Ballistic Missile Defense Negotiations
Peter B. Lerner
The following article was written in response to "Why No Progress in AMB/TMD Negotiations?" by Alvin M. Saperstein, which appeared in the October 1995 issue.
I agree with Saperstein's main conclusion, that the refusal to negotiate mutually acceptable limits on tactical missile defenses will be detrimental to strategic stability, and that "unilateral actions are not usually conducive to the building of communities, whether domestic or international." However, Saperstein sees the negotiations as a way to legitimize anti-ballistic missile technology because he exaggerates its military value and underestimates potential problems connected with its accelerated development. In the following article I re-examine those presumptions.
Costs of theater missile defenses
Saperstein outlines the dangers inherent in continuing uninhibited development of theater missile defense (TMD) in an outmoded Cold War paradigm: "If there is no agreement, TMD systems will probably still be deployed, with each side acting unilaterally, but the relationship between the two countries will be based more on weapons than on negotiations." Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) proponents, like Richard Perle, argue that Russia has neither the technology nor the financial resources to develop a similar system and thus precipitate a new round of the arms race, so "who gives a s--- about the ABM [anti ballistic missile] treaty? We could walk away from it--there is no way it could produce consequences. The Russians are not going to start an offensive- missile-building program. And if they did, it'd make no difference (1)."
However, if the assessment of the current state of Russian technology and economy by the missile defense buffs is correct, this should underline the necessity of TMD limitations much more than Sapirstein's argument. Indeed, Russia will probably respond not by futile attempts to imitate American TMDs based on high precision kinetic-kill interceptors but by a few much more obvious and dangerous steps.
First, it will probably scrap the START II treaty, thus forsaking elimination of many of its deliverable nuclear warheads. It is quite amazing that proponents of missile defenses, who coincidentally are among the authors of doomsday scenarios for the political future of Russia, are willing to endanger the elimination of MIRVed missiles under the START II treaty, when one SS-18 regiment has a larger number of more powerful warheads than any thinkable clandestine nuclear force.
Second, Russia could embark on a program of modernization of offensive weapons in order to compensate for its increased vulnerability resulting from American capacity to protect its own vital targets. The threat to the US is not that Russia can outdo it in offensive nuclear potential. Rather, the resumption of large-scale nuclear activities in a vast, unstable and relatively poor country will raise concerns for nuclear proliferation and accidents, as well as upset Russia's current attempts to stabilize itself. Poor discipline of the Russian military, widespread corruption in the nuclear design labs, and the demise of the security services, would only compound the gravity of the situation.
Third, because Russia hardly can be expected to develop high- precision kinetic-kill interceptors for its own TMD, a potential Russian system would rely instead on large numbers of nuclear- tipped interceptors with much higher tolerance for guidance errors (2). A mobile system of this kind will be necessarily less protected from attack by terrorists, more susceptible to clogging of communication channels and technical malfunction, and will constitute an even higher threat of nuclear proliferation, unauthorized launch, or accident than Russian offensive missiles. The losses to American security because of increased proliferation risks due to transportation, testing and storage of large numbers of relatively portable, hastily designed and poorly protected nuclear warheads, which the Russians will be forced to deploy, will greatly exceed any potential benefit from TMD. This underlines the schizophrenic quality inherent in all proposals for missile defenses: They improve stability only to the degree to which the other side (supposedly, the wicked aggressor--otherwise there is no need for defenses) not only subscribes to American strategic thinking but pursues strictly symmetric technological policies as well.
Fourth, Sapirstein's argument is formulated for a bipolar world which no longer exists. He ignores the probable reaction of other nuclear powers. Currently, France and China do not go beyond "minimal deterrence" despite obvious technical and economic capacities for further nuclear build-up. However in the "brave new world" dominated by defensive systems, they will see the cumulative value of their nuclear arsenals, as a deterrent and as the source of bargaining power, to be diminished. In order to retain the relative political leverage that they get from their status as nuclear powers, China and France are likely to respond by accelerated enlargement of their own quantity and assortment of nuclear weapons. China has already voiced its concerns with respect to the proposed deployment of TMD in Japan. French leadership may reassess its nuclear posture because, of all states, it regards nuclear potential not so much as a response to a particular foreign threat, but rather as a membership fee to the club of great powers, to which France otherwise wouldn't belong.
