Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Missile Defense

  • US Missile Defense: The Magic Pudding that Will Never Run Out

    Article originally appeared in the Guardian Comment is Free

    It’s a novel way to take your own life. Just as Russia demonstrates what happens to former minions that annoy it, Poland agrees to host a US missile defence base. The Russians, as Poland expected, respond to this proposal by offering to turn the country into a parking lot. This proves that the missile defence system is necessary after all: it will stop the missiles Russia will now aim at Poland, the Czech Republic and the UK in response to, er, their involvement in the missile defence system.

    The American government insists that the interceptors, which will be stationed on the Baltic coast, have nothing to do with Russia: their purpose is to defend Europe and the US against the intercontinental ballistic missiles Iran and North Korea don’t possess. This is why they are being placed in Poland, which, as every geography student in Texas knows, shares a border with both rogue states.

    They permit us to look forward to a glowing future, in which missile defence, according to the Pentagon, will “protect our homeland … and our friends and allies from ballistic missile attack”; as long as the Russians wait until it’s working before they nuke us. The good news is that, at the present rate of progress, reliable missile defence is only 50 years away. The bad news is that it has been 50 years away for the past six decades.

    The system has been in development since 1946, and so far it has achieved a grand total of nothing. You wouldn’t know it if you read the press releases published by the Pentagon’s missile defence agency: the word “success” features more often than any other noun. It is true that the programme has managed to hit two out of the five missiles fired over the past five years during tests of its main component, the ground-based midcourse missile defence (GMD) system. But, sadly, these tests bear no relation to anything resembling a real nuclear strike.

    All the trials run so far – successful or otherwise – have been rigged. The target, its type, trajectory and destination, are known before the test begins. Only one enemy missile is used, as the system doesn’t have a hope in hell of knocking down two or more. If decoy missiles are deployed, they bear no resemblance to the target and they are identified as decoys in advance. In order to try to enhance the appearance of success, recent flight tests have become even less realistic: the agency has now stopped using decoys altogether when testing its GMD system.

    This points to one of the intractable weaknesses of missile defence: it is hard to see how the interceptors could ever outwit enemy attempts to confuse them. As Philip Coyle – formerly a senior official at the Pentagon with responsibility for missile defence – points out, there are endless means by which another state could fool the system. For every real missile it launched, it could dispatch a host of dummies with the same radar and infra-red signatures. Even balloons or bits of metal foil would render anything resembling the current system inoperable. You can reduce a missile’s susceptibility to laser penetration by 90% by painting it white. This sophisticated avoidance technology, available from your local hardware shop, makes another multibillion component of the programme obsolete. Or you could simply forget about ballistic missiles and attack using cruise missiles, against which the system is useless.

    Missile defence is so expensive and the measures required to evade it so cheap that if the US government were serious about making the system work it would bankrupt the country, just as the arms race helped to bring the Soviet Union down. By spending a couple of billion dollars on decoy technologies, Russia would commit the US to trillions of dollars of countermeasures. The cost ratios are such that even Iran could outspend the US.

    The US has spent between $120bn and $150bn on the programme since Ronald Reagan relaunched it in 1983. Under George Bush, the costs have accelerated. The Pentagon has requested $62bn for the next five-year tranche, which means that the total cost between 2003 and 2013 will be $110bn. Yet there are no clear criteria for success. As a recent paper in the journal Defense and Security Analysis shows, the Pentagon invented a new funding system in order to allow the missile defence programme to evade the government’s usual accounting standards. It’s called spiral development, which is quite appropriate, because it ensures that the costs spiral out of control.

    Spiral development means, in the words of a Pentagon directive, that “the end-state requirements are not known at programme initiation”. Instead, the system is allowed to develop in whatever way officials think fit. The result is that no one has the faintest idea what the programme is supposed to achieve, or whether it has achieved it. There are no fixed dates, no fixed costs for any component of the programme, no penalties for slippage or failure, no standards of any kind against which the system can be judged. And this monstrous scheme is still incapable of achieving what a few hundred dollars’ worth of diplomacy could do in an afternoon.

