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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

wrcooper - 04:33pm May 3, 2001 EST (#3171 of 3174)
The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt [and] uncertainty...appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny....But such is the frailty of human reason. --David Hume

But of course, Cold War deterrence was never premised on enemy leaders sharing our values, liking us, or even caring whether their own people died. As I've noted before in this space, deterrence assumes only that enemy leaders don't want to die themselves. If Bush thinks Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il don't care about their own survival he should say so, but so far the evidence suggests pretty strongly that these guys are survivors. Of particular relevance: During the Persian Gulf War, after Secretary of State James Baker made a veiled threat to respond with nuclear force to the use of chemical weapons, Hussein kept his ample supply of chemical weapons sheathed.

Nuclear blackmail : In light of this Persian Gulf episode, it's ironic that Bush yesterday cited the war with Iraq as an argument for missile defense : The alliance that rolled back Iraqi aggression "would have faced a very different situation had Hussein been able to blackmail with nuclear weapons."

Of course, it's possible that, even though Hussein would have been bluffing, the bluff would have worked. If enough European and American citizens decided there was at least a tiny chance he'd deliver on his threat, their fear might have proved politically paralyzing. But if a tiny chance of successful nuclear attack is paralyzing, then missile defense isn't going to help. After all, not even supporters of missile defense think it will be 100-percent effective, and most observers think its success rate would be much lower. And, as an extremely perceptive critic of missile defense once wrote, "In the psychology of paralyzing fear, a small but appreciable threat of massive destruction is a small but appreciable threat of massive destruction. If our allies are worried that there's a 5 percent chance of London or Paris going up in flames, it won't help to say, 'Actually the threat is only 2 percent.' " Or 1 percent, or one-half of 1 percent.

Deterring nuclear buildups : Bush said yesterday that missile defense can "strengthen deterrence by reducing the incentive for proliferation." What an odd claim! China has already warned that it would respond to missile defense by accelerating its nuclear missile program—and, unlike Russia (which has made similar noises), China has the money to do so. This would then give India an incentive to accelerate its nuclear program, which would give Pakistan the same incentive.

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wrcooper - 04:33pm May 3, 2001 EST (#3172 of 3174)
The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt [and] uncertainty...appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny....But such is the frailty of human reason. --David Hume

Even as it provokes weapons proliferation, missile defense will distract us from the longstanding U.S. goal of negotiated nonproliferation. Bush claimed yesterday that part of his "broad strategy" would be "active nonproliferation." Yet the official Bush administration policy is to refuse to discuss nonproliferation with North Korea. After all, if we're going to be snuggled up under our missile-defense blanket, why bother trying to lure North Korea into the modern, civilized world? (And, if you're trying to build political support for missile defense, why give North Korea a chance to show that it's civilizable?)

Maybe the biggest problem with missile defense is that it will distract us from what everyone agrees is a more serious threat than ballistic missiles—nuclear or biological weapons smuggled into the United States by boat, plane, or car. In fact, missile defense may expand that threat. Let's suppose that, in the case of the "rogue states," missile defense did have the "deterrent" effect that the Bush administration claims, inducing them to shift resources away from missile construction. What do you think they're going to do with those freed-up resources—give money to the Red Cross? They're going to focus on alternative ways to deliver weapons of mass destruction to the United States. Last night on PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, a missile-defense booster said that "a credible U.S. commitment to missile defense" would "discourage countries from building missiles." These countries, he predicted, would say to themselves : "We're going to put millions of dollars into missiles and the United States is just going to counter them. Let's do something else." Yeah, and I think I know what the "something else" is.

Alluding to the option of smuggling nukes into the United States, someone once compared missile defense to locking just one of your car doors to prevent theft. But, actually, that's too kind to the logic of missile defense. If you don't lock a car door, it is as likely a route of entry as the other door. With missile defense, we're trying to lock a door that was never the preferred route of entry to begin with. Saddam Hussein would rather smuggle a nuke in anonymously than send one over on a missile, since the latter option will get him killed and the former won't.

I live in the Washington, D.C., area, a few miles from ground zero. So I'm all for spending money to reduce the chances that the United States will be subject to nuclear attack. But missile defense is just not the smart way to spend that money.

Robert Wright is the author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny.

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