The Case for National Missile Defense

Ambassador Robert Joseph
October 2000

     There is substantial consensus that the threat from weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles is both real and expanding. This consensus is clearly reflected in the overwhelming passage by both houses of Congress of the National Missile Defense Act, making it U.S. policy and law to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) “as soon as is technologically possible.” The unanimous findings of the bipartisan Rumsfeld Commission and the most recent assessments of the Intelligence Community leave little reasonable doubt about the growing challenges to the security of the American homeland from missile attack.

     While there will always be those who deny the threat or who promote the vain hope for a quick and easy political fix, their numbers have dwindled dramatically. Incredible suggestions that the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang may be willing to forgo its ballistic missile program in exchange for assistance in placing a few “peaceful” payloads into space have been scoffed at even by North Korean leaders. In place of such fantasies, we are left with the reality of observable missile tests conducted by Iran and North Korea that, in the latter case, have already demonstrated intercontinental range.

     A comprehensive long-term strategy is required to counter the missile threat. The United States must lead international efforts, such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, to prevent or slow further proliferation. These efforts are essential but, as evident from the threat, insufficient. As a consequence, we must also pursue defenses. Most agree with this conclusion with regard to theater missile defense. When it comes to NMD, agreement breaks down. President Clinton’s decision “not to decide now” on NMD deployment, but rather to have his successor decide, only added fuel to the debate.

     The most popular argument against missile defense does not deny the growing capabilities of rogue states (aka “countries of concern”) to attack the United States. Instead, it focuses on intentions. Opponents of NMD are increasingly fond of asserting that the United States doesn’t need to defend against missile attacks because we can rely on deterrence through the threat of massive retaliation, and specifically the threat of nuclear devastation. Because even rogue regimes are rational and want to survive, they wouldn’t dare strike our cities because they know that if they did, their countries would be obliterated.

     This line of argument (which ironically is often advanced by individuals with impeccable anti-nuclear credentials) is based on a dangerous misconception about deterrence of contemporary threats, deterrence that is fundamentally different from that of the Cold War. We deterred the Soviet Union principally through the prospect of mutual assured destruction. We based our doctrine, force structure, and arms control policies on the concept that as long as American and Russian cities were vulnerable to attack in a retaliatory strike, neither side would be tempted to use nuclear weapons against the other in a disarming first strike.

     Few today would openly advocate this same concept as a desirable basis for deterring rogue states. The differences are apparent: we face a much more diverse and less predictable set of countries than we did in the Cold War. These states are governed by leaders who are much more prone to taking risks than were Soviet leaders. That doesn’t make them irrational—only gamblers like Hitler and the Japanese militarists in the 1930s.

     Moreover, the conditions that we valued for deterrence in the U.S.-Soviet relationship—such as effective communications and agreed-upon understandings—are not likely to pertain to states such as North Korea. In addition, these regimes see weapons of mass destruction as their best means of overcoming our technological advantages that they know will defeat them in a conventional conflict. Weapons of mass destruction, especially biological weapons, are becoming their weapons of choice to deter us from intervening in their regions to stop their aggression, unlike in the Cold War when we sought to deter the Soviets from expanding outward.

     Long-range missiles become particularly valuable as instruments of coercion to hold American and allied cities hostage and thereby deter us from intervention. The tremendous disparity in our favor in both conventional capabilities and nuclear weapon stockpiles simply doesn’t matter in this type of calculation. Our adversaries need only hold a handful of our cities at risk. This is not irrational. In fact, it is very well thought out. If you can’t compete conventionally and you have territorial or political or religious goals that require the use of force, you must find a means of keeping the United States out of the fight.

     Failing that, even if we do intervene, long-range missiles can retain deterrent value. Under these circumstances, again in the calculations of regional adversaries, their missiles can reduce the risk of massive retaliation by the United States if they use chemical and biological weapons in their regions, even against U.S. forces. This is what it’s all about. It’s not about North Korea or Iran conducting a first strike against us—that is a straw man being put up by NMD opponents as a debating point.

     Deterrence of these new and different threats requires new and different concepts and capabilities. Cold War concepts don’t apply. The threat of retaliation, while essential, is not sufficient. Denial capabilities such as passive defenses against chemical and biological weapons and counterforce measures to attack mobile and deep underground targets are central to deterrence. Perhaps most critical, the importance of missile defenses stands out.

