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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

possumdag - 05:58pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2593 of 2603)
Possumdag@excite.com

EU recoils at Bush NMD plan By Stephen Fidler Published: April 24 2001 19:37GMT | Last Updated: April 25 2001 03:39GMT Optimists about prospects for US-EU relations are hard to find in Washington. A series of potentially explosive European foreign policy issues confronts a new US administration that is held in some trepidation in many European capitals.

Conscious of this, the US has already made some gestures. Colin Powell, US secretary of state, has sought to calm European fears by suggesting there will be no precipitate withdrawal of US forces from the Balkans.

In another important signal that the US could live with the growing importance of the European Union, Mr Bush used the visit to Washington by Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, to demonstrate US support for Europe's plans for its own defence force.

"That was a strategic decision: that was not a tactical decision because Blair's people pushed it," said a senior US official. The force was "a good thing if it's done right - though that's a significant if," he said.

But other, more fraught, issues still loom. Potentially most divisive is the Bush administration's commitment to develop missile defences for the US, its troops and its overseas allies. The US has, in deference to allies, dropped the word "national" from its missile defence lexicon.

For governments in Europe worried that national missile defence implied US decoupling from European allies, it was a significant concession.

Yet, important concerns remain about the strong US commitment to missile defences. "We will deploy effective missile defences based on the best technology available at the earliest possible time," said another senior US official, echoing the Bush campaign pledge. Some conclusion on how to move ahead will be made by late spring or early summer, he said.

That commitment raises questions about the future of the anti-ballistic missile treaty that the US signed with Moscow in 1972. The treaty is widely viewed by European governments as the cornerstone of strategic stability, but is not so regarded by members of the Bush administration.

"The ABM treaty is a reflection of a past approach to deterrence. It was an approach that developed in the cold war, made to regulate the conduct of the US and its adversary, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is no more. Russia is not the Soviet Union and we now have new threats, and it's these threats that we are trying to protect against," said the official.

The ABM treaty blocks the creation of effective defences against those threats, from countries such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. "I think the position we have developed [on missile defence] is inconsistent with the treaty," the official said. He said that "of course" withdrawal - allowed with six months' notice under the treaty - was an option.

The US had made a lot of progress in convincing i

possumdag - 06:01pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2594 of 2603)
Possumdag@excite.com

EU recoils at Bush NMD plan By Stephen Fidler Published: April 24 2001 19:37GMT | Last Updated: April 25 2001 03:39GMT Optimists about prospects for US-EU relations are hard to find in Washington. A series of potentially explosive European foreign policy issues confronts a new US administration that is held in some trepidation in many European capitals.

Conscious of this, the US has already made some gestures. Colin Powell, US secretary of state, has sought to calm European fears by suggesting there will be no precipitate withdrawal of US forces from the Balkans.

In another important signal that the US could live with the growing importance of the European Union, Mr Bush used the visit to Washington by Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, to demonstrate US support for Europe's plans for its own defence force.

"That was a strategic decision: that was not a tactical decision because Blair's people pushed it," said a senior US official. The force was "a good thing if it's done right - though that's a significant if," he said.

But other, more fraught, issues still loom. Potentially most divisive is the Bush administration's commitment to develop missile defences for the US, its troops and its overseas allies. The US has, in deference to allies, dropped the word "national" from its missile defence lexicon. ... see www.ft.com/us-eu

possumdag - 06:03pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2595 of 2603)
Possumdag@excite.com

Link: see

rshowalter - 06:05pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2596 of 2603)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/politics/25RUMS.html Rumsfeld Gets 90 More Days to Sell Assets by STEVEN LEE MYERS is a most interesting piece -- and the details behind it might be yet more interesting.

The piece ends:

" These are not publicly traded interests and there is no public market for them," Admiral Quigley said. "It is a private market. And so you are largely at the mercy of a private entity to come in and make a bid."

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