Missile Defense: A Roadblock to Nuclear Disarmament

Like physics, politics follows a law of equal and opposite pairs of action and reaction forces — what could be called a Newton's Third Law of Politics. Unlike physics, politics fortunately is not required to always adhere to this law. The tension between defensive and offensive military and political forces is perhaps best illustrated by the tendency to attempt to erect defenses against ballistic missiles.

In response to missile defense proposals, other nuclear-armed nations can react in one or some combination of three ways:

1. Strengthening their nuclear-armed missile force by building more missiles, arming these missiles with multiple warheads, and developing countermeasures;
2. Agreeing to strict limits on any proposed missile defenses (essentially promising not to defend an entire nation), thereby enshrining nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction; or
3. Alleviating the ballistic missile threat by deeply reducing the quantity of these weapons, moving toward nuclear disarmament.

In the past, nuclear-armed nations have pursued the first two courses, as demonstrated by the nuclear arms race during the Cold War and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The ABM Treaty and other arms control limitations established enough stability to allow the third option to be pursued to some extent, stopping far short of complete nuclear disarmament.

Like a Mini-Me version of Dr. Evil, missile defense development has reemerged as a Star Wars-lite that could morph into a larger system and is receiving various levels of support from both Democratic and Republican leaders in the US. While the Administration has been fuzzy about who it would direct these proposed defenses against, Republican leaders have not been reticent about including China in the short list along with the so-called rogues gallery of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. For China's part, in October, it sponsored with Russia and Belarus a draft resolution in the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, calling for "continued efforts to strengthen the [ABM] Treaty and to preserve its integrity and validity so that it remained a cornerstone of global strategic stability and world peace and in promoting further nuclear arms reductions."

Concurrently, China is proceeding with a gradual modernization of its long-range missile force. In a worrying sign that the US may approve of the beefing up of China's nuclear arsenal, a senior Defense Department official stated in December, "By China's own momentum, China will have a viable deterrent by the time we get our system in place." He was responding to a concern about how Chinese military planners would perceive the impact of an American national missile defense against China's twenty or so intercontinental ballistic missiles. If the US builds this missile defense system, China will have little incentive to reverse any missile buildup. In Russia, even if the new acting President Vladimir Putin convinces the Duma to ratify START II this spring, the Duma will likely attach the condition that the US must adhere to the ABM Treaty, or else Russia will abandon START II.

Before arriving at these impasses, disarmament advocates will have many opportunities to oppose missile defenses. The Clinton Administration, and presumably the next Administration, will base a decision to proceed with national missile defense deployment by 2005 on four criteria: the threat, the impact on arms control, the costs, and technical readiness of the proposed defense system. Key milestones are pending soon. This June, the Pentagon will conduct a Deployment Readiness Review. Later in the summer, as a result of this review and other political pressures, President Clinton will probably feel compelled to support deployment. However, this support could be couched in terms that downplay the decision. For instance, he could point out that Congress has mandated that the next Administration must perform a quadrennial defense review. The next President, therefore, could use this review as an occasion to reevaluate the perceived need for missile defense. Of course, this scenario depends on what party has won the White House and whether Republicans maintain control of Congress.

Nonetheless, before the next President takes office, the US may be forced to abrogate the ABM Treaty as early as November, unless Russia agrees to treaty modifications, because the US must give six months notice prior to any action that would violate the treaty. Although what exactly constitutes ABM Treaty violation is debatable, Russia would presumably interpret groundbreaking, which is currently scheduled for spring 2001, in Alaska as violating the treaty. Instead of abrogating the ABM Treaty, Russia and the US will probably find some way to finesse around the predicament through treaty modification or reinterpretation, or the US could pass this deployment initiative to the next Administration.

Those opposed to missile defenses are advised to:

1. Win over allies in Congress, especially among Democrats and moderate Republicans;
2. Try to convince the Clinton Administration to not make a definite deployment decision this summer while recognizing its political constraints; and
3. Demonstrate that missile defenses fail the above four criteria as follows.

Missile defenses are too expensive, and other nations could spend far less money to defeat defenses. Moreover, the current and future threats are magnified out of proportion to other global security problems and do not justify missile defenses. Further, the two reports issued by the panel headed by General Larry Welch, other statements by Ballistic Missile Defense Organization officials, and the intercept test failure in January call into question the technological readiness of the system under development. Finally, missile defenses will adversely affect arms control and will likely stall nuclear disarmament. More ominously, these defenses could spark renewed arms races.

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