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Bradley Graham offers a contemporary report on the
quest for a national missile defense in his 2001 book Hit to Kill:
The New Battle Over Shielding America From Missile Attack. A veteran
military and foreign affairs correspondent for The Washington
Post, Graham says that the story is both complex and contentious and
gives his assessment of the current Bush administration's strategy.
"Given how frustratingly elusive the dream of a nationwide antimissile
system has proven," Graham writes, "the confidence and determination
that Bush and his advisers have continued to bring to the endeavor has
been all the more impressive -- or foolhardy, depending on which side of
the argument one is on."
Here is the afterword to Graham's book. He
addresses, among other things, how the Sept. 11 attacks have affected the
arguments for and against missile defense.
From Bradley Graham's Hit to Kill: The New Battle
Over Shielding America From Missile Attack (Public Affairs, 2001).
Reprinted with permission.
 Afterword
Just as a new set of political and diplomatic showdowns over missile
defense appeared to be taking shape under the Bush administration,
terrorists seized four commercial airliners on September 11, 2001. They
flew two into the World Trade Center towers and another into the
Pentagon; the fourth jet crashed in a Pennsylvania forest. The
astonishing assault on the nation's financial and military centers,
which resulted in more than 5,000 [sic] dead, marked the worst terrorist
attack in U.S. history. It jolted the United States into declaring an
all-out war against terrorism, raising what had been a comparatively
low-grade counterterrorist effort by military and law enforcement
agencies into a high-profile national campaign. Greater attention to
securing the American homeland against attack promised to be as much a
part of the new war as rooting out terrorists abroad and eliminating
their sources of support. But what this intensified focus on homeland
defense would mean specifically for national missile defense was not
immediately clear.
Critics argued that the terrorist strikes in New York and Washington
proved Bush had been concentrating on the wrong threat. They said the
United States had much more to fear from low-tech terrorism than a
high-tech missile attack, so the money that the administration had
planned to spend on missile defense should be diverted to
counterterrorism activities. But the lesson from the attacks seemed to
cut more than one way. While the events of September 11 certainly
underscored U.S. vulnerability to threats other than missile attack, it
also made a case for protecting American cities by all available means,
including missile defense. "Can anyone doubt that if the terrorists
behind Tuesday's attacks had had access to a ballistic missile, they
would have used it?" the Wall Street Journal asked in an
editorial. "Why settle for toppling the World Trade Center if you can
destroy all of New York in an instant, without having to go to the
trouble of sneaking a crew over the border and arranging for pilot
training in Florida?"
Funding both a crackdown on terrorism and a buildup in missile
defenses would have been problematic before the September 11 attacks.
But in the immediate aftermath, the financial constraints appeared to
recede. Democrats who had moved previously to cut the administration's
$8.3 billion request for missile defense and attach conditions to ensure
that testing would remain within the terms of the ABM Treaty sounded
inclined to avoid a partisan wrangle and let Bush's initiative proceed,
at least for the time being. Missile defense seemed destined to lose
some of its prominence as the administration's dominant military
project, forced to share the stage with the new war on terrorism. But
the administration showed little inclination to scale back the
program.
Indeed, given how frustratingly elusive the dream of a nationwide
antimissile system has proven, the confidence and determination that
Bush and his advisers have continued to bring to the endeavor has been
all the more impressive -- or foolhardy, depending on which side of the
argument one is on. At a minimum, the fresh investment of billions of
dollars -- not to mention a major chunk of presidential political
capital -- has raised the stakes: either Bush and his fellow missile
defense enthusiasts will win big, or they will fail spectacularly.
Bill Clinton sought to limit the cost of his missile defense venture
by proposing to keep it imbedded in a revised ABM Treaty. Militarily,
his strategy was intended to be just enough to deal with an emerging
Third World threat without upsetting the strategic balance with Russia.
Politically, it was an effort to neutralize whatever partisan advantage
the Republicans might derive from the missile defense issue, without
incurring too much expense or inciting too much international
opposition. Some in the Bush administration, including the president
himself, are convinced that Clinton structured his approach with no real
intention of succeeding -- a kind of poison pill for national missile
defense. The proposed land-based system for midcourse intercepts would
never have provided an adequate defense, they say. The question of
whether to go forward with it was made contingent on too many
conditions. And U.S. diplomacy was conducted in a way destined to array
Russia, China and NATO governments against the program.
