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 hould the United States deploy a national missile defense (NMD)? If so, when? Using which
technologies? And with how much effort to revise the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,
which bans such defenses?
These are among the most important policy questions President Bush faces. Indeed, he may need to make a decision quickly, given the schedule for the Pentagon's NMD program. The United States has never had a nationwide defense against missile attack. That raises questions about whether it will someday be deterred from projecting power abroad or at least from considering certain military options--such as overthrowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein should he start another war--out of fear of being attacked. It also means that the United States remains vulnerable to long-range missile strikes that could conceivably result in nuclear explosions on American territory. On the other hand, moving precipitously to deploy a missile defense could greatly strain relations with America's allies, as well as with Russia and China. Such strains would probably not provoke a Cold War--like arms race. But they could be quite dangerous anyway, if Russia suspends collaborative efforts to secure and downsize its frighteningly dilapidated nuclear arsenal as a result, or if China and Russia elect to help countries such as North Korea and Iraq improve their missile forces to make the United States pay a price for ignoring what they see as their own legitimate national interests.
THE CASE FOR NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE NMD proponents are right that the missile threat is growing. The ballistic missile club now numbers about three dozen members. Many of them are U.S. friends, and most possess only aging Soviet-era short-range missiles. But a few are deeply hostile to the United States and appear intent on acquiring long-range missiles capable of hitting American soil. North Korea is Exhibit A. In August 1998, it fired a long-range version of its Taepo Dong-1 missile over Japan. The test was not a complete success--the rocket's third-stage booster failed to ignite. Nonetheless, the test showed that Pyongyang was far closer to building long-range missiles than U.S. officials realized. North Korea also has been developing the Taepo Dong-2, a rocket four times larger than the Taepo Dong-1 with a range of between 2,500 miles (which would put the Aleutian Islands within reach) and 3,600 miles (which would put most of Alaska and the small western islands of Hawaii at risk). The Taepo Dong-2 might even be able to deliver a nuclear warhead to the western United States if Pyongyang can develop a workable third-stage booster and a warhead small enough to fit on top of the missile. The June 2000 summit meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean President Kim Jong Il, as well as Pyongyang's decision to halt long-range missile test flights, have improved the atmosphere on the peninsula substantially. But it is far less clear that they have slowed North Korea's missile program. The 1998 North Korean test also confirmed the findings of a commission led by Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense. That report, published shortly before the Taepo Dong-1 test, concluded unanimously and ominously that countries such as North Korea, Iran, or Iraq might develop a missile threat against American territory fairly quickly.
NMD supporters are also right to doubt the continued relevance, at least in its current form, of the ABM Treaty. Signed during an intense superpower rivalry, it was the product of a different time. Perceptions of nuclear advantage mattered much more then, and worst-case military analysis prevailed, so even a mediocre NMD system might have provoked an unchecked arms race. Moreover, the technological challenge was so daunting, given the magnitude of the potential threat, that meaningful protection looked to be beyond reach. All those circumstances have now changed. Defense proponents sometimes take this anti--ABM Treaty position too far, arguing, for example, that the treaty no longer has any bearing, since one of its original signatory states has now dissolved. That is a poor argument; the same logic would absolve Russia of the Soviet Union's other international obligations, debts, and responsibilities. But NMD supporters are certainly right to want to rethink Cold War logic. THE CASE FOR CAUTION NMD skeptics offer three solid arguments in reply. First, they note that although the Cold War is over, old arms-race dynamics die hard. Both Russia and the United States maintain large, ready nuclear forces. Perhaps they should shed Cold War ideas about maintaining huge arsenals by now--but in fact they have not. Under these circumstances, an NMD deployment could rekindle Russian paranoia about strategic inferiority, possibly convincing Moscow to retain decrepit, dangerous nuclear weapons that it should retire. Any hope of convincing Russia to put its nuclear forces on a lower, safer alert status would probably also be lost. Growing mistrust or rancor between the countries could even threaten the Nunn-Lugar
Second, NMD skeptics note that good missile defense systems are difficult to develop. Another 1998 panel, this one led by retired Gen. Larry Welch, concluded that U.S. missile defense research was being pushed so rapidly that it amounted to a "rush to failure." That warning appears to have merit. The Clinton administration's proposed system failed both of its tests in 2000, leading President Clinton to defer a decision on NMD deployment to his successor. Despite the delay, the program is probably still too rushed. Third, NMD skeptics argue that, even if "midcourse" defenses (munitions that kill an incoming missile in space, at the top of its trajectory) like the Clinton NMD system work on the test range, they will likely flop when faced with real-world countermeasures. Clever foes will almost certainly launch missiles equipped with dozens of decoys. Distinguishing between warheads and sophisticated decoys in the cold, weightless vacuum of space is difficult and perhaps even impossible. Even a less sophisticated foe might devise reasonably effective countermeasures. Or it could acquire them from Russia or China, should either be willing to transfer countermeasures to gain hard currency or complicate a U.S. defense they see as threatening. NMD skeptics make two other arguments that stand up less well to scrutiny. First, they argue that defenses cost too much. The United States has spent some $3.5 billion a year on missile defense since Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, making for a total of more than $100 billion spent since the early 1960s (in constant 2001 dollars). Since then, spending has accelerated. Plans call for spending well over $4 billion a year into the indefinite future on national and theater-missile defenses combined. But given what is at stake, these numbers are not large--just over 1 percent of defense spending of late, perhaps 2 to 3 percent once systems start being built and deployed. Second, NMD skeptics argue that defenses will not reduce America's vulnerability--that adversaries will simply change tactics and figure out ways to attack the United States with "suitcase" bombs, ships carrying nuclear weapons in their cargo bays, cruise missiles launched from ships or submarines off U.S. shores, or other nonconventional means of delivery. As a result, they argue that the United States should continue to rely on the time-tested technique of deterrence.
