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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?

rshowalter - 07:52pm Jun 30, 2001 EST (#6357 of 6364)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Missile Defense 30 Years Ago -- Deja Vu all over again? Edited by William Burr December 18, 2000 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB36/

Note bolded section:

"President Clinton's decision in September to postpone deployment of a National Missile Defense (NMD) system puts the issue in the lap of the next president, George W. Bush. A strong advocate of NMD, Bush has argued that "America must build effective missile defenses based on the best available options at the earlier possible date." However, he has not yet publicly discussed the intractable technical and political problems raised by NMD that, so far, are without solution. Strikingly, the difficulties that plague today's NMD parallel those that tied up the missile defense system of thirty years ago. During the Johnson and Nixon administrations the system's name was the anti-ballistic missile (ABM). The underlying technologies, especially the interceptor, are significantly different: anti-ballistic missiles relied on exploding nuclear weapons near the path of incoming reentry vehicles, while NMD seeks to hit "a bullet with a bullet." In other respects, however, the issues raised in the earlier debates over ballistic missile defense are as fresh as today's headlines: Will it work? Will the allies object? Will it start a new arms race? The old debate is worth revisiting because as George Santayana once observed, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

" Both ABM and NMD can be seen as responses to the nuclear proliferation problem: NMD is ostensibly designed to ward off missile threats from small proliferators such as North Korea, while the first ABM program was aimed at China, the most recent nuclear power of the day. Moreover, both systems faced significant opposition abroad and at home, although domestic U.S. critics are less influential today. Finally, Moscow was opposed to an ABM race and worked hard to avoid one. Besieged with criticism, the ABM was eventually abandoned; NMD could meet a similar end, although that appears less likely.1

" Pressures to develop an ABM system emerged during the late 1950s, when it was feared that a "missile gap" would make the United States vulnerable to Soviet attack. Although presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson authorized significant R&D funding, the ABM issue became apparently more acute when the Soviet Union deployed the Moscow ABM system ("Galosh") during the mid-1960s. Under pressure from Congressional hawks and the Joint Chiefs, during mid-1967, the Johnson administration made a decision to deploy a light ABM system, eventually designated Sentinel. Not wanting to accelerate the arms race with the Soviet Union, when Secretary of Defense McNamara announced the decision, he rationalized it by emphasizing the need for defense against a prospective Chinese missile threat. Sentinel's architects also expected it to play a role in providing some defense for Minuteman silos. When the Nixon administration came to power in 1969, Sentinel was soon renamed Safeguard, but its missions were essentially the same.2

" President Nixon sought a 12-site system to provide area defense against small-scale nuclear threats (China, unauthorized or accidental launches) and to protect Minuteman, but domestic and foreign policy considerations forced major program changes. Unlike today, missile defense encountered powerful Congressional opposition that was supported by the expertise of influential scientists. Opponents were skeptical that the system would work because of its great complexity. Moreover, they worried that fielding an extensive ABM system would aggravate the arms race and create greater U.S.-Soviet tensions and instability. Not only would a new area of competition--anti-missile systems--be created, deploying ABM systems would create pressure for more missiles and warheads to penetrate defenses.3

" Domestic pressures and the requirement

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