Most Americans probably aren't too concerned when Russian and Chinese officials object to the Bush administration's plans to push ahead with deployment of a missile defense system. After all, potential adversaries shouldn't be given veto power over U.S. strategic policy. Most Americans may even tune out the Democratic leaders who have raised questions about the cost, feasibility and strategic wisdom of missile defense. The questions may come across as further evidence of partisan sniping in Washington.

But when similar concerns emanate from the European leaders of NATO -- the allies whose partnership with Washington has been the linchpin of our common defense for more than half a century -- the American people have cause to pay attention.

For public consumption, the NATO leaders' concerns about the Bush administration's missile defense plans are couched in diplomatic euphemisms. But make no mistake: Most Western European governments fear that the White House's plans will undercut the very rationale of common defense that sustained the alliance throughout the Cold War and beyond.

Secretary of State Colin Powell Tuesday went to a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's top policymaking body, with hopes of eliciting a joint resolution endorsing the administration's missile defense plans. Instead, the council's resolution said the allies "welcome the consultations initiated by President Bush . . . and welcome the United States' assurance that the views of allies will be taken into account as it considers its plans further."

Or in non-diplomatic language: Slow down. And don't take any unilateral step to upset the foundation of the NATO alliance.

Powell succeeded only in persuading the European foreign ministers to omit any reference to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. President Bush and other administration officials downplay the implications of building a missile defense system that would have the effect of rendering the ABM treaty obsolete, yet our allies as well as our potential adversaries are troubled by such a potentially destabilizing policy shift. At last year's North Atlantic Council meeting, the foreign ministers pointedly referred to the ABM treaty as "the cornerstone of strategic stability."

Since the beginning of the Cold War, our strategic defense has been based on the unsettling, but so far effective, concept of mutually assured destruction. The overwhelming nuclear arsenals of the United States and Soviet Union deterred either nation from contemplating a first strike. Mutual security has been bolstered by treaties to reduce strategic weapons and to prohibit the development of any defensive system that could precipitate a new arms race. But the Bush administration now proposes to dismantle that security apparatus in favor of a missile defense system whose feasibility is still a matter of conjecture.

Most of the world shares the White House's discomfort with the concept of mutually assured destruction. Although it has prevented nuclear war for more than 50 years, shared terror is not the ideal human condition. However, a precipitous commitment to missile defense would make the world more dangerous, not less so.

A missile defense system would, at best, be capable of protecting the United States against missiles launched by terrorists or a rogue nation with only one or two nuclear weapons. Our defense against Russia, China and any other major nuclear power would still be based on mutually assured destruction. But that standoff of terror would exist in a new atmosphere of distrust, one in which longstanding arms-control agreements had been abrogated and U.S. defensive strategies were disengaged from those of our former European allies.

That is the dangerous world into which the Bush administration is committed to leading us. If you aren't persuaded by the concerns of Russia or China, or even those of congressional Democrats, you at least should consider the concerns being expressed by the NATO governments that have stood by our side for the past 50 years.

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