    So why commit endless billions to a programme that is bound to fail? I’ll give you a clue: the answer is in the question. It persists because it doesn’t work.

    US politics, because of the failure by both Republicans and Democrats to deal with the problems of campaign finance, is rotten from head to toe. But under Bush, the corruption has acquired Nigerian qualities. Federal government is a vast corporate welfare programme, rewarding the industries that give millions of dollars in political donations with contracts worth billions. Missile defence is the biggest pork barrel of all, the magic pudding that won’t run out, however much you eat. The funds channelled to defence, aerospace and other manufacturing and service companies will never run dry because the system will never work.

    To keep the pudding flowing, the administration must exaggerate the threats from nations that have no means of nuking it – and ignore the likely responses of those that do. Russia is not without its own corrupting influences. You could see the grim delight of the Russian generals and defence officials last week, who have found in this new deployment an excuse to enhance their power and demand bigger budgets. Poor old Poland, like the Czech Republic and the UK, gets strongarmed into becoming America’s groundbait.

    If we seek to understand American foreign policy in terms of a rational engagement with international problems, or even as an effective means of projecting power, we are looking in the wrong place. The government’s interests have always been provincial. It seeks to appease lobbyists, shift public opinion at crucial stages of the political cycle, accommodate crazy Christian fantasies and pander to television companies run by eccentric billionaires. The US does not really have a foreign policy. It has a series of domestic policies which it projects beyond its borders. That they threaten the world with 57 varieties of destruction is of no concern to the current administration. The only question of interest is who gets paid and what the political kickbacks will be.

  • NATO Nuclear Weapons: Power Without Purpose

    David KriegerEurope is heavily armed with nuclear weapons. Both Britain and France possess their own nuclear forces and the United States has a long history of keeping nuclear weapons on European soil. Britain’s nuclear force is estimated at under 200 weapons, with approximately 150 deployed on four Vanguard submarines and the remainder kept in reserve. France is thought to have approximately 350 nuclear weapons in its Force de frappe (strike force). The US keeps some 200-350 nuclear weapons in six countries: Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy, Turkey and the UK. Recent unconfirmed reports indicate that the US has pulled its nuclear weapons out of the UK. If this is correct, approximately 240 US nuclear weapons remain in five European countries.

    On the NATO website, it states, “NATO has radically reduced its reliance on nuclear forces. Their role is now more fundamentally political, and they are no longer directed towards a specific threat.” This is a rather enigmatic statement, leaving one to ponder how nuclear weapons are used in a “fundamentally political” role. The NATO website adds, “NATO’s reduced reliance on nuclear forces has been manifested in a dramatic reduction in the number of weapons systems and storage facilities. NATO has also ended the practice of maintaining standing peacetime nuclear contingency plans and as a result, NATO’s nuclear forces no longer target any country.”

    Given the fact that NATO does not target any other country with nuclear weapons, one wonders what role they still serve. Again, the NATO website provides an answer, which is “to maintain only the minimum number of nuclear weapons necessary to support its strategy of preserving peace and preventing war.” But this still leaves one wondering with whom one is “preserving peace and preventing war.” Although nothing is stated, it would seem that the answer is likely to be Russia. This might explain why NATO has expanded up to the Russian western border, despite earlier US promises to Russia not to do so, and also why the US continues to pursue the placement of missile defense installations in new NATO states Poland and the Czech Republic, despite continuing Russian protests.

    NATO reasoning for maintaining nuclear weapons seems very flimsy. If there is anything that is clear about nuclear weapons, it is that they cannot protect their possessors. All of the nuclear weapons in Europe cannot protect any European city from a nuclear attack by an extremist organization. Reliance upon these weapons provides an incentive for nuclear proliferation, increasing the possibilities that these weapons will fall into the hands of such an organization and will be used.

