May 22, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Shields and Swords
by WILLIAM B. MORSE June 11, 2011
Forty years after the ABM Treaty was signed into international treaty law by US President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, and a decade after the US finally withdrew from the treaty, there are many Americans still wedded to the concept that remaining vulnerable to strategic ballistic missile attacks is a good idea.
This intellectual pathology believes that U.S. deployments of missile defenses--against long range missiles of intercontinental reach--simply encourage the other guys--our adversaries--to increase their arsenal of long range missiles to ensure their ability to strike at us during a crisis or conflict. Thus it is argued our shield produces their swords!
Most recently, missile defense critics have argued that further reductions in US and Russian nuclear weapons can only be achieved if no further US deployments of long range missile defenses take place. This includes senior members of the Russian government, many of whom have warned of a new arms race should Moscow not be given veto power over any further US missile defense deployments capable of defending the continental United States and NATO.
In the 7 June edition of Politico, one missile defense critic argued “Russia is concerned that these more potent ‘Block II’ missile defense interceptors may be capable of neutralizing some Russian nuclear forces — and will therefore upset the balance of arms agreed to in New START. Indeed, the treaty’s preamble explicitly recognizes this interplay between strategic offense and defense."
During much of the Cold War this doctrine achieved the status of holy writ. It was often known as mutual assured destruction or MAD. This was the idea--never previously propounded in the history of warfare--that being completely vulnerable to an adversary’s ballistic missiles—capable of obliterating our society--was simply the best we could hope for.
The idea was that as long as everyone was vulnerable to ballistic missile strikes of nuclear capability, no crisis would get out of hand, conflict would not emerge and the world would remain relatively safe as the deadly nuclear arsenals of the US and, at the time, the Soviet Union remained.
This doctrine, despite the end of the Cold War, has gained new currency with the recent agreement between the US and Russia to reduce their deployed nuclear arsenals to 1550, some 650 warheads below the 2002 agreement—known as the Moscow Treaty—that reduced deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 2200 from 6000.
Analysts—specifically long term opponents of missile defense-- are now claiming that further reductions are dependent upon further US restraint—(how convenient!)-- in deploying anything but the most limited of defenses against long range missile strikes.
Even though the Cold War is no longer with us, US-Russian "arms control", or specifically the further reductions of nuclear weapons toward zero, is supposedly now dependent upon the US not defending itself against either Russian or Chinese missiles, and only “a little bit” against what are now robust offensive missile programs in both the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People's Democratic Republic of Korea.
Just recently, the House Armed Services Committee considered an amendment to the defense bill deleting $100 million in support funding for our currently deployed national missile defense, with proponents of the measure complaining sustaining such US deployments were “fueling an arms race”!
Four parallel fantasies accompany this pursuit of continued mutual vulnerability. First is that ‘US and allied missile defenses don't really work so why waste our time seeking such protection.’
Second is the companion but contradictory belief that ‘the Russians and Chinese actually believe they do work and thus are scared of our intentions.’ Thus if we build our defenses—the shield—they will build more offensive missiles—the sword. This will in turn, so the theory goes, prevent any further agreement to reduce our nuclear weapons arsenals.
Third is the claim that ‘North Korea and Iran really do not have any such long range missile capability with which to threaten the continental United States or its allies.’ Therefore it is argued there is no threat now to the United States, and that there is little prospect of either country achieving such technological advances anytime in the near future.
Fourth is the assertion that ‘our missile defenses--and those deployments of our allies from Taiwan to Israel--have only served to inadvertently justify the deployment of more offensive missiles by such counties as China, Iran, North Korea and others.’ In short, it’s our fault these offensive missile threats are mounting, even though it is often argued they really don’t exist as a threat anyway. The fact that such contradictory arguments can be held simultaneously by missile defense critics is not surprising. They held the same inconsistent views thirty years ago when President Reagan first put strategic missile defenses on the table.
This “arms control catechism” is actually nothing more than an offshoot of the age-old "Always Blame America" or "Blame America First" philosophy brilliantly exposed by the late Ambassador to the UN Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick in her remarks to the Republican Presidential Convention in 1984.
