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Guest Commentary December 12, 2001
Defeating and Preventing Terrorism Takes More than Missile Defense
The Honorable Joseph Biden
If news reports are correct... the President will shortly announce his intention to withdraw in 6 months' time from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.
Russia will not like that. Some here will say: So what? What does it matter what Russia likes or does not like? But none of our allies likes it either. And China, I predict, will respond with an arms buildup, increasing tensions in South Asia, causing India and Pakistan to reconsider whether to increase their nuclear capability and, as strong as it sounds, in the near term -- meaning in the next several years -- this will cause the Japanese to begin a debate about whether or not they should be a nuclear power in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood. All of that is against our national interest. ...
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No new enemy has fielded an ICBM missile, which is the only missile our national missile defense is intended to stop. Tactical missile defense is not barred by the ABM Treaty, and Russia has said it would even amend the treaty to permit an expanded United States testing program. So where is the jeopardy to our supreme interest?
The administration has said it wants to conduct tests that would breach the ABM Treaty, but the head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in the Pentagon told Congress earlier this year that no breach was needed to do all the tests that were needed and scheduled. ...
So where is the real action on missile defense? Is the announcement of our intent to withdraw from the ABM Treaty a real action, or is it a White House Christmas present for the right wing, who dislike arms control under any circumstances and see this season of success in Afghanistan, unity on foreign policy, and Christmas as a propitious moment to make this announcement? ...
We are in a time of great risk. But there is also great opportunity. Despite the horrors visited upon us on September 11, the truth is we were attacked by the weakest of enemies. Al-Qaida is a group that no civilized state can tolerate. It was sheltered by a regime with almost no international legitimacy and little support, even in its own land. Its goals and methods were so extreme as to be an object lesson to the world on why we must oppose all international terrorism. Many of its members and supporters, lacking in Afghanistan the popular support that in other wars have enabled guerillas to blend into the landscape, were left to fight an armed conflict in which our side could readily prevail, as we have done.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of countries, including some longtime adversaries, have lined on up on our side. Their cooperation has been and will remain important in our war effort, in the war against terrorism. The war has also opened doors that have been shut for many years. Opportunities have expanded for cooperation on issues of mutual concern. As the President said yesterday at the Citadel:
"All at once, a new threat to civilization is erasing old lines of rivalry and resentment between nations. Russia and America are building a new cooperative relationship."
We must seize the opportunity that this war has afforded us. Clausewitz long ago explained that triumph in war lies not so much in winning battles, but in following up on your victories. The same is true in the broader arena of international politics. We must follow up on the cooperation of the moment and turn it into a realignment of forces for decades to come -- so that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can look back on the 21st century and say that it did not replicate the carnage of the 20th century.
Joseph Biden, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from Delaware. The above commentary has been adapted from a statement Sen. Biden delivered on the floor of the Senate, December 12, 2001. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
