Getting the balance right: ballistic missile defence and nuclear non-proliferation more

This article was downloaded by: [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] On: 27 July 2011, At: 06:51 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Comparative Strategy Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucst20 Getting the Balance Right: U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense and Nuclear Nonproliferation Andrew Futter a a Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Available online: 25 Jul 2011 To cite this article: Andrew Futter (2011): Getting the Balance Right: U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense and Nuclear Nonproliferation, Comparative Strategy, 30:3, 254-267 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2011.587682 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. 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The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Getting the Balance Right: U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense and Nuclear Nonproliferation ANDREW FUTTER Department of Political Science and International Studies University of Birmingham Birmingham, UK Barack Obama has rightly embraced ballistic missile defense (BMD) as an important component of U.S. national security policy in an era where the requirements of nuclear deterrence are fluid and nuanced. Moreover, the deployment of these defenses may even provide several important benefits to the President’s much-publicized nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament agenda. However, if the President’s commitment to these goals is to remain credible and viable, then the importance of BMD against rogue states must be balanced with the need to avoid jeopardizing relations with key strategic competitors. As such, the President may have to limit U.S. BMD plans in the near future. Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 Introduction Ballistic missile defense plays an important role in the current and future U.S. national security and nuclear nonproliferation agenda. In addition to strengthening U.S. nuclear deterrence against countries like Iran and North Korea, U.S. missile defenses offer the possibility of gradually reducing reliance on devastating nuclear retaliation as the centerpiece of U.S. homeland and regional defense, providing a strong disincentive to further nuclear proliferation by U.S. allies and adversaries, and aiding wider U.S. nonproliferation efforts. However, the qualitative and quantitative expansion of these defenses must not be allowed to become a major problem in relations with strategic competitors such as China and Russia. Consequently, to retain a credible nonproliferation agenda, missile defense against rogue states must be pursued in conjunction with more traditional nuclear-deterrence-based relations with strategic competitors. As such, U.S. ballistic missile defenses are neither intrinsically destabilizing nor a disarmament panacea, but deployed in a limited manner to address threats in contexts or environments where the credibility of nuclear deterrence is weak or questionable, they can be a key part of U.S. nonproliferation efforts and help enhance overall international stability and security. While there was certainly a strong case against the United States deploying missile defenses during the Cold War, changes in the international system, advances in technology, and the spread of nuclear and missile technology mean that the requirements of U.S. nuclear deterrence have changed. Although acceptance of this thinking has been gradual during the past two decades, the Obama Administration appears committed to missile defense as a centerpiece of its nonproliferation and national security strategies in this more fluid and uncertain world. However, and although the Administration has not so far announced any official limitations on BMD, such limits will almost certainly have to be agreed to if the United States wishes to continue credibly pushing for nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament, and toward the possibility of a world free from nuclear weapons. As recent developments have shown, missiles defenses are expected to become an even greater component of European, Middle Eastern, and East Asian security thinking. Nevertheless, the importance and 254 Comparative Strategy, 30:254–267, 2011 Copyright © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 0149-5933 print / 1521-0448 online DOI: 10.1080/01495933.2011.587682 Getting the Balance Right 255 necessity of BMD must be balanced with the retention of good relations with Russia and China. Without this balance, the deployment of missile defenses risks undermining the Obama team’s whole nonproliferation agenda. If either of these powers comes to feel threatened by U.S. missile defense, a whole range of nonproliferation programs and initiatives may be jeopardized. Obama, Nuclear Deterrence, and Ballistic Missile Defense Over the last 20 years, a growing confluence of the proliferation of ballistic missile technology, the rise of small “rogue states” with the desire to acquire nuclear weapons, and a more fluid international environment have all questioned the wisdom of relying entirely on nuclear retaliation as the best means of ensuring U.S. security. In this new environment, missile defenses have an important role in bolstering nuclear deterrence, in reassuring U.S. allies, and guaranteeing U.S. freedom of action in unstable regions across the world. The decision