Though she spoke nearly thirty years ago, her remarks are worth reviewing in some detail. She began with a review of the late 1970s. She reminded her San Diego audience:
"The Carter administration's unilateral 'restraint' in developing and deploying weapon systems was accompanied by an unprecedented Soviet buildup, military and political.”
"The Soviets, working on the margins and through the loopholes of SALT I, developed missiles of stunning speed and accuracy and targeted the cities of our friends in Europe.”
"They produced weapons capable of wiping out our land-based missiles.”
"And then, feeling strong, the Soviet leaders moved with boldness and skill to exploit their new advantages.”
"Facilities were completed in Cuba during those years that permit Soviet nuclear submarines to roam our coasts that permit planes to fly reconnaissance missions over the eastern United States, and that permit Soviet electronic surveillance to monitor our telephone calls and our telegrams.”
"Those were the years the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, while in Nicaragua the Sandinistas developed a one-party dictatorship based on the Cuban model."
And then she reminded us of the real consequences of the Soviet advances:
"From the fall of Saigon in 1975 'til January 1981, Soviet influence expanded dramatically into Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Yemen, Libya, Syria, Aden, Congo, Madagascar, Seychelles, Nicaragua, and Grenada."
15 Countries. Count them. She further reminded us:
"Soviet bloc forces and advisers sought to guarantee what they called the 'irreversibility' of their newfound influence and to stimulate insurgencies in a dozen other places.”
"During this period, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, murdered its president and began a ghastly war against the Afghan people."
And then she came to the crux of her remarks. How do America's professional critics explain these serious problems? Let us go back to what the Ambassador said:
"They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do - they didn't blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians - they blamed the United States instead.
"But then, somehow, they always blame America first.
"When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the "blame America first crowd" didn't blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.
"But then, they always blame America first."
Remember we noted that missile defense critics have for years claimed no missile threat existed to the continental United States and therefore no missile defenses were needed. There remains that thread of denial even today, even though both North Korea and Iran have tested missiles with ranges well beyond 2000 kilometers, the upward limit of what many critics claim is the outside range of the rockets of Pyongyang and Tehran.
But now, in order to justify their argument that US missile defenses would be counter-productive, they claim that our thirty interceptors deployed in Alaska and California if augmented with more defenders such as we may deploy in Europe--will not only impede Russian agreement on further reductions in nuclear weapons, but will also give impetus to further Iranian and North Korean missile deployments!
The historical record bears no resemblance to these charges. The North Korean long-range rocket program emerged in 1998 after the Clinton administration had killed our research program of missile defense for the continental US.
Only when Pyongyang’s test launch of a rocket proved their capability of hitting the US did Congress approve a missile defense policy to defend the US against such threats. And it was not until 2001-2 that the US formerly withdrew from the ABM Treaty and adopted a budget to fund and produce a missile defense of our country, a defense which is now deployed, as we mentioned above, in California and Alaska.
Critics, intent as they are to seek to blame the defenders (the US) rather than the aggressors, (North Korea and Iran), have also claimed that, for example, that Israeli's deployment of the Arrow missile defense system, (that the US has helped fund) led Iran to protect itself and build its own ballistic missiles as a counter.
So, too, it is claimed, did Taiwan's deployment of Patriot missile defenses lead to the deployment in mainland China of thousands of medium range rockets aimed at Taiwan.
And completing the false narrative, if the US does not limit its deployment of strategic ballistic missile defenses, we are told, it will find Russia either building more offensive ballistic missiles or at the very least refusing to engage in any further reductions in nuclear weapons, particularly their tactical or short range nuclear weapons which are at this time under no arms control regime.
The record shows how wrong this narrative is. Iran tested its Shahab 3 in July 2003. The Israeli Arrow was not deployed until December 2000. As for Taiwan, its purchase of Patriot missile defenses was not finalized until relatively recently, long after the PRC deployed hundreds of threatening rockets on the mainland aimed at Taipei.
How to understand this obviously unjustified narrative? It is not limited to those who hate missile defense. No, it is in the DNA of those who hold in disregard American military power. Remember the recent call from the Carnegie Endowment that the US needs to significantly reduce its conventional capability to parity with Russia, China and others. Only in this way, it is claimed, will further reductions in nuclear weaponry be possible.
