For a True ‘Fail Safe’ Arrangement, Deploy Anti-missile Defenses — First From the Sea

(Washington, D.C.): Last night, CBS aired a remake of the 1960s nuclear
thriller Fail Safe.
Both the original and the current version attempt to demonstrate the precarious, indeed
untenable, position the U.S. government would be in if a mechanical failure triggered a nuclear
attack and there was no way to recall it. Though the movie dramatizes this incident using the
manned bombers of the early Cold War, an even more dangerous threat is posed today by
fast-flying, nuclear-tipped intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs) against which
the United
States currently has no defense. (At least in the era of Fail Safe, our
air-defense fighters had a
good chance of dealing with Russian bombers.)

It is fitting that editions of the Wall Street Journal appearing “the day after” (in a
manner of
speaking) this much bally-hooed television special featured an editorial advocating a near-term
defense against an accidental — or, for that matter, an authorized — launch of a limited number of
ballistic missiles. Recognizing that the Nation cannot afford to wait the minimum of five years it
will take to begin the deployment of land-based missile defenses in Alaska, the
Journal
persuasively supports the “Aegis Option,” a proposal to begin the process of defending America
quickly by utilizing the already “sunk” $50-plus billion investment in the fleet of AEGIS cruisers
enabling them to intercept ballistic missiles.

Wall Street Journal, 10 April 2000

First by Sea

As President Clinton ponders whether to make a decision this summer, as promised, on
whether
to proceed with deployment of a land-based national missile defense system, another crucial
NMD decision looms. And that is whether to also proceed with development of a sea-based
system.

The Navy’s top sailor, Admiral Jay Johnson, Chief of Naval Operations, wants a role for the
Navy and became the first Navy officer to formally say so in a letter he wrote to Defense
Secretary Cohen a few weeks ago. The head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Air
Force Lt.-General Ronald Kadish, agrees. And a classified Navy-BMDO study that was
supposed to be delivered to Congress last month but it being held back by the Defense
Department, says a ship-based NMD system is technically possible.

A sea-based system has several advantages. First, it would be mobile, which is to say it could
be
dispatched to trouble spots, showing up in the Bosporus or the Taiwan Strait or the English
Channel as the situation warranted. This would go a long way toward alleviating U.S. allies’
concerns about being made more vulnerable to enemy attack by a land-based NMD system that
would protect the American homeland alone; with a ship-based system, they, too, could be
protected.

Another advantage is that some of the infrastructure already exists. An anti-missile system —
Navy Theater Wide [system]– is [being introduced] aboard Aegis cruisers and destroyers, which
are deployed world-wide. The current system is technically a “theater” missile defense, which is
to say it covers a military theater much smaller than that of the vast U.S. itself. But one country’s
TMD is another country’s NMD. The so-called theater system that Japan, South Korea and
Taiwan all want is intended as a “national” defense for those countries.

To protect the entire U.S. homeland, the Aegis radar would need to be upgraded, as would
the
interceptor missile it currently carries. An improved interceptor missile is already in the test
phase and the Navy has scheduled a test for this summer. The total cost of upgrading Navy
Theater Wide is estimated at about $5 billion.

By far the key advantage of a sea-based system is that it could be deployed quickly — maybe
even in time to deter a ballistic-missile attack on an American city. The bipartisan Rumsfeld
Commission warned in 1998 that a country bent on building a ballistic missile capable of
reaching the U.S. could do so in five years. That brings us to the year 2003. Proponents of the
Aegis option say it could be up and working by then. By contrast, the earliest talked-about date
of deployment for a land-based system is 2005.

Given all this, what’s keeping us from moving ahead with the Aegis option? The answer is
the
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union, which flatly forbids deployment of a
national missile defense. The Administration is trying to get the Russians to agree to changes that
would allow its proposed ground-based system in Alaska to go forward; if they treaty were
further amended to permit a sea-based system, there’d be nothing left.

The Administration and other devotees of arms control haven’t come to grips with this reality
yet. Vice President Gore warns of destroying the ABM Treaty by demanding modifications to
permit a sea-based system. Senator Joe Biden recently called for stationing an Aegis cruiser off
North Korea with the aim of intercepting a missile on its way up. This is a fine idea, but if we
want to stay treaty-compliant, we’ll have to make sure we shoot down the missile only if it’s
heading for Tokyo, not Seattle. Is that what the Senator had in mind?

Ultimately, any effective national missile defense is going to be a layered defense, which
means
land, sea and, as the threat gets more sophisticated, space. The U.S. ought to be proceeding
aggressively on all fronts, without having to tiptoe around an archaic treaty signed with a power
that no longer exists. That means going ahead with deployment of the ground-based NMD
system that is under consideration, no matter what Moscow has to say. And it means pursuing
the Aegis option as fast as we can.