This is too cynical a view. While most members of Clinton's national
security team never had their hearts in the program, they genuinely
thought for a time that they had a shot at a complex three-part deal --
what Sandy Berger labeled the trifecta -- involving Russian agreement to
amend the ABM Treaty, U.S. deployment of a modest missile defense system
and a U.S.-Russian pact on deeper cuts in offensive nuclear weapons. The
political backing for such an approach was manifested in the 1999
Missile Defense Act, which endorsed a limited system if built in the
context of new arms reduction talks with Russia. The overwhelming vote
for that measure marked only the third time, following legislation in
1969 and 1991, that Democratic lawmakers had gone on record with
Republicans favoring a national antimissile system.
But as in the past, the fragile consensus quickly unraveled in the
face of fresh doubts about the technical feasibility and costs of the
envisioned system, as well as second thoughts about the net impact of a
deployment on foreign relations and global security. For the Clinton
administration, missile defense turned into a strenuous exercise in
damage control and deployment avoidance.
If Clinton's handling of the issue did anything to advance the cause
of missile defense, it was at least to alert the rest of the world that
the United States was again serious about the issue. Nearly a decade
after the demise of the Soviet Union, Democrats as well as Republicans
were questioning nuclear deterrence doctrine, the notion that the best
defense was a strong, stable offense. By stirring the rest of the world
to start focusing on new missile threats and old treaties, Clinton
helped set the stage for Bush, even if the two men had sharply different
views about how to proceed.
Clearly, the ABM Treaty's days are numbered. Whether it will be
revised or replaced altogether, the treaty, conceived in a bipolar
world, no longer addresses today's reality, where the ability to build
long-range missiles and arm them with deadly warheads is spreading. Of
course, the danger may not be spreading quite as fast as some missile
defense advocates suggest. No Third World country can yet threaten the
U.S homeland with an ICBM; even those given the greatest chance of doing
so soonest are relying on facilities and technologies that are primitive
by U.S. standards; and the leading threat case, North Korea, has shown a
willingness to drop its whole effort in return for financial assistance
from the United States. Nevertheless, the trend is worrisome. Even if
North Korea could be taken out of the picture, other rogue nations --
Iran, Iraq, and Libya -- may prove still more determined to acquire a
substantial nuclear and missile capability. This is owed in no small
measure to their location in a region of the world where weapons of mass
destruction already exist.
Then again, if a rogue state came to possess an ICBM, would it
actually fire at the United States? That question still generates much
controversy, although in a way it seems almost beside the point. Missile
defense critics contend that no Third World dictator would be crazy
enough to invite annihilation by blasting an American city; since the
threat of nuclear retaliation worked against the Soviets, so the
argument goes, it will work against new nuclear powers. By contrast, the
pro-missile defense crowd says that reliance solely on a mutual suicide
pact to keep the peace was risky and nutty to begin with and is even
more so now.
But the more subtle point often ignored in this debate is that the
mere fact of possession will surely have an impact. If a
missile-aspiring state becomes capable of launching a warhead across the
Pacific or Atlantic, it will not need to shoot to arouse the United
States. Simply its ability to do so will affect how future U.S.
administrations respond to that country or to regional crises that might
bring the United States into conflict with it.
The rogue states themselves appear to understand this. How else to
explain the sizeable investment of their limited resources in missile
production -- particularly considering, as often noted, that a suitcase
bomb or truck-borne explosive would be a more effective means of attack?
Indeed, for Bush himself, the idea of an antimissile shield is tied less
to the thought of ever needing to use it and more to allowing America to
act abroad without fear of subjecting Americans at home to attack. "You
can't be an internationalist if you allow yourself to be blackmailed,"
the president said in an interview. "If you believe like I believe that
our values are so good and we can spread those values in a way that
hopefully is not arrogant -- in a humble way -- if you believe that's
important, which I do, then the corollary is: How do you make sure
you're able to do that without somebody saying, 'If you move, if you
act, if you decide to get involved, we'll blow you up'?"