     A second argument often heard against NMD is that such a deployment, even if very limited in scope, would be undesirable because the costs would outweigh the benefits. Perhaps the most frequently heard version of this argument is the assertion that NMD would threaten strategic stability, a phrase that passes the focus group test but that obscures the underlying oldthink on which it is based. What is being said is that we must continue to base our relationship with Russia on the same footing that we did with the Soviet Union. Those taking this view are usually willing to extend mutual assured destruction to China and, although it is never stated explicitly, they are willing to extend at least partial vulnerability to states like North Korea. The problem is that partial vulnerability in a deterrence context is like partial pregnancy.

     A third argument is that missile defenses are not technically feasible. The Russians have an operational anti–ballistic missile (ABM) system with nuclear-tipped interceptors that protect Moscow and a large portion of their territory against a Chinese-size threat. The Israeli Arrow is conventionally armed. Although it is not a hit-to-kill weapon, it does demonstrate the feasibility of a national program based on interceptors with conventional front ends. In other words, there are different approaches to missile defenses and I am confident that our scientific community is up to the task.

     While independent reviews of the current program have emphasized the risks inherent in meeting the established deployment schedule, they have generally confirmed the soundness of the technologies being pursued. This is despite the fact that the U.S. approach has been the most technically challenging. In fact, because of the ABM Treaty, we have ruled out the most promising and cost-effective avenues to defense, including sea-based and space-based ABM systems. These are the capabilities that could provide for boost- or ascent-phase intercepts, which offer the greatest potential for countering the missile threat as it grows quantitatively and qualitatively, including the introduction of countermeasures.

     The fact that we have not pursued ABM sea- and space-based approaches and that we are now embarked on a very accelerated schedule to deploy even a minimalist land-based system is the direct result of deliberate policy choices.

     In 1993, in what the Clinton Administration declared to be an effort to strengthen the ABM Treaty, the NMD programs were downgraded in priority, and funding was significantly reduced. Programs such as space-based sensors were cut back; others such as space-based interceptors were eliminated. Even funding for ground-based interceptors and radars was slashed and essentially reduced to life-support levels. In other words, we have lost seven critical years—during which time our most likely adversaries have worked hard to acquire ballistic missiles to strike our cities.

     Today, U.S. arms control policies remain based on Cold War precepts and continue to create roadblocks that prevent us from moving forward to acquire capabilities that can strengthen deterrence and defense against today’s threats. There can be no better example than the positions we are taking in the ABM Treaty negotiations. Present policy is to preserve intact the central provisions of the treaty while deploying a very limited—but, we are told, effective—NMD against the rogue missile threat.

     The problem is that these two objectives are mutually exclusive. As a result, in an attempt to retain the ABM Treaty as the primary goal, the NMD architecture has become so contrived that it will have only a minimal capability against near-term threats. While the official position is that we will go back to Russia to seek its permission to expand our defenses as the threat evolves, few see this as a serious prospect.

     In an attempt to have it both ways, U.S. policy has had another equally unsubtle influence. For almost eight years, the Clinton Administration proclaimed the ABM Treaty the “cornerstone of strategic stability” with Russia in a way that has served to perpetuate Cold War suspicions and distrust. This has had two effects: First, along with other policies that Moscow has seen as directed at Russia, it has contributed to the reversal of our political relations. Promoting mutual assured destruction as official policy and at the center of our relationship has a corrosive influence that necessarily imprisons us in an adversarial box. Second, if in fact the ABM Treaty and mutual assured destruction do guide our relations, nuclear weapons become the most important currency, at least for a state such as Russia that can ill afford alternatives because its conventional forces are hollow and bankrupt. We see this in Russia’s declaratory statements and defense planning priorities, where nuclear weapons have become more prominent than ever in its security policy. This may help explain the lack of progress in achieving further reductions in nuclear weapons.

     How Russia will react to the deployment of NMD is an important question. A number of U.S. and Russian officials have predicted dire consequences if we insist on amending the ABM Treaty or withdraw from the treaty. In particular, some have predicted that deploying NMD will threaten the so-called fabric of arms control and lead to an end of further reductions in nuclear weapons.

     Such predictions are inconsistent with Moscow’s reaction to the Bush Administration proposals in 1992 that sought fundamental changes to the treaty and the end of mutual assured destruction as the foundation of our political relationship. The Russian reaction at that time was to sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II and to explore cooperative means for deploying what President Yeltsin called, in a speech to the United Nations, the Global Protection System.