over missile defense in Europe, the negotiations over the New START Treaty, as well as the Ballistic Missile Defense Review and Nuclear Posture Review suggest that this thinking has been strongly adopted by the Obama Administration. Following the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, many security analysts and policymakers believed ballistic missile defense was destabilizing. Such logic suggested that the deployment of BMD by either the United States or the Soviet Union would theoretically provide a “first-strike capability” by undermining the ability of the other to hold the aggressor to account through retaliation. By prohibiting strategic defenses and limiting other BMD systems, the ABM Treaty ensured that both the United States and Soviet Union would share in a balance of terror that made the use of nuclear weapons suicidal. Even after the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, many U.S. officials and statesmen continued to view the ABM Treaty and mutually assured destruction as the “cornerstone of international stability” around which the whole U.S. nonproliferation agenda revolved.1 During the last 20 years there has been a growing acceptance in the United States that the requirements of both nuclear deterrence and missile defense have fundamentally changed. The rise of rogue states, keen to challenge the United States and its allies, the proliferation of ballistic missile technology, a strong desire by these states to acquire nuclear weapons, as well as the distinct lack of knowledge about these regimes—making their behavior far harder to predict than was the case during the Cold War—call into question the logic of a purely retaliatory nuclear deterrence posture against these threats. As a result, and while nuclear deterrence currently remains a central component of U.S. security policy, the rise of rogue states—for whom ballistic and cruise missiles are the weapon of choice due to U.S. superiority in other conventional forces—has made it prudent to enhance nuclear deterrence with ballistic missile defense in situations and circumstances where deterrence is perceived to be weak or questionable.2 Ballistic missile defense has also become more strategically viable because the missile defense technology has advanced considerably and the threat, which is no longer from thousands of sophisticated Soviet warheads, has changed to reflect the regional proliferation of ballistic missiles. As Aaron Karp points out: “Since neither alone offers a sufficient basis for strategic security, ways must be found to make them [missile defense and deterrence] compatible.”3 Although acceptance of a U.S. missile defense requirement has been gradual, and despite arguing that ballistic missile defense would be downgraded as a component of U.S. national security and nonproliferation policy during the 2008 presidential election,4 Obama appears to have wholeheartedly embraced missile defense. The most tangible example of this is the fact that the annual appropriations for missile defense research and acquisition Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 256 A. Futter has dropped only marginally from that requested by the Bush Administration and is more than double the yearly amount requested by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, or Bill Clinton.5 While the composition of funding has changed slightly from that requested by the Bush Administration, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has made it clear that the Obama Administration remains committed to strengthening all components of the U.S. global missile defense architecture.6 Moreover, and although the Obama team has no current plans to deploy more than 30 long-range interceptor missiles in Alaska and California, Gates has remarked that this is because the United States already has the defenses it needs to protect against a long-range ballistic missile of the type that North Korea (or possibly Iran) might fire. More specifically: “If there was a launch from a rogue state such as North Korea, I have good confidence that we would be able to deal with it.”7 This is a key reason why funding has been redirected toward shorter-range and theater BMD programs under Obama. The acceptance of BMD as a key component of U.S. strategy was also demonstrated by the decision to replace and not cancel plans for additional U.S. missile defense assets in Europe. In fact the new plan for missile defense in Europe, which replaces the Bush Administration’s “third site” proposal, has the potential to become a far larger and more comprehensive missile defense commitment to the region.8 Instead of the 10 long-range, ground-based interceptors in Poland and a large discrimination radar in the Czech Republic, the Obama plan—known as the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA)—openly states that by 2020 the United States may field hundreds of Standard Missile (SM)-3 interceptors on land and at sea, which will be linked with numerous radars and the NATO command and control infrastructure in Europe.9 Again, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was keen to stress that the Administration was “strengthening, not scrapping, missile defense in Europe.”10 While Pentagon officials pointed out that “every phase of the plan will include scores of SM-3 missiles”11 and will almost certainly involve significantly more interceptor missiles than the ten that would have been fielded in Poland under the third-site plan.12 As a result, if the current plan goes ahead as