Convergence: More Democrats Endorse Sea-Based Missile Defenses that Clinton and Putin Hope to Ban

(Washington, D.C.): A growing consensus is emerging across the American political spectrum: The fastest, least expensive and most effective means of providing the United States with a near-term missile defense system is by utilizing sea-based assets. This conclusion is not only sharply at odds with the Clinton-Gore Administration’s programmatic plans, such as they are, for deploying national anti-missile systems. It is also diametrically opposed to the arms control proposal that Mr. Clinton hopes to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept in Moscow on 4 June.

According to today’s Washington Post, the latest converts to sea-based deployment of boost-phase missile defenses are three individuals who served Democratic presidents in senior Pentagon positions — former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, former Deputy Secretary of Defense (and CIA Director) John Deutch and former Deputy Secretary of Defense John White. Their critique of President Clinton’s plan to deploy only a limited ground-based missile defense in Alaska will reportedly appear in an article in the June edition of the journal Foreign Policy.

The recommendation by Messrs. Brown, Deutch and White that America be defended from the sea follows similar statements made recently by Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry. As the New York Times reported on 9 March Sen. Biden declared in a speech at Stanford University the day before that “an Aegis sea-based system with missiles based off the North Korean coast would let the United States intercept the [North Korean] missiles in their ascents.”¹ The Times went on to note that “[Mr.] Perry was in the audience….In congressional testimony, [he has] favored the sea-based system off North Korea.”²

To be sure, these proponents seem to be advancing their arguments in favor of sea-based anti-missile systems at this juncture primarily in the hope of persuading President Clinton not to decide this summer to go forward with the siting of between 20 and 100 missile interceptors in Alaska. (At the very least, this factor seems to contribute to the decision by leading newspapers to cover an alternative deployment option most have, heretofore, studiously ignored.³)

The real value of these contributions by influential Democratic figures, however, is not to the idea that the President should defer the deployment of missile defenses. To the contrary, such defenses need to be fielded at the earliest possible moment. If, as is increasingly widely recognized, this can be done first by utilizing seagoing platforms, that is obviously to be preferred.

Rather, what President Clinton, Vice President Gore and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — who will hear important testimony tomorrow afternoon from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Command, General Richard Meis — should appreciate is a point at least implicit in the views being expressed by these worthies: If America is to be properly defended against long-range missile attack, steps must be taken that are wholly incompatible with the obsolete, extinct 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Put differently, the Clinton-Gore Administration’s determination to allow negotiating considerations — aimed at “preserving” the ABM Treaty, rather than system optimization from a military perspective — to dictate the type, placement and capabilities of the United States’ National Missile Defense system is a formula for foreclosing the sort of flexible, near-term and cost-effective system the country requires.

Tomorrow’s congressional hearing will also afford a valuable opportunity for Senators to confirm what has been reported in the press⁴: The best professional military judgment of the Nation’s senior commanders holds that — under present and foreseeable circumstances — U.S. deterrence requirements dictate that the Nation retain no fewer than 2000-2500 START-accountable weapons. Efforts by the Clinton-Gore Administration to press for a bilateral accord that would allow for far fewer weapons in the face of objections from the Joint Chiefs and CINCSTRATCOM should only intensify the opposition already expressed in writing last month by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and twenty-four of his colleagues.⁵

The Bottom Line

Clearly, the Clinton-Gore Administration is increasingly out of touch with not only the views of long-time supporters of missile defense and its own military⁶ but even many of the Democratic Party’s most prominent national security experts. If the President will not reverse course, it behooves the Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take to the American people the compelling reasons for abandoning Mr. Clinton’s pursuit of the so-called “Grand Bargain” at his upcoming summit in Moscow. The Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing tomorrow offers an excellent opportunity to begin that educational process.

While they are at it, Senators and the Nation’s military leaders should address another important, but largely neglected, aspect of the debate about missile defense: Russia’s hypocrisy in denouncing American efforts to protect its people and territory — even as the Kremlin continues its upgrading of the sort of nationwide defense explicitly prohibited by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. In this connection, the attached op.ed. in today’s Washington Times by the former Acting Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, James Hackett, should be considered required reading.

¹While Senator Biden appears to have endorsed the “AEGIS Option” long favored by the Center for Security Policy and the Blue-Ribbon Commission on Missile Defense sponsored since 1995 by the Heritage Foundation, others are proposing different approaches. Notably, contrary to earlier reports, Drs. Richard Garwin and Theodore Postel favor a boost-phase system with interceptors based on U.S. military cargo ships in the Japan Basin. Obviously, the question of precisely how best to utilize sea-based assets in national missile defense should be the focus of the debate on defending America. But such a debate that can only be fully and constructively engaged in if President Clinton refrains from foreclosing all sea-based and many other promising missile defense options.

²See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled Influential Democrats Appear to Endorse the ‘AEGIS Option’ for Quickly Defending America (No. 00-D 22, 10 March 2000).

³Several notable exceptions include: the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, the Washington Times, the San Diego Union and Investors Business Daily.

⁴See Hallelujah: Joint Chiefs, Strategic Command Oppose Reckless Clinton Disarmament Initiatives (No. 00-D 44, 11 May 2000).

⁵See There Must be No ‘Grand Compromise’ of U.S. National Security (No. 00-F 28, 21 April 2000).

⁵Notably, the Director of President Clinton’s Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Gen. Ronald Kadish, has called for a “layered” missile defense — likely involving sea-, air- and space-based weapons and sensors, as well as a ground-based anti-missile system.