Pushing Missile Defense

RAY SUAREZ:

Now, four perspectives on the president's efforts to persuade the Europeans missile defense is a good idea.

Jacqueline Grapin is the president of the European Institute, a European-American public policy organization in Washington. Dieter Dettke is the executive director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is affiliated with the ruling German party, the Social Democrats. Alexander Pikayev is an adviser to the defense committee of the Russian Duma and is a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center. And Richard Perle was assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, a foreign policy adviser to candidate George W. Bush, and will be named head of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory group to the Secretary of Defense, though the views he expresses tonight are his own.

Well, we had Secretary Powell in Budapest a few weeks ago talking to many of the same countries. Secretary Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz, now the president. Is the Bush administration making any headway, Dieter Dettke?

DIETER DETTKE:

Yes, probably, but we have to keep in mind that, of course, for Europe it is essential to look at the consequences of a possible abrogation of the ABM Treaty. That could have grave and serious consequences. And Europe, no doubt, benefited from arms control agreements, international arms control agreements in the past. And we want, of course, try to make sure that we can keep these benefits because it contributed so much to our security.

Now, if it is abrogated unilaterally, the ABM Treaty, of course, then we have to look and see what consequences on the Russian side are — whether that puts us in a more difficult situation in security terms, whether there is more instability and we have less security than before. That is an important consideration, I would say. So for Europe of course the best way would be if something could be worked out with Russia and so forth. The meeting of the president and Slovenia in Lubjana with President Putin is very essential. And hopefully an agreement will result from that meeting.

RAY SUAREZ:

Jacqueline Grapin, less resistance are we seeing in European leaders now?

JACQUELINE GRAPIN:

Well, everybody seems to be happy with this meeting. It reminds me very much of a family reunion when it takes place when there is a problem. The first step is to get the family together. The second step is to get the family to recognize there is a problem, which is what was done today. And I think the president is satisfied that the allies have an open mind to his proposal. But the proposals were not precise and he did not ask the allies to really support any specific program. Now the next step is to agree how to handle the problem — what to do and how to do it. This is going to be much more difficult because as he just said there is this question of the compatibility with the ABM Treaty and with the arms control system which has existed unsuccessfully for 30 years.

There is a question, as Chancellor Schroeder suggested, that why replace something that is existing by something that does not exist? Is this system going to work? Is it a new Maginot Line? You know, the French are very careful because they used to have before the second World War sort of a line to protect them — supposedly to protect them — from the Germans. It didn't work. So is it something that is going to be very expensive and that is not going to work? What is going to be the cost of it? Is it an appropriate investment to make? Obviously, all the allies agree that there is a problem but they don't necessarily agree on the magnitude of the problem and on the priorities that should be given to these expenses in our defense system.

In particular, they think that there are other threats, new threats like suitcase bombs or biological threats, chemical threats, and others, which should be addressed. And that this very expensive system which is just supposed to protect for a few missiles that might come from some rogue state might not be the most useful system within the alliance.

In addition to that, they are preoccupied by the effects that this is going to have to… on the alliance, on the fact in particular that this is going to keep the U.S. in control of technological advance and keep the Europeans in a situation where they will be highly dependent upon the U.S..

RAY SUAREZ:

Alexander Pikayev, perhaps anticipating Chancellor Schroeder's questions, the president says it's time to start thinking in a different way in the post Cold War era, that a new set of relationships is needed. Is that argument finding much response in Russia?

ALEXANDER PIKAYEV:

Yeah, I think so. It's a real inappropriate situation that after the ten years after the end of the Cold War, we still are in quite an ambiguous situation and we don't know whether we are friends or still opponents. And I think that the Kremlin should be very sympathetic to what President Bush said today about his willingness to create new strategic framework with Russia. And it's very important I think.