scheduled, it is quite likely that, as early as 2015, around 40–50 SM-3 interceptors could be in place on land in Europe (in addition to those already deployed at sea)—at least three years before the previous plan would have come to fruition. But perhaps most importantly, phase four of the plan, which would involve a high-velocity version of the SM-3 interceptor capable of protecting Europe and America from long-range missile attacks, would represent a far greater defensive capability than anything proposed by the Bush Administration for Europe.13 The 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR) took this idea even further by announcing that “The United States will pursue a phased adaptive approach with each region that is tailored to the threats and circumstances unique to that region.”14 Consequently, the Obama Administration would make it a central policy priority to expand the U.S. missile defense capability into areas such as Europe, East Asia, and the Greater Middle East, in order to strengthen extended and regional nuclear deterrence: The United States seeks to create an environment in which the development, acquisition, deployment and use of ballistic missiles by regional adversaries can be deterred principally by eliminating their confidence in the effectiveness of such attacks.15 The BMDR also states that one of the key objectives for U.S. strategic policy is to strengthen international cooperation by expanding U.S. BMD capabilities overseas, and the Obama Administration has forged ahead with a variety of bi- and multilateral Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 Getting the Balance Right 257 Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 deals with partners across the globe to this end. In this regard, the Administration has also begun, in coordination with NATO, discussions with Russia about the possibility of cooperating on ballistic missile defense in Europe. What is more, the Administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), released two months after the BMDR, strongly reiterates the Administration’s view of the necessity, importance, and centrality of missile defense to U.S. security and nonproliferation strategy.16 Perhaps the most significant and notable development has been the fact that the Obama Administration did not use missile defense as a bargaining chip in the negotiations with Russia over the New START Treaty. In fact, reports suggest that the Administration’s strong reluctance to link arms cuts with limits in U.S. missile defense was a key reason why it took so long for the treaty, which represented a fundamental administration policy priority, to be agreed to and then ratified. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointed out in a May 2010 Wall Street Journal op-ed: The treaty will not constrain the U.S. from developing and deploying defenses against ballistic missiles, as we have made clear to the Russian government. The U.S. will continue to deploy and improve the interceptors that defend our homeland—those based in California and Alaska. We are also moving forward with plans to field missile defense systems to protect our troops and partners in Europe, the Middle East, and Northeast Asia against the dangerous threats posed by rogue nations like North Korea and Iran.17 Gates, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, other Obama Administration officials, as well as numerous other foreign policy specialists have firmly rejected claims that the treaty in any way limits U.S. missile defense plans.18 This was exemplified on December 18, 2010, four days before the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of the treaty, by a letter written by President Obama declaring his support for missile defense to the leadership of the United States Senate: . . . As long as I am President, and as long as the Congress provides the necessary funding, the United States will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies and partners. My Administration plans to deploy all four phases of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA). While advances of technology or future changes in the threat could modify the details or timing of the latter phase of the EPAA—one reason this approach is called “adaptive”—I will take every action available to me to support the deployment of all four phases.19 The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance described the letter by the President “as the strongest statement in support of missile defense during his time in office and maybe one of the strongest ever by a President of the United States.”20 Over the past two decades, ballistic missile defense has evolved into a key component of U.S. nuclear deterrence and national security policy. The confluence of states seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of ballistic missiles, and the more fluid and unstable post–Cold War international system suggests that the United States can no longer rely solely on a retaliatory deterrent posture. However, with the President’s very public focus on disarmament and the possibility of global zero, the implications of the spread of missile defenses must also be examined. 