‘Politically Correct’ Joint Chiefs Are Dead Wrong on Missile Defense

(Washington, D.C.): On 24 August, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent
Senator Jim
Inhofe (R-OK) what is known in the Pentagon as a “Thank you for your interest in
national
security” letter — a dismissive response to a thoughtful missive sent five weeks before by the
latter, who serves as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Readiness
Subcommittee.

Sen. Inhofe wanted to know whether the JCS had reconsidered their position that
the United
States did not need to deploy effective national missile defenses as soon as possible in light
of changed circumstances. Specifically, Chairman Inhofe cited the recent, unanimous
finding of
the congressionally mandated, bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission chaired by former Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld that: “The warning times the U.S. can expect of new
threatening
ballistic missile deployments are being reduced. Under some plausible scenarios…the U.S.
might well have little or no warning before operational deployment.”

Writing on behalf of all the Chiefs, General Hugh Shelton told the Senator that “we remain
confident that the Intelligence community can provide the necessary warning of the indigenous
development and deployment by a rogue state of an ICBM threat to the United States.” He went
on to note that “The [Rumsfeld] Commission points out [ed.: correctly] that through
unconventional, high-risk development programs and foreign assistance, rogue nations could
acquire an ICBM capability in a short time and that the Intelligence Community may not detect
it.” Chairman Shelton pooh-poohed this carefully considered judgment, however, declaring “We
regard this as an unlikely development.” He does not deign to say why.

The General went on to recite the rest of the Clinton Administration’s party-line on why
missile
defenses need not be deployed as soon as technologically possible:

• “These rogue nations currently pose a threat to the United States, including a threat by
  weapons of mass destruction, through unconventional, terrorist-style delivery means.”
  By this
  extraordinary logic, the Army would not need tanks, the Navy aircraft carriers, the Air
  Force F-22 fighters as long as an adversary could “pose a threat” using weapons against
  which such systems would be of little or no utility.

• “The current National Missile Defense policy and development readiness program…is a
  prudent commitment to provide absolutely the best technology when a threat warrants
  deployment.” In other words, since we disagree with the Rumsfeld finding that the
  “threat” may already be at hand, we can continue to pretend that the anti-missile
  technology currently available need not be deployed at the earliest possible
  moment.

• “…Under current conditions, continued adherence to [the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty]
  is
  still consistent with our national interests. The Treaty contributes to our strategic stability with
  Russia….” This may be the most egregious evidence of the Chiefs’ unseriousness about
  the
  missile threat. The Rumsfeld Commission makes clear that — even if one sets aside the
  apparently growing possibility of accidental or unauthorized missile launches at the United
  States by Russia — there are a host of other potential adversaries who either now have or
  are actively acquiring ever-more-capable ballistic missiles with which to deliver
  chemical,
  biological and/or nuclear weapons. If anything, Russia is contributing to strategic
  instability, properly defined, through the assistance its missile technology
  transfers are making
  to exacerbating this frightening trend.

• “For the immediate future, [the ABM Treaty] does not hinder our development program.”
  This is a transparent tautology. By design, the so-called 3-plus-3
  deployment readiness
  program the Chiefs claim to favor will not conflict with the Treaty since, as Gen. Shelton put
  it, “We currently intend and project integrated system testing that will be both fully effective
  and Treaty compliant.”

The reality is however that the ABM Treaty was crafted specifically to prevent
any
missile defense from being both “fully effective” and “Treaty compliant.” For
example, the 3-plus-3 program featuring a small deployment of interceptor missiles at
the one permitted site in North Dakota will not be able to defend all of the United
States. (What is more, it will not be effective in defending even those parts of the
country it can protect against more than a handful of incoming missiles.) The dirty
little secret is that the Clinton Administration’s policy means that, if a choice has to be
made between “fully effective” and “Treaty compliant,” the compromise will always
be made in favor of remaining compliant at the expense of system effectiveness.

The Bottom Line

The one sentence that rings true in the whole Shelton letter is the following: “The Chiefs and
I
believe all [the] threats must be addressed consistent with a balanced judgment of risks and
resources.” (Emphasis added.) At root, the Joint Chiefs’ opposition to doing
what common
sense dictates in response to the present and growing danger of missile attack is a question
of money. The Pentagon budget is not providing anything remotely approach what is
needed to
pay for existing missions and priority modernization programs. The prospect of adding a major,
new and potentially quite expensive task quite understandably is anathema to the Clinton
appointees now leading the U.S. military.

The Nation can no longer afford to duck this issue. Rumor has it that
even the Clinton
Pentagon is anticipating that it will have to seek more funding in Fiscal Year 2000, halting
at
long last a fifteen-year decline in defense spending. Worried that such an increase may come too
late to halt the steady erosion in military readiness and the hemorrhage of talent from the armed
forces, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) has asked the Senate
Armed Services and
Appropriations Committees to hold a new round of oversight hearings this fall,
presumably in
anticipation of an emergency supplemental for the Defense Department. This initiative follows
appeals for additional resources for the military from House National Security
Committee
Chairman Floyd Spence (R-SC) and Speaker Newt Gingrich
(R-GA).⁽¹⁾

Even if such augmented funding is forthcoming, however, both military and civilian
leaders
ought to adopt a programmatic approach to missile defense that would put effective,
flexible anti-missile systems in place — for the defense of both the United States and
its allies
overseas (notably, those at immediate risk in Israel, Japan and South Korea) — far faster
and for a fraction of the cost of the 3-plus-3 program.

Toward this end, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would be well advised — and the Nation
well
served — if they were not only to treat the Senator Inhofe’s determined effort to defend
America against missile attack⁽²⁾ with the seriousness it
deserves, but to emulate it.
Importantly, the Chiefs may find themselves more free to do so were they to embrace the
Senator’s oft-repeated call to begin building such a defense via the most military- and
cost-effective way: from the sea, by exercising the Navy’s AEGIS
Option.⁽³⁾

– 30 –

1. For more on the hollowing out of the U.S. military and
congressional calls for corrective
action, see the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled Secretary
Cohen Implicitly Confirms That
Gender Integration Conflicts With Good Military Order, Discipline And
Readiness (No. 98-D
103, 9 June 1998); Clinton Legacy Watch #27: A Counterculture Assault On
The U.S.
Military And The National Sovereignty It Safeguards ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_121″>No. 98-D 121, 29 June 1998); and
U.S.S. ‘Babe’: More Evidence That The Counterculture’s Sexual Assault On The
Military Is
Taking Its Toll On Morale, Readiness (No. 98-D
138, 21 July 1998).

2. Fresh evidence of the Senator’s commitment can be found in his
press release of today (see the
attached).

3. For more on this Option — which would, for a cost of
approximately $2-3 billion, build upon
the $50 billion investment the Navy has made in its deployed AEGIS fleet air defense system to
provide within roughly three years world-wide anti-missile protection — see the Center’s
Decision
Brief entitled Validation Of The Aegis Option: Successful Test Is First
Step From Promising
Concept To Global Anti-Missile Capability (No.
97-D 17, 29 January 1997)