Now we have an entire menu of required US measures of restraint necessary to further reduce nuclear weapons toward what these folks see as a "Global Zero". First, we have to reduce both our strategic and tactical nuclear weapons; second, we have to eliminate our advantage in conventional weaponry, (which we had previously been told allows us to safely reduce nuclear weapons in the first place); and third, we cannot deploy but token strategic ballistic missile defenses.
Let us look at the record. Would such US restraint really be beneficial to our security?
Russian SS-18 SATAN missile.
For example, the much vaunted ABM Treaty in 1972 preceded the longest and most dangerous buildup in nuclear weapons in history. The Soviet arsenal grew to more than 10,000 deployed strategic nuclear weapons, and an overall arsenal of deployed and stockpiled weapons we later learned after the end of the Cold War approached a minimum of 40,000 weapons.
The ABM Treaty capped US and Soviet strategic missile defenses at no more than 100 interceptors. This system is now in its fifth generation of modernized interceptors deployed around Moscow.
The US deployment of 100 interceptors in Grand Forks, North Dakota, was a token defense of our land-based missile retaliatory force. But given the growth in Soviet nuclear weapons, the small force of interceptors could easily be overwhelmed by the Soviet offensive warheads deployed at that time and was thus dismantled in 1974.
But critics say, yes, the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals did expand enormously even after missile defenses were curtailed. But in 1987, reductions in nuclear weapons did occur—with the signing of the INF treaty---and this could only have happened because no missile defenses beyond the token 100 interceptors was allowed by the ABM treaty.
But again, let’s look at the record. This requires going back a few years to the early part of the Carter administration. In 1977, for example, the US Secretary of State approached the Soviets to discuss reductions in nuclear weapons. He was roundly rebuffed.
SALT I was in force at the time so discussions turned to a different treaty—SALT II—which would codify another major expansion of nuclear weapons, without any limit on non-strategic nuclear weapons.
The SALT II treaty eventually was signed by President Carter. It allowed the Washington and Moscow to build up deployed nuclear forces to around at least 12,000 strategic weapons. While the SALT II treaty was withdrawn from Senate consideration because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, its warhead limits or provisions were generally followed by the two parties—precisely because it was drawn up to ratify the plans of both sides to build up deployed strategic nuclear weapons to around 12,000.
During this period, starting in 1979, the nuclear freeze movement arose, calling for arsenals to be frozen in place, even at this very high level. However, the Soviet force structure--bombers, submarines and land-based missiles-- was very much more modern then the US. Thus a freeze would have led to the eventual slow disarmament of the United States through early obsolescence of our forces while Soviet forces would have remained in the field. It was not coincidental that the nuclear freeze was originally pushed by Moscow. It was greatly to their advantage.
Opponents of the freeze, particularly candidate and then President Ronald Reagan, pushed hard for deep reductions. He also pushed for the modernization effort required to give the US the military strength with which to successfully bargain with the Soviets to get reductions in such weapons. The effort was codified in the Scowcroft Commission report of 1983 which endorsed the Reagan planned strategic modernization effort, as well as the administration’s simultaneous pursuit of major reductions in nuclear weapons.
Needless to say, the nuclear freeze critics sneered at the suggestion of reductions. They claimed the Reagan proposals were lopsided in our favor, (well of course they were!). They argued they would not be accepted by Moscow, (But they eventually were!).
Particularly controversial was Reagan’s proposal to eliminate all deployed intermediate range ballistic missiles, specifically the nearly 1800 Soviet SS-20 missile warheads deployed on Soviet bloc territory in Europe and the Far East. Key to the plan was the deployment of our won INF missiles in Germany, Britain, Italy and Holland—all opposed by the freeze movement.
The US also successfully modernized its nuclear weapons with the procurement of the B1 and B2 bombers, the Peacekeeper (the Small ICBM was R&D only), the Trident submarine and the D-5 ballistic missile and our own INF missiles, the Pershing and Ground Launched Cruise Missiles.
These systems were deployed over the strenuous objections of the freeze campaign, a collection of so-called arms control groups, leftist and Marxist and pro-Soviet entities and the usual “Always Blame America” outfits. After the end of the Cold War, it was determined that Moscow had surreptitiously poured hundreds of millions of dollars into these “freeze” efforts.