258 A. Futter Ballistic Missile Defense and Nonproliferation Even as he has embraced the need for ballistic missile defense, President Obama has also made nuclear nonproliferation and the possibility of a world free from nuclear weapons central policy priorities. In the shortterm, the deployment of limited missile defenses in unstable regions around the globe can have a positive impact on achieving a balance between the missile defense and nonproliferation goals, and it is possible to see such defenses allowing the United States to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons for homeland security, and potentially to begin replacing the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent in unstable regions across the globe without undermining key U.S. allies. U.S. missile defenses can also act as a powerful disincentive to both U.S. allies and rivals entertaining the idea of acquiring their own nuclear capability. Additionally, missile defenses may in the short run increase the possibility and feasibility of nuclear weapons–free zones, and in the long run may provide a hedge against nuclear cheating. Perhaps the greatest advantage offered by ballistic missile defense is the possibility of gradually moving toward a more defense-centric security and deterrence posture. The Obama Administration has already indicated in its April 2010 Nuclear Posture Review that “ . . . continued improvements in U.S. missile defense . . . [means that] the role of U.S. nuclear weapons . . . has declined significantly.”21 While we are far from being in a position where the United States could, if it wanted to do, move entirely to a defense-dominant security and deterrence posture, the additional capability provided by missile defenses offers a strong incentive to reduce deployed nuclear weapons. By easing the pressure on the United States to retain large stockpiles of nuclear weapons, this may also create the conditions in which Russia would be less opposed to making nuclear reductions of its own. An increased role for missile defense in U.S. strategy would also offer the possibility of gradually bolstering and even substituting missile defense for the U.S. extended nuclear deterrence umbrella overseas. In many ways, it seems that this may have been an underlying rationale for the change of plan for missile defense in Europe and on regional “Phased Adaptive Approaches” in the Administration’s Ballistic Missile Defense Review. As the BMDR makes clear: “The role of US nuclear weapons in regional deterrence architectures can be reduced by increasing the role of missile defense.”22 The Nuclear Posture Review made similar claims: By maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent and reinforcing regional architectures with missile defenses and other conventional military capabilities, we can reassure out non-nuclear allies and partners worldwide of our security commitment to them and confirm that they do not need nuclear weapons capabilities of their own.23 Accordingly, U.S. missile defense deployments in Europe, the Persian Gulf, and East Asia could help reduce the need for the United States to retain large numbers of nuclear weapons in these regions. In Europe, for example, as Oliver Thranert argues, it seems likely that expanding U.S. missile defense capabilities may make it politically and strategically acceptable for NATO to reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons: Technological advances should make it possible for NATO to consider a future in which the security of its members is based more on missile defences than on U.S. nuclear weapons based on European NATO territories.24 Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 Getting the Balance Right 259 What is more, Thranert suggests that such defenses could “substitute for nuclear sharing as a means to keep the United States committed to European defence, thus ameliorating the concerns of those that see nuclear sharing as a fundamental way to keep the US involved in European security.”25 In fact, the leaders of NATO’s 28 countries have endorsed a U.S. plan to provide missile defense coverage over all European member states as part of its New Strategic Concept agreed to at its recent summit meeting in Lisbon.26 At least part of this decision was linked to the role that missile defense might play in paving the way for the removal of U.S. tactical weapons from Europe.27 The same logic applies in East Asia, where the U.S. commitment to key regional allies such as Japan and South Korea could be gradually transitioned from the extended deterrence umbrella toward a security posture based around missile defense. Coupled with a greater role for defenses in U.S. homeland security, such moves will create a strong pressure to reduce U.S. nuclear weapons and consequently aid wider disarmament goals. As well as providing a strong strategic case for the United States to rely less on nuclear weapons at home and abroad, the gradual expansion of missile defenses also offers a strong disincentive for regional nuclear proliferation. In particular, missile defenses offer an additional layer of security to countries that feel threatened by the spread of nuclear and missile technology to rogue states, or states who have come to doubt the effectiveness of a purely retaliatory U.S. extended deterrence umbrella. What is more, it is likely that such BMD deployments would also lessen the desire on the part of these nations to seek their own nuclear weapons capability. For example, by focusing the new Phased Adaptive Approach in Europe initially on the defense on the Eastern Mediterranean against the possibility of an Iranian threat, the Obama Administration has provided a strong disincentive for states like Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to pursue their own nuclear capability. The deployment of Patriot missile defense batteries