Sea-Based Missile Defenses — for the Allies, for the U.S.

(Washington, D.C.): As President Clinton traipses across Europe this week en route to his weekend meetings with Russian president Vladimir Putin, it is predictable that one story will dominate the headlines: America’s allies are virtually unanimous in their opposition to U.S. plans to deploy a national missile defense (NMD). And they may seem friendly to the idea compared to the reception it is likely to get from Putin and Company at the Moscow summit.

What Me, a Proponent of Missile Defense?

Unfortunately, it will fall to Mr. Clinton — who has evinced little enthusiasm over the past eight years for the deployment of even a limited anti-missile system to protect this country against ballistic missile attack — to make the case for such a deployment in the face of the objections from friendly governments and those being expressed even more vehemently by potential adversaries like Russia and China. Of course, the more the latter object, the more intense will be the formers’ concerns.

As it happens, the President has, presumably intentionally, left himself unnecessarily vulnerable to this sort of pressure campaign. In a quintessentially Clintonesque maneuver, when faced with veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate in favor of the Missile Defense Act (MDA) of 1999, he signed the bill into law. By so doing, he formally established that it is U.S. government policy to deploy an effective limited missile defense system, the sole consideration in bringing it on-line being the speed with which the necessary technology can be readied.

The Fine Print

Yet, in clear defiance of the letter and intent of the MDA, even as he put his signature on that legislation, Mr. Clinton pronounced that he had made no decision to deploy a missile defense. Worse yet, he declared that there were four conditions that would have to be factored into any decision he might ultimately make doing so:

• First, the threat must be confirmed. Not surprisingly, the campaign to block American missile defenses has lately featured renewed claims that a threat of missile attack against this country by “rogue states” is overblown. As an article in yesterday’s Washington Post makes clear, the threat-deniers are basing their “see-no-evil” stance on several dubious propositions.

For example, they contend that there are no “rogue states.” Accordingly, North Korea is described not as a state in crisis, led by a certifiable lunatic, but as a “parasite” looking for a new sponsor. The implication is that, as long as the United States provides the necessary life-support to the regime in Pyongyang, it has nothing to fear from that quarter. This is, of course, a formula for blackmail and appeasement, enforced by the very threat of missile attack we are told not to fear!

• Second, the technology must prove feasible. The opponents of anti-missile systems are returning to their favored, Luddite argument, namely that missile defense systems are not performing as advertized, cannot work and can, in any event, be easily counter-measured. The fact is that, despite the sort of developmental difficulties to be expected in mastering a challenging new technology like those used in hit-to-kill interceptions, a variety of U.S. theater and national missile defenses have proven effective and will become increasingly so as they are operationalized. While counter measures are to be expected, as they are with respect to every other military capability, there is every reason to believe that U.S. scientists and engineers can prepare and field necessary counter- counter-measures.
• Third, the system must be “affordable.” Opponents of missile defenses are also seizing upon cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office — an institution whose hostility towards defending America against missile attack seems unchanging, irrespective of whether Republicans or Democrats control the legislative branch — to claim that the price tag for the sort of ground- based system the Clinton-Gore Administration purports to favor is excessive. Using life-cycle costs and projections of the price for a second site (that has not even been formally proposed), CBO was able to get the cost up to $60 billion. While this is a significant sum, to be sure, if an apples- to-apples comparison were made, the price of purchasing and operating modern fighter aircraft wings or a class of surface ships or submarines would significantly exceed that associated with a ground-based NMD system. Particularly when weighed against the incalculably high cost of rebuilding an American city after it has been attacked with a weapon of mass destruction, even a large investment in defending the country seems hardly unreasonable.

There are, moreover, other ways to provide such a defense — notably, from the sea using modified AEGIS fleet air defense ships — that could enable a national missile defense to be fielded for a fraction of the cost of the ground-based system. Estimates produced by a blue-ribbon commission sponsored in recent years by the Heritage Foundation suggest that an initial capability involving 22 AEGIS ships and 650 missiles could be acquired for as little as $2.5-3 billion (spent out over five years). Cost is but one of the arguments for adopting such an approach (see below).

Inviting a Pummeling

The fourth precondition, as described in the Clinton-Gore Administration’s December 1999 “National Security Strategy for a New Century,” invited this week’s flail: “The implications that going forward with NMD deployment would hold for the overall strategic environment and our arms control objectives.” (Emphasis added.)

Press reports, notably a lengthy article in Sunday’s New York Times, indicate that a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) scheduled for release next month has begun to be briefed to policy-makers and sympathetic journalists. According to the Times: “American intelligence officials are warning that such a system could set off a Cold War-style arms race between China, India and Pakistan.”

While no one can say for sure that this assessment is incorrect, the fact that it would appear to support a policy of inaction on missile defense that the Clinton-Gore Administration has espoused for nearly its entire term in office cannot be ignored. This is especially true insofar as the Administration has baldly used NIEs in the past to justify this policy. (For example, in December 1995, it notoriously politicized an intelligence estimate in order to ensure that the threat of missile attack to the United States was downplayed; this technique had the desired effect when the NIE was released — with much fanfare in the middle of a Senate floor debate — serving to undercut advocates of mandating an urgent deployment of a national missile defense.)