However still there is a lot of questions and I hope some of them could be solved in Lubjana. The question is — one of the questions is well, we have nuclear deterrence, which is a real relic of the Cold War, not because we have the ABM Treaty. We have the ABM Treaty still because we have nuclear deterrence ten years after the end of the Cold War. And the real question is how President Bush would be able to demonstrate to Russian President Putin, how we could go away from the new predators and whether the U.S.-Russia relations would enter such a stage, such a level when new predators would be obsolete. And if nuclear deterrence is obsolete, of course, the ABM Treaty would not be an important question.

RAY SUAREZ:

Secretary Rumsfeld is trying to answer those fears by saying that a system could be designed that puts an anti-missile system in place that doesn't neutralize Russia's deterrence. Is that something that they're going to buy in Moscow?

ALEXANDER PIKAYEV:

No, I think that the question is much more broad. The real question is well, if we are going to abandon nuclear deterrence, probably we need to go over nuclear disarmament. President Bush said that he is willing to go down — very important — but he didn't specify how deep he wants to go whether he wants to go down unilaterally.

RAY SUAREZ:

You mean reduce the number of warheads —

ALEXANDER PIKAYEV:

— reduce the number of strategic nuclear warheads. Whether what would happen with transparency, what would happen with irreversibility of nuclear reductions, whether President Bush is going to dismantle systems which he is going to reduce or just download them, to remove extra warheads from so-called unused missiles, put them somewhere nearby, and when, if needed, they could be returned back very quickly.

RAY SUAREZ:

Well, Richard Perle, you've heard the objections that are being voiced from Europe around the table. Having to do with disagreements on what the nature of the threat is — the possibility of proliferation brought up by President Chirac, how does the administration answer some of these critiques?

RICHARD PERLE:

I think what the president is attempting to do is extraordinarily difficult. He is trying to help our European allies think through nearly half a century of the doctrine that dominated the strategic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. And it's very difficult after all those years, even when there is a good idea to drive out a bad idea.

The bad idea was that we could defend ourselves and provide security for ourselves by threatening to destroy tens of millions of people in the Soviet Union. And the Soviets could defend themselves by threatening to destroy tens of millions of Americans. The ABM Treaty exists in that context, mutual destruction. But the Cold War is over. And there is no reason to believe that Russians are going to attack the United States or that we would attack Russia. And I'm very pleased that our Russian colleague clearly has an open mind on this question. He too wants to get beyond the Cold War, which was a poisonous relationship.

The Europeans I'm sorry to say are still mired in the Cold War — fearful and apprehensive that if we move beyond the Cold War we are moving into uncharted territory. So you heard both our European friends refer to a structure that served us in the past but it can't serve us in the future. And it certainly isn't an appropriate structure for a period in which Russians and Americans look forward to a new and co-operative relationship.

RAY SUAREZ:

But are Americans who are trying to solve this puzzle just inevitably in a different position from the Europeans because the Danes and the Poles and the Czechs are unlikely to feel a threat from Iran or North Korea the same way the current administration feels America will?

RICHARD PERLE:

Of course we are in a different situation. We worry about Saddam Hussein. We worry about Saddam Hussein with a missile a lot more than the French worry about Saddam Hussein because their approach to Saddam is a much friendlier approach to Saddam. They are less likely to be threatened by him than we are. I must say I found President Chirac's argument — for the president of the country that prides itself on its logic — for Cartesian France — to argue that it will encourage proliferation to have a defense against proliferators seems to me to have it exactly backwards.

What the president was saying was that if we were totally vulnerable, then there would be less proliferation. But if you want to encourage a Saddam Hussein to acquire a nuclear weapon with a ballistic missile, tell him that he doesn't have any defense to overcome. Tell him that all he needs is one. We are saying that with a defense we can discourage proliferation because they won't be able to surmount the defense. So I think President Chirac has it exactly wrong.

RAY SUAREZ:

Jacqueline Grapin.

