The Clinton Missile Gaffe

In the detritus left behind after President Clinton’s summit meeting with Boris Yeltsin last week, it may seem difficult to determine which U.S. interests sustained the worst damage. While unchecked genocide in Chechnya, a legitimated Russian nuclear deal with Iran and apparent acquiescence to Russian interference in NATO expansion decisions would figure high on any list, Mr. Clinton may have done the most harm in an area that has received far less public attention — the imposition of new constraints on U.S. options to defend against missile attack.

Specifically, President Clinton agreed to perpetuate America’s current, absolute vulnerability to ballistic missile attack. This was the effect of issuing a joint statement saying, "The United States and Russia are each committed to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a cornerstone of strategic stability." After all, the 1972 ABM Treaty — signed with the Soviet Union, a country that no longer exists, in a Cold War environment very different from today’s — effectively precludes the U.S. and its people from being defended.

One need look no further than the Clinton-Yeltsin summit meeting to appreciate how absurd such a stance is. How can a president prepared to tolerate Russia’s sale of nuclear weapons-related technology simultaneously assert that it is prudent to remain defenseless against the weapons Tehran might thus obtain and deliver by ballistic missile?

President Clinton also agreed in Moscow to a number of "basic principles" that the U.S. and Russia say should "serve as a basis for further discussions in order to reach agreement in the field of demarcation between ABM systems and Theater Missile Defense (TMD) systems." Unfortunately, "demarcation" is a code word for new constraints on a class of missile defenses not currently limited by the ABM Treaty — defenses against shorter-range, or "theater," ballistic missiles. The following quoted "principles" merit critical analysis:

 

• "Both sides must have the option to establish and to deploy effective theater missile defense systems. Such activity must not lead to violation or circumvention of the ABM Treaty."

While the first sentence sounds fine as far as it goes, the U.S. currently has not only the option but the unencumbered right to establish and deploy theater missile defenses. The second sentence, however, is an invitation to Russian complaints about future U.S. cooperation with allied governments on TMD programs.

 

• "Theater missile defense systems may be deployed by each side which (1) will not pose a realistic threat to the strategic nuclear force of the other side and (2) will not be tested to give such systems that capability."

The term "realistic" was reportedly inserted at Russian insistence. The reason? Since the extent to which a threat is "realistic" is clearly in the eyes of the threatened, it is predictable that Moscow will be claiming that American TMD systems — particularly highly capable ones — are a threat to individual Russian missiles. This can be said to be true even if they are wholly inadequate to pose a "significant" or "meaningful" threat against a Russian attack in a "force-on-force" scenario.

 

• "Theater missile defense will not be deployed by the sides for use against each other."

This principle appears to introduce a basis for the Russians to argue that there should be geographic limitations on the deployment of U.S. TMD systems. The ABM Treaty imposes no such limitations on nonstrategic antimissile weapons.

 

• "The scale of the deployment — in number and geographic scope — of theater missile defense systems by either side will be consistent with theater ballistic missile programs confronting that side."

This principle appears to offer the Russians a "two-fer": It establishes that there should be some relationship between the scale of theater missile threats faced by a "side" and the number of theater missile defenses that "side" may have. And it creates a basis for establishing numerical as well as geographic limitations on U.S. TMD capabilities.

According to this logic, since Russia faces a potentially enormous danger of attack from shorter-range ballistic missiles, it would be entitled to an enormous number of TMD systems. Since Russia’s TMD systems (e.g., the SA-12 and S-300 surface-to-air missiles) have considerable strategic missile defense potential, the Kremlin could proceed with what amounts to a nationwide defense against missiles of all ranges. On the other hand, since the U.S. faces no theater missile threats, its TMD capabilities would presumably be limited to overseas deployments and possibly just to those numbers and regions where U.S. forces are still forward-deployed.

 

• "The Presidents confirmed the interest of the sides in the development and fielding of effective theater missile defense systems on a cooperative basis. The sides will make every effort toward the goal of broadening bilateral cooperation in the area of defense against ballistic missiles. They will consider expanding cooperative efforts in theater missile defense technology and exercises, study ways of sharing data obtained through early warning systems, discuss theater missile defense architecture concepts, and seek opportunities for joint research and development in theater missile defense."

This appears to mean that instead of the "cooperation" contemplated by President Reagan between the two sides on a global — read, strategic — antimissile system, there will now be "cooperation" only on theater missile defenses. It amounts to a substantial departure even from the commitment made by President Yeltsin in January 1992 when he expressed a desire to participate in a "global protective system." All other things being equal, the "cooperation" contemplated by this far more narrow statement will mean the transfer of extremely sensitive technical information, software and hardware that could lead to its irreparable compromise.

There is, however, potentially some good news in President Clinton’s mischief in Moscow on missile defense: with it, he has invited a major confrontation with the Republican-controlled Congress. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and virtually the entire Republican congressional leadership have formally and repeatedly expressed their opposition to the Clinton administration’s approach.

It now falls to Congress to take up the president’s challenge. Few issues offer Republicans — and particularly Republican candidates for Mr. Clinton’s job — a better vehicle for contrasting their differences with this administration. And now, thanks to an important new study due to be released next week by the Heritage Foundation, they have an option for relatively inexpensively and quickly deploying missile defenses aboard the Navy’s AEGIS cruisers as the first step in fielding effective global antimissile protection. If Congress endorses this program in the course of action over the next few weeks on the 1996 Defense authorization bill, it will go a long way toward undoing the damage Bill Clinton did in Moscow. And far more important, it will begin to correct our people’s most serious strategic vulnerability.

Mr. Gaffney is the coordinator of the Coalition to Defend America.