To summarize: potential losses from the unconstrained development of American TMDs include an impediment to strategic arms limitations, proliferation concerns resulting from resumption of large-scale Russian nuclear activities and, consequently, the increased risk of subversion or diversion of its nuclear materials and components, and an accelerated nuclear build-up by France and China. What are the benefits?
Benefits of Theater Missile Defenses
Sapirstein states that "there is a good reason to believe that much more capable (in range, accuracy, load, ease in rapid and covert firing) missiles will soon be available around the world" (3). First, there is a confusion between the threat from ballistic missiles with nuclear and conventional warheads. In fact, ballistic missiles are relatively imprecise (US MX warheads have inaccuracies of about 90 m and this is considered by open sources as almost theoretical limit for such weapons. Even the most sophisticated Russian ICBMs have inaccuracies >250-400 m and throw the weight--typically not exceeding 1000 kg for theater missiles and 2500 kg for strategic missiles--much smaller than the payload of modern combat aircraft easily available on the world arms market (4). The weapon is not reusable. Even if, improbably, a third world country accumulates a large stock of missiles for repeated artillery-style missile barrages, accurate correction of fire is impossible without a sophisticated system of real-time battlefield reconnaissance integrated with the missile retargeting and command system. Even Russia doesn't have that, not to speak of the "rogue nations." Such a system may, in principle, rely on high-altitude reconnaissance and track-and-relay aircraft instead of satellites, but this will devalue the main advantage of ballistic missiles--simplicity, decentralization, covert action and attack on short notice--and it is out of reach for third world powers with or without a satellite component. To justify a threat which warrants a crash development of the TMDs one should suppose the emergence, in the near future, of the rogue power with missile and command, control, and communication technology on a par with the United States and vastly superior to that of Russia and China. This is utter nonsense.
The abovementioned combination of liabilities renders conventionally armed ballistic missiles totally unsuitable for attack on combat-ready formations. In fact, ballistic missiles with conventional warheads can be used only as a terror weapon against urban agglomerations (as in both Gulf Wars) or against other large and soft stationary targets such as airfields, railroad hubs, naval bases and radar networks. The protection of stationary outposts of forward deployment is the only imaginable military function which can be performed by TMDs. This limited task of protection from ballistic missiles with range < 900 km requires a TMD tested against missiles with re-entry velocity up to 3 km/s, which can be designed in a much more multi-purpose fashion, with improved capabilities against aircraft, "smart bombs," antiship missiles and cruise missiles.
On the contrary, even imprecise nuclear warheads can be quite deadly and cost efficient. However, the function of protection against nuclear attack has been successfully performed by nuclear deterrence. If deterrence is thought not to be sufficient, then recent progress in conventional munitions and delivery systems allows U.S. military commanders to disrupt the command and control functions of an opponent, and threaten high-value targets such as leaders and their families or nuclear research facilities, without resorting to nuclear weapons. Indeed, rogue leaders will hardly be impressed by destruction of unmanned vehicles by an American interceptor over some desert or ocean space so much as by the threat of obliteration of themselves and their families, or destruction of their structures of totalitarian control over their wretched nations--e.g. headquarters of secret police or state propaganda establishments. Indeed, the value of nuclear deterrence has been proven by forty years of the Cold War. Successful strikes against the headquarters of Iraq's secret police and similar high-value "civilian" targets, and the miserable results of "Scud-hunting," underscored the efficiency of conventional retaliation with high-precision munitions versus more esoteric strategies.
Besides, there is an obvious but little-mentioned difference in the performance criteria for anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. Because a combat aircraft is a reusable, multi-purpose vehicle, manned by trained pilots, which by itself is a valuable asset and is much more expensive than a surface-to-air missile, its intercept always makes sense even after the aircraft has performed a combat mission, or even if its mission fails for reasons other than air defenses, e.g. weather. Thus a hypothetical air defense system intercepting 10% of modern aircraft is a great success, while an ABM system with such capacity is a flop. Missile defenses, to provide efficient deterrence against nuclear missile attack, need to satisfy unrealistic performance criteria such as intercept of almost 100 % of incoming missiles independently of the size of opponent's offensive potential. This dire picture of the usefulness of missile defense doesn't even take into account the possibilities for countermeasures on the side of an attacker. The 1972 ABM Treaty provided very little incentive for either the Soviet Union or the USA to invest seriously in defense-busting technologies, such as exotic trajectories, final-stage maneuverability and stealth features, to name a few.
