The Bush Administration's recklessness when it comes to nuclear weapons is now well out of the starting blocks. In fact, it has knocked over the biggest hurdle slowing down a nuclear arms race: the ABM Treaty of 1972.

On June 13, the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty became final, and the treaty is now kaput.

As a result, Bush is free to pursue his Star Wars fantasy and to construct a costly missile defense system.

This system, even if it solved the daunting technological problems, would not protect the United States from nuclear attack.

Such an attack these days is not likely to come from an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), and that's all that Star Wars would protect against. "U.S. territory is more likely to be attacked with [chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear] materials from nonmissile delivery means--most likely from terrorists--than by missiles, primarily because nonmissile delivery means are less costly, easier to acquire, and more reliable and accurate," according to a December 2001 U.S. intelligence community report.

And missile defense is a misnomer, anyway. What the Bush Administration seeks is missile offense--the ability to use the nuclear shield as a way to project power, not defend U.S. territory.

That's the dirty little secret behind the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty.

If the United States perfects the technology of missile defense, it can then throw its weight around the world even more than it does today, since countries with a limited nuclear arsenal, like China, would have no functional deterrent.

China, which has only about twenty ICBMs that could hit the United States today, would lose its ability to keep the United States at bay. If, for instance, China and Taiwan were on the brink of war, with Beijing threatening to forcibly reincorporate the island, Washington would be in a position to say, "You do it and your dead," without Beijing being able to respond, "Yeah, well, there goes Los Angeles and San Francisco."

This is not mere speculation. The Bush Administration, in its Nuclear Review Posture, mentioned China as a possible target of U.S. nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

For Beijing, the demise of the ABM Treaty is the clearest possible signal that it better start building up its nuclear arsenal--and fast. Military planners there have every incentive now to increase the stockpile from 20 to, say, 200. They have every incentive to put multiple warheads on those missiles. And they surely will be working on a way to use decoys and other devices to counter any missile defense the United States puts up.

As a result, the United States in the next decade or so will be facing another superpower, in addition to Russia, that has the nuclear capacity to destroy the United States.

And Russia, which is now buddy-buddy with the United States, may not be forever. If and when relations sour, Moscow's military strategists, perceiving the U.S. missile defense as a potential threat, will build their own arsenals back up.

In fact, Russia is already doing so. The day after the Bush wrecked the ABM Treaty, Moscow said it was no longer bound by Start II, which banned multiple warheads. A Russian arsenal equipped with such warheads won't make us any safer.

The nuclear arms race is on, more dangerous than ever.

This is the world Bush is bequeathing us with.

Copyright 2002 The Progressive, Madison WI

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