    If European nations want to provide true security to the citizens of their countries, they should end NATO’s reliance upon nuclear weapons by taking the following steps:

    • Call for the removal of all US nuclear weapons from Europe.
    • Call for the US to remove its missile defense installations from the Russian border
    • Negotiate the removal of all tactical nuclear weapons from Europe and the western regions of Russia.
    • Create a global treaty to bring all weapons-grade fissile material under strict and effective international control.
    • Call for the NATO nuclear weapons states (US, UK and France) to fulfill their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament.
    • Take a leading role in initiating negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, setting forth a roadmap for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.
    • Join Russia and China in negotiating a ban on space weaponization.
    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and a councilor of the World Future Council (www.worldfuturecouncil.org).

  • Support the Czech Hunger Strikers

    On May 13th, Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar began a hunger strike in Prague. They are asking for respect for the expressed will of 70% of the people of the Czech Republic and that a democratic referendum be held to determine whether or not to install a U.S. military base on Czech territory. “We have tried almost everything, but our government has failed to listen to us,” says Tamas.
    The U.S. government, as part of its global so-called “Missile Defense” initiative, is planning to install a radar base in the Czech Republic, despite the opposition of the overwhelming majority of the Czech people. Although it is presented as a defense system against possible attacks from non-existent Iranian missiles, the “Missile Defense” system is, in fact, a first strike weapon. It is a tool for global dominance which represents the first step towards U.S. weaponization and control of space. It is seen by the Czech Republic’s neighbor and former Cold War ally, Russia, as a threat and a provocation, which is spurring Russia to engage in a new arms race with the United States.
    For over two years, citizens in the Czech Republic have repeatedly expressed their opposition to the proposed base through mass demonstrations, opinion polls, and petitions, yet the Czech government has refused to allow a public debate on the issue. Time is now running out, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to travel to Prague in June to sign the agreement between the two countries.
    We can show our support for the hunger strikers as we call upon our own government to end its plans for the “Missile Defense” project, which endangers the peace and co-existence of people worldwide. While a military base in the Czech Republic would be located thousands of miles away from the U.S., it would have major implications for people around the United States and the world.

    Leslie Cagan is National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (www.unitedforpeace.org).

    Here’s what you can do:
    1) Add your name to the more than 99,000 people who have already signed the online petition – and then encourage others to sign on as well: http://www.nonviolence.cz You can also read messages of support that have come in from around the world at http://www.nenasili.cz/en/723_messages-of-support
    2) Throughout Europe groups have been demonstrating their support for the hunger strikers – as well as their opposition to the U.S. “Missile Defense” initiative. Find out more about these activities: http://nenasili.cz/en/1081_campaign-in-europe
    3) Make sure your member of Congress knows about your opposition to the radar base in the Czech Republic, and to the whole “Missile Defense” initiative. Click here to see a letter that Congressman Dennis Kucinich recently wrote in support of the hunger strikers.
    4) Forward this message to others in your networks!
  • Troubling Questions About Missile Defense

    Troubling Questions About Missile Defense

    On September 1, 2006, the US held a missile defense test, which has been widely heralded by the government as a “success.” The $80 million test involved a dummy warhead launched from Kodiak Island in Alaska, which was intercepted and destroyed by an interceptor missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

    Lt. General Henry Obering III, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, was rhapsodic in his praise for the test: “I don’t want to ask the North Koreans to launch against us – that would be a realistic end-to-end test. Short of that, this is about as good as it gets.”

    For the defense contractors profiting from the missile defense system, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, this must be about as good as it gets. But the rest of the American public, who might end up as victims of a nuclear attack and who have already paid over $100 billion for the development of missile defenses, are entitled to a lot more clarity on just how realistic such a test is. While the interceptor missile did destroy the dummy warhead, there are many questions worth asking.

    First, if the system works so well, why did it have to be postponed due to bad weather the previous day? Will the system work only in good weather? Will cloud cover make the system ineffective?

    Second, did the Missile Defense Agency include a homing device in the dummy warhead, as it has frequently done in the past, to help guide the interceptor missile to its target? Homing devices in the target dummy warheads have made the missile defense tests seem a lot more successful than they really are, and it is highly unlikely that a potential enemy would want to help our missile defense system by placing homing devices in their warheads.

