Word: rumsfeld
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...easier for a Republican president to make big moves on the military than for a Democrat, because the generals can't very well go running to Capitol Hill and complain that guys like Cheney and Rumsfeld don't know what they're doing. So the military is pretty nervous, because they realize that this may be the beginning of a major retooling of the armed forces...
...proceed only after extensive consultations with its allies. But what does "consultation" mean? Powell said it meant listening to their views and allowing them to guide U.S. actions, at the same time as working to persuade them to accept the missile defense principle being pursued by Washington. Officials around Rumsfeld saw "consultation" as being just what their boss had done in Europe - particularly his offer to help the Europeans build missile shields of their own. But Europe showed little interest in buying into an at-this-point-hypothetical multibillion dollar system designed to counter a threat they don?t take...
...Rumsfeld toned down for his meeting with the Europeans, soft-pedaling on the ABM issue and focusing his pitch on limited missile defense against "rogue" nations. He even laid out the somewhat improbable scenario of a missile-defenseless U.S. being intimidated by some Third World bully from staying out of a regional conflict for fear of being attacked. The Europeans are unlikely to swallow that argument from a nation whose current secretary of state once warned North Korea's Kim Jong Il that if he even threatened the U.S. with nuclear weapons, he'd be "turned into a charcoal briquette...
...backburner. Instead, the administration may be more inclined to press ahead with the Clinton scheme to deploy some 20 missiles by 2006 as an initial phase - even though the system has so far failed two out of three tests rigged to reduce the chances of failure - hence Rumsfeld's permissive take on perfection. In the end, though, the NATO allies will take a more basic message from the diplomatic efforts of Messrs. Rumsfeld and Bush: We're happy to discuss missile defense with you till those mad cows come home and we know it won't necessarily work...
...Europe is convinced. Last summer Clinton managed to avoid a spat over his national missile defense (NMD) program and punted the issue to his successor, arguing that missile-busting technology was still unproved. While Powell lately has signaled lukewarm support for missile defense, Bush?s Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, is one of nmd?s biggest cheerleaders. Europe?s leaders fret that the U.S. plans will vitiate arms-control regimes and encourage Russia and China to build up their arsenals...