in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (a nation that has also expressed interest in buying Terminal High Altitude Area Defense [THAAD] batteries),28 along with the announcement that Aegis missile defense warships would begin patrolling in the Persian Gulf in February 2010, is a further example of this.29 In East Asia, the expansion of missile defense cooperation with Japan and other U.S. East Asian allies—notably Taiwan and South Korea—should provide a similar disincentive for such countries to seek a nuclear capability in response to their concerns about North Korea. Missile defenses may also act as a disincentive to those countries wishing to challenge the prevailing security order. Put simply, any missile defense deployments by the United States and its allies will significantly raise the cost to would-be or current nuclear pariahs by lessening the possibility that a nuclear strike would be successful. This would also force such nations to build more sophisticated or larger numbers of nuclear weapons to ensure the same type of leverage a crude device would have under pure retaliatory nuclear deterrence. As many of these countries tend to be impoverished, and as such technology is both hard to acquire and master, the expansion of BMD seems likely to become a strong disincentive to states wishing to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. As such, missile defenses could “help both to counter an important threat and deter it in the first place.”30 By reducing the perceived value of acquiring nuclear weapons, U.S. missile defenses may also help to both establish and maintain nuclear weapons–free zones (NWFZ). In the short run, this may mean using defensive deployments to negate the possibility of any state achieving a “surprise nuclear capacity” and with it a huge strategic advantage (because in such regions any surprise nuclear capability would be small and rudimentary, missile defenses should be capable of proving a sound security, and thus act as a strong disincentive to such action), and in the long run, if the world were ever to move toward a scenario in Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 260 A. Futter which only a few or no nuclear weapons existed, missile defenses may be able to play a widespread and universal role as a guard against and disincentive to cheating or breakout. As George Perkovich and James Acton argue: If reliable testing convinces impartial observers that ballistic missile defenses would be highly effective in real-world scenarios, this technology could make nuclear disarmament more feasible by insuring against the risk of cheating and nuclear threats involving few numbers of weapons.31 What this suggests is that ballistic missile defenses can and do have an important role to play in the post–Cold War security environment and can certainly play a positive role in wider U.S. disarmament and nonproliferation strategies. However, to avoid becoming counterproductive, the deployment of U.S. missile defenses in various regions across the world to deal with the “rogue state” proliferation challenge must be balanced with the problems both the qualitative and quantitative expansion of such deployments is likely to cause with traditional strategic competitors. Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 Russia, China, and the Case for Limiting BMD Although Cold War zero-sum thinking about missile defense and nonproliferation has become somewhat anachronistic, BMD continues to be viewed with suspicion by Russia and China. While neither the planned U.S. (and NATO) missile defense deployments in Europe represent a strategic threat to Russia, or the cooperative defense programs with allies in East Asia (currently) a threat to China, both countries are very wary about the further expansion of such defenses. In Europe, Russia remains concerned that U.S. deployments will have some capability against the Russian nuclear deterrent, and as such completion of the PAA for Europe in its entirety will probably make any New START follow-on agreement impossible. If China, with a far smaller nuclear force, is confronted with similar developments in East Asia, then not only are negotiations on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) potentially doomed, but a Chinese decision to increase its nuclear deterrent in response to this perceived threat will have significant proliferation repercussions throughout the region. As such, the key will be finding a balance between strengthening protection against the current challenges from Iran and North Korea without undermining wider U.S. nonproliferation goals at the same time. The timing and pace of these decisions will also be critical. The recent highly charged debate over the New START Treaty suggests that if the United States wishes to pursue further strategic or tactical nuclear arms cuts with Russia, a likely prerequisite for deeper multilateral nuclear arms cuts, then U.S. missile defense plans will somehow have to be removed as an irritant in U.S.–Russian strategic relations. Although the treaty is an important symbolic agreement, and it is indeed a first, albeit tentative, step on the road to toward potential disarmament, the 1,550 warhead limit it imposes remains significantly higher than the approximate number of warheads possessed by any of the other nuclear powers (France 300, China 240, UK 220, India/Pakistan/Israel 70–90). What is more, this number does not include the large quantities of tactical nuclear warheads or weapons awaiting decommissioning. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that around 22,500 warheads currently exist.32 What makes this so important is the fact that significant further nuclear reductions will probably need to be agreed to by Russia and the United States before the push for disarmament can credibly be multi-lateralized.33 If the United States and Russia cannot agree to go much lower than the numbers under New Getting the Balance Right 261 START, then there is little chance of convincing other nuclear powers to disarm, let alone entertain the idea of global nuclear disarmament and “global zero.”34 U.S. missile defense plans were one of the main reasons New START took almost a year to negotiate and nearly eight months to ratify. For a mixture of political and strategic reasons, Russia has been fundamentally opposed to U.S. missile defense since at least the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative in 198335 (despite the fact that Russia has deployed its own Galosh nuclear BMD system around Moscow since the mid-1960s).36 The continued Russian concern about U.S. BMD plans, and the relationship between BMD and further arms reductions, was reflected in the Russian unilateral statement accompanying the new treaty: Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 The Treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms signed in Prague on April 8th, 2010, can operate and be viable only if the United States of America refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively. Consequently, the exceptional circumstances referred to in Article 14 of the Treaty include increasing the capabilities of the United States of America’s missile defense system in such a way that threatens the potential of the strategic nuclear forces of the Russian Federation.37 Russian negotiators also pushed hard to ensure that this principle and linkage was reaffirmed in the Preamble to the new treaty: Recognising the existence of the inter-relationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced.38 Although these statements do not officially limit U.S. BMD plans, they do suggest that any further reductions will be very difficult to negotiate without some type of deal on U.S. missile defense.39 Consequently, for the Obama team to remain credibly committed to nuclear arms cuts, BMD plans in Europe seem likely to be limited, especially deployments of more capable interceptor missiles such as the Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) and latter versions of the SM-3. One way in which the United States, in partnership with NATO, may try to assuage Russian fears about missile defense is through establishing some type of BMD cooperation. Such an agreement may offer the possibility of removing BMD as a major stumbling block in U.S.–Russian relations and could provide a basis for agreeing to further arms cuts.40 Even relatively rudimentary cooperation, such as coordinated deployments or the sharing of missile launch data, would appear to offer reassurance that the system is not aimed at Russia or that it could it be used against them.41 As NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen makes clear: Politically, it would be a clear demonstration that the missile defense system is not directed against Russia . . . And militarily, it would make the whole system more effective.42 To this end, the Obama Administration has sent delegations to Moscow, and in coordination with NATO, is holding talks with Russian officials about collaborating on BMD,43 while 262 A. Futter the January 2011 meeting of the NATO-Russia Council will involve serious consultations on the possible creation of a European missile defense system and other joint projects.44 Reaching an agreement is unlikely to be either straightforward or easy. Previous efforts to establish some type of cooperation have achieved little, and early evidence suggests that the same might well be true for the Obama Administration. The failure over the last decade to establish a Russian–American Observation Satellite (RAMOS) and a Joint Data Exchange Centre (JDEC) are telling examples of this.45 Although Russia has often publicly floated the idea of cooperation, Moscow has made it clear that such an agreement would likely only involve radars and would prohibit U.S. interceptors. However, the most substantive problems are likely to be predominantly political, and while concerns in the United States about Russian trustworthiness will lead many to question the wisdom of close cooperation with Moscow, the big challenges will likely reside in Russia.46 First, there is the political value of anti-U.S. BMD rhetoric in Russia. Second, it is highly questionable whether Russia has any desire to further reduce its nuclear stockpile. Third, Russian leaders will be wary of such offers of cooperation after having been spurned several times before (particularly during the early 1990s). What is more, progress is almost certain to be hindered by technological interoperability problems stemming from the vast differences in the systems developed by the United States and Russia. These problems may well necessitate the rebuilding of Russian radar closer to Iran and may also raise questions about access to sensitive technologies. Overlaying this will be the highly complicated and political issues of command and control of shared BMD assets and the desirability of stationing troops on each other’s territory.47 Referring to the possibility of joint defenses with Russia, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) analyst Jonathan Eyal has stated that “we are years away. It’s like a discussion of what we’ll do once we land a man on Mars.”48 While this does not mean that some type of BMD cooperation is impossible, it does suggest that any agreement is likely to be very limited and probably will not occur in the near future. As a result, it is unlikely—although not impossible—that BMD cooperation can become a key way to assuage Russian concerns about U.S. BMD plans. Consequently, if the United States wishes to continue to push for further U.S.