    Third, would the system be able to work against a sophisticated attacking missile that was able to take evasive action or against an attack by multiple missiles? There is also the question of whether the system would be able to find the real warheads hidden in a volley of decoys.

    After the recent test, General Obering commented, “I feel a lot safer and sleep a lot better at night.” While the general may feel safer, I doubt that the American people should feel safer until these questions are answered to their satisfaction.

    If the rest of us want to join General Obering in feeling safer and sleeping better at night, perhaps we should encourage our government leaders to try diplomacy aimed at building friendships and partnerships with potential enemies, rather than continuing to base our security and our future on a costly and ineffectual missile defense system that is likely to fail under real world conditions. Another cost effective way of improving our security would be to encourage our top officials to show some actual leadership in achieving the obligations for nuclear disarmament that are set forth in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • War Beyond Earth is Not Inevitable

    Canada’s major political parties are united in opposing the weaponization of space. It was principally the strength of this feeling that caused Canada to decline its closest ally’s invitation to participate in continental missile defence, seen by many as opening the way to weapons in space. The popular support for missile defence in Canada was lacking.

    This was not the first time Canada said no to missile defence. Fifteen years earlier, a Conservative government rejected Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars. The technology on that occasion was impressive, the political pressures great, and the commercial advantages apparent.

    Why does Canada make such seemingly perverse decisions?

    One answer is that we are a nation of many cultures, directing attention outward. Such a nation is less likely to seek its security behind the walls of borders, or missile defence. The other part of the story is Canada’s commitment to a different sort of bulwark: international law. This is the key to Canadian attitudes on both missile defence and the weaponization of space. One should not claim this as pure virtue; it’s to be expected that the weak will favour law. It was not King John but the nobles who insisted on the Magna Carta (the nobles were right).

    Today’s transformation of the world scene is as important as that of King John’s day. It stems from the fundamental question where current trends in weapons development are likely to extrapolate. To what secure outcome could they possibly lead? To each new weapon, there will always be a counter, and to each fear that gave rise to that weapon, a sequel. The most obvious sequel will be the spread of the weapon into the hands of our opponents. Technological dominance cannot endure. Prevention of the spread of weapons is regarded as an essential adjunct to their possession. But power alone will not prevent that spread. One also needs persuasion. And there lies the problem. How does one persuade others to behave differently from oneself?

    Only the example of restraint can foster restraint; one can only have recourse to the restraint called law, if one acknowledges the supremacy of law. It is this realization that is slowly transforming the world. But too slowly.

    In their respect for law, nations, like individuals, will always be deficient. But they cannot afford to be as deficient as today.

    It would be difficult to envisage a better arena for restraint than space. It is a medium all share, since all border on it. Its worth can be judged from the global investment that has literally rocketed in a lifetime from zero to the order of a trillion dollars.

    Hugely valuable, it is equally vulnerable. Nonetheless, it remains for the present protected only by custom and law. These are the instruments we must strengthen.

    How far have we come?

    Before Donald Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defence, he headed a bipartisan commission that warned that war in space was “a virtual certainty.” In its 2001 report, it argued, “We know from history that every medium – air, land and sea – has seen conflict. Reality indicates that space will be no different.” In a nuclear-armed world, this sort of argument from history is a counsel of despair, telling us that whatever can happen will.

    The proponents of the argument do not despair; they offer the illusory hope of single-nation dominance. They urge the United States to claim the strategic high ground of space. But a large constituency is aware that a few per cent of the world’s population cannot forever dominate.

    With that in mind, the United States joined with other major powers, as long ago as 1967, through the Outer Space Treaty, in embracing the obligation to use outer space “for the benefit ….. of all countries ….. [and as] the province of all mankind.” The impetus toward that agreement can be traced back still further to Dwight Eisenhower’s visionary 1958 proposal for banning weapons from space.

    The norm against hostile acts against satellites was established more explicitly by the U.S.-Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which for decades banned interference with another nation’s eyes or ears in space. The spirit of that agreement has been re-enforced by repeated resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly in support of the “Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space” (PAROS).

