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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 - 05:28pm Jul 12, 2001 EST (#6981 of 6982)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

U.S. Sets Missile Defense Plan, Threatening 1972 ABM Pact By DAVID STOUT http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/12/politics/12CND-MISS.html

"WASHINGTON, July 12 — The Pentagon wants to start construction in April of facilities for a missile-defense shield that could put the United States in violation of a 1972 treaty banning such defenses, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told lawmakers today.

"In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Wolfowitz did not describe the facilities in detail. But he appeared to be referring, at least in part, to the Pentagon's already announced intention to begin preliminary work next month on a new missile-defense site at Fort Greely, Ala.

"Mr. Wolfowitz told the senators that violations of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow might occur sooner rather than later, yet he held out optimism that hard feelings between the United States and Russia might be softened at the same time.

""Will these tests exceed the limits of the treaty?" Mr. Wolfowitz asked. "In each case, you will be able to find lawyers who can argue all three sides of the coin."

"In any event, he said, Pentagon planners hope to clear up disagreements with Moscow almost as fast as they come up. "We would expect to identify any such issue six months in advance of its occurrence," he said.

""At that point, we will either have reached an understanding with Russia — in which case, the question would be moot — or we would be left with two far-from-optimal choices: either to allow an obsolete treaty to prevent us from doing everything we can to defend America or to withdraw from that treaty unilaterally, which we have every legal right to do."

Comment: a hardball, but not necessarily unreasonable postion, taken in isolation.

"President Bush has contended that the 1972 treaty is now outmoded because the Soviet Union and the cold war have passed into history and been supplanted by more diverse and unpredictable threats from terrorists and rogue nations, and Mr. Wolfowitz reiterated those themes today.

"The time has come to lift our heads from the sand and deal with unpleasant but indisputable facts," he said.

Comment: the existence of the threat, and its size and probability remain a key questions of fact.

(more)

rshowalter - 05:32pm Jul 12, 2001 EST (#6982 of 6982)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

"We must dust off technologies that were shelved, consider new ones, and bring them all into the development and testing process."

Comment: That makes sense if missile defense contains good options -- which it may not. --- Options are only good, I'd argue, after proposals work on paper by reasonable engineering standards - in terms of open literature performance, and accountable advances (or "miracles.").

"The Pentagon has scheduled a test flight on Saturday of interceptors designed to shoot down long-range missiles. An attempt a year ago ended in failure.

"Skeptics of the missile-defense idea have expressed unease not only about the treaty aspects but about whether it is even practical.

" " All of us hope that Saturday's test will be successful ," said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the committee. " However, the future of a research program will not hinge on the success or failure of any one test. Learning whether or not a system can be developed and understanding the true cost will take many tests over many years ."

Comment, in the auto industry, where people put together complex systems that work, commitment to production happens after those test, which often do take years -- after proposed systems work on paper.

""But there's a more fundamental uncertainty than the outcome of Saturday's test or future tests ," Mr. Levin went on. " Would a national missile-defense system that is unilaterally deployed and in conflict with a treaty produce a destabilizing response from other countries and increase the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction?"

Comment: There are questions of fact and probability here that can be checked -- and much of the checking is likely to be done best if it is done in public.

"Senator John Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the committee, took a different view. "I think it's far too early to get tangled up in the small details of the lawyers trying to determine, `Does this or does that not comply with the ABM Treaty,' " he said. "So far as I know, the president has made good faith efforts in consultation with our allies, he has had preliminary discussions with Russia. This system which defends us against only perhaps as many as a dozen missiles is not a threat to the awesome — and I repeat, awesome — inventory of missiles that Russia has today in an operational status."

Comment: That's reasonable - it seems to me, also, that the Russians are responding with too much concern. Perhaps much too much concern -- because the systems being proposed may not defend the US against any missiles under tactical conditions.

"Many such discussions and debates lie ahead, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. For now, Mr. Wolfowitz said, the emphasis should be on peace and understanding, not saber-rattling.

""We're optimistic about the prospects of reaching an understanding with Russia because the cold war is over, the Soviet Union is gone, Russia is not our enemy, we are not longer locked in a posture of cold war ideological antagonism," he said.

Comment: Even if missile defense never works and never deploys - if it destabilizes an outmoded system and leads to significant reduction of nuclear and other risks, it will have been justified.

" "The missile defenses we deploy will be precisely that — defenses. They will threaten no one. They will, however, deter those who would threaten us or our friends with ballistic missile attack. "

Comment: If they work, and if the concerns of the Russians, Chinese and others, which are mostly about related issues of military balance, can be adressed.

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