Hits, Misses at Asia Summit

Last weekend’s summit of leaders from nearly two dozen Asian and Pacific Rim nations provided a good test of the strength of the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism. The outcome was a qualified success for Washington. The most jarring note was President Bush’s continued strong support for his costly, contentious missile shield program, a project that should go to the back burner.

The final declaration of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Shanghai condemned the “murderous deeds” of Sept. 11 but not suspected mastermind Osama bin Laden or his Al Qaeda network. That’s not a problem. The rest of the world knows the U.S. views on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda; there’s no need to exacerbate tensions in nations with large fundamentalist Muslim populations, such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

Bush’s presence at the summit was a deliberate show of business as usual, but it also allowed him some private time with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, both of them crucial to preserving the coalition outside the U.S.-European core. Jiang pledged cooperation in the fight against terrorism but also urged that military planners try to “avoid innocent casualties” in strikes against Afghanistan. Malaysia’s prime minister echoed that plea. Bush too said he was concerned about the deaths of innocents but unsurprisingly made no promises. As the bombing enters a third week in a land where U.S. military officials said there were few “high-value” targets to begin with, it will become more important to avoid undercutting U.S. assertions that this is a war against terror, not against Muslims or the Afghan people.

Putin repeated his strong support for the anti-terror campaign. His language also indicated a little softening in Russian support for the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which Bush wants to scrap in order to establish a national missile shield. Bush and his missile shield allies persist in this even though there is no indication that such a scheme would work and every sign it would cost billions even to find out. Putin rightly expressed skepticism that terrorists could capture--and then figure out how to use--intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Ramming through the missile shield program would upset the strategic balance not only with Russia but with China. Washington needs all the help a coalition can provide in freezing terrorist funds and supplying intelligence information. There’s no sense in pushing away potential allies to advance an unworkable concept with a prohibitive price tag.