While the U.S. media and much of the public has bought into the official "Rogue State" rationale for the BMD, the rest of the world has seen right through it. This includes not just Russia and China, but our European allies as well.

Clinton’s European trip in May 2000 failed to convince either the Allies or Russian President Vladimir Putin that the BMD posed no threat to anyone and that they should accept the U.S. proposal to amend the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. Shortly thereafter, Putin was in Berlin vowing to rip up all arms control accords if Washington proceeds with the system without taking Moscow's security concerns into account. "Russia is not seeking to become a world power," the Russian leader told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag: "It is a world power."

In that same interview, Putin said the US national missile defense system was a grave strategic miscalculation. "The threat of missiles from 'problem countries' in the Middle East or in the Asian region invoked by the US does not exist in principle, neither today nor in the near future," Putin said. "The American position on a national missile defence system is a serious error of strategic calculation that could lead to an increase in the strategic threat to both the US and Russia, as well as other states," he stressed.

China sees the BMD as specifically created to neutralize its long-range missile force, which currently numbers between 10 to 18 ICBMs. Its leaders have said that they will build up its small forces into something much bigger in order to overwhelm any defensive system we may deploy. Even U.S. intelligence has warned that the BMD’s perceived threat to China may set off a nuclear arms race among China, India, and Pakistan (see story in the New York Times May 27, 2000)

In sum, the world sees the BMD for what it fundamentally is, one more effort by the U.S. to assure its global dominance far into the future. It could not have escaped their notice, for example, that last November, when the U.N. General assembly voted on a motion to reaffirm its position that space must be reserved for peaceful purposes, the only two nations that did not vote yes were the U.S. and Israel (they abstained).