     These predictions also ignore Russia’s own approach to arms control, as seen most recently in the Conventional Forces in Europe experience. Here, the principle was clear. Russia assesses the value of arms control agreements in the context of its defense requirements—a truly sound concept. When the security conditions change, it acts with determination to change the treaties. For us, the parallel to the ABM Treaty should be evident.

     Although it will not like it, Moscow will most likely understand our position and will most likely not act contrary to its own interests. Arms control negotiations to reduce nuclear stockpiles are important to Russia. To end the negotiations would end Moscow’s best means to stay at perceived parity. The Russians, according to almost all assessments, will be compelled by budget constraints to go to much lower levels of offensive forces, independent of arms control outcomes. Yet, even at the lowest levels speculated for Russia in the future, a missile defense deployed to protect against limited attacks and accidental or unauthorized launches would not undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent. And this is the critical point: if Moscow knows that U.S. defenses will not undermine its deterrent, Russia will have what it requires. Moreover, the prospects for cooperation on defenses should be an attractive incentive to Moscow, both from both economic and security perspectives.

     In fact, the most vociferous opponent of U.S. missile defenses may well turn out to be the People’s Republic of China—the country that has been most prone to threaten ballistic missile attacks on the United States. Beijing has repeatedly asserted that deploying theater missile defenses to Japan would upset the existing balance of forces and lead to a regional arms race. It has been even more direct in threatening a strong response if assistance were provided to Taiwan to build defenses, stating that such action would represent direct interference in China’s internal affairs. According to Beijing, talk of such possible deployments—as well as of a U.S. national missile defense—has provided justification for China’s own long-standing and aggressive modernization programs. These include the ongoing deployment of hundreds of medium-range missiles opposite Taiwan and the development of mobile ICBMs, a new ballistic missile submarine, a sea-launched missile with the ability to target U.S. forces, multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, and enhanced radiation technology. In short, China is modernizing its missile and nuclear arsenal whether or not the United States deploys missile defenses. The cynical and self-serving nature of Beijing’s pronouncements about the “sanctity” of the ABM Treaty cannot mask the true value China sees in the treaty as a guarantor that its own missiles can reach Taiwanese, Japanese and American cities.

     The views of U.S. allies on NMD and the ABM Treaty are more complex than those of Russia and China. Our friends in Asia, having in recent years experienced the overflight of ballistic missiles, appear supportive of both our need and their need for defenses. In Europe, however, allies continue to express concern about the possible Russian reaction and, in some cases, about what is described as the decoupling effects of a missile defense that would protect American cities but not those of our NATO allies. This latter argument has it exactly wrong: U.S. credibility as an ally would be undercut if the United States were vulnerable to blackmail from weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. On the other hand, if the United States could protect itself from this threat, its credibility would be strengthened. As has always been the case, the more secure the United States is, the more secure are our allies.

     Also significant, the concerns and in some cases objections of allies can be traced to their doubts about the seriousness of the U.S. commitment to missile defenses. This is not to say that allies would rush to support NMD if they thought we were serious. However, they questioned the depth of the Clinton Administration’s commitment to deploy defenses and wondered whether this is just the next American initiative that will go unfulfilled but in the process upset the old framework that guided relations with Moscow—without replacing it with a new structure. Moreover, the allies are not protected under the current architecture and have little to gain from supporting our missile defense deployment.

     While the views of Russia and China should be noted; such views are expressions of their own self-interest and, in this case, are based on the goal of holding the United States hostage to their own nuclear forces. The U.S. decision on NMD must be based on an evaluation of American security requirements, not those of Russia and China. Given the imperative to defend against the rogue missile threat and to protect against accidental and unauthorized launch, the choice is clear. For our allies, what is required is American leadership. Without leadership of the type we had in 1983 in the Intermediate Nuclear Forces context, the United States has been unable and unwilling to make the intellectual case in European capitals for missile defense. This failure can be explained, in part, by the internal contradictions in U.S. policy between the stated goals of deploying defenses and retaining the central provisions of the ABM Treaty. Any comprehensive approach to counter the missile proliferation threat must reconcile these inconsistencies. In doing so, we will better protect ourselves against the growing threat and establish a more stable basis for our relations with Russia and others.