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Doc of the Day: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
05/26/10
On May 26, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow. The agreement limited the ability of each country to build strategic defense systems to protect itself from a nuclear attack by the other.
During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union both developed large arsenals of nuclear weapons as well as long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) capable of delivering warheads to targets in the other country. The potential for reciprocal nuclear annihilation served as a deterrent to prevent either superpower from launching a first strike. By the 1970s, however, both countries were developing strategic defense systems to intercept and destroy ICBMs before they reached their targets. Concerned that such systems could upset the nuclear balance and jump start the arms race, the two sides signed the ABM Treaty to codify limits on strategic defense systems.
Citing new threats to world security following the end of the Cold War, the United States announced plans to withdraw from the ABM Treaty in 2001 and resume the development of strategic defense systems. “Today, the United States and Russia face new threats to their security,” a spokesman for the George W. Bush administration explained. “Principal among these threats are weapons of mass destruction and their delivery means wielded by terrorists and rogue states. A number of such states are acquiring increasingly longer-range ballistic missiles as instruments of blackmail and coercion against the United States and its friends and allies. The United States must defend its homeland, its forces and its friends and allies against these threats. We must develop and deploy the means to deter and protect against them, including through limited missile defense of our territory.” Although the United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002, it also signed new arms reduction agreements with Russia at that time.
Read the ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY
Read the ANNOUNCEMENT OF U.S. PLANS TO WITHDRAW FROM THE ABM TREATY