At the height of the freeze campaign, President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, a missile defense research and development program designed to allow the US to deploy sufficient defenses to make Soviet coercion and blackmail through the threatened use of its ballistic missiles "obsolete" or at the very least less likely.
At the time, the intelligence data we received about Moscow, now revealed, confirmed they were terrified Reagan would be successful in ending the Soviet push for a change in the correlation of forces that Moscow saw inexorably moving in its direction since the 1970's. Especially since the US abandoned its South Vietnamese allies and so weakened its military so as to create what came to be known as the "Hollow Army".
Even though Moscow assumed our missile defense systems would work less than perfectly, they knew that if sufficient numbers of interceptions of their offensive ballistic missiles or warheads were possible—even theoretically, the effectiveness of the coercive diplomatic tool of their offensive nuclear weapons would be sharply reduced.
The result is well known: the US under the Reagan and Bush41 administrations: (1) Eliminated all of the INF Russia missiles under the INF Treaty; (2) Further secured a cut of nearly 6000 Russian deployed nuclear weapons under the START I treaty; (3) Secured a Conventional Forces Europe (CFE) treaty dramatically reducing large swaths of Soviet tank armies in central Europe; and (4) Agreed to a START II treaty further cutting nuclear weapons down to 3500 deployed warheads. In all of this, no further restrictions of ballistic missile defense deployments were accepted while the ground work was being prepared for eliminating the ABM Treaty altogether.
Ironically, it was during the Clinton administration that missile defense research and development on protecting the continental US was eliminated while simultaneously the START II cutting nuclear weapons nearly in half also languished!
The Russian Duma decided they would not agree to any further reductions in nuclear weapons. The Russians argued that unless the United States agreed to eliminate its missile defense deployment plans for protecting the continental United States, “no further arms control” would be possible. Could it be missile defense opponents had been correct? Despite INF and START I, it appeared the Russians had agreed to go so far but would not go any further.
Let’s again examine the record. Prior to this Russian intransigence, the US Congress and the Bush administration had each proposed some variant of a national missile defense. One, ALPS, the Accidental Launch Protection System, was justified on the basis of a fear, not unreasonable, that Russian instability following the fall of the Soviet Union, could see an inadvertent or unauthorized launch of ballistic missiles against the US. Another proposal, GPALS, the Global Protection Against Limited Strikes, was a robust planned defense of the US.
At exactly this time, the Russians continued to implement START I which call for reductions in deployed nuclear weapons from roughly 12,000 to 6,000 and they proceeded to negotiate on START II.
Now GPALS was a missile defense designed to shoot down upwards of 200 Soviet or Russian warheads, whether launched deliberately or accidentally.
The system was inspired in part by the Hunt for Red October, the Tom Clancy thriller which described a top Russian Navy submarine skipper who defects to the United States with the most advanced Soviet nuclear submarine.
As its first skipper, he had determined it was nothing more than the first in a series of submarines designed as a first-strike, pre-emptive attack weapon's platform being built by the Soviet Union for one purpose: fight and win a nuclear war against the United States.
Since the US did not know if the admiral--Captain Marko Ramius--was a rogue agent or not--the idea was to hunt down the submarine, named Red October, and prevent it from launching its nearly 200 warheads onto the cities of the United States. On the other hand, Moscow was also terrified its secret plans would be revealed and so it also had great need to find and destroy the submarine.
This US missile defense plan was approved by a Republican President, Bush 41 and a Democratically controlled Congress, albeit the more capable space-based elements were put off into the future and the more limited, less capable land-based interceptors were put up front. Despite this support, the incoming President Clinton eliminated from consideration any further work on a "national missile defense" against strategic missiles. His defense secretary, Les Aspin, announced he was “Taking the Stars out of Star Wars”.
Nonetheless, despite the US adhering strictly to the terms of the ABM Treaty, (Antiballistic Missile Treaty) and rejecting building national missile defenses, the Russian Duma turned down the START II treaty further reducing nuclear weapons later in the Clinton administration although the US Senate had ratified the treaty. Even though its key objective, banning land based missiles with more than one warhead, would have been a critical positive step toward a more stable strategic environment.
