Upgrading it to counter the additional warheads would be
economically unfeasible: The defenders required one rocket per incoming
warhead, whereas the attackers could place 10 warheads on a single missile at
a reasonable cost. To further protect against ABM systems, the Soviet MIRV
missiles were equipped with decoys; R-36M heavy missiles carried as many as
40. These decoys would appear as warheads to an ABM, effectively
requiring engagement of five times as many targets and rendering defense even
less effective. ABM Treaty
The United States first proposed an anti-ballistic missile treaty at the
1967 Glassboro Summit Conference during discussions between U.S. Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet
Union Alexei Kosygin. McNamara argued both that ballistic missile defense
could provoke an arms race, and that it might provoke a first-strike against the
nation fielding the defense. Kosygin rejected this reasoning. Following the
proposal of the Sentinel and Safeguard decisions on American ABM systems, the
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in November 1969. By 1972 an agreement had
been reached to limit strategic defensive systems. Each country was
allowed two sites at which it could base a defensive system, one for the capital
and one for ICBM silos. The treaty was signed during the 1972
Moscow Summit on May 26 by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and
the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid
Brezhnev; and ratified by the US Senate on August 3, 1972.
The 1974 Protocol reduced the number of sites to one per party, largely because
neither country had developed a second site. The sites were Moscow for the USSR
and the North Dakota Safeguard Complex for the US, which was already under
construction. = Missiles limited by the treaty =
The Treaty limited only ABMs capable of defending against "strategic ballistic
missiles", without attempting to define "strategic". It was understood that both
ICBMs and SLBMs are obviously "strategic". Both countries did not
intend to stop the development of counter-tactical ABMs. The topic became
disputable as soon as most potent counter-tactical ABMs started to be
capable of shooting down SLBMs, nevertheless both sides continued
counter-tactical ABM development. After the SDI announcement
On March 23, 1983 Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense
Initiative, a research program into ballistic missile defense which would
be, "consistent with our obligations under the ABM Treaty". The project was a
blow to Yuri Andropov's so-called "peace offensive". Andropov said that "It is
time they [Washington] stopped... search[ing] for the best ways of
unleashing nuclear war... Engaging in this is not just irresponsible. It is
insane". Regardless of the opposition, Reagan
gave every indication that SDI would not be used as a bargaining chip and that
the United States would do all in its power to build the system. The Soviets
were threatened because the Americans might have been able to make a nuclear
first strike possible. In The Nuclear Predicament, Beckman claims that one of
the central goals of Soviet diplomacy was to terminate SDI. A surprise attack
from the Americans would destroy much of the Soviet ICBM fleet, allowing SDI to
defeat a “ragged” Soviet retaliatory response. Furthermore, if the Soviets
chose to enter this new arms race, they would further cripple their economy. The
Soviets could not afford to ignore Reagan’s new endeavor, therefore their
policy at the time was to enter negotiations with the Americans. By
1987, however, the USSR withdrew its opposition, concluding the SDI posed no
threat and scientifically "would never work."
SDI research went ahead, although it did not achieve the hoped-for result. SDI
research was cut back following the end of Reagan's presidency, and in 1995 it
was reiterated in a presidential joint statement that "missile defense systems
may be deployed... [that] will not pose a realistic threat to the strategic
nuclear force of the other side and will not be tested to... [create] that
capability." This was reaffirmed in 1997.
US withdrawal Although the Soviet Union ceased to
exist in December 1991, in the view of the U.S. Department of State, the treaty
continued in force. An additional memorandum of understanding was prepared
in 1997, establishing Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and
Ukraine as successor states to the Soviet Union, for the purposes of the
treaty. On December 13, 2001, George W. Bush
gave Russia notice of the United States' withdrawal from the treaty, in
accordance with the clause that required six months' notice before terminating
the pact—the first time in recent history that the United States has
withdrawn from a major international arms treaty. This led to the eventual
creation of the American Missile Defense Agency.
Supporters of the withdrawal argued that it was a necessity in order to test and
build a limited National Missile Defense to protect the United States from
nuclear blackmail by a rogue state. The withdrawal had many critics as well as
supporters. John Rhinelander, a negotiator of the ABM treaty, predicted
that the withdrawal would be a "fatal blow" to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty and would lead to a "world without effective legal constraints on
nuclear proliferation." The construction of a missile defense system was also
feared to enable the US to attack with a nuclear first strike.
Russia and the United States signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in
Moscow on May 24, 2002. This treaty mandates cuts in deployed strategic
nuclear warheads, but without actually mandating cuts to total stockpiled
warheads, and without any mechanism for enforcement.
References Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty [1] 1974
Protocol [2] External links
US Announcement of withdrawal Global Security Institute