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Editor's Note
Few issues in post-Cold War U.S.-Russian relations have generated as much tension between Washington and Moscow as U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Kremlin has reacted sharply to the proposal, threatening to target the sites with its own missiles, withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, and take other measures to address what it sees as a threat to strategic stability. While expressing a willingness to discuss such concerns, U.S. officials have also dismissed them as “ludicrous.”
As with Arms Control Today generally, this issue of the magazine aims to go beyond the headlines to the crux of the policy disputes over the proposal. To do so, we have solicited contributions from policymakers and analysts with different viewpoints who assess the merits of the proposed system and potential alternatives.
In our lead article, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency, lays out the Bush administration’s case for why the currently planned system needs to be built to counter a potential long-range missile threat from Iran. From Capitol Hill, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, offers a different point of view, arguing that the administration should develop the system more slowly to test key components, construct defenses under NATO auspices, and discuss the issue with Russia.
Four analysts weigh in on other facets of the debate. George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol explain the technical basis for Russian concerns about the new system. They argue for deploying a system in locations that they claim would offer a suitable defense against Iranian missiles without angering Moscow.
Dinshaw Mistry provides a detailed examination of Iran’s progress in developing longer-ranger missiles, the threat that the proposed system is meant to counter.
Jack Mendelsohn puts the context of the current debate within the long-running U.S. domestic battle over missile defenses. It is not clear, he says, whether the Bush administration wants to build the system simply to score political points or ensure U.S. national security.
Our news section includes a special report by Alex Bolfrass looking at how the administration’s much-touted effort to disarm Libya seems to be running aground as well an article by Wade Boese on the modest pace the United States has set in dismantling its nuclear weapons.
Also, Leon V. Sigal reviews Failed Diplomacy, former U.S. diplomat Charles L. “Jack” Pritchard’s account of the Bush administration’s nuclear negotiations with North Korea. Fortunately, writes Sigal, nuclear diplomacy in the Bush administration has not failed; it simply had not been tried until recently.