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Foreign Affairs
The Missile-Defense Mistake
By Igor Ivanov
Worried about threats from North Korea and other "problem states," Washington is planning a national missile-defense system. But the deployment of such a system, warns Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, will have dangerous unintended consequences, undermining the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and with it international strategic stability. No U.S. move since the Cold War has had such far-reaching international consequences. The United States must reconsider.
Is missile defense really worth serious deterioration in Russian-American relations, global strategic stability, and, ultimately, U.S. security?
In the event of a unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the ABM Treaty, Russia will no longer be formally bound by its obligations to reduce strategic armaments, and the very process of nuclear disarmament will be inevitably terminated, if not reversed.