Years later, at the end of the Clinton administration, the President again decided not to deploy any ballistic missile defenses against long range missiles despite the passage in the US Congress of legislation requiring such a deployment "capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack."
And despite a number of successful missile warhead intercept tests by the US (perfectly legal under the ABM Treaty rules) demonstrating the “hit to kill" technology often described as "hitting a bullet with a bullet".
Thus, ironically, the Clinton administration decided to stick with the Cold War catechism—no missile defenses. However, despite sticking to the ABM Treaty, and deleting funds for missile defense research, it failed to secure the reductions in nuclear weapons under the START II treaty, even though its terms were completed and agreed to by then Presidents George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin prior to the Clinton administration taking office.
With the advent of the Bush 43 administration, US policy changed to one of jettisoning the foolish catechism of the Cold War. The administration rejected the ABM Treaty while simultaneously pursuing dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons with the Russians.
It also secured international cooperation in stopping the proliferation of WMD technologies. It also sought to deploy missile defenses with our allies against a wide range of such missile threats, especially from what came to be known as "rogue threats" such as the ballistic missile programs in Iran and North Korea.
The North Koreans had tested a long range ballistic missile in 1998 just shortly after the newly released Rumsfeld Commission report came out re: ballistic missile threats to the US. It concluded that a rogue state could deploy within five years of making a decision to do so a ballistic missile capable of striking the United States.
It also concluded that despite our best efforts, our intelligence community wouldn't necessarily have sufficient strategic warning of such a threat.
The Bush administration decided to heed the findings of the Commission. It was known that had the third stage of the North Korean rocket test of 1998—launched just a few weeks after the reports release-- successfully deployed, then Pyongyang would have had capability, once it could mate one of its nuclear devices to the missile, to drop a nuclear warhead anywhere from San Francisco to Miami.
Given the time it takes to develop, test and deploy defenses, the new administration decided to deploy an entire range of such missile defenses, with the prospects of deploying some 1000 or more interceptors by the end of the decade against offensive missiles of whatever range. [Current US deployed missile defense interceptors now number just north of 1000].
This included upwards of 55 interceptors in Alaska and California capable of shooting down intercontinental ballistic missiles, with the initial deployment hoped for by 2004. In anticipation of this effort, the US also announced in 2001 that within a year we would withdraw from the ABM Treaty to give the US the full range of options to pursue effective ballistic missile defenses.
North Korea's missile developments and deployments preceded both United States and Republic of Korea missile defense deployments, contrary to popular assumptions. It is amazing that critics continue to assert that somehow what we have deployed in 2004 is responsible for what the North Koreans were testing in 1998!
It is worth reviewing in some considerable detail the logic, policy assumptions and deterrent needs being addressed by the administration in its May 2003 announcement of our security policy on missile defense and the associated issues of proliferation and terrorism. Especially in light of the continued assertion that US missile defenses must be severely curtailed for future successful nuclear weapons reductions to be achieved.
The Bush 43 administration explained:
"As the events of September 11 demonstrated, the security environment is more complex and less predictable than in the past. We face growing threats from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands of states or non-state actors, threats that range from terrorism to ballistic missiles intended to intimidate and coerce us by holding the U.S. and our friends and allies hostage to WMD attack.”
It warned:
"Hostile states, including those that sponsor terrorism, are investing large resources to develop and acquire ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication that could be used against the United States and our friends and allies. These same states have chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons programs. In fact, one of the factors that make long-range ballistic missiles attractive as a delivery vehicle for weapons of mass destruction is that the United States and our allies lack effective defenses against this threat."
"The contemporary and emerging missile threat from hostile states is fundamentally different from that of the Cold War and requires a different approach to deterrence and new tools for defense. The strategic logic of the past may not apply to these new threats, and we cannot be wholly dependent on our capability to deter them. Compared to the Soviet Union, their leaderships often are more risk prone. These are leaders that also see WMD as weapons of choice, not of last resort. Weapons of mass destruction are their most lethal means to compensate for our conventional strength and to allow them to pursue their objectives through force, coercion, and intimidation."
