Defending America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense

Chapter One: Defending America

1 Should the united states build a national missile defense (NMD) to protect the American people, and possibly key allies as well, against attack by long-range ballistic missiles? President Bill Clinton’s September 2000 announcement that he was deferring the decision on whether to deploy an NMD system puts this question squarely on the Bush administration’s agenda. The United States currently has no nationwide defense against missile attack. Should President Bush fulfill his campaign pledge to “build effective missile defenses, based on the best available options, at the earliest possible date,” the decision will have potentially seismic consequences for both American national security and international affairs.1 Most countries, including many of America’s closest allies, warn that missile defense will trigger an arms race and jeopardize three decades of arms control efforts. Within the United States, reactions to national missile defense have broken down along well-worn lines. Opponents, most of whom are Democrats, complain that the benefits of national missile defense are uncertain and the costs steep. They argue that effective missile defenses are difficult to build—not the least because America’s adversaries have every incentive to find ways to defeat them—and that the investment of billions would produce only a high-tech sieve. At the same time, deploying an NMD system would strain relations with Russia, China, and Defending America CHAPTER ONE Europe and threaten three decades of arms control. Even those who believe that formal superpower nuclear arms control has become anachronistic should worry. A hasty, ambitious NMD deployment could worsen U.S. security by impeding cooperative programs to secure Russia’s nuclear weapons and materials, and by reducing the odds that Moscow and Beijing will tighten their controls over the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The result may well be a world with more intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and weapons of mass destruction that would leave America less secure, not more secure. Supporters of national missile defense, most of whom are Republicans, insist not only that the United States should build defenses but that it must. They argue that revolutionary developments in radar, laser, and data processing technology are transforming missile defense from the stuff of science fiction into a here and now reality. These technological breakthroughs come as nuclear and ballistic missile technology is spreading to states that are virulently hostile to American power and values. According to this view, a national security policy that deliberately leaves the American people vulnerable to attack when technology makes it possible to protect them is immoral and unacceptable. Not only does it fly in the face of common sense to leave the nation undefended, but it could hamstring America’s role in the world. If hostile countries such as Iraq felt they could threaten the United States, and thereby deter it from defending its allies and global interests, these countries might feel less constrained about threatening or attacking their neighbors. Moreover, vulnerability to long-range ballistic missile attacks could cause America’s friends and allies to doubt its willingness to stand by its security commitments , thereby weakening support for the United States around the world. Both sides in the NMD debate make valid points. But rather than generating a serious discussion of how each side’s legitimate concerns can be forged into a sensible policy for the country, the current debate has degenerated into a dialogue of the deaf. Each side repeats its claims with evangelical fervor, often exaggerating the harm or promise of missile defense. National missile defense, however, should not be an ideological issue to champion passionately or oppose resolutely. The issues are complicated, not clear cut. What is needed is not partisan or ideological cheerleading but a sober analysis of the role national missile defense can play in American national security. That is what this book seeks to provide. 2 DEFENDING AMERICA Déjà Vu All Over Again? Whether to defend the United States against ballistic missile attacks is not new to American politics. The current debate over national missile defense 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 fifteen sites around the country, including ten near major metropolitan areas...