Missile Defense | Introduction
On June 15, 2002, groundbreaking ceremonies were held at a test site in Delta Junction, Alaska, to celebrate a $64 billion program to develop a national missile defense (NMD) system for the United States. The ceremony also marked the end of a diplomatic era by signifying America’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a thirty-year-old pact between the United States and the Soviet Union (later Russia) that had banned such missile defense development. The termination of the ABM Treaty was hailed by some observers as a welcome step toward defending America from missile attack. For others, the end of the treaty signified a step toward a dangerous new arms race.
In 1972, when the ABM Treaty was negotiated, the United States and the Soviet Union were the world’s dominant superpowers. They were locked in longstanding “Cold War” hostilities toward each other, which had resulted in a nuclear arms race. By 1972 both countries had thousands of missiles aimed at each other, each missile armed with one or more nuclear warheads much more destructive than the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The opposing arsenals were powerful enough to destroy each country many times over. The reason both countries developed and deployed so many seemingly redundant bombs was rooted in the logic of nuclear deterrence, sometimes referred to as MAD (mutually assured destruction). The theory was that both sides would refrain from actually using these weapons in order to avoid being destroyed by the other country’s nuclear response.
The ABM Treaty, which was signed by American president Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in May 1972, was also to some extent an outgrowth of MAD. The goal was to prevent a defensive arms race as well as maintain each side’s nuclear deterrent over the other. If one side developed a system that prevented enemy missiles from reaching their targets, nuclear deterrence would no longer apply and a nuclear war might result. The ABM Treaty did not totally ban missile defense but it severely limited the number and range of defensive missiles each country could deploy.
For thirty years the ABM Treaty—viewed by many observers as the cornerstone of arms control between the two superpowers—was the diplomatic backdrop to debates within the United States over developing missile defense. It figured prominently in the debate over President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Reagan’s plan, dubbed “Star Wars” by the media, proposed an array of satellite-based and other weapons that would intercept and destroy enemy missiles and make the Soviet nuclear arsenal, in Reagan’s words, “impotent and obsolete.” However, his proposal was strongly criticized by members of Congress and others as reckless and unworkable—and a violation of the ABM Treaty to boot. Reagan’s successors, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, continued to fund some missile defense research but kept such research within the limits of the ABM Treaty.
George W. Bush takes office
When George W. Bush became president in 2001, the cause of missile defense was significantly boosted. Bush argued that the ABM Treaty had outlived its usefulness and was an unnecessary roadblock to national missile defense. The world had changed since 1972, Bush and his supporters argued, noting the fact that the Cold War ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. The republic of Russia, which inherited most of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal and its international obligations including the ABM Treaty, has agreed to a series of cutbacks on its nuclear forces, making it less of a threat to America.
The leading nuclear threats now facing the United States, Bush and others contend, are countries such as North Korea, Iraq, or Iran who harbor hostilities toward the United States and are suspected of developing nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence cannot be counted on to deter such “rogue” states, Bush and his defenders maintain. “Deterrence can no longer be based solely on the threat of nuclear retaliation,” Bush declared in a May 2001 speech. “Today’s world requires a new policy.”
In December 2001 Bush formally gave Russia and the world a sixmonth notice (provided for in the pact) that the United States would withdraw from the ABM Treaty in order to pursue rapid deployment of a missile defense system. Unlike Reagan’s SDI, the missile defense system proposed by the Bush administration would protect U.S. allies and deployed forces in addition to the United States itself.
Bush’s decision to abrogate the ABM Treaty removed one major obstacle to the development of an American missile defense system. Other significant obstacles remain, however, including technological hurdles. Opponents of missile defense maintain that the task of intercepting and destroying incoming ballistic missiles is a formidable one—and that letting even one nuclear missile slip by is an unacceptable risk. Other potential obstacles to missile defense include the reaction of other countries. Critics argue that an aggressive U.S. pursuit of missile defense risks alienating many countries (including American allies), and might provoke China or Russia or other nations to develop more sophisticated offensive weapons.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, added new elements to the debate about national missile defense. Proponents argue that the attacks justify developing a missile defense system because they illustrate the gravity of the threat that terrorists pose to America—a threat that might in the future include terrorism involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Skeptics argue that a missile defense system as advocated by Bush would not have prevented the September 11 incidents— nor could it prevent a terrorist group from finding alternatives to missiles to deliver weapons of mass destruction.
America’s determined pursuit of missile defense, as indicated by Bush’s decision to shelve the ABM Treaty, guarantees that the issues surrounding it will continue to be debated. The articles in this volume present a spectrum of viewpoints on the feasibility and desirability of national missile defense.