The nexus of deterrence and defense was further explained: "Deterring these threats will be difficult. There are no mutual understandings or reliable lines of communication with these states. Our new adversaries seek to keep us out of their region, leaving them free to support terrorism and to pursue aggression against their neighbors. By their own calculations, these leaders may believe they can do this by holding a few of our cities hostage. Our adversaries seek enough destructive capability to blackmail us from coming to the assistance of our friends who would then become the victims of aggression."
And the proper US response: "Some states are aggressively pursuing the development of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles as a means of coercing the United States and our allies. To deter such threats, we must devalue missiles as tools of extortion and aggression, undermining the confidence of our adversaries that threatening a missile attack would succeed in blackmailing us. In this way, although missile defenses are not a replacement for an offensive response capability, they are an added and critical dimension of contemporary deterrence. Missile defenses will also help to assure allies and friends, and to dissuade countries from pursuing ballistic missiles in the first instance by undermining their military utility."
Of critical importance, "the Administration has also eliminated the artificial distinction between "national" and "theater" missile defenses.
The defenses we will develop and deploy must be capable of not only defending the United States and our deployed forces, but also friends and allies;
The distinction between theater and national defenses was largely a product of the ABM Treaty and is outmoded. For example, some of the systems we are pursuing, such as boost-phase defenses, are inherently capable of intercepting missiles of all ranges, blurring the distinction between theater and national defenses…”
The terms "theater" and "national" are interchangeable depending on the circumstances, and thus are not a meaningful means of categorizing missile defenses. For example, some of the systems being pursued by the United States to protect deployed forces are capable of defending the entire national territory of some friends and allies, thereby meeting the definition of a "national" missile defense system."
Then the administration moved to characterize the new template for missile defense by noting they were "Building on previous missile defense work, over the past year and a half, the Defense Department has pursued a robust research, development, testing, and evaluation program designed to develop layered defenses capable of intercepting missiles of varying ranges in all phases of flight. The testing regimen employed has become increasingly stressing, and the results of recent tests have been impressive".
Critics of missile defense often assume that our missile defense capabilities are represented by fixed technologies while our adversary’s offensive weapons are always being advanced, fine-tuned and expanded. As the Bush administration explained:
"We are pursuing an evolutionary approach to the development and deployment of missile defenses to improve our defenses over time. The United States will not have final, fixed missile defense architecture. Rather, we will deploy an initial set of capabilities that will evolve to meet the changing threat and to take advantage of technological developments. The composition of missile defenses, to include the number and location of systems deployed, will change over time."
In August 2002, the Administration proposed an evolutionary way ahead for the deployment of missile defenses. They explained:
“The capabilities planned for operational use in 2004 and 2005 will include ground-based interceptors, sea-based interceptors, additional Patriot (PAC-3) units, and sensors based on land, at sea, and in space. In addition, the United States will work with allies to upgrade key early-warning radars as part of our capabilities.”
They further noted “Under our approach, these capabilities may be improved through additional measures such as:
Deployment of additional ground- and sea-based interceptors, and Patriot (PAC-3) units;
Initial deployment of the THAAD and Airborne Laser systems;
Development of a family of boost-phase and midcourse hit-to-kill interceptors based on sea-, air-, and ground-based platforms;
Enhanced sensor capabilities; and
Development and testing of space-based defenses."
And of critical importance was enhanced and further cooperation with our allies. As the administration explained further: "Because the threats of the 21st century also endanger our friends and allies around the world, it is essential that we work together to defend against these threats. Missile defense cooperation will be a feature of U.S. relations with close, long-standing allies, and an important means to build new relationships with new friends like Russia. Consistent with these goals:
The U.S. will develop and deploy missile defenses capable of protecting not only the United States and our deployed forces, but also friends and allies;
We will also promote international missile defense cooperation, including within bilateral and alliance structures such as NATO."
Unfortunately, critics have focused on the 2004 deployment date for the initial capability of the US against long range missile threats as if there was something unseemly about putting out a defense as quickly as possible.
What is often missed was that the US sought to upgrade and further test the system while it was initially operational, a program known as "spiral development". This strategy was fully endorsed by the previous administration's top acquisition official. He noted it was the only possible means of keeping up with rapid technological changes to the threat environment. Remember the old saying, "the enemy gets to vote".
Testing of Aegis interceptor missile.
