Annex 2. Defending America (excerpted)

Deja vu All Over Again?

    The question of whether to defend the United States against ballistic missile attacks is not new to American politics. The current debate over national missile defense actually marks the third round in a decades long debate over the merits of defense in the nuclear age.

Although initial research programs had begun a decade earlier, the first major missile defense debate began in 1967 when the Johnson administration proposed building the Sentinel system, which would have placed nuclear-tipped interceptor missiles at 15 sites around the country, including 10 near major metropolitan areas. People living near the planned sites rebelled, however, because they feared that putting the missiles in their backyard would greatly increase their chances of becoming the target of an attack. The Nixon administration recognized that Sentinel was politically unsustainable and changed course. It abandoned the idea of defending American cities and proposed instead to use the same interceptor technology to defend a portion of America's land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The new program, named Safeguard, proved to be politically controversial as well, and it barely survived congressional opposition led by a coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans. In October 1975 the lone Safeguard site opened in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Less than two months later, however, anti-Safeguard forces prevailed on Capitol Hill and Congress voted to close the base, effectively writing off an investment of more than $20 billion (in 2001 dollars).

With the passing of Safeguard, missile defense disappeared as a political issue until Ronald Reagan resurrected it in his famed 1983 "Star Wars" speech. The result was a new, high-profile program, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), that sought to defend the United States with ground-based and space-based weapons. Like Sentinel and Safeguard, SDI polarized Congress, though this time largely along party lines. Proponents (mostly Republicans) argued that defending America was a moral imperative; critics (mostly Democrats) argued that it was wasteful and dangerous. Unlike Safeguard, however, SDI never left the research and development stage. The Bush administration reduced the program's political profile and focused it on long-term research. The Clinton administration initially went even further. At the behest of many in the military, it redirected spending away from national defenses and toward theater missile defenses (TMD) designed to protect U.S. troops against attacks by shorter-range missiles like the infamous Scud that played such a prominent role in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. In contrast to NMD programs, TMD programs have enjoyed widespread political support over the past decade because the threat of attack on U.S. troops from shorter-range missiles has been judged to be considerable and because TMD systems are usually not seen as threatening the deterrents of other major nuclear powers.

The Sentinel, Safeguard, and SDI programs all foundered on two obstacles. The first was technological - none of the three programs offered the prospect of an effective defense. The Johnson administration acknowledged from the start that Sentinel could not defend the United States against a Soviet attack - the system was justified as a "thin" defense against a possible Chinese attack. (China did not deploy long-range missiles capable of reaching U.S. soil until 1980.) Even in that limited role it raised major worries because it sought to destroy incoming warheads in their terminal phase by detonating nuclear warheads in the atmosphere over the United States. The Safeguard system's interceptor missile flunked nearly half of its flight tests. Even if the interceptor missile had worked flawlessly, the Soviet Union could easily have overwhelmed the lone Safeguard site (which is why the Ford administration acquiesced in the congressional decision to shut it down). SDI proponents insisted that the United States was on the verge of mastering exotic technologies such as x-ray lasers. By the end of the Bush administration, however, the Pentagon had concluded that such weapons were decades away from being ready.

The second, and in many ways more important, obstacle to missile defense was strategic. Critics argued that even if highly effective defenses could be built, they would - at least in the context of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry - produce a more dangerous world, not a less dangerous one. One problem is that they would have likely fueled a superpower arms race. Moscow would build more offensive weapons in order to be certain it could overwhelm any U.S. defense, and Washington would respond likewise to any Soviet defense. Worse yet, defenses might have made war more likely. Both countries would fear that the other side could attack first, and then use its defenses to blunt a retaliatory attack. This would have created an incentive to strike first, before the adversary could attack. Moreover, the incentive to "use them or lose them" would be strongest at the worst possible time - during a crisis. Finally, given the state of technology, they would probably not have worked in any case - especially in light of the enormous strategic arsenals each side wielded against the other.

Is the Third Time A Charm

    Has anything changed since the Sentinel, Safeguard and SDI debates to warrant rethinking the idea of national missile defense? Proponents say "yes." They make three points. First, U.S.-Russian relations have improved greatly with the end of the Cold War, easing fears that defensive deployments will inevitably spark an offensive arms race. The warmer strategic climate also has lowered the bar for judging any missile defense worthwhile. A missile defense that would have been pointless during the Cold War given the size of the Soviet threat may make sense today (see table 1-1). Second, the United States faces a greater threat of attack as missile technology spreads to more countries. Many of these new ballistic missile powers are deeply hostile to American values and interests. Third, technology has improved, making it possible to build effective defenses against the smaller threats that the new ballistic missile powers pose.

There is more truth to each of these claims than critics are willing to acknowledge. The changes are not quite as dramatic, however, as missile defense proponents would have it.

Better Relations with Russia (though don't forget about China).

    With the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia are no longer enemies and have begun to take important steps to reduce the threat they pose to each other. They no longer deploy huge land armies against each other. They have negotiated the START I and START II agreements, which if implemented will bring the number of strategic nuclear warheads on each side down to 3,000-3,500. They are committed to using the START III negotiations to cut their arsenals to no more than 2,000-2,500 strategic warheads apiece. Under the Department of Defense (DoD) Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction initiative and related Department of Energy (DOE) programs, American scientists visit Russian nuclear weapons labs and vice versa, U.S. technology helps protect Russian weapons and nuclear materials from theft and diversion, and American dollars pay for the partial dismantlement of an aging Russian nuclear arsenal.

The fundamental transformation in U.S.-Russian relations clearly creates the opportunity for new discussions on missile defense, as Moscow itself acknowledges. In 1997, then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed to consider Bill Clinton's request to negotiate changes to the ABM treaty to permit the deployment of a limited national missile defense. In 2000, the new Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that missile defenses have a role to play in the post-Cold War world and proposed that Russia and NATO work jointly to develop them.

But claims about a new strategic climate are easily pushed too far. Although Russia and the United States have better relations, they are not allies. Substantial suspicion still marks the relationship - witness the tensions over NATO's 1999 war against Serbia and Russia's ongoing war against Chechen rebels. The distrust is especially strong in Moscow. It understandably fears defenses that theoretically could someday render its nuclear deterrent obsolete and further diminish its already sinking international status. So Washington should not be surprised that Moscow does not enthusiastically embrace its missile defense proposals.