THE RISING ‘CRIMSON TIDE’ LIFTS THE CASE FOR MISSILE DEFENSE

(Washington, D.C.): In darkened theaters across the United
States over the past week, millions of Americans — perhaps as
many as one out of twenty of the entire population — have been
exposed to a singularly powerful argument for missile defense: In
the hit movie “Crimson Tide,” the world teeters
on the brink of nuclear holocaust because a rogue Russian has
seized and begun to prepare intercontinental-range ballistic
missiles for launch against the United States. A U.S. submarine
is ordered to fire its nuclear-armed missiles so as to preempt
the Russian attack. For the better part of two hours, the
audience joins Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman as they wrestle
(literally) with whether it is too late or too soon to
unleash their sub’s deadly salvo.

Although it is never mentioned in the movie, there is only
one reason why such a nightmare scenario might arise: The
United States has no defense against ballistic missile
attack. If it did, the unauthorized use of Russian ballistic
missiles could be prevented by some means other than a preemptive
U.S. nuclear strike. Alternatively, if Washington faced a
circumstance like that portrayed in “Crimson Tide,” it
could intercept any of its own missiles that might have been
fired when they should not have been.

It is true, of course, that the case for correcting America’s
abject vulnerability to ballistic missile attack is being more
powerfully made with every passing day. The CIA estimates that
twenty-five countries are acquiring chemical, biological and/or
nuclear weapons, together with the ballistic missiles with which
to deliver them. And the horrifying potential of such weapons is
being shown in microcosm as Tokyo’s subways fill with nerve gas,
incurable viruses attack African populations and a relatively
tiny amount of explosives devastate a federal office building in
the heartland of America and its community.

‘What, Me Worry?’

Still the Clinton Administration remains incredibly
insouciant about the possibility that rogue actors in Iraq, Iran,
Syria, North Korea, China — to say nothing of Russia — might
threaten or use deadly, ballistic missile-delivered
weapons of mass destruction against this country. On 17 May, a
senior Pentagon civilian, Jan Lodal, told a breakfast audience on
Capitol Hill (sponsored by the National Defense University
Foundation) that the United States would not begin to deploy an
anti-missile defense unless and until Iran obtained the
capability to attack America with ballistic missiles — a
development he believed to be many years away. What is more, if
deploying an appropriate defensive system should require the U.S.
to exceed limits imposed upon such weapons by the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
Lodal averred that Washington would seek Russia’s permission to
protect the American people. Should the Kremlin not agree,
presumably after a sufficient period for negotiation had elapsed,
the United States would then, and only then, proceed to
defend itself.

These are not, regrettably, merely the rantings of a single,
addled bureaucrat. This notion of perpetuating American
vulnerability and subjecting U.S. missile defense options to a
Russian veto is of a piece with President Clinton’s performance
in Moscow as reflected in the joint communiqué he and Boris
Yeltsin issued at the conclusion of their summit meeting. (A more
detailed analysis of the bitter fruits of the summit appears in
the attached op.ed. article
by the Center for Security Policy’s director Frank J. Gaffney,
Jr., which appears in today’s Wall Street Journal).

Meanwhile, Back on the Hill

Next Tuesday, the House National Security Committee will
have an opportunity to adopt legislation that would give the
United States a global, effective and remarkably inexpensive
alternative to the Nation’s present vulnerability to missile
attack — and to the Clinton Administration’s head-in-the-sand
approach to extending and compounding that vulnerability. As
it prepares the Fiscal Year 1996 defense authorization bill, the
Committee is expected to add at least two hundred million dollars
to give the Navy’s formidable AEGIS fleet air defense system the
capability to defend against ballistic missiles, as well as
aircraft and aerodynamic cruise missiles.

Unless the National Security Committee directs otherwise,
however, these funds will be used exclusively to build a
system capable of defending America’s allies and such forces as
we continue to deploy abroad. It will be either physically
“dumbed-down” or procedures will be utilized to ensure
that it is precluded from protecting the United States, too.
Should this step be taken, the commander of a Navy AEGIS cruiser
off the coast of North Korea could be put in the position where
he can shoot down ballistic missiles which Pyongyang launches at
Japan, but not at the United States.

Enter ‘Team B’

Fortunately, an important new study by a blue-ribbon
committee sponsored by the Heritage Foundation has concluded that
this program, known as the Navy Upper Tier system, can and
should be optimized so as to provide not only highly effective
anti-missile defense of U.S. forces and allies overseas, but also
the American people. This study by “Team B”
(comprised of sixteen former senior civilian and military
officials and top government scientists) concludes that — thanks
to the nearly $50 billion the United States has already invested
in the AEGIS program — virtually the entire infrastructure
(platforms, launchers, sensors and missiles) needed for a
flexible, mobile global missile defense is already in place. For
just $2-3 billion more over the next five years, this
infrastructure could be adapted to kill missiles of virtually
any range. The first two Upper Tier-capable cruisers would be
configured and on station within three years’ time.

Team B recommends that this first increment of global defense
be complemented as soon as possible with a constellation of
space-based sensors (called “Brilliant Eyes”) that will
maximize the capability of the Navy Upper Tier — and every other
anti-missile system the United States develops. Ultimately, the
country would also want to utilize space to deploy the most
militarily effective and cost-effective defenses possible.

The Bottom Line

The National Security Committee’s leadership, Chairman Floyd
Spence and Reps. Curt Weldon and Duncan Hunter (chairmen of the
Research and Development and Procurement Subcommittees,
respectively) were prime-movers behind the Contract With America
and its commitment to provide anti-missile protection to both
the American people and their forward-deployed force and allies.
Regrettably, in the absence of a specific, clearly affordable
program to implement that commitment, Rep. John Kasich and
twenty-three other Republicans balked at voting to fulfill it.

Now, armed with a programmatic approach that enjoys the
support of a wide cross-section of the pro-missile defense
community — and one that even “cheap hawks” can love
— it should be a different ballgame. The Committee is
well-positioned to put forward legislation that will keep what
was the most strategically important promise made in the Contract
— to provide for the common defense by ending the Nation’s
vulnerability to missile attack. It must do no less.