By the end of the past decade, just months ago, the United States had in fact deployed over 1000 operational missile defense interceptors including Patriot, THAAD, the Aegis Standard Missile and GBI systems, as the Bush administration had promised.
The failure of the US to secure the deployment of the 10 long-range interceptors in Poland is not only an issue of numbers. These interceptors were not, contrary to popular belief, the only defenders for the European theater. Some number of the 1000 deployed interceptors mentioned above, especially the Navy Aegis system, were destined for such a role early on in the previous administration, including for the protection of the Mediterranean and the southeast sectors of Europe.
So, too, was the United States working with our allies in the Middle East to protect themselves from Iranian missile threats. Here, too, the critics are simply wrong. Iranian missile deployments came long BEFORE our missile defenses were deployed. In fact, it took literally decades of negotiations and diplomacy to get the Gulf Cooperation Council , for example, to positively consider missile defense deployments as some member states have now done.
As noted earlier, Israel's Arrow system was not operationally deployed until 2000, at a time when rocket threats from Iraq, Iran, Syria, as well as the terror groups such as Hezbollah had long ago materialized. Remember during the 1991 Gulf War Saddam Hussein’s Iraq launched dozens of rockets against Israel and US forces in the region despite our deployment of no missile defenses. In that emergency, we quickly deployed the original Patriot systems which were designed as an air defense not to protect against ballistic missiles.
On the Korean peninsula, North Korea has deployed thousands of rockets and artillery pieces. But the ROK government has only very recently decided to examine whether to build a range of ballistic missile defenses. According to the Yonhap News Agency “The United States has agreed to assist South Korea in analyzing its ballistic missile defense requirements in the face of North Korea’s evolving missile capabilities.”
So, too with Taiwan. Although the United States had offered many years ago to sell Taipei missile defense batteries such as Patriot for the defense of Taiwan, the full government only recently concluded an agreement for the purchase of the technology, and this AFTER the PRC has deployed thousands of ballistic missiles threatening Taiwan.
The absolute fairy tale allegation that it is US and allied deployment of ballistic missile defenses that has caused the proliferation of rogue state missile threats is absurd. The US has now deployed some 30 interceptors in Alaska and California out of 55 that were originally scheduled, not including the ten missiles scheduled for deployment in Poland. These deployments have coincided with dramatic reductions in Russian missile deployments.
The deployment in Poland, in the heart of NATO, was designed to protect both all of NATO in Europe and the United States, simultaneously and cooperatively. This would have given the eastern United States some considerable additional protection from rogue state long range missiles while at the same time protecting our allies in NATO.
The problem with the "Always Blame America" doctrine of security is that it gives the benefit of the doubt to our adversaries, any of whom regularly advertise their hate for the civilization of the west and for our freedom and liberty.
The "Blame America First" gang believes that only if the US changed its defense priorities and its strategy, then our sworn enemies would not threaten us anymore. This allows them to campaign as "peace makers" and wonderful "soft power" advocates.
But as we learned during the Carter and Reagan years there is no substitute for strength and its judicious deployment. This now includes missile defense. As Senator Wallop once noted, “Diplomacy without the threat of force is simply prayer.”
We are dealing with serious adversaries. How serious? As a number of sources have revealed, "The unplanned release of an Iranian propaganda film revealing the regime’s true objectives – annihilation of Israel – has roiled the Iranian regime’s top leadership."
The film details the belief held by key top leaders in Iran that they are acting out a prophetic end-times scenario as sketched out in the Hadith — with Muslim Prophet Muhammad saying that Iran will lead Muslim armies against Israel and usher in the return of the 12th Imam, a Muslim savior.
The Supreme Leader’s representative to the IRGC reaffirmed the main claim of this movie – that Khamenei is the incarnation of the mythic “Seyed Khorasani” who hands the flag of Islam to the 12th imam.
Asked to defend their claim that Khamenei was the incarnation of the mythical “Seyed Khorasani” who defeats Israel and hands the flag of Islam to the 12th Imam, the filmmakers cited many prominent regime officials – including two former commanders of the Revolutionary Guards Corps – who have called him “Seyed Khorasani” to his face.
