The Clinton-Cohen Missile Defense Initiative:
Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back?

(Washington, D.C.): Presumably it is coincidental. Last night, Representative Steve
Largent of
Oklahoma delivered part of the Republican response to President Clinton’s State of the Union
address (the other half being provided by Rep. Jennifer Dunn of Washington).
In his remarks,
Rep. Largent issued the umpteenth call for President Clinton “to join Congress in establishing a
viable missile defense system to protect the United States.” And today, Secretary of
Defense
William Cohen — himself a former Republican Member of Congress — told a Pentagon
press
conference that the Clinton Administration is nearly ready to do just that.
Whatever the
reason for its timing, Mr. Cohen’s briefing contained good news and bad news for America.

The Good News

Mr. Cohen — and his colleagues, Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry Shelton and Ballistic Missile
Defense Organization Director Lieutenant General Lester Lyles, who joined in today’s briefing —
implicitly acknowledged for the first time that the Administration’s critics are right in
arguing
that the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles urgently demands
homeland
defenses against missile attack, not just the protection of U.S. troops and allies
overseas.

As had been telegraphed previously, the Administration has also decided to budget
substantial
additional funding — on the order of $6.6. billion — for deployment of national missile
defenses. This represents a significant departure from past practice, in which the
Clinton team
talked about deploying missile defenses but made no financial provision for doing so. The actual
value of this commitment remains to be seen, however, insofar as all deployment dollars remain in
the non-binding “out-years” of the Future Years Defense Plan.

The Administration has, for the first time, made explicit reference to the possibility
of
withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty — the obsolete arms control
agreement that is, with the demise of the other party (the Soviet Union), no longer
legally
binding upon the United States but has nonetheless been allowed to continue to garrotte
the
development and deployment of effective U.S. anti-missile defenses.¹ To be sure, Secretary
Cohen made clear his personal preference, as well as the Administration’s determination, to seek
Russian permission to “amend” the ABM Treaty. Still, the combination of an acknowledgment by
the Clinton team that national missile defenses are required and impossible under the
existing
treaty is a welcome, if long-overdue, development.

Secretary Cohen also appears to have heeded arguments against canceling the
Army’s
Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system — an important near-term, upper
tier
missile defense initiative that the Administration seemed poised to terminate in light of a
regrettable series of flight test failures. According to the Secretary, THAAD flight tests will be
permitted to continue so as to validate the promising radar, seeker and interceptor technology it is
readying for deployment.

The Bad News

On the other hand, the Clinton-Cohen missile defense pronouncements of today leave much to
be
desired in a number of areas. Specifically:

• It will leave the American people undefended against missile attack until, at the
  earliest
  2005. Given today’s admission of the imminence of the threat, it is unconscionable that
  anything other than the earliest possible deployment would be acceptable.

• It continues to focus exclusively on a land-based approach to national
  missile defense —
  for reasons that appear to have more to do with the legacy of the ABM Treaty and the
  prospects for securing Russian permission to modify it than with the optimal approach for
  fielding flexible, cost-effective theater-and-strategic missile defenses as soon as practicable.
  The alternative that holds out promise for providing such a defense at a fraction of the cost of
  one, to say nothing of two, land-based sites is to modify the Navy’s AEGIS
  fleet air-defense
  ships so as to enable them to serve globally as ballistic missile-killers. If pursued as a
  matter of the highest national priority, such a sea-based system could begin providing anti-missile
  protection for the American people, as well as for forward-deployed forces and allies
  overseas, for as little as $2-3 billion with an Initial Operational Capability of three-to-four
  years. ²

• It is predicated upon further negotiations with the Russians. No good can come of
  this
  exercise as long as Yevgeny Primakov and others who prefer the present situation — in
  which
  Russia has an illegal territorial missile defense ³ and the
  United States is denied one — are
  permitted effectively to veto U.S. anti-missile programs. It is not in the U.S. interest
  to
  pretend that the ABM Treaty remains in effect, let alone that is “a cornerstone of strategic
  stability” when the price of doing so is to downgrade the capability, delay the availability and
  probably foreclose altogether the most promising anti-missile capabilities of all (first, sea-based
  missile defenses and then space-based ones).

• Despite the sense of urgency conveyed by the Defense Secretary’s remarks, his
  program
  actually moves further into the future the availability of both strategic and theater
  missile defense programs. The national missile defense program has been moved from
  initial
  operational capability in 2003 to 2005. What is more, under the restructured upper tier theater
  missile defense programs, two relatively near-term systems (THAAD and the Navy Theater
  Wide programs) will be programmed to reach initial operational capability two years
  after the
  National Missile Defense system will ostensibly do so (2007 versus 2005). This is ridiculous
  on its face.

The Bottom Line

In light of the concessions the Clinton Administration has now made, it should be possible to
stipulate to several things: 1) The threat demands urgent deployment of effective missile
defenses for the American people. 2) Cost considerations should no longer be an issue — at
least up to the $6.6 billion level the Administration says it is now willing to spend. 3) The
ABM Treaty will not be allowed to stand in the way of fielding anti-missile systems capable
of dealing competently with at least the rapidly emerging threat from rogue states. And 4)
the availability of defensive technology should be the pacing item in fielding anti-missile
systems.

If the Clinton Administration stands behind these propositions — as Secretary Cohen appeared
to
do today — there should no longer be any Democratic objection to the adoption of
bipartisan legislation first proposed during the last Congress by Senators Thad Cochran
(R-MS) and Daniel Inouye (D-HA). This bill would make it the policy of the U.S.
government
to deploy effective missile defenses as soon as technologically possible. Early action on this
measure should be scheduled without further obstructionism in the form of a filibuster mounted
last year by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and supported by thirty-nine of his
Democratic colleagues —
a one-vote margin that successfully prevented the Senate from even
debating this measure.

Then, the issue can be squarely joined: What is the fastest, most capable and least expensive
way
of beginning to defend America. Let the land-based approach favored by the Clinton
Administration and the sea-based system favored by many in Congress — and beyond — be
rigorously judged on their merits. And let the best program proceed forthwith, under
streamlined management procedures and with the benefit of the highest possible
priority.

¹ An important new international legal analysis confirming the fact
that the ABM Treaty has
lapsed and authored by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith and
George Myron, Esq. will published shortly.

² For more information on this concept, see The Heritage
Foundation’s study entitled Defending
America. This study can be accessed via the world wide web at the following address:
href=”https://www.heritage.org/nationalsecurity/teamb”>www.heritage.org/nationalsecurity/teamb.

³See The ABM Treaty Charade: A Study in Elite
Illusion and Delusion by William T. Lee,
Council for Social & Economic Studies, Washington, D.C., 1997.