 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Europe wary of missile defense
©New York Times © St. Petersburg Times, published February 4, 2001 MUNICH, Germany -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the first senior Bush administration official to visit Europe, tried Saturday to defuse opposition to the administration's anti-missile plans by offering to help European nations and other allies to deploy missile defenses. But while Rumsfeld assured European allies that the United States would consult with them on its anti-missile plan, he did not address in detail one of the Europeans' principal concerns: how an anti-missile defense can be reconciled with strategic arms control and a productive relationship with Moscow. "The United States intends to develop and deploy a missile defense designed to defend our people and forces against a limited ballistic missile attack, and is prepared to assist friends and allies threatened by missile attack to deploy such defenses," Rumsfeld said in a speech to a conference of top political officials and defense specialists. Rumsfeld underscored that the Bush administration was determined to proceed with an anti-missile defense of U.S. territory even if it could not overcome the objections from the Russians, Chinese and Europeans. He described a missile defense as nothing less than a moral imperative. Missile defense was hardly the only sensitive issue Saturday. The European Union's move to develop a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force by 2003 has drawn a wary reaction from the Bush administration. While not opposing the initiative, Rumsfeld was clearly skeptical, and stressed the need for great care to ensure that the European Union does not detract from NATO. President Bush's fatigue with the Balkan peacekeeping mission also remains a continuing source of anxiety in Europe. Rumsfeld said little on the subject Saturday, saying that the matter was under review at the White House. The United States and Europe also have to decide how to proceed with NATO expansion, a topic that greatly worries the Russians. But as European leaders have challenged the missile defense plan in recent weeks, the issue has risen to the fore. The main European concern is that deployment of an anti-missile shield will undermine the framework of nuclear arms control and spoil relations with the Russians. Or, as the French President Jacques Chirac put it last month, a U.S. missile defense "cannot fail to relaunch the arms race in the world." The Russians have sought to stoke the Europeans' fears, warning that they may abandon the strategic arms constraints they have negotiated with Washington if the Bush administration abandons the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and deploys an anti-missile system. The head of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Ivanov, is to address the conference today, raising the specter of a U.S.-Russian tussle for European opinion. In his attempts to sway European opinion, Rumsfeld presented several arguments. He insisted that anti-missile defenses could be reconciled with arms control, shying away from comments he made in congressional hearings and on the airplane flying to the conference that the ABM treaty was an anachronism. Rumsfeld also sought to turn long-standing European concerns about U.S. isolationism or military intervention into arguments for missile defenses. Without a missile shield, he suggested future U.S. leaders might turn isolationist in a crisis and shrink from confronting a missile-wielding Third World aggressor. Alternatively, he warned, a U.S. leader might be forced to carry out a pre-emptive strike. "It is not so much a technical question as a matter of a president's constitutional responsibility. Indeed, it is, in many respects, a moral issue." -- Donald Rumsfeld, Defense secretary, on a missile defense system against a rogue nation. "A system of defense need not be perfect; but the American people must not be left completely defenseless," Rumsfeld said. "It is not so much a technical question as a matter of a president's constitutional responsibility. Indeed, it is, in many respects, a moral issue." Rumsfeld's case was helped by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who told the meeting that there was a general consensus in Washington that some sort of missile defense should be deployed. "The question from an American point of view is not whether we will have a national missile defense but when and how," Lieberman said. "This is not a technologically feasible program now. We are some years away." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also joined the call for missile defenses, adding to the sense of inevitability. The European response to Rumsfeld's proposal on Saturday was respectful, if restrained. Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, appeared to speak for most of his fellow European foreign ministers when he said that European nations were glad that Washington wanted to consult them on the anti-missile plan but that missile defense must not come at the expense of arms control. That is a difficult balancing act that neither the Americans nor the Europeans were prepared to discuss in detail. Rumsfeld, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, has been in office for two weeks. He also is the only political appointee to take up his post at the Pentagon, a situation that no doubt makes it hard to develop comprehensive missile defense proposals. And the rest of the Bush administration also is in its infancy. Still, Rumsfeld's offer to help the Europeans and other allies deploy defenses raised a number of tricky questions. The Bush administration has yet to explain which land-based, sea-based or space-based systems it would use. As a result, it is impossible to say how long it would take to develop a system, what it would cost or to what extent it would require modification of the ABM treaty. Rumsfeld did not say how much the Europeans would have to pay for anti-missile defenses of their territory -- no small concern for a continent whose military spending has lagged -- and what Washington might contribute. Nor is it clear just which "friends" would qualify for a U.S.-designed and developed anti-missile system. NATO nations are clearly covered in the offer. But would the Bush administration provide Taiwan, which faces a Chinese missile threat, with anti-missile systems? No mention was made of the possibility of cooperation with the Russians. Rumsfeld has been something of a hard-liner on arms control. While Bush administration officials have talked of making cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, he had no specific arms control proposals to offer Moscow on Saturday. Yet he insisted the Russians were mistaken to perceive anti-missile defenses as a quest for strategic advantage. He said that a limited U.S. defense could not neutralize the sizable Russian nuclear arsenal, and he suggested that the Russians understood this and were simply pretending not to understand in order to build opposition to the U.S. plan in Europe. "The phrase 'arms race' has been mentioned two or three times today," Rumsfeld said. "I really think that is kind of a leftover from the Cold War. It is a phraseology in a context that is less relevant today than it was then. The United States does not fear an attack from Russia. The government does not and the people don't. The idea of an arms race between the United States and Russia ought not to be front and center in our thinking. It is something that is a leftover, a relic in our thinking."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