NMD advocates rightly argue that, even if deterrence is likely to work in most situations against extremist states, it could fail under some circumstances. Advocates also argue persuasively that it makes no sense to abandon NMD just because missile defenses are not a panacea against all threats. They also point out that the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Service offer at least some protection against these other threats, whereas the United States is strategically naked against the ballistic missile threat. They could also argue that the image of a "suitcase" bomb is misleading, given that primitive nuclear devices would probably weigh at least half a ton. Finally, it is worth noting that missile threats differ fundamentally from "suitcase" and ship-delivered bombs. Missiles can be delivered very quickly, making them especially dangerous to the United States during crisis or wartime conditions and especially effective for coercion during a war. WHICH NMD MAKES SENSE? What seems to be the sensible solution is a small-scale NMD deployment sometime this decade. The arguments against NMD (particularly, large-scale, unconstrained NMD) have enough merit to strongly influence the kind of system the United States should build and the way it goes about deployment. Specifically, a U.S. NMD system should focus only on the potential threat that extremist countries such as Iran, Iraq, or North Korea pose.
Any effort to challenge the Russian or Chinese deterrent is bound to fail, given the natural advantages that a sophisticated attacker enjoys. It would also seriously harm Washington's relations with Moscow and Beijing, and endanger important U.S. interests. Russia and China could retaliate by providing countries such as Iraq with missile and countermeasure technology or by greatly expanding their sales of conventional weapons. Russia might also suspend current bilateral efforts to cut offensive weapons, to place them under more secure control, to take them off hair-trigger alert, or otherwise to reduce the nuclear danger. In building an NMD system, the United States should emphasize earth-based technologies that seek to shoot down missiles shortly after launch--in their boost phase, when they are easiest to track and hit. Unlike midcourse systems, boost-phase defenses destroy the attacking missile before it can reach space and deploy any countermeasures. Earth-based boost-phase systems are also less threatening to Russia and China. To work, they must be based within a few hundred miles of a missile's launch point. Any further away, they cannot intercept the missile before it reaches space. Russia and China are both physically large enough to keep their missiles out of reach of U.S. boost-phase interceptors. (Space-based boost-phase NMD systems don't suffer the same geographical constraint, but they are also far more technologically ambitious and expensive.) Finally, because boost-phase interceptors can shoot down missiles regardless of whether their destination is Paris or Peoria, they can defend not only
A smaller version of the proposed Clinton administration system, however, still makes sense as a backup. With boost-phase interceptors as a first line of defense, a more modest 25 to 50 midcourse interceptors (compared to the 250 the administration envisioned) would suffice. Countries such as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea lack the resources to build more than a handful of long-range missiles, especially ones equipped with nuclear weapons. Moreover, these countries are less likely than Russia or China to possess sophisticated countermeasures that could defeat a midcourse NMD system. The scaled-down midcourse system could be based in North Dakota, rather than Alaska as the Clinton administration proposed. The Alaska site had one major advantage over a North Dakota site: its ability to defend the few people living in western Alaska. But that advantage came at a significant cost: The radar site guiding the interceptors would be based on a remote Aleutian island. The island's hostile climate means it would take five years to construct the radar, forcing the Bush administration to decide almost immediately on whether to withdraw from the ABM Treaty if it hopes to have an operational NMD system by mid-decade. But construction of a North Dakota radar would not need to begin for at least another two years. If Bush adopted the latter two-tier approach, he could postpone the decision on whether to leave the ABM Treaty until 2002 or perhaps later. That delay would provide time for technology to develop. Just as important, it would provide much-needed time for negotiations with Moscow on revising the ABM Treaty. The United States could agree to limit its total number of interceptors, including both midcourse and boost-phase varieties, to under 200, consistent with the numerical restrictions (though not other stipulations) of the original 1972 treaty. The delay would also create time for diplomacy with China, as well as with U.S. allies in Europe and East Asia. It is not that these countries deserve a veto over U.S. national security decisions. They don't. Rather, if the United States ignores their concerns, they may react by taking steps that negate much, if not all, of the NMD's benefit. Finally, a delay would synchronize the NMD with major theater-missile defense (TMD) programs, the more advanced of which are unlikely to become operational before 2007 or 2008. Besides protecting U.S. soldiers on the battlefield, these TMD systems can help defend American allies against shorter-range ballistic missiles. The Clinton administration proposed defending America by 2005, even though it had no prospect of being able to protect allies such as Britain or Japan before the end of the decade. That policy makes little sense, because a threat to attack London or Tokyo is probably just as likely to paralyze Washington as a threat to attack New York or Los Angeles. Rather than imagine that it really has the option of defeating the potential missile threat by 2006 or so, the United States would be wiser to work toward a more global solution for itself, its deployed forces, and its allies by 2008 or 2010. The right solution seems to be to take time, consult with not only Moscow and Beijing but also major European and Asian allies, and move toward a moderate deployment that allows the opportunity for these allies to develop or purchase defenses as well. Indefinite procrastination is not in order, but a few years more of negotiations and further technology development very much are.  James M. Lindsay and Michael E. O'Hanlon are senior fellows in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., policy institute. |
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