Bush Announcement of Intention to Withdraw from ABM Treaty
December 13, 2001 :: The White House :: News
Speaking in the Rose Garden with Vladimir Putin at his side, President Bush announced that the United States would be giving formal notice to Russia to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty made with the Soviet Union.
Today, I have given formal notice to Russia, in accordance with the treaty, that the United States of America is withdrawing from this almost 30 year old treaty. I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government’s ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks. The 1972 ABM treaty was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union at a much different time, in a vastly different world. One of the signatories, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. And neither does the hostility that once led both our countries to keep thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, pointed at each other. The grim theory was that neither side would launch a nuclear attack because it knew the other would respond, thereby destroying both.
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Pravda Commemorates 1961 Test: A Time When Ballistic Missiles Were Thought “Absolute”
March 3, 2001 :: Pravda :: News
Pravda commemorates “an important date,” the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet Union’s first interception of a ballistic missile. Indeed, Pravda describes it as “the world’s first.”
On March 4, 1961 a medium-range missile was launched from the Kapustin Yar rocket test range (Lower Volga). After a short interval its front section was detected by tracking systems and then hit by an anti-missile. This system was deployed at the Sary-Shagan range in Kazakhstan (a former Soviet republic), according to RIA Novosti. The direct hit of the missile front section was not only of military and technical, but also of political significance, since in those days the ballistic missile was considered to be an “unputdownable” weapon, or absolute. It was stressed at the press-service that it was a landmark event, one which opened a new page in global confrontation between the two superpowers - the USSR and the US.
Worth noting is that ballistic missiles are referred to as having been perceived “in those days” as “unputdownable,” or “absolute.” Pravda indicates that the Soviets and Russia moved beyond such superstition—which was subsequently followed by the deployment of their operational missile defense system around Moscow.
Unfortunately, many elites in America today are still wed to the idea that ballistic missiles are impossible to defend against. It is this mistaken notion which has long provided a primary impediment to the political will to provide for the common defense (More »»»)
» More stories on: Russia, Russian Missile Defenses
