Talk:Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
I'll do some major work on this later. I still have to cite my sources.
I've added a lot and cited it, but I've kept the Km measurement style because A) its how the actual treaty is written and B) I'm not converting it cause I am lazy.--Elamdri 20:39, 19 March 2007 (EDT)
Preventing the preventable
From the article: The idea was to prevent either nation from having a nationwide defense system against strategic nuclear weapons.
This is true as far as it goes; but the idea behind it was much broader and a bit more subtle.
If a nation could achieve an anti-ballastic missile system then that country would work towards that goal: this is destabilizing in two ways:
- Nation 1 has such a system in place, it can launch a "first-strike" to debilitate some of Nation 2's ballistic missiles...the respondant's launch of its remaining ICBMs is then "taken care of" by the ABM system.
- Nation 2 knows that Nation 1 has an ABM system in place, in order to avoid being caught in such a scenario Nation 2 launches a pre-emptive "first strike" of it's own using some of it's ICBMs. Nation 1 deploys it's ABM system knocking out a majority of the first salvo, but is then overwhelmed by a second and much larger salvo of Nation 2's remaining ICBMs.
The entire ABM Treaty relied on both powers to live by MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), taking the idea of a "winnable nuclear war" off of the table. MargeryCampbell 13:17, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
- It turned out that this reasoning was flawed, relying as it did on the false doctrine of moral equivalence. Although the US has been branded imperialist, it has not been in the habit of destroying the sovereignty of other countries to expand its empire; that is what USSR did (see Soviet Empire).
- Also, as the US (chiefly under President Ronald Reagan) made progress with its Strategic Defense Initiative, the Soviets never did launch a pre-emptive strike, while of course the US never launched a first strike. The whole thing ended peacefully, in direct contradiction to both of Margery Campbell's points above. --Ed Poor Talk 10:08, 20 January 2010 (EST)
