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Bush Lobbies NATO Allies on NMD
Visiting US President George W. Bush justified Wednesday the US national missile defense plan (NMD) by claiming the world is facing "new threats" after the end of the Cold War.
"The Cold War is over; the Soviet Union is gone; and so is the nuclear balance of terror... But the world faces new kinds of threats," he said, without elaboration.
He alleged that a growing number of countries including the world's least responsible states are developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and some already possess the technology for ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons.
Bush made the remarks when addressing the press after his first meeting with the leaders of other NATO countries.
"We must work together to deter and address all these unconventional threats," he said.
Bush is on a six-day trip to Europe to sell the NMD to the U.S. allies of NATO, which have demonstrated skepticism about such plans as they fear the implementation of such plans would set off renewed arms race and disrupt the current strategic balance.
Bush is on a trip of five European countries -- Spain, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden. During his visit to Spain on Tuesday, several large-scale protests were staged in Madrid against Washington's positions on environmental and political issues.
Bush told the press he had made it clear to NATO colleagues that it is necessary to set aside the 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, calling it the outcome of Cold War mentality.
"I cannot believe that some would still be locked up in Cold War mentality while the Cold War is over. Cold War mentality must be abandoned forever," he said, alluding to criticism from some European allies at the unofficial summit.
French President Jacques Chirac told the attendees that his country still believed in the fundamental principle of the need to preserve the ABM treaty that is the pillar of the global strategic balance.
"If we are to envisage a new (security) framework, one that takes account of the emergence of a multipolar world, then we must ensure that it contains binding provisions designed to guarantee international stability," said Chirac, who is among five presidents, 13 prime ministers and one federal chancellor attending the unofficial summit.
The foreign ministers of NATO last month left out the mentioning of the 1972 ABM treaty in their final statement for the first-half 2001 council. The left-out was interpreted widely as a failure of their debate on how to define the treaty.
A year earlier, NATO foreign ministers agreed that the ABM treaty is the pillar to the strategic balance of the world.
The Americans want to get rid of the treaty so as to be able to start implementing their NMD plans. The 1972 ABM Treaty, signed by the United States and the then Soviet Union, has successfully helped maintain the strategic balance for more than three decades by barring the development of the ABM defense systems.
The ban would leave opposing sides vulnerable to each other's attack and hence their hesitation to launch an attack in the first place.
The Europeans fear that the scrapping of the ABM Treaty and the U.S. implementation of its missile defense plans would set off a renewed round of costly arms race.
As an alternative, the French president proposed stepping up efforts to combat arms proliferation.
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