    We have an opportunity today to move further in the direction of a regime of law in space, which would prohibit the testing and deployment of weapons, with all possible provisions for verification. There will be problems, but they are comparable with those we have addressed in preventing mayhem on our streets and piracy at sea. It is hard to believe that these problems will be more demanding than those we’ll face if we allow outer space to degenerate into a jungle.

    Sixty years into the atomic age, we have not yet committed ourselves to restraint. Where outer space is concerned, the opportunity will not come again. Carpe diem.

    Nobel laureate John Polanyi is a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto. This article is adapted from a speech Polanyi gave at a NPRI conference, Full Spectrum Dominance.

    Originally published by Global and Mail.com (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050517.wcomment0518/BNStory/National/)

  • Missile Counter-Attack Open Letter to US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice

    Dear Condi,

    I’m glad you’ve decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It’s a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.

    I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

    But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can’t quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

    As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we’ve had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we’re going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.

    Sure, that doesn’t match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a “liberation war” in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.

    Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government’s role should be when there isn’t a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.

    Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such as missile defence can be made openly.

    You might also notice that it’s a system in which the governing party’s caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don’t want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada’s continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.

    Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.

    Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one- party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.

    If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don’t embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.

    Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the “northern territories,” Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn’t really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.

    Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of ‘experts’ from Calgary think-tanks and neo-con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).

    I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti- Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.

    These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.

    To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.

    To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court — which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.

    And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed — beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.

    On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ while you’re in Ottawa. It’s a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.

    This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means.

    There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world’s largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.

    Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree — and agree to respect each other’s views when we disagree.

    Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.

    In friendship, Lloyd Axworthy

    Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister.

    (c) 2005 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.

  • Rethink Missile Defense Plan

    Most Americans would agree that the country faces multiple threats.

    Osama bin Laden remains at large. North Korea is pressing ahead with its nuclear program, and Iran is likely to become the newest member of the nuclear club. In Iraq, the stubborn insurgency takes a daily toll on American forces and has stretched the Army thin.

    Refusing to set priorities in this dangerous world would qualify as the “failure of imagination” the 9/11 Commission warned about. And yet that’s what the White House and Congress are showing as they rush to deploy a faulty missile defense system against a threat that, for now, is relatively low.

    That’s not to say that missile defense is without future value or that the threat is nonexistent. Intelligence sources say North Korea may have an untested missile that could reach the United States, and in time, other countries will acquire that capability. But deploying a missile defense program before it’s proven won’t deter enemies, and it drains funds from more urgent priorities.

    Even if last week’s $85 million test of an interceptor missile had worked – which it didn’t – the White House would still fall short in its rationale for spending $11 billion a year on the system. That’s double what the Clinton administration spent on its policy of “robust research and development” of missile defense, and it comes at a time when the federal deficit is out of control.

    The system being developed would rely on interceptor missiles in California and Alaska and aboard ships to attack enemy missiles at liftoff. Airborne lasers would fire at warheads re-entering the atmosphere.

    As Ronald Reagan learned from his “Star Wars” proposal, a missile defense system wouldn’t stop a massive attack from a super power. It’s intended, instead, to stop a very small number of missiles from rogue nations such as North Korea or Iran.

    But weigh the program against other threats that compete with it for funding:

    . Loose warheads . A terrorist group obtaining nuclear warheads or chemical and biological weapons from the former Soviet Union’s tattered arsenal could strike the United States by smuggling a bomb across our porous borders. A rogue state might also prefer that method of attack since, unlike a missile, a suitcase bomb leaves no “return address.”

    . New threats . The military has a term for the new threats it faces: asymmetric warfare. Building a military with the size, speed and flexibility to defeat new enemies means restraining spending on old threats such as Cold War-era ballistic missiles.

    . Short-range missiles . The threat from short-range missiles fired by Iran or North Korea is very real, as the Israelis and Japanese well know. But the missile defense program does little to protect U.S. allies or troops stationed abroad.

    As for the ballistic missile threat from rogue nations, the potential danger is real enough to warrant continued research but not premature deployment.

