Bush's Star Wars raises global arms race fears
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,422102,00.html
Ed Vulliamy in New York and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday January 14, 2001
A new arms race looms this weekend after reports that Russia and China are
preparing to enter into a historic pact, spurred by plans by the incoming
Bush administration to plough ahead with a vast missile defence screen. The
controversial National Missile Defence programme (NMD) - nicknamed Son of
Star Wars - would deploy thousands of air defence missiles to shoot down
incoming intercontinental ballistic weapons fired by rogue states or
international terrorists. To be effective, the US would have to be allowed to
use the early warning station at Fylingdales in Yorkshire. Former Defence
Minister Peter Kilfoyle, writing in The Observer today, warns Tony Blair
against the scheme,saying it is a 'dangerous flight of fancy' that would
leave Britain vulnerable to attack. The prospect of renewed international
tensions came as Moscow and Beijing announced the forging of a treaty and
strategic alliance over arms and space programmes which could rupture the
new, post-Cold War world order. If the treaty is developed into a fully
fledged alliance, it would be the first to be joined by China in decades. A
source in President Clinton's State Department said: 'The Russians are pretty
baffled and more than a little scared. While they want to be seen to welcome
and work with the incoming President, they are bound to wonder who this
amount of warfaring material is supposed to be against.' The French Defence
Minister is travelling to Moscow for talks on the new missile system, which
France opposes. The British Government is split on the issue, but The
Observer can reveal that, privately, it has warned Washington that it should
go ahead with NMD only if it can secure international agreement. 'We said to
the Clinton administration that we do not want you to proceed unilaterally,'
said one Whitehall source. 'That is also the stance we are starting to adopt
with the new administration. 'Don't underestimate Number 10's strategy on
this - it is not about saying "come on board and roll all over me".' However
both sides of the debate accept the US is not backing down on the idea.
Bush's choice for Pentagon Chief, Donald Rumsfeld, has called for a total
overhaul of US defence strategy and weaponry, with vast spending increases
and the missile defence screen at the core of the new strategy. Rumsfeld, who
also held the office under President Ford, is heir to the hawkish wing which
pushed Star Wars and is understood to have dismissed the anti-ballistic
missile treaty with Russia, pivotal to the halting of the arms race, as
'ancient history'. Threats from China and 'suspicions' towards Russia were
discussed last week between Bush's defence staff and Clinton's defence chief
William Cohen. One aide said both nations were 'not allies and certainly not
friends'. The aggressive signals from Washington have alarmed the Foreign
Office in London. Although the Ministry of Defence has been keener not to
offend the Americans, insiders say even there opinion is divided on whether
Britain should allow its base to be used in what could be an echo of the
Greenham Common debacle, inspiring public protest and a likely rebellion on
the Labour backbenches. Kilfoyle says the plan will be 'hugely destabilising'
to international relations in a clear warning to Blair not to become
involved. 'The British Government will need to decide just how much it's
worth to offer itself as a hostage to the fortunes of a misguided - literally
and metaphorically - strategic defence initiative,' he says. 'If America's
putative enemies do have plans to suicidally attack America, why should we
turn ourselves into the primary target?' Star Wars was pushed into the
domestic spotlight by William Hague's announcement last week that a Tory
government would support it. Ministers had hoped that if Al Gore got into the
White House, he might drop the idea. But now the issue has become an awkward
test of the 'special relationship' in the post-Clinton era. Downing Street
believes technical problems with the system - in tests the interceptors meant
to shoot down missiles missed them all - will mean the decision can be put
off for months if not years. The Sino-Russian pact has its origins in a visit
by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing last summer, but the final
agreements were sealed just before Christmas. Yesterday, the chairman of the
strategic research department at the US Naval Defence College, Jonathan
Pollack, said: 'These negotiations are being publicised on the eve of the
Bush presidency. Both leaderships are very uneasy about the new
administration's plans to accelerate missile defence'. Pollack said such a
move would return the global pattern to an East-West conflict.
