National Review, Cox, and WSJ prime missile defense debate in Congress

(Washington, D.C.): The debate in the House Armed Services Committee this morning on H.R. 4 — legislation that would declare it "to be the policy of the United States to deploy a national missile defense" — has been helpfully framed by several noteworthy inputs from two of the Nation’s most influential organizations of the Fourth Estate and a recent speech by a senior member of the House of Representatives. Comments by distinguished essayists in the National Review, an editorial by the Wall Street Journal and a major address by Representative Chris Cox (R-CA) make clear that America at this point has no choice but to proceed with the deployment of an effective anti-missile system as soon as technologically possible.

As Usual, National Review Points the Way

In a 22 February edition largely devoted to the missile defense issue, National Review’s distinguished Editor-at-Large, William F. Buckley, Jr., introduces four extraordinary essays concerning the history of, strategic imperative behind and opposition to the near-term deployment of anti-missile defenses. As Mr. Buckley puts it: "The articles…are a contribution…to an understanding of the need to document our commitment to our freedoms by an act of faith in our scientific resources." Among the highlights of these articles by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, best-selling author Mark Helprin,Washington Times national security correspondent Bill Gertz and former Washington Post White House reporter Lou Cannon were the following (emphasis added throughout):

• Amb. Kirkpatrick: "As in the past, we Americans can defend our freedom and our lives only if we are strong enough to deter or defeat an attack. Our defense must keep pace with developments in weapons, technology, and tactics.

 

"Democratic governments have a special need for defense because modern democracies do not fight aggressive wars. Aggressive dictatorship, however, are frequently ready to undertake expansionist adventures for no cause but their own appetites. No objective reason was required to motivate Iraq to attack Kuwait. Or North Korea to advance against the South. Regimes that habitually use coercion against their own subjects find it natural to turn their aggressions on others.

 

"This tendency of expansionist dictatorships to start wars is the most powerful reason that the United States and other democratic governments need urgently to be able to defend themselves against today’s dictatorships, armed as they are with nearly complete weapons of mass destruction."

 

• Bill Gertz: "Since taking office in 1993, the Clinton Administration has undertaken a systematic program that must be described as anti-anti-missile defense. Despite promising to build defenses against short-range missile attacks as soon as possible, President Clinton and his senior national-security officials have adopted a policy of delay and obfuscation intended to maintain the defenseless status quo. And it is not clear even now– in the wake of the Administration’s calls to renegotiate the ABM Treaty — that it is willing to abandon its arms-control orthodoxy. 1

 

"The administration continues to argue that without the treaty there is a risk of a new arms race with Russia. I asked Assistant Secretary of Defense Ted Warner if he honestly believed Russia can afford an arms race, given that its economy is on the verge of collapse. He said, ‘Well, no, not right now,’ but perhaps in the future. Russia knows it is dealing with a president and an administration that care more about Cold War-style arms talks than about building defenses. So Moscow will continue to bully the administration by threatening to refuse to cut its missile force or to ratify START II. And why not? It has worked before."

Chairman Cox on the Stakes if the West is Left Undefended

In December, a bipartisan select committee created to examine the effects of U.S. technology flows to Communist China and chaired by Rep. Cox completed its work. 2 In his first major public address since his committee’s voluminous classified report — which concluded that "harm has been caused" American interests by the transfer of missile-related technologies to the PRC — was turned over for sanitizing and release by the executive branch, Rep. Cox told the European-Atlantic Group in London on 18 February:

"…Regimes that can only be described as monstrous, governing small and impoverished countries, are in all likelihood only a few months or years away from establishing something approximating a Soviet-style balance of terror with NATO and Japan — the wealthiest and most powerful nations on earth….What would Seoul, or Tokyo, or Washington do, if in 18 months the North Korean government conducted a successful nuclear weapons test, after having conducted the test launch of the long-range Taepo Dong 2 missile that we are apparently expecting at almost any time — and then delivered an ultimatum demanding tens of billions of dollars in food and armaments?

 

"Even now, in return for American access to a single subterranean facility that could be used to house nuclear reprocessing, North Korea has asked for $300 million; for halting its trade in missiles to destabilizing states, $500 million; for simply agreeing to talks about any of these concerns, North Korea demands millions of tons of food that its corrupt and perverse economic policies cannot produce.

 

"What would we do if, in analogous circumstances, an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction blackmailed our NATO ally Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or Israel? And if destitute Pyongyang is launching three-stage missiles with a 4,000-6,000 kilometer range, how long will it be before Baghdad can threaten Western Europe itself? If these circumstances arose today, our governments would have no good, or even minimally acceptable, options. It follows, therefore, that our only realistic option is to use the short remaining time we have to seek to ensure that these circumstances never arise….In sum, the West has no realistic option but to seek a shield against these emerging threats with the strongest possible missile defenses."

The Wall Street Journal Eviscerates Clinton for His Flim-Flam on Defending America

On 17 February, the Wall Street Journal published a lead editorial entitled "Missile Defense Decisions" (see the attached) that not only convincingly made the case for the deployment of a missile defense system, but also assailed the Clinton Administration’s highly contradictory stance on this issue. As the Journal put it:

"…The Administration is…hemming and hawing about a national missile defense, which it claimed last month it now supports after years of saying that any threat of ballistic missile attack was way off in the future. Though it hasn’t been brought to the attention of most Americans, the North Korean missiles that Seoul and Tokyo are so worried about can reach Alaska, Hawaii and maybe other parts of the U.S. The Japanese Defense Agency told Japanese news organizations just yesterday that North Korea possesses enough technology to build a ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland." (Emphasis added.)

The Bottom Line

The time has clearly come to change U.S. policy from one of assuring the American people’s vulnerability to missile attack to one of assuring that they are defended against it.3Washington Post, the Kremlin is now claiming that its new Topol-M road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile will be invulnerable to anti-missile systems. While it is unclear whether there is any more truth to this statement than to recent, fraudulent Russian claims that a new stealth fighter is nearing deployment, the fact that Moscow believes it has such a capability should obviate any further objections from that corner to the U.S. deployment of anti-missile systems intended to protect this country from other missile-wielding enemies.

Interestingly, votes to do just that in the Senate Armed Services Committee on 10 February and today in its House counterpart, come as one of the last bases for opposing such as step is seemingly falling apart: According to reports in today’s

1This policy approach is evident, for example, in the letter National Security Advisor Samuel Berger sent to Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) on February 3, 1999: "We intend to base the deployment decision on an assessment of the technology (based on an initial series of rigorous flight-tests) and the proposed system’s operational effectiveness. In addition, the President and his senior advisors will need to confirm whether the rogue state ballistic threat to the United States has developed as quickly as we now expect, as well as the costs to deploy.

"A decision regarding NMD deployment must also be addressed within the context of the ABM Treaty and our objectives for achieving future reductions in strategic offensive arms through START II and III. The ABM Treaty remains a cornerstone of strategic stability, and Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agree that it is of fundamental significance to achieving the elimination of thousands of strategic nuclear arms under these treaties."

2 See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled The Real Case Against Bill Clinton: Chinese BriberyNo. 99-D 01, 4 January 1999). (

3 See Clinton’s Opposition to Cochran-Inouye Missile Defense Bill Offers Proof of His Abiding Hostility to Defending America (No. 99-D 21, 10 February 1999).