    Deploying a system that repeatedly fails sends a message that missile defense is more about politics than protection. This is not the time for a lapse in imagination.

  • Blast from the Past: National Missile Defense is Back

    Sometime in mid-September, a Minuteman III ballistic missile carrying a dummy nuclear warhead will be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base and travel 4,800 miles towards Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands . 20 minutes later, a multiple-stage booster rocket launched from Kwajalein will deliver a “kill vehicle” some 100 miles above earth. Aided by military satellites and an array of ground-based radars, the “kill vehicle” will hone in on the missile and make a “fly-by” without actually intercepting it. Another test will take place a couple months later, probably timed for the November election. If all goes well, the Missile Defense Agency and the Bush administration will rejoice – the U.S. will be just one step away from having an “operational” Ground-Based Mid-course Defense system (GMD), one component of a national missile defense.

    GMD’s job is to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with missiles, the proverbial “hitting a bullet with a bullet.” If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. While most Americans remember the Reagan-era “Star Wars” project – a technically unfeasible boondoggle – they may be unaware that a similar project is coming to fruition in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 era. In just four short years, the Bush administration has poured $20 billion into developing and deploying a staggering global network of radar, satellites, and sea-, land-, space-, and air-based defense systems, designed to intercept missiles at any point in their flight. This complex, integrated system is collectively called the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). President Bush is prepared to announce that the GMD component is ready to be deployed as the first rudimentary step towards full national missile defense. By the end of the year, six missile silos in Alaska will be equipped with interceptor missiles on alert; four more will be in place at Vandenberg.

    This all may come as a surprise to many Americans whose focus has been on two wars and the global fight against terror in the past three years. In the era of low-tech terror, precious resources are being spent to combat a non-existent threat using Cold War technology. Nonetheless, national missile defense is quickly becoming a reality, thanks to the efforts of defense companies, hawks in the Bush administration, and the complicity of some Democrats. “Reality,” however, is a relative term. When GMD goes on-line later this year it will only be “operational” in 3 out of 23 essential categories, according to the Center for Defense Information. Furthermore, out of the eight intercept tests conducted since 1999, only five have succeeded. Five out of eight may not sound so bad, until you consider that the tests are stage-managed to produce positive results. For example, the target in a July 2001 test had a beacon attached to it that helped the “kill vehicle” score a hit. The General Accounting Office has charged, ” As a result of testing shortfalls and the limited time available to test the BMDS being fielded, system effectiveness will be largely unproven when the initial capability goes on alert…” In other words, there is no evidence to demonstrate that missile defense currently works. There may never be since it is impossible to conduct a “realistic” test outside of an actual attack.

    Even if missile defense’s problems were limited to kinks that technicians could work out, what is the big rush to have a system ready this year? The Bush administration cites the necessity of dealing with ICBMs in the hands of “rogue states,” especially North Korea . However, North Korea poses only a distant threat in this area because it neither currently possesses the capability nor is likely to use an ICBM because the U.S. could easily track the missile and retaliate with devastating force.

    Missile defense is an old idea that just won’t die. It’s been kept alive through changing times and evolving threats through hubris and the will of powerful, well-connected interests. National missile defense drains resources needed to promote peace at home and abroad; threatens global security by trashing long-standing treaties; and provides incentives for other countries to step up their own missile programs.

    *Forrest Wilder is the Ruth Floyd Summer Intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a graduate of the University of Texas

  • Clouds Also are Missile Shields

    Now that the president finally has announced his intention to rid us of that pesky Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, I have decided to reconsider my concerns about strategic defense.

    I used to worry that insurmountable technical barriers, combined with the lack of a clear strategic threat, made considerations of abrogating the long-standing ABM treaty premature. But clearly things have changed.

    For example, some misguided critics may worry that the most recent successful test of our National Missile Defense technology was put off for several days because of bad weather. I am not worried, however, because I expect that any rogue state or terrorist cell would certainly not want to launch a surprise attack against this country if it were cloudy. After all, they would want to see the devastation their missiles had wreaked, and clouds would get in the way.

