Withdrawal Imperils U.S.-Russian
Bond
By Paul J. Saunders
Reprinted from the December 14, 2001 edition of Newsday
President George W. Bush's announcement that the United States will withdraw
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is hardly the disaster some have sought
to portray.
However, the president's decision to pull out of the treaty, which has been
met with disappointment but little surprise in Moscow, does represent a lost
opportunity in America's evolving ties with Russia. Keeping those ties on
track toward the "new relationship" the Bush Administration has
called for will require serious effort.
Taking into account the possibly catastrophic consequences of a missile
attack, no reasonable measures to defend American lives and property should be
rejected. The treaty was a clear obstacle to such efforts and had outlived its
usefulness.
President Richard Nixon, who signed the agreement with Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev in 1972, concluded almost 20 years later that "the time has come
to move beyond the ABM Treaty." Developments in Iraq and North Korea, not
to mention India and Pakistan, only strengthened the case against the treaty
in the intervening years.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration's failure to reach an understanding with
Russia on modifying or replacing the treaty is an important lost opportunity.
The U.S.-Russian relationship has improved substantially since the first
meeting between Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June. The
improvement has markedly accelerated since Sept. 11, as each side has focused
on the shared objective of destroying the al-Qaida terrorist network and
Afghanistan's Taliban regime.
But continued improvements in the relationship are not foreordained: Both
sides will have to work at the relationship, and both presidents will face
challenges in doing so. An agreement on missile defense would have paved the
way for broader cooperation. Now, U.S. withdrawal from the treaty will
ultimately make it more difficult.
The Kremlin's pragmatic and relatively quiet reaction- Putin called the
decision "mistaken" - should not be misunderstood. From the Russian
perspective, the withdrawal is likely to raise important questions about U.S.
intentions. Putin is already far in front of Russian public opinion on
relations with the United States.
There is little doubt the announced end of the treaty will increase the gap
and put pressure on him to demonstrate that closer relations with America will
bring tangible benefits to Russia. In the absence of such benefits, it will
become increasingly hard for him to accommodate U.S. preferences on other
issues, such as the post-Afghanistan phases of the war on terrorism, Iraq and
NATO enlargement.
This is where the challenges to the United States become more difficult.
Improving the U.S.-Russian relationship was relatively easy during the war on
the Taliban, whose brand of Islamic extremism Moscow has long considered a
serious threat to not only the stability of Muslim states on its southern
perimeter, but also to Russia's own internal security (such as in Chechnya).
Now that the war seems to be winding down, our list of common interests will
be shorter - and the list of divergent interests may grow, especially as
Washington likely pays greater attention to Iraq.
Moving the U.S.-Russian relationship forward in such an environment will
require greater sensitivity to Russian interests and a serious effort to help
Putin show his people how cooperation with Washington can benefit them,
directly and unambiguously. This is by no means an insurmountable problem, but
if it is to be addressed successfully, it must be recognized as a problem and
approached accordingly.
Reassuring Russians that the United States wants a close and strong
relationship with their country - through actions, not words - can help ensure
that America's withdrawal from the treaty is little more than a bump on the
road to that new relationship. Failing to do so risks making the treaty's
collapse into the first in a series of wrong turns and disappointments.
Paul J. Saunders is Director of The Nixon Center in
Washington, D.C.
