Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
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Is the implementation of the MDS purely political, or is President Bush's motivation honestly for the sake of National Defense?
Should we be spending so much money on a potentionally fallible system instead of R&D?
And what of the very nature of the program? Does America have the right to defend itself against ICBMs? Is there still a purpose to it?
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Printable Version.
FOR half a century, America's leaders have dreamed of erecting a shield above their nation to protect it from incoming ballistic missiles. Such a shield would help their country to recapture the sense of untouchability that its geography, weak neighbours and power inculcated and sustained—until the advent of “mutually assured destruction”. The habitual American faith in technology has helped to make the ambition seem feasible: if America can put a man on the moon, then why shouldn't it “hit a bullet with a bullet”, as some like to characterise the task of shooting down a missile in space?
Next year, ten interceptors designed to destroy long-range ballistic missiles fired by rogue regimes will be lowered into their silos in California and Alaska. George Bush will doubtless tell the electorate that America is closer than ever before to achieving the dream; his main Democratic challengers will claim the system costs too much and provides little protection. Will Americans really be any safer?
Most Americans' idea of what missile defence involves was shaped by Ronald Reagan's iconic “Star Wars” speech of 1983: “I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” Mr Reagon's famous exhortation has contributed to two popular misconceptions about America's current missile-defence effort. One is that it will be based in space; the other is that it will be able to thwart a multiple missile strike by China or Russia.
In fact, the system to be unveiled by Mr Bush's Missile Defence Agency (MDA) next year is a humbler thing, though still hugely ambitious (see diagram). In theory, a threatening missile will be detected by satellite soon after its launch, and its trajectory tracked by radar. Then an interceptor will be despatched from Alaska or California; out in space, the “exo-atmospheric kill vehicle” (EKV) will separate from its booster, and collide with the attacking missile at around 15,000 miles per hour.
The small number of interceptors scheduled to be deployed—ten next year, with another ten to follow—are intended to provide only a limited defence against an attack by a small hostile power (or possibly an accidental launch by a non-enemy). At first, the system will be able to counter only threats emanating from north-east Asia: read North Korea. By 2005, though, improved radars should also ensure coverage of the Middle East, in case Iran or someone else goes nuclear.
This system, based on shooting down a limited number of missiles during the mid-course phase of their trajectory (ie, between the “boost” and “terminal” phases), is more or less what was proposed by Bill Clinton—whose plans were lambasted for years by Republicans for being insufficiently ambitious. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, quips that the system should be named after Mr Clinton, since much of the necessary spending was done on his watch.
In theory, Mr Bush will move on from this relatively modest beginning to field an array of different defences, able to tackle missiles of every range and in every stage of their flight. The next element scheduled to become operational, in 2005, is designed to destroy short- and medium-range missiles with interceptors fired from ships. The Patriot system, for shooting such missiles down in their “terminal” phase, is already in service, though with mixed success. Technologies designed to tackle missiles in their “boost phase” are still immature, to say the least. Space-based weapons remain a distant prospect.
So how good is the system that will come into operation next year? A senior defence official concedes that it is “modest” and “rudimentary”. The flight tests that have been conducted so far have produced mixed results. Critics allege that those tests have been too easy, failing to simulate the speed and altitude of a real-life enemy missile and the sort of decoys it might release. Some sceptics claim that such counter-measures would render the whole enterprise useless, though North Korea, for example, could probably only manage unsophisticated ones.
As the MDA protests, it is normal for a test sequence to start off easy and become more taxing. What is less normal, says Philip Coyle—formerly the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, now at the Centre for Defence Information—is for a weapons system to be deployed before undergoing more realistic trials. He reckons America's chances of shooting down an enemy missile next year, if peradventure it needed to, are “practically zero”. Others say the system will suffer the same fate as a previous limited one, deployed in North Dakota in 1975 and decommissioned as soon as it was introduced. The system's Pentagon masters admit the chances of success would depend on, among other things, how many incoming missiles there were, but are still “fairly confident” that it could do the job.
