Hapless SDI damsel in distress: Awaiting a hero

BY: Frank Gaffney Jr.
The Washington Times, June 10, 1991

From its inception, the Strategic Defense Initiative has undergone the perils of Pauline.

Today more than ever, like the archetypal damsel-in-distress strapped to the rails, it seems doomed to perish under the wheels of an onrushing political locomotive. At present, it is unclear that a brave hero waits in the wings to rescue it — and that, if he does, such a rescue will be effected before permanent damage is done.

Assailed from its inception as technologically unachievable, impossibly cost-ineffective and incompatible with U.S. obligations under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Congress has consistently provided less funding for SDI than was needed and requested.

In recent years, moreover, congressional Democrats have taken the lead in imposing legislative restrictions intended to inhibit — if not prevent — the SDI program from establishing that workable, affordable global defenses could be devised and fielded. For example, funds were summarily redirected from vital work on space-based systems to less capable ground-based ones, and constraints were imposed that hamstrung realistic testing activities.

Despite these real and appallingly unnecessary handicaps, the SDI program has come a long way. At present, a relatively inexpensive yet highly effective space-based interceptor known as Brilliant Pebbles is within reach. As part of the Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS) program, 1,000 Brilliant Pebbles would be deployed in space to provide truly global coverage against ballistic missile attacks wherever they might occur. With an underlay of some 650 ground-based interceptors, the entire United States and its allies around the world could enjoy what they do not have now: at least as much protection as the citizens of three cities — Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Dharan — were hastily provided in the course of the war with Iraq.

Converging political forces appear determined to prevent this and allied countries from obtaining such protection. The House of Representatives recently voted effectively to terminate the Brilliant Pebbles program. In addition, it directed that responsibility for work on ground-based theater missile defenses be shifted from the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization — where it is currently managed as part of a coordinated, integrated program of ballistic missile defense — to the U.S. Army.

The motivation for these actions is fairly transparent. The real issue is not whether near-term space-based defenses can be made to work; testing to date inspires high confidence that they can. Neither is it a question of whether a deployment of such defenses is within our means; the cost of providing protection to large areas of the globe with Brilliant Pebbles would be a small fraction of what would be required to achieve a comparable level of defense through interceptors deployed on the ground.

Instead, the impetus seems to stem from a theological attachment to the ABM Treaty, which precludes the United States from obtaining effective territorial defenses. The comprehensive capability to defend against ballistic missile attack inherent in a space-based SDI is utterly incompatible with the concept of strategic vulnerability to such attack enshrined in that 1972 accord.

Iraqi Scud attacks, however, clearly debunked the central theses of ABM Treaty devotees, namely that being undefended was better than being defended and that only a "perfect" defense would be acceptable. In the aftermath of the Gulf war, the utter bankruptcy of such contentions — which President Reagan discerned nearly a decade ago — is obvious.

Under such circumstances, SDI’s opponents have sensibly eschewed a frontal assault on defense, opting instead for a flanking maneuver designed to accomplish the same end. They hope to drive the program into a political and technological dead-end by denying it the synergy and efficiency that can come from an integrated management structure and by diverting funds from space- to ground-based defensive systems.

Unfortunately, this sleight of hand might just succeed in destroying the SDI. For its part, the Army — in the finest tradition of bureaucratic intrigue — has indicated that it would have no problem with the dismantling of SDI’s management structure. Its spokesmen have even embraced the idea of deploying a so-called "ABM Treaty-compliant" or single-site, ground-based defense viewed by the Pentagon’s leadership as both an unworkable and an ill-advised use of resources.

Newsweek magazine reports, moreover, that Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and others in the Senate are moving in a similar direction. Their angle would be to promote a ground-based-only defense system involving perhaps as many as six sites and negotiations with Moscow on an amendment to the ABM Treaty to permit this step.

Evidently, even some of those in the Senate who support a real SDI are under the illusion that such an initiative merits support. The theory is that it would at least permit some strategic defenses to be deployed and would put to rest the notion that the ABM Treaty must remain immutable in perpetuity.

It is absolutely predictable, however, that — as the high costs and significant operational limitations of such stand-alone ground-based systems become known — political support for a limited deployment of this type will evaporate, probably long before anything useful is deployed. In the end, a renegotiation of the ABM Treaty along such lines may do little more than legitimize the massive anti-ballistic missile capabilities inherent in the large numbers of Soviet radars and interceptors ostensibly fielded for early warning and anti-aircraft purposes.

More ominously, the Newsweek story indicates that unnamed officials in the Bush administration look with favor on the Nunn initiative. In the past, the readiness of Brent Scowcroft, the president’s national security adviser, to accommodate Mr. Nunn and to accept congressional measures that stymied SDI did much to prevent the executive branch from defeating such initiatives. If that practice is repeated this time around, the opportunity for effective, global strategic defenses may just be permanently foreclosed.

Now is the time for President Bush to make clear where he stands: Will he permit a viable SDI program to be destroyed by the onrushing locomotive of those determined to deny the United States the sort of protection only space-based defenses can provide? Or will he insist upon nothing less than the Global Protection System he asked Congress to support just five months ago — and make it clear that alternatives falling short of that standard face a certain presidential veto?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the director of the Center for Security Policy.