Which is not to say that the United States has lost its own ability
to threaten to blow others up. Its own nuclear deterrent is hardly
obsolete. But it need no longer, for doctrinal reasons, automatically
exclude missile defense. In fact, antimissile systems are best seen not
as a replacement for traditional deterrence but as a potential
supplement.
So if strategic theory has ceased to pose the obstacle it once did to
a national missile defense, why not forge ahead? Because two other
critical considerations continue to make the whole endeavor exceedingly
challenging if not entirely dubious: technical feasibility and cost. The
history of missile defense is littered with exaggerated claims of
progress, coupled to assurances that a workable system requires just a
little more testing and engineering. To be fair, some significant
advances have occurred, particularly in hit-to-kill technology. But
going from demonstrations to a combat-ready operational system has
proven much tougher than expected, even for the land-based, midcourse
intercept approach on which the Pentagon has concentrated in recent
years. So vexing have some of the problems become that the Pentagon has
begun talking with defense contractors about designing back-up versions
for the kill vehicle and booster in case the frontrunners fail to shake
their bugs. Other missile defense options -- ship-based missiles with
midcourse interceptors or a boost-phase system of airborne lasers or
sea-launched interceptors -- have attracted renewed interest within the
Bush administration. But while these alternative approaches may look
appealing on paper, they have yet to start even the most elemental
flight testing, and they all have potentially show-stopping challenges
to overcome.
Bush's plan to test a broad range of possible systems offers greater
promise than Clinton's single-solution architecture of eventually
finding an optimum technical design, if one is to be found. But the cost
of all this experimenting is sure to be substantial, jeopardizing the
financing of other military projects more popular with senior military
commanders. Very likely, all the testing and new scientific research
will affirm that no single silver-bullet solution to missile defense
exists, that boost-phase intercept systems face countermeasure
challenges just as midcourse systems do, and that an effective
antimissile shield will require a mix of systems, thereby raising the
price tag for any deployment.
Asked in the summer of 2001 if he had any limit in mind for financing
missile defense development, Bush named no dollar figure but indicated
that the cost would be constrained by his own desire to avoid tapping
Social Security surpluses and engaging in deficit spending. Those
constraints may have crumbled in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, although the need to finance
the new war on terrorism could impose its own discipline on missile
defense spending. Pressed on what his own criteria will be for deciding
what kind of antimissile system to build, the president replied: "Here
are the criteria: Does it work? Is it cost effective? And how does it
fit into the priorities of the United States?" He faulted Clinton for
imposing too many criteria on his own deployment decision. "I do not
believe the previous administration was serious about missile defense,"
he said. "I do not think they really wanted to move forward and explore
all options. This is a world where, if you lay out enough criteria,
something will never happen."
Clinton, in turn, said he felt "some sympathy" for Bush's own
situation, portraying the new president and his advisers as under
pressure from many in their own party to pursue a missile defense
system. "One of the problems they've got is, for so many of their
supporters, this is a matter of theology, not evidence. Because
President Reagan was once for it, they think it must be right, and
they've got to do it, and I think it makes it harder for them to see
some of the downsides. It's a part of the theology of being a
Republican."
In any event, Bush team members have indicated that even if something
does not work completely, they may be willing to put it in the field,
believing some weapon is better than none and improvements will come
over time. Thus, while their vision for a multi-layered network of
boost-phase, midcourse, and terminal-phase interceptors is far more
elaborate than Clinton's proposed architecture, they actually have
lowered the bar for what it will take to go operational. Under the
circumstances, BMDO officials figure they either must manage to start
constructing some kind of antimissile system in the next few years or
acknowledge that missile defense simply is not meant to be. "If we can't
succeed this time, we might as well hang it up," remarked Ron Kadish,
the BMDO director.