JACQUELINE GRAPIN:

Well, I would say that it is certainly true that the Cold War is over and nobody denies that. It's certainly true that there is a problem with proliferation and nobody denies that and President Chirac does not. But to say that the Europeans are backward and don't understand the situation because suddenly the U.S. turns over and changes policy, it seems to me is arbitrary, that is perhaps what has a destabilizing effect in this discussion — you know.

I think that what the president… what President Chirac proposed which is to have a conference — and actually he is going to advise that tomorrow in Gothenburg in Sweden in the summit with the Europeans jointly with the Chancellor Schroeder, he is going to propose a conference, an international conference to renew the efforts to deal with the international proliferation, nuclear and missile proliferation.

The Europeans have a tendency to think that diplomacy is the first tool that should be used and that this trying the arms control system that we have had for 13 years and that has worked. Because there are states like Ukraine, Byelorussia [Belarus], South Africa, Brazil who wanted — those states wanted to have nuclear weapons and… because of the commitment of a number of nations.

Also the comprehensive test ban treaty — which by the way has not been ratified by the U.S. — is supposed also to deal with the, with proliferation. So the real problem is proliferation and the Europeans know that. I don't see any reason why the Europeans will be less threatened by any rogue state than the U.S. But the difference is that Europeans think they should address that with diplomacy and that in addition to that having a highly technological system to deal with that is not the answer to the problem because you can always have suitcase bomb, you can always have a biological threat that is efficient and that turns around the systems. So why spend so much money and why engage in this when you know this is not the answer to the new threats that we are facing?

RAY SUAREZ:

Let me hear from the other….

DIETER DETTKE:

Yes. Let me add there is nothing wrong with an improvement of our defensive system but it would be wrong to believe that a ballistic missile defense system would solve all our defense and security problems. It does not. What we are really talking about is a new mix of offense and of defense, defensive systems. And the new mix of course should not totally disregard arms control agreements that we had that proved to be effective and working and created stability. And even if it has to be amended — the AMB Treaty I'm speaking about now — that is all right. It should be done. Why not?

But the best way to do it is certainly not to do this unilaterally and to work out a system that we all can live with. Because of the potential consequences of a unilateral abrogation. There are possibilities of course to increase offensive systems and then overcome a potential ballistic missile defense system. I don't know of a totally foolproof or totally secure and safe defense system, ballistic missile defense system.

RAY SUAREZ:

Let me hear again from Alexander Pikayev, will President Bush meet a President Putin who is read to deal on some of these questions?

ALEXANDER PIKAYEV:

The Kremlin also hints that it is ready to deal. However the Russian approach is quite different. Russia thinks that first abrogating the ABM Treaty and then thinking about nuclear deterrence is probably the wrong approach because if we abrogate the ABM Treaty first, nuclear deterrence might be even worse — and this mutual assured destruction, which would remain… non-regulated, unregulated by any arms control agreement so that we might go back to the situation we had in 1960s, which was recently demonstrated in this excellent "Thirteen Days" movie.

And I think it would be dangerous. I think the — many people in Russia think that we need really to go away from nuclear deterrence but starting from other end. We need to remove political ambiguities, which — because of which nuclear deterrence is still in place. And if political climate would change first, it would be much easier to deal with such problems like the modification — or change the ABM Treaty — if, you know, there is no arms control in relations between the United States and Europe.

RAY SUAREZ:

Let me go quickly for a last word to Richard Perle.

RICHARD PERLE:

Clearly we have got to move beyond the Cold War. What I'm hearing is a lot of the vocabulary of the Cold War. But I would ask, Jacqueline, are you going to defend us, is France going to defend the United States if Saddam Hussein acquires a missile? Of course you're not.

JACQUELINE GRAPIN:

And we return the question: Are you going to defend us?

RICHARD PERLE:

What — from Saddam Hussein?

RAY SUAREZ:

I think NATO is a mutual…

RICHARD PERLE:

You've chosen… against Saddam…

RAY SUAREZ:

We'll have to continue the negotiations afterwards. Thank you very much all.