HER ‘FINEST HOUR’: LADY THATCHER ISSUES CHURCHILLIAN CALL FOR ‘EFFECTIVE GLOBAL MISSILE DEFENSES’

(Washington, D.C.): Last Saturday — half-a-century
after her distinguished predecessor in the post of
British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, delivered
one of the most momentous addresses of the Twentieth
Century — Lady Margaret Thatcher performed a similar
feat in the same forum.

In 1946, Sir Winston aroused the somnolent nations of
the West to the danger posed by Josef Stalin’s hegemonic
communism. His speech at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri brilliantly identified the “Iron
Curtain” that would dominate the Cold War period,
depriving the people of Central and Eastern Europe of
their liberties — and threatening those of the rest of
the world. Churchill’s Fulton address has been widely
credited, moreover, with helping to mobilize appropriate
Western responses to Soviet imperialism, including the
Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization.

For her part, Lady Thatcher has in 1996 issued a
no-less-clarion call about the dangers emerging in the
post-Cold War world. She also offered concrete
suggestions about specific responses that are now in
order. With regard to the former, she told another
audience gathered at Westminister College on 9 March:

“…The world remains a very dangerous
place, indeed one menaced by more unstable and
complex threats than a decade ago. But because
the risk of total nuclear annihilation has been
removed, we in the West have lapsed into an alarming
complacency about the risks that remain. We have run
down our defenses and relaxed our guard. And to
comfort ourselves that we were doing the right thing,
we have increasingly placed our trust in
international institutions to safeguard our future.
But international bodies have not generally performed
well. Indeed, we have learned that they cannot
perform well unless we refrain from utopian aims,
give them practical tasks and provide them with the
means and backing to carry them out.” (Emphasis
added.)

The Threat Posed by Ballistic Missile-Delivered
Weapons of Mass Destruction

Preeminent among the threats of which Lady
Thatcher warned was that posed by “the proliferation
of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the means
to deliver them…[that] are falling into dangerous
hands.” She characteristically minced no words in
describing the challenge posed by this menace:

“Given the intellectual climate in the West
today, it is probably unrealistic to expect military
intervention to remove the source of the threat, as
for example against North Korea — except perhaps
when the offender invites us to do so by invading a
small neighboring country. Even then, as we now know,
our success in destroying Saddam’s nuclear and
chemical weapons capability was limited.

“And we cannot be sure that the efforts by
inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency
to prevent Saddam putting civil nuclear power to
military uses have been any more successful; indeed, we
may reasonably suspect that they have not.”
(Emphasis added.)

The “Iron Lady” then proceeded to lay out
what would be required to respond to the threat posed by
ballistic missile-delivered weapons of mass destruction:

“What can we do? There is no mysterious
diplomatic means to disarm a state which is not
willing to be disarmed. As Frederick the Great
mordantly observed: ‘Diplomacy without arms is like
music without instruments.’ Arms control and
non-proliferation measures have a role in restraining
rogue states, but only when combined with other
measures.

“If America and its allies cannot deal with
the problem directly by preemptive military means,
they must at least diminish the incentives for the
Saddams, the Gaddafis and others to acquire new
weapons in the first place. That means the West
must install effective ballistic missile defenses
which would protect us and our armed forces, reduce
or even nullify the rogue state’s arsenal and enable
us to retaliate.” (Emphasis added.)

Five Dividends from an Investment in Global
Missile Defenses

Lady Thatcher described the benefits that could
accrue from such a capability, declaring that, “…The
potential contribution of ballistic missile defense to
peace and stability seems to me to be very great.“
She went on to list five specific dividends:

“First, and most obviously, it promises the
possibility of protection if deterrence fails, or
if there is a limited and unauthorized use of nuclear
missiles.”

“Second, it would also preserve the
capability of the West to project its power overseas.”

“Third, it would diminish the dangers of
one country overturning the regional balance of power
by acquiring these weapons.”

“Fourth, it would strengthen our existing
deterrent against a hostile nuclear super- power
by preserving the West’s powers of retaliation.”

“And fifth, it would enhance diplomacy’s
power to restrain proliferation by diminishing
the utility of offensive systems.” (Emphasis
added.)

Alliance Cooperation Against a Common Threat

Lady Thatcher argued that transatlantic
collaboration on missile defense could be an important
ingredient in another high priority measure for dealing
with the dangerous post-Cold War world: “reviving
the [NATO] Alliance.” She declared that
“NATO…provides the best available mechanism for
coordinating the contribution of America’s allies to a
global system of ballistic missile defense: that is, one
providing protection against missile attack from whatever
source it comes.” The Iron Lady hastened to add:

“If, however, the United States is to build
this global ballistic defense system with its allies,
it needs the assurance that the Alliance is a
permanent one resting on the solid foundations of
American leadership. That raises, in my view, very
serious doubts about the currently fashionable idea
of a separate European ‘defense identity’ within the
alliance.

“[This idea] contains the seeds of a major
future transatlantic rift. And…it has no military
rationale or benefits. Indeed, it has potentially
severe military drawbacks. Even a French general
admitted that during the Gulf War, the U.S. forces
were the ‘eyes and ears’ of the French troops.
Without America, NATO is a political talking shop,
not a military force.”

The Bottom Line

It is entirely appropriate that the “Iron
Lady” should provide the wake-up call concerning —
and the road-map for dealing with — the most serious
threat to Western security since the Iron Curtain by
Reagan resolve. The Center for Security Policy once again
applauds Lady Thatcher, the recipient of the Center’s
1992 “Freedom Flame” award, for her
perspicacity and courage. It also wholeheartedly endorses
her conclusion that: “Acquiring an effective
global defense against ballistic missiles is…a matter
of the greatest importance and urgency. But the risk is
that thousands of people may be killed by an attack which
forethought and wise preparation might have
prevented.”

Recent ballistic missile attacks by the People’s
Republic of China against the trade, economy and national
psyche — if not, as yet, the actual territory —
of the Republic of China on Taiwan underscores Lady
Thatcher’s dire warning. Those in the Clinton
Administration and in the legislative branch who have not
exhibited the necessary “forethought” and who
have tenaciously staved off “wise preparation”
for global ballistic missile defenses will bear no small
measure of responsibility for the loss of life that may
ensue if China does, in fact, attack Taiwan proper.
Needless to say their burden will be all the greater if,
as threatened by the Chinese leadership, the China-Taiwan
conflict results in attacks on Los Angeles, as well. It
is to be earnestly hoped that Prime Minister Thatcher’s
Fulton speech will be heeded by such individuals, and the
West more generally, with the same sort of salutary
effect as met her predecessor’s clarion call fifty years
before.