As related to me by Ken Timmerman of Newsmax, "On Tuesday, Khamenei’s representative to the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mojtaba Zolnoor, announced to the regime-controlled news outlet Khabar Online that a number of Islamic scholars and grand ayatollahs agree that Khamenei is the mythic figure from the Hadith who sets the stage for the return of the 12th Imam."
The Supreme Leader’s representative to the IRGC reaffirmed the main claim of this movie – that Khamenei is the incarnation of the mythic “Seyed Khorasani” who hands the flag of Islam to the 12th imam.
Asked to defend their claim that Khamenei was the incarnation of the mythical “Seyed Khorasani” who defeats Israel and hands the flag of Islam to the 12th Imam, the filmmakers cited many prominent regime officials – including two former commanders of the Revolutionary Guards Corps – who have called him “Seyed Khorasani” to his face.
As related to me by Ken Timmerman of Newsmax, "On Tuesday, Khamenei’s representative to the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mojtaba Zolnoor, announced to the regime-controlled news outlet Khabar Online that a number of Islamic scholars and grand ayatollahs agree that Khamenei is the mythic figure from the Hadith who sets the stage for the return of the 12th Imam."
Thus it would be folly to design and deploy our missile defenses largely based on a reluctance not to exceed some assumed level that might give concern to Russia or China. The threats from Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and others, for example, cannot simply be dismissed as of little consequence. To further claim that such missile defense deployment limits must also apply to our allies gives our adversaries free reign to threaten us with ballistic missiles.
Ironically, Russia and China both have been complicit in helping North Korea and Iran with their ballistic missile technology and their nuclear program. Just two years ago, April 7, 2009, the attorney for Manhattan indicted the Chinese owner of one Chinese company on 118 counts of aiding Iran with precisely such technology. The indictment described the use of an "international espionage and smuggling ring" including a "communist Chinese firm" to facilitate trade with Iran. While the company had been banned from doing business in the US since 2006, US banks were used to finance materials for "Iran's nuclear program", having been "duped by his fake Chinese shell company.”
The missile threats we face, connected as they are to both terror master states and their nuclear weapons, are of the most serious of national security challenges now confronting us. To artificially limit our defense from such threats in the false hope that such restraint we make our foreign adversaries our friends is not what our founders had in mind when they commanded us to “Provide for the Common Defense”.
Family Security Matters Contributor William Bradford Morse is an expert on military defense and strategy. His name may or may not be a pseudonym.
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The 15 best liberal fairy tales
May 22, 2012 09:03 PM
#LiberalFairyTales are all the absurd stories that liberals tell themselves and, sadly, everybody else. Here are the absolute best ones twitterers ever did tweet.
Ky. primary has Barack Obama doing battle with a phantom; Let the mockage begin!
May 22, 2012 07:50 PM
Vote-counting for the Kentucky primary is underway, and Obama is leading among preferred Democratic presidential candidates. But ah, ah, ah … not so fast there, Barack. Looks like not everything’s comin’ up roses in the Bluegrass State. ONE FOR UNDECIDED: Bath County, Kentucky Democrats take "Undecided" over President Obama by 725-715 votes— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) [...]
May 22, 2012 04:29 PM
The South Carolina AFL-CIO president is on video beating an effigy of Governor Nikki Haley with a bat. War on women, indeed, and it comes from the Left as always. To Leftist thugs and union goons, she was asking for it, you see. That "uppity" woman won't keep her mouth shut and all. Scratch a Leftist and you will find not only a misogynist, but a racist.
Media still covering for no Biden access for press, blame Romney
May 22, 2012 03:39 PM
Media bias alert! RT @zekejmiller: Worth noting, given Romney flap last week, press not given rope-line access to Biden event here in NH— Sarah Huisenga (@SarahH_CBSNJ) May 22, 2012 Um. After the “Romney flap?” You mean the “flap” that the media breathlessly and endlessly reported all while ignoring the fact that reporters were shooed off [...]
May 22, 2012 03:08 PM
I'll see your Cory Booker and raise you a Joe Biden.— David Freddoso (@freddoso) May 22, 2012 Rut roh! Shall we add him to “hostage watch?“ Biden: When Bain companies failed, it cost taxpayers money in unemployment insurance, pension costs.— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 22, 2012 Uh. When they are “too big to fail” and [...]
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