Given all this, Mr Bush's critics allege that politics, not science, is behind what they label a “rush to failure”. The General Accounting Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog, has hinted as much in successive reports: it commented pointedly that, though short-cutting testing norms “may help the MDA meet the president's deadline, it also increases the potential that some elements might not work as intended.” The GAO has also speculated that more haste now may equal less speed in deploying a viable system, and higher costs. Andrew Krepinevich of the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a military think-tank, argues that the MDA should be concentrating on research, rather than locking itself into a system that may prove obsolescent. The MDA insists that it tells Mr Bush what is feasible, and that when he authorised deployment last December he was acting on its advice.
Shield or scarecrow?
Missile defence is certainly a cause as dear to Mr Bush's party as it is anathema to many Democrats. Many Republicans believe that the mere idea of “Star Wars” helped to defeat the Soviet Evil Empire. Just as passionately, many Democrats say the scheme is wasteful and misconceived. All their main candidates, except Joe Lieberman, say that money should be diverted to other things. Does politics or national security explain Mr Bush's hurry?
Both sides argue that the other is stuck in a cold-war mindset. Missile-defence sceptics say the enthusiasts have an over-developed, Reaganite fear of long-range missiles, which only a handful of countries are known to possess, none of them likely to attack America. (Short- and medium-range missiles are a different matter.) Nowadays, argue Democrats, the threat comes from terrorists: there are much cheaper, handier and less incriminating ways for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to be despatched by al-Qaeda, or a rogue despot, than by ballistic missile—such as in a suitcase. The billions being handed to the MDA could be better spent on humbler things such as port security, and on countering WMD proliferation.
On the question of cost, the Democrats have a good case. The MDA will consume around $9 billion a year for the next five years: the first tranche was authorised last week. (Total defence spending will rise in that period from $400 billion a year to around $500 billion.) But the cost of actually deploying and operating the various systems on the MDA drawing board is unknown. A figure of $1 trillion was recently floated by one think-tank.
Supporters scoff at such guesstimates: Congress, they say, would never sign off on such a sum. One insider describes the MDA's budget as “perhaps the most scrutinised in the Department of Defence”. They maintain that America is already spending money on countering terrorism, and can afford the MDA's bill. Frank Gaffney, of the Centre for Security Policy, says that even a rudimentary defence against the missile threat “beats the hell out of nothing, which is what we have now.”
The enthusiasts say missile defence will help to dissuade some countries from developing missiles, and help deter any that consider firing them, by reducing the prospects of a successful strike. True, a mad dictator embroiled in an unwinnable war might dispatch his missiles anyway; but then, they might be stopped. And America's own freedom of action will be increased: it could, for instance, intervene in a regional conflict without fear of ballistic blackmail—though if its allies and overseas bases are not protected, which at first they won't be, it may still feel restricted.
The main argument in favour of missile defences, like the main argument against them, is that the world has changed. Deterrence, its supporters say, can no longer be relied upon as it was during the cold war: new and undeterrable risks have emerged. And America has already been caught on the hop by the pace of its adversaries' technological advances: in 1998, North Korea sent a missile sailing over Japan. Perhaps it will produce one able to strike America. Maybe a Taliban-style regime will emerge in a country that possesses such weapons.
On one point, at least, the advocates have been vindicated. America's plans required it to withdraw last year from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, under which both it and the Soviet Union had agreed not to build comprehensive defences against each other's missiles (though the abortive North Dakota system was permitted). Fears that this would start a new arms race with Russia and China have proved groundless—though that may change if the system expands to neutralise threats from those two countries.
Next year, the dream of perfect national defences in an imperfect world may finally seem within reach. Americans will at last have something to show for all the talk and money that have been expended on missile defence. They are unlikely to be much safer at first, though they may be when the system evolves. The realism and the costs of the dream will be keenly debated in the presidential campaign. Should the North Koreans or Iranians cause another tremor—or should terrorists hit mainland America again—those arguments will be voiced louder and sooner.
Is the implementation of the MDS purely political, or is President Bush's motivation honestly for the sake of National Defense?
Should we be spending so much money on a potentionally fallible system instead of R&D?
And what of the very nature of the program? Does America have the right to defend itself against ICBMs? Is there still a purpose to it?