The last-ditch argument of TMD proponents is that they are necessary because allied nations can be allegedly blackmailed, by foreign missile threat, into policies contravening that of the U.S. Their real value is most clearly indicated by the fact that Germany and Japan, which Saperstein states "now believe that an effective defense--is technologically feasible," remain lukewarm, despite their geopolitical situation and American basing presence (5). They prefer to rely on American nuclear deterrence (bankrolled by the U.S. taxpayers as well) instead.
The potential gains from TMD are thus restricted to small, densely populated nations in hostile environments, nations such as Israel or Taiwan. The value of TMDs for the U.S. is limited to the protection of large (> 1 km) stationary objects of forward deployment unless one conceives missile attack on the early warning radars--from Canada, and similar scenarios of the lunatic fringe. This limited goal doesn't warrant mothballing an ABM Treaty with unpredictable and potentially dire consequences. In short, the situation with TMDs closely resembles the situation with mine warfare--it is real, though the military advantages are fairly limited, while its potential for wreaking havoc in international relations is immense and none of the big states ever put serious bets on it anyway.
Domestic political debate
Congressional opponents of TMD limitations and perhaps some members of the Administration regard TMD not in their literal meaning as a system that can protect American troops on the battlefield. They think of it as a device of implicit abrogation of the ABM Treaty, i.e. as a Trojan horse for a resuscitated SDI, because TMD unlike the SDI has some technical merit and isn't just a PR hoax. The SDI was basically a nostalgic idea to return the US to the pre- WWII position of strategic invulnerability. As such, it retains some glamour with Buchanen-style isolationists dreaming of "Fortress America" which, in their thinking, can be spared the problems of the outside world through the use electronic gadgetry. The vitality of strategic defense is purported by pollsters and supposed experts with majors in law and political science and is completely unrelated to progress in technology or changes in military strategy.
However, there is little chance that the development of TMD with the deliberate aim at thwarting the ABM Treaty can be successfully opposed in the current political climate. The driving force behind it is a macho posturing with respect to foreign nations, posturing that especially appeals to rustic constituencies who are poorly acquainted with the outside world, and to the college kids brimming with testosterone, --two very important target groups for the current makeup of the U.S. Congress, and it has more to do with Freud than Clausewitz. Because such posturing deliberately ignores national security arguments in favor of displays of patriotic fervor there is little chance that it can be mitigated by sober analysis of TMD's costs and benefits.
A rational goal would be to dismantle the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and to distribute approximately the same amount of money to the Air Force, Navy and the Army to develop technologies which will be more suitable to their needs and in strict compliance with the ABM Treaty. However, the notion of "compliance" has been deliberately watered down by "re- interpretation" (D.C. parlance for the dismissal of international treaty obligations because of domestic political expediency). Meanwhile, there is no convincing demonstration of the deterrent value of defenses against realistic threats, for example a hypothetical country possessing several hundred missiles of SCUD (ballistic) and/or Silkworm (cruise) type.
This limited objective of hedging theater missile defenses against other priorities of military R&D instead of providing them as "free gift" to the services on top of their demands, will help mend fences between the arms control community, which acknowledges the value of the treaties and those elements in the Pentagon who actually would benefit from restructuring the programs. Finally, despite low priority for arms control and initial gloomy predictions, recent years brought an unprecedented success in the extension of the Non Proliferation Treaty, alignment of the nuclear powers on the question of a Comprehensive Test Ban, and the nuclear disarmament of Soviet successor-states (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus). Maybe in the case of BMDs as well, the combination of budgetary constraints, proliferation concerns and military rationality will prevail in the end.
References
- Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker 26 Sept. 1994, 98.
- Historically, Soviet air defense systems relied on nuclear- tipped missiles much more than the US ones. See e.g. E. Luttwak, S. Koehl, The Dictionary of Modern War, (Harper Collins, 1991), 255-258.
- The argument of this section closely follows the treatment in John R. Harvey, International Security Fall 1992, 47. The fact that in a real third world there are severe constraints other than technology and cost (e.g. rivalry between armed services preventing allocation of resources in an optimum way) will, in my view, further limit the opportunities provided by the possession of ballistic missiles.
- The Nonproliferation Review Fall 1993, 56-59.
- Ironically, the entire German budget for military procurement is less than the U.S. budget for ballistic missile defenses alone.
The author is at 108 Osmond Lab, University Park, PA. This article expresses the private opinion of its author. It cannot be associated with any agency, present or past employer of an author, nor is it a result of any research performed under government or private contract or auspices. The address is provided exclusively for identification.