The sense of urgency in the Bush administration's assault on the
technical hurdles is also evident in its drive to discard the treaty
constraints. Its threat to act unilaterally if it cannot gain Russia's
acquiescence to replacing the ABM Treaty runs the risk of ruptured
relations with a number of foreign powers and the strengthening of
alliances contrary to American interests. Sealing a strategic
partnership in July, for instance, the leaders of Russia and China
suggested that unilateral action by America could drive them into an
ever-closer embrace. At the same time, Russia and China arguably need
the United States more than they need each other, as Bush administration
officials noted in adopting a pose of indifference toward the
Russian-Chinese action, the first friendship treaty between the two
countries since the 1950s. Indeed, later in July, Vladimir Putin emerged
from a meeting with Bush in Italy expressing a new openness toward talks
on missile defense in the context of deeper reductions in offensive
weapons. While Clinton had sought the same linkage, the Russians had
been unwilling even to enter negotiations about defensive systems.
Now that Putin appears more inclined to bargain, he confronts a Bush
administration that has raised the ante, both by proposing a more
ambitious missile defense system and by making clear that it has little
desire to enter into the kind of detailed, rigid accords that marked
past arms control negotiations between Washington and Moscow. Clinton's
stated purpose in seeking negotiations with Russia had been to
strengthen the ABM Treaty. Bush's objective is to do away not simply
with the treaty but with the kind of set-piece arms control process
practiced by Republicans and Democrats alike for forty years.
There is something appealingly bold about Bush's call for a new
strategic framework. With the prospect of a U.S.-Russian nuclear
conflict now far less likely than during the cold war, detailed treaties
stipulating the exact balance of warheads between the two powers are no
longer central to global stability. But the administration still lacks
many answers to questions about how its new world order would function
and how everyone would get there from here. And the rest of the world
will need much reassuring. Advocates of the traditional treaty-based
process argue that arms agreements have secured stable relations for
decades by spelling out rights and responsibilities and that even if old
accords need updating, living under them is far safer than living in a
world without any laws. While European allies have increasingly accepted
the notion that the ABM Treaty should be revised or updated, they are
reluctant to get rid of it without seeing some alternative accord take
its place.
Bush's contention that in today's more unpredictable world, America
should be freer to lower -- or raise -- its nuclear arsenals and build
whatever defenses it sees fit naturally adds to suspicions that the new
administration's real aim goes beyond fending off missile attacks from
emerging missile powers. By challenging the fundamental worth of the old
treaty-writing process, Bush and his advisers engender fears in some
that their ultimate purpose is to foster even greater U.S. military
dominance and strategic hegemony. The sheer scale of Bush's missile
defense undertaking may well overwhelm the prospects for keeping an
eventual system within limited bounds and constrained by any new
agreement with Russia.
Some of Bush's principal advisers contend that the new administration
must remain aggressive if it stands any chance of overcoming the
hindrances and inertia of the past. In this view, simply a modified ABM
Treaty would not be enough to encourage the kind of investment in
alternative antimissile systems they envision. But by the summer of
2001, even some leading moderate lawmakers within the Republican Party
were beginning to express unease at the prospect of the administration
giving the Russians only a few months to choose between replacing the
treaty or watching the United States withdraw from it. They were urging
Bush to take a more gradual two-phase approach that could entail
acceptance of an amended treaty followed by longer-term negotiations on
an entirely new strategic framework.
However they proceed, Bush and his advisers must demonstrate that
they can replace the cold war security order with something that
increases rather than detracts from global security. They must reassure
the rest of the world that they are indeed focused narrowly on defending
the United States from attack from a rogue state rather than embarking
on a new quest for strategic advantage over Russia or China. They must
keep the Europeans from feeling estranged, and they must ensure that
their efforts will dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing missile
programs, not drive them into a new arms race.
In short, in Clinton's words, they must show that missile defense can
work "not only technically but politically."
Reflecting on his own experience with this most nettlesome of U.S.
military ventures, the former president offered this final thought: "It
was hard. That's another thing I'd say. A lot of these things were
really hard. We were trying to do things where we couldn't know with
great precision what was right. You spend all this money on research for
something that may or may not ever work; even if it works, you may
decide that the cost of putting it in is greater than the benefit
because it leads to a nuclear buildup in other countries, or because if
you did that, you wouldn't adequately be addressing far more likely
security threats. There are a lot of issues here. We were out there in
the far reaches dealing with this."
From Hit to Kill: The New Battle
Over Shielding America From Missile Attack (Public Affairs, 2001).
Copyright 2001 by Bradley Graham. Reprinted with permission.
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