The time has come to withdraw from the MAD ABM Treaty of 1972. Our initial mistake in signing it is compounded every year that we allow ourselves to be bound by it while the Soviets are not.
“MAD” is not an epithet invented by the treaty’s critics. It is the acronym for the treaty’s core doctrine which was invented and named by its advocates.
Here is a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge of the subject. What does Mutual Assured Destruction mean?
(a) The U.S. Government promises to keep our nation completely undefended so that Soviet missiles will be able to hit and destroy all their targets in the United States, both military and civilian population.
(b) The U.S. Government agrees that, if deterrence fails or an accident occurs, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. will mutually destroy each other.
(c) The U.S. Government agrees that, if nuclear war happens, it is our duty to maximize (not minimize) the civilian casualties on each side.
(d) The U.S. Government promises that, if the Soviets attack, we will retaliate and kill as many Russians as we can in a supreme act of useless revenge.
(e) The U.S. Government promises to perpetuate the present shaky “balance” of terror between offensive forces of nuclear weapons, instead of using our technology to build a defensive shield and make nuclear weapons obsolete.
(f) The U.S. Government repudiates its constitutional duty to “provide for the common defense.”
(g) All of the above.
The correct answer is (g). If a creature from outer space were to land at this moment and hear this description of our policy, he would probably say, “Are you crazy or something?” MAD is, indeed, mad.
Article XV of the 1972 ABM Treaty states that “Each Party shall have the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardized its supreme interests.” Exercising this right requires only a six-month notice. Since our supreme interests are surely jeopardized by the additions to the Soviet missile force since the treaty was signed, we should use Article XV and withdraw.
Soviet violations of the ABM Treaty make it ridiculous that we continue to respect it. U.S. compliance in the face of Soviet noncompliance must make us a laughing stock in the Kremlin and encourage the Soviets to commit even more aggressive violations.
Even if the Soviets had not massively violated the 1972 ABM Treaty, it would still be a bad deal for the United States. The MAD assumption is highly dangerous and morbidly immoral under optimum conditions, but it becomes suicidal if the hypothetical element of mutuality is absent. The treaty was never mutual and has become less so in the years since it was signed.
The 1972 ABM Treaty limited each side to two missile defense sites of 100 ABM launchers each, and the 1974 Protocol cut this to one site with no more than 100 ABM launchers. We chose to locate our one site at Grand Forks, North Dakota, and then dismantled it the day after it was operational.
The Soviets, however, kept their one ABM site fully operational at Moscow. There it defends 300 Soviet ICBMs, seven million people, a large part of the Soviet military-industrial complex, and the entire Soviet political and military high command.
Two other factors make the MAD assumption of mutuality completely unrealistic. The first is geography. The Soviet population, industries, and weapons are dispersed over 8-1/2 million square miles, while the United States has only 3-1/2 million square miles. The United States needs to be able to deliver six times as many warheads as the Russians in order to have “assured-destruction parity” with the U.S.S.R.
The second factor is the Soviets’ splendid civil defense system which they believe can shelter all but 6% of their population. The U.S. population is completely unsheltered and exposed.
If the United States withdraws from the MAD ABM Treaty, we can of course expect a torrent of rhetoric and disinformation from the Kremlin and their lackeys in the United States. But that’s just a war of words. In the real world, the results would be highly beneficial.
As a practical matter, our withdrawal from the ABM Treaty would cause both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to build defensive systems which would render offensive weapons useless.
This is the one sure way to put an end to the dangerous arms race in offensive weapons.
