Rumsfeld to push missile defense at NATO meeting

By Jamie McIntyre
CNN Military Affairs Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he will stress to his fellow NATO defense ministers the importance of developing missile defenses and the need to adopt new strategies to deal with the current threats facing the alliance and the rest of the world.

"I will be talking about the changed circumstance in the world and our recognition that with those changes it's important that the United States as well as the NATO alliance adjust to those changes," Rumsfeld told reporters Wednesday en route to Brussels for a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

America's NATO allies have been lukewarm to the U.S. plan to build and deploy a defensive system capable of tracking and shooting down intercontinental ballistic missiles in space, in part because such a system would require amendment or abrogation of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty.

Rumsfeld will repeat the Bush administration's argument that the treaty and its reliance on the doctrine of mutual assured destruction are relics of the Cold War.

"The Soviet Union is gone. The cold war is over," Rumsfeld said. "The deterrence strategy does need to evolve so that it's appropriate for the kinds of emerging threats to exists."

"We need to make sure that we are not arranged for a major tank war in Europe, or a strategic nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union because both of those threats have receded. Instead we need to recognize the kinds of instabilities that we have seen over the past decade, the kinds of challenges and emerging threats that exist," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld will argue that countries such as Iraq and Iran could potentially threaten Europe with weapons of mass destruction in the near future.

"There are any number of countries in the region that are aggressively developing chemical and biological capabilities and there are a number that are seeking to, or in fact developing nuclear capabilities. The numbers of ballistic missiles have grown dramatically in the last three, four, five years," Rumsfeld said.

NATO took a tentative step Wednesday toward fielding missile defense with the announcement of two contracts to study the feasibility of fielding a "layered" theater missile defense system that could protect NATO troops in the field by 2010.

The contracts give two U.S. firms -- Science Applications International Corporation of McLean, Virginia, and the Lockheed Martin Corp. of Dallas, Texas -- 18 months to report back to NATO.

Rumsfeld, while not aware of the specifics of the NATO announcement, welcomed it.

"I don't draw a big distinction between national or theater missile defense, it depends on where you live," he said. "To the extent we develop capabilities, whether they are technically called 'theater' or 'national' to dissuade these countries from developing these capabilities, we benefit our people."

Rumsfeld will make presentation on missile defense to NATO minister Thursday and meet on Friday with Russian Defense Minister Marshall Sergey Ivanov.

U.S. officials say the United States is preparing a list of inducements to try to persuade Russia to modify the ABM treaty, including military aid, possible arms purchases from Russia, and future joint military exercises, but Pentagon sources say Rumsfeld will not make any offers to Ivanov in Brussels.

Instead that may be left for President Bush to discuss in his first meeting with Russia President Vladimir Putin June 16 in Slovenia.