ABM Treaty
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) was an arms control treaty between
the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM)
systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. Under the
terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of which was to be
limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles.[1]
Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next 30 years.[2] Following the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, in 1997 four former Soviet republics agreed with the United States to succeed the USSR's
role in the treaty. In June 2002 the United States withdrew from the treaty, leading to its
termination.
Background
In 1967, the United States proposed the adoption of strict limitations on strategic anti-ballistic
missile (ABM) systems. The USSR did not accept this proposal, but in its counter proposal
suggested that negotiations on ABM defenses should include discussion of strategic offensive
arms. This counter proposal was accepted by the United States. On 1 July 1968, at the signing of
the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, President Johnson announced that the United States and
USSR had reached an agreement to limit and reduce both strategic offensive and defensive
systems, but not until 1969 were the sides prepared to begin a substantive dialogue. On 17
November 1969, the United States and Soviet Union began the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
(SALT I) on limiting both ABM defensive systems and strategic nuclear offensive systems. The
first real exploration of possible packages began in the spring of 1970. In 1970, the United States
proposed to limit ABMs to the defense of national capitals. After the USSR had accepted this
proposal, the United States tried to backtrack and proposed more ABM sites. The discussion
reached an impasse due to disagreement on the scope of the future treaty. The Soviet Union
proposed that the negotiations be limited to discussions of ABM systems only, while the United
States insisted that it was essential to make at least a beginning at limiting offensive systems as
well. Finally, after some back-channel negotiations, in May 1971, the sides reached a
preliminary agreement on the outlines of a limited ABM Treaty.
On 26 May 1972, the talks were concluded with the signing of two basic SALT I documents:
An Interim Agreement on certain measures limiting strategic offensive arms (see SALT I
Section)
The ABM Treaty on the limitation of strategic defensive systems
ABM Treaty
The United States first proposed an anti-ballistic missile treaty at the 1967 Glassboro Summit
Conference during discussions between U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin. McNamara argued
both that ballistic missile defense could provoke an arms race, and that it might provoke a first-
strike against the nation fielding the defense. Kosygin rejected this reasoning.[5] Following the
proposal of the Sentinel and Safeguard decisions on American ABM systems, the Strategic Arms
Limitation Talks began in November 1969 (SALT I). By 1972 an agreement had been reached to
limit strategic defensive systems. Each country was allowed two sites at which it could base a
defensive system, one for the capital and one for ICBM silos.
The treaty was signed during the 1972 Moscow Summit on May 26 by the President of the
United States, Richard Nixon and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, Leonid Brezhnev; and ratified by the US Senate on August 3, 1972.
The 1974 Protocol reduced the number of sites to one per party, largely because neither country
had developed a second site.[6] The sites were Moscow for the USSR and the North
Dakota Safeguard Complex for the US, which was already under construction.
What the ABM Treaty Prohibited
Missile defenses that can protect all U.S. or Soviet/Russian territory against strategic
ballistic missiles
Establishing a base for a nationwide defense against strategic ballistic missiles
Development, testing, or deployment of sea-, air-, space-, or mobile land-based ABM
systems or components. (Because of the inability of either country to verify activities
behind closed doors, the development and testing ban was understood to apply when
components and systems moved from laboratory to field testing.)
Development, testing, or deployment of strategic missile interceptor launchers that can
fire more than one interceptor at a time or are capable of rapid reload
Upgrading existing non-ABM missiles, launchers, or radars to have ABM capabilities
and testing existing missiles, launchers, or radars in an ABM mode (i.e. against strategic
or long-range ballistic missile targets)
Deployment of radars capable of early warning of strategic ballistic missile attack
anywhere other than on the periphery of U.S. or Soviet/Russian territory and oriented
outward
Deployment of ABM radars capable of tracking and discriminating incoming strategic
targets and guiding defensive interceptors, except within a 150 kilometer radius of the
one permitted defense
Transfer or deployment of ABM systems or components outside U.S. and Soviet/Russian
territory
What the ABM Treaty Permited
One regional defense of 100 ground-based missile interceptors to protect either the
capital or an ICBM field
A total of 15 missile interceptor launchers at designated missile defense test ranges
Research, laboratory, and fixed land-based testing of any type of missile defense
Use of national technical means, such as satellites, to verify compliance. (The ABM
Treaty was the first treaty to prohibit a state-party from interfering with another state-
party's national technical means of verification.)
States-parties to raise questions about compliance, as well as any other treaty-related
issue, at the Standing Consultative Commission, which was a body established by the
treaty that meets at least twice per year
Theater (nonstrategic) missile defenses of any type to protect against short- and medium-
range ballistic missiles. (The ABM Treaty originally did not specifically delineate the
point at which a missile defense would be considered strategic or nonstrategic. The
United States and Russia negotiated and signed a demarcation agreement on this subject
in September 1997. Russia ratified the agreement in May 2000, but it has never been
transmitted to the Senate for its advice and consent, and therefore the agreement has not
entered into force. The Bush administration's June 13 withdrawal from the ABM Treaty
makes the demarcation agreement moot)
Either state-party to propose amendments
After the SDI announcement
On March 23, 1983 Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, a research
program into ballistic missile defense which would be, "consistent with our obligations under the
ABM Treaty". The project was a blow to Yuri Andropov's so-called "peace offensive".
Regardless of the opposition, Reagan gave every indication that SDI would not be used as a
bargaining chip and that the United States would do all in its power to build the system. The
Soviets were threatened because the Americans might have been able to make a nuclear first
strike possible. In The Nuclear Predicament, Beckman claims that one of the central goals of
Soviet diplomacy was to terminate SDI. A surprise attack from the Americans would destroy
much of the Soviet ICBM fleet, allowing SDI to defeat a "ragged" Soviet retaliatory response.
Furthermore, if the Soviets chose to enter this new arms race, they would further cripple their
economy. The Soviets could not afford to ignore Reagan's new endeavor, therefore their policy at
the time was to enter negotiations with the Americans.[9][10] By 1987, however, the USSR
withdrew its opposition, concluding the SDI posed no threat and scientifically "would never
work."[11][12]
SDI research went ahead, although it did not achieve the hoped-for result. SDI research was cut
back following the end of Reagan's presidency, and in 1995 it was reiterated in a presidential
joint statement that "missile defense systems may be deployed... [that] will not pose a realistic
threat to the strategic nuclear force of the other side and will not be tested to... [create] that
capability." This was reaffirmed in 1997.
US withdrawal
Although the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, in the view of the U.S.
Department of State, the treaty continued in force.[13] An additional memorandum of
understanding was prepared in 1997, establishing Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation,
and Ukraine as successor states to the Soviet Union, for the purposes of the treaty.
On December 13, 2001, George W. Bush gave Russia notice of the United States' withdrawal
from the treaty, in accordance with the clause that required six months' notice before terminating
the pact—the first time in recent history that the United States has withdrawn from a major
international arms treaty.[14] This led to the eventual creation of the American Missile Defense
Agency.[15]
Supporters of the withdrawal argued that it was a necessity in order to test and build a
limited National Missile Defense to protect the United States from nuclear blackmail by a rogue
state. The withdrawal had many critics as well as supporters. John Rhinelander, a negotiator of
the ABM treaty, predicted that the withdrawal would be a "fatal blow" to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty and would lead to a "world without effective legal constraints on nuclear proliferation."
The construction of a missile defense system was also feared to enable the US to attack with a
nuclear first strike.
Russia and the United States signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in Moscow on
May 24, 2002. This treaty mandates cuts in deployed strategic nuclear warheads, but without
actually mandating cuts to total stockpiled warheads, and without any mechanism for
enforcement.
