FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

New York: Three months ago, the liberal media dismissed George W. Bush as an fuzzy-headed Texas hick. One hundred days later, President Bush is showing himself to be a man of action, and a determined conservative revolutionary.

Bush looks likely to cut American's taxes by US $1.3 trillion, revitalizing the idling economy. He is daring to reform the `third rail' of US politics, the sacrosanct but floundering social security system. He rejected the unrealistic Kyoto environmental protocols, which few nations, including Canada, intended to implement, and is tackling looming energy shortages.

This week, Bush injected a further dose of realism into world affairs by announcing plans to scrap the 1972 US-USSR Antiballistic Missile Treaty and accelerate development of a limited national missile defense system that would at least offer some protection to North America, Europe, and Japan.

International law has a provision known as `rebus sic stantibus:' when there is significant change in the underlying conditions upon which a treaty was made, the treaty can be considered void. The USSR no longer exists. When the ABM treaty was signed, 29 years ago, only the US and USSR had long-ranged ballistic missiles.

Today, the world has changed. USSR is defunct. The theory of mutually assured destruction is medieval lunacy. Many nations are developing nuclear warheads and missiles to deliver them over long ranges. The United States and its allies have no defense against such attack. Russia, interestingly, maintains 100 anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs) protecting Moscow. Israel is deploying its `Arrow' tactical ABM system.

Illustrating Bush's concerns, this week a North Korean general warned Washington his nation was able to attack the continental United States. North Korea has tested a long-ranged missile and possesses at least two nuclear warheads.

Unnoticed by North America's media, on 18 April, an 1.5 million-lb. thrust Indian GSLV rocket put a 3,000-lbs. satellite into high geosynchronous orbit. The same launcher, slightly modified, could also carry an Indian nuclear warhead to North America.

India is already working on an intercontinental ballistic missile as well as submarine-launched missiles with nuclear warheads. In January, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld added India for the first time on the list of potential threats to the United States. Pakistan has a medium-range missile capability but no plans or money to develop longer-ranged systems.

During the last confrontation over Taiwan between China and the US, a Chinese admiral ominously asked, `will the US trade Los Angeles for Taipei.' China is fast replacing its small, obsolescent ICBM force with new, accurate, mobile ICBM's, and developing sea-launched missiles.

The technology to intercept ballistic missiles in boost or re-entry phase is on the horizon and will eventually be deployed. The US has had some major success of late in ABM technology, notably targeting and the giant airborne laser system. However, claims that an ABM system can be deployed within four years are wildly optimistic.

Still, military technology cannot be kept bottled up like an evil genie. For every offensive weapon, there is a defense. Trying to block defensive ABM technology is like denying helmets or body armor to infantrymen. If today's loud chorus of ABM critics had been around in 500 BC, they would likely have warned Greek soldiers, `don't carry shields…this will encourage Persians to buy more arrows and destabilize our relations with them.' In 3,000 years of military history, vulnerability has never proven an asset.

Yet even a limited US ABM system could have profound effects abroad. Russia and China would have to field many more missiles with decoys and multiple warheads. India, now locked in a strategic arms race with China, will accelerate its missile programs, forcing Pakistan to disperse its limited missile force.

According to recent congressional testimony by acting director of State Department Intelligence, Thomas Fingar, so-called `rogue-state' North Korea now poses an active threat to North America. Two other oft-cited `rogues,' Iran and Iraq, will not threaten the US in the foreseeable future, according to Fingar.

The US is not about to spend $20-80 billion against non-existent threats of Iran and Iraq. Bush's new ABM system is clearly designed against North Korea, Russia, China, and India. Any measure of defense throws off the attacker's calculations and requires a high degree of strike redundancy to assure target destruction. Equally important, attempts by China and Russia to develop means to overwhelm or degrade US ABM technology could very well bankrupt them - just as President Ronald Reagan's `Star Wars' program helped drive the Soviet Union to collapse.

Bush has made clear that US strategic and economic interests come before rose-tinted internationalism. The US will continue expanding military power into space and dominate this new frontier. Bush will soon turn his revolutionary ardor on the Pentagon, shaking up the hidebound defense establishment and dramatically reshaping US military forces by making them more mobile, lethal, and automated. US armed forces will remain two full technological generations ahead of any nation on earth.

Not a bad hundred day's work.