    Some critics might worry because in this test, as in the last “successful” test of our NMD technology, the target missile carried a homing beacon that the interceptor was able to use to locate it. I am not worried, however, because I fully expect that any aggressor would want to know where their own weapons were located, and thus would arm their missiles not just with nuclear weapons, but with radios.

    Some critics might argue that the ABM treaty has thus far not gotten in the way of testing a system that is sufficiently far from being “ready,” so that there is little justification to abrogate the treaty at the present time. But there is a new mood in the country and the world following Sept. 11. Now is clearly an opportune political time to move ahead on systems and unilateral actions that might otherwise be proposed on practical or diplomatic grounds.

    Some critics might worry that China, with only 20 to 30 nuclear weapons, will now have good reason to ramp up its missile program so as to be able to overcome any limited defense system. I am not worried, however, because while our current plans would make them crazy not to do so, China’s leaders might have done this anyway.

    Some critics might worry that devoting even more money to a hypothetical defense program that has thus far cost more than $700 billion over the past 25 years without producing a working prototype is poor strategic and economic policy. I am not worried, however, because now that we have officially committed to having budget deficits for the foreseeable future we do not have to be so picky in choosing how to spend defense dollars.

    Some critics may be concerned that the Sept. 11 bombings demonstrate that the threats we face are more likely to come from diffuse terrorist organizations than from organized states with complex military industrial structures, and that even if such terrorists organizations did manage to possess nuclear weapons capabilities there are numerous covert ways to deliver them that make more strategic sense than putting them on a ballistic missile. However, I am not worried because the president has told us that everything has changed since Sept. 11, and that new urgent terrorist threats make all such traditional thinking obsolete.

    Surely now is not the time to criticize our government’s unilateral initiatives on matters of international security. We are at war, and what might be previously construed as mere logic must now be carefully re-examined in case it opposes the administration’s interpretation of our vital national security interests. After all, I wouldn’t want to have to start worrying about being called before a secret tribunal to defend my views.

    * Krauss is chairman of the physics department at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the American Physical Society’s Panel on Public Affairs.

    (c) 2001 The Plain Dealer.

  • Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty Threatens US and International Security

    The Bush Administration’s announcement on 13 December to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in order to proceed with plans to develop and deploy ballistic missile defenses threatens both US and international security. The announcement that the US will withdraw from the accord negotiated with the former USSR is a signal that the US is willing to act unilaterally and outside the jurisdiction of international law. US withdrawal from the ABM treaty may provoke arms races, including in Outer Space, and undermine international disarmament and non-proliferation efforts.

    The deployment of ballistic missile defenses is not an effective means to countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. The deployment of ballistic missile defenses will only produce instability and insecurity in critical regions of the world, including in North East Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia.

    Although the proposed US missile defense systems would have been utterly useless in the 11 September terrorist attacks, the Pentagon and other proponents of the systems have continued to call for increased funding for missile defense in the US 2002 fiscal year (FY 2002). The FY 2002 Defense Authorization Bill includes $7 to $8.3 billion for missile defense spending (the President is provided authority to spend $1.3 billion either for missile defense or to combat terrorism, a $3 billion or 57% increase over the authorized FY 2001 budget.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an international non-profit, non-partisan education and advocacy organization, believes that a much better option to increase global cooperation and security is to preserve the ABM Treaty until something more comprehensive can replace it. While the stated purpose of ballistic missile defense systems is to defend against missile attacks, it is unlikely that they could do so effectively.

    Additionally, the inherent link between the deployment of ballistic missile defense and the weaponization of outer space means that withdrawal from the ABM Treaty will allow the US to continue conduct tests of space weapons. A far better option for the US would be to take the lead on long-promised negotiations for the abolition of nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation urges Congress oppose the President’s announced withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. The Foundation also urges the US, Russia, China, and other countries to renew and fulfill their commitments to multilateral agreements, in particular all nuclear weapons states should fulfill their nuclear disarmament obligations in accordance to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    For more information on global initiatives to prevent the proliferation of ballistic missiles and abolish weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, please visit the website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com.