Leaks about the current CIA estimate are likely to prove a self-fulfilling prophesy. If President Clinton follows the model set by his first Secretary of State — the hapless Warren Christopher, who during his infamous 1994 round of “consultations” about stopping the Balkan bloodletting made a point of “asking the Europeans” what they wanted to do about it — and inquires how they feel about U.S. missile defenses, the answer will be as predictable as it is negative.
While they are justified in being upset about the Administration’s preference for an approach to NMD that would leave them vulnerable to attack, they (and the Russians) can be expected to harp on the point Messrs. Clinton and Gore, themselves, feel most strongly about: the need to preserve the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty at all costs.

Remember INF: This situation contrasts markedly with the last time the transatlantic alliance was sorely tried by the Kremlin and its instruments of political, strategic and military coercion: the 1983 deployment of Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) in Europe. At that time, President Reagan was in power in Washington, Margaret Thatcher led Great Britain and conservatives governed in virtually all of Western Europe’s other capitals (with the notable exception of Paris, where Francois Mitterand held sway). Then, despite Russia’s vociferous threats of nuclear Armageddon, mass demonstrations aimed at intimidating or, if possible toppling, friendly governments and promises of arms control sugarplums — orchestrated to varying degrees by an earlier head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov — the alliance held firm. It deployed Pershing II and Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles as planned. And the unraveling of the Soviet Union and its empire began.

Today, most NATO countries, including our own, are governed by the sort of people who were demonstrating against the INF deployments — Socialists (and in some cases, Communists) who denounced Reagan’s strategy of “peace through strength” and demanded that nothing be done to jeopardize the “peace through paper” approach so dearly beloved by arms control ideologues. It would take a far more committed advocate and courageous leader than Bill Clinton to instill in such a group a sense of common purpose and confidence in America’s direction, like that which prevailed in 1983.

A Way Ahead — Sea-Based Defenses

Even against such odds, President Clinton could greatly enhance his chances of a successful round of meetings with the allies were he, at last, to embrace a way of providing national missile defense that could protect their people and territory, as well as those of the United States — namely, by using modified AEGIS ships and, perhaps, those of allied navies equipped with U.S. anti-missile technology.

In recent days, the case for using sea-based assets for global missile defense has become ever more obvious. On Saturday, the Washington Post gave front-page, above-the-fold treatment to an article describing a Pentagon study of this option requested by Congress that reportedly “concludes that sea- based national missile defenses could be built with existing technology and would add both flexibility and firepower to the land-based system proposed by President Clinton.”

Importantly, the Post confirms reports that “top civilian officials at the Pentagon are now holding up release of the report, which was due to have gone to Congress in declassified form six weeks ago.” Members of Congress — led by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay and freshman Louisiana Congressman David Vitter — are rightly concerned that Clinton-Gore political appointees are holding up release of this study for political, rather than technical, reasons. It would, after all, be inconvenient to have a report confirming the utility of sea-based missile defenses released to Congress just as Mr. Clinton is heading to Russia determined to secure a new agreement with Vladimir Putin that would foreclose this option.

Even by Clinton Administration standards when it comes to stonewalling the Congress, there is something extraordinary about its cavalier response to a letter sent to Secretary of Defense William Cohen by Messrs. Armey, DeLay and Vitter and twenty-four of their colleagues on 11 April. As the signatories put it: “Efforts by the Clinton-Gore Administration to pursue a treaty that could deny the Nation layers of anti-missile defenses that may prove vital to its future security only add to the need for the requested report to be released forthwith.” Six weeks later, these legislators have received no substantive reply.

Damn the Torpedoes’

Fortunately, the conclusions of this and a series of previous studies have not gone unnoticed by the U.S. Navy’s leadership. According to today’s Washington Times:

The Navy is planning a ship-based national missile defense that offers flexibility and a deterrence factor to augment a land-based program to knock out incoming long-range missiles, according to a senior military official….Internal studies have convinced senior admirals that the Navy can play a major role in supporting the developing land-based national missile defense.

This initiative is surely one of the by-products of another missive sent this year to Secretary Cohen — this one in the form of a memorandum dated 18 February from the outgoing Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jay Johnson. In it, the CNO made clear his view that the Navy could contribute significantly to a National Missile Defense system and should not be precluded from doing so by dint of programmatic or policy decisions. With that courageous “shot-across-the-bow,” Adm. Johnson created an opportunity for, and lent his personal prestige and support to, essential preparatory efforts on the part of his service like those reported in the Times today.

The Bottom Line

In a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy on 27 May, Vice President Al Gore not only violated the principle of using that hallowed platform to deliver an unmistakably partisan speech. He also put on prominent public display his deeply held views about the sacrosanct nature of the ABM Treaty and the priority he attaches to protecting it — rather than providing competent, layered protection for the American people: “The Administration has been working on the technology for a National Missile Defense System designed to protect all 50 states from a limited attack at the hands of a rogue state. We believe, however, that it is essential to do this in a way that does not destroy the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty.”

In the clearly political setting of a session with reporters en route to West Point aboard Air Force Two, the Veep was even more direct in his attack on the pledge to defend all fifty states with comprehensive missile defenses unveiled by Governor George Bush last week. As the Washington Post reported on 28 May, Mr. Gore claimed that “the Bush proposal could reignite the arms race’ and that any attempt to return to a Star Wars’-style missile shield would be wildly unrealistic….The ABM Treaty is the cornerstone of strategic stability in our relationship with Russia. We need to continue on a course of deeper reductions. But it is critical that we have the right approach in doing so [i.e., within the ABM Treaty.]”

This disagreement — and the accompanying political activity by both the Gore and Bush camps — sets the stage for the sort of national debate about missile defense that the country has needed for so long. It cannot come soon enough.