–Russian arms reductions as a necessary first step to achieving wider nonproliferation goals, then it must accept that missile defense will probably have to be limited in some form. The expansion and deployment of ballistic missile defenses in East Asia, in response to the growing nuclear and conventional missile threat from North Korea, is likely to be a far bigger nonproliferation balancing act. China has a far smaller nuclear deterrent force than Russia and tensions over issues such as Taiwan will make balancing U.S. priorities in the region more complicated.49 Although officials in Beijing have been concerned about U.S. BMD plans for several decades, they have generally chosen to prioritize stable relations with the United States over their long-term concerns about BMD. Nevertheless, according to Kori Urayama, “most Chinese experts reject the claim that missile defense is a defensive system” and believe that is at least partly aimed aggressively at China.50 Urayama goes on to suggest that there are five main components to the Chinese concern about U.S. BMD plans: (1) its impact on the relatively small Chinese nuclear deterrent force; (2) the impact such deployments will have on Taiwan; (3) the symbolism that it represents part of an “American imperial project” and an effort to develop an anti-China block in East Asia; (4) the impact of arms control and possible weaponization of space; and (5) the possibility it may lead to a more powerful and possibly remilitarized Japan.51 The first and most important fact about China is that it currently has far fewer nuclear weapons than the United States and Russia, and this has two important implications: first, China is unlikely to contemplate reducing its nuclear weapons until U.S.–Russian Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 Getting the Balance Right 263 numbers are cut significantly; second, China is far more vulnerable and likely to become concerned about U.S. ballistic missile defense plans in Alaska and California, but also in East Asia. Despite this, the United States already has very strong agreements with Japan and South Korea and appears likely to increase BMD cooperation with Taiwan. In addition to becoming concerned about the threat to the Chinese nuclear deterrent, bringing Taiwan under the U.S. missile defense umbrella may be seen as a direct threat to Chinese freedom of action should another political or military dispute arise over the Island.52 Moreover, many officials in China are already concerned that the U.S. system may in fact be intended in the long run to be aimed at them rather than simply North Korea and Iran.53 The implications of this could fundamentally undermine U.S. nonproliferation efforts and wider stability in the region. For example, a likely Chinese response to expanding U.S. missile defense deployments—ostensibly to protect U.S. troops and regional allies from the threat of nuclear or conventional missile attack from North Korea—is that China will seek to quantitatively and qualitatively increase the capacity of its own nuclear deterrent. Such a move is likely to undermine Chinese ratification of the CTBT and support for the FMCT as Beijing strives to acquire more nuclear material for its rearmament and deterrence needs.54 In addition to the negative impact on East Asian stability, it is highly likely that any moves by China to increase its deterrent capacity, either through offensive or defensive means, would have a significant effect in South Asia as India, and subsequently Pakistan, seek to ensure the viability of their own deterrent forces.55 In this regard, China has already caused widespread concern throughout the region after it tested its own ballistic missile defense system in response to the sale of 200 Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles to Taiwan in January 2010.56 Taking into account Chinese concerns over U.S. ballistic missile defense plans is a fundamental component of wider U.S. nonproliferation efforts, and a central reason why U.S. BMD, at least for now, should be limited. If these concerns are not heeded, then BMD will certainly become a big nonproliferation problem in the region. Done properly and in a limited tactical manner, it offers the possibility of enhancing protection of U.S. troops and allies, and strengthening regional stability. Ballistic missile defense is one of the most expensive programs currently being run by the Pentagon, and because of this it seems likely that U.S. BMD plans will to some extent be limited naturally by economics. In total, the U.S. BMD program costs around $10 billion annually,57 with a large proportion of the funds allocated for research and development. Such high levels of funding represents an obvious target should the defense budget come under attack from those wishing to cut government spending. This is particularly true for the long-range GBI interceptor missile, which costs around $70 million to just to procure, and even the cheaper SM-3 interceptor—which costs around $10–15 million per copy (excluding the additional purchase of the Aegis ships needed to house the system), but which is also needed in far greater numbers due to its limited range and capability.58 As a result, the pace and extent of U.S. ballistic missile defense deployments in the near future seem likely to be naturally limited by the size of the U.S. defense budget, and by the state of the U.S. economy. Budgetary pressures will also make it less likely that the Missile Defense Agency will be able to test and develop more “exotic” missile defense systems, such as lasers or weapons based in space (notwithstanding the tracking sensors that the MDA plans to develop and deploy in space). As such, and despite the plans laid out in the Ballistic Missile Defense Review, major BMD growth is likely to be in Patriot, THAAD, and SM-3 interceptors—rather than in the GBI, more sophisticated—and as yet untested—versions of the SM-3, or other future technologies. Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 264 A. Futter U.S. BMD plans will also be limited in their extent and capability by technology and engineering, for despite the significant progress made during the last decade or so, BMD technology remains the subject of criticism from a small section of commentators and scientists convinced that the ability of BMD technology is fundamentally overstated. Although the debate over BMD technology is a far cry from that which raged over SDI during the 1980s—with only a few remaining detractors—the capacity and efficacy of the systems being deployed will continue to shape the program. In particular, Ted Postol and George Lewis have expressed strong concerns about the claims made in the Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report: A review of the actual state of missile defense technologies reveals that this new vision put forth by the Report is nothing more than fiction . . . there are no new material facts to support any of the current claims about missile technology, or that the U.S. is now in a position to defend itself against limited ICBM attacks.59 In a similar vein, Yousaf Butt, in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, has warned that the claims made in the NPR are overstated—particularly the claim that the U.S. is already protected against a limited long-range ICBM attack. Butt goes on to suggest that the Nuclear Posture Review’s: Reliance on missile defense as an element of nuclear deterrence is wrong. Such systems are dangerous and destabilising, and ramping up reliance on missile defenses because of planned reductions to U.S. operational stockpiles is deeply misguided.60 While such arguments question the technological possibility of further reliance and expansion of BMD, they also bring into question the likelihood that the U.S. and other states can rely entirely on a purely defensive security posture. Consequently, there may be strong strategic, economic, and technical cases for limiting missile defenses, and an equally strong incentive for states to retain a retaliatory deterrence capacity rather than rely solely on missile defense. Ballistic missile defenses have an important role to play in contemporary and future U.S. security and nonproliferation strategy, but if the expansion of these systems is not limited, they are likely to become a hindrance to security, stability, and the U.S. nonproliferation agenda. Although U.S. BMD will be probably be naturally limited by economics and technology, the expansion of missile defenses in Europe seems likely to complicate the possibility of achieving further arms agreements with Russia and may have far more serious consequences for regional security and nonproliferation in South and East Asia. Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 Conclusion: Why BMD Should be Limited The Obama Administration appears to have moved beyond the zero-sum thinking that underpinned U.S. nuclear and missile defense strategy during the Cold War and for much of the 1990s and embraced missile defense as a key component of U.S. policy in a fluid contemporary international security environment. There is also strong evidence to suggest that U.S. missile defenses might also act as a positive force in the fight against nuclear proliferation by reducing U.S. and allied reliance on nuclear weapons and acting as a strong disincentive to further proliferation. As such, BMD can have a role in the President’s Getting the Balance Right 265 Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 challenging quest toward a “world free from nuclear weapons.”61 However, the strategic importance of missile defense in dealing with rogue states and other security challenges must be balanced against the need not to undermine the wider nonproliferation agenda. For this reason—regardless of the debate over the provisions of the New START Treaty—it seems likely that U.S. missile defense plans will need to be limited in their scope and capability. Although the deployment of U.S. missile defenses is no longer considered to be an inherently destabilizing action, and in fact, as has been suggested above, such deployments offer the possibility to strengthen U.S. and international nonproliferation efforts, a successful U.S. policy must seek a balance between the benefits of missile defenses in various regions across the world to deal with the “‘rogue state’ proliferation challenge” and the problems both the qualitative and quantitative expansion of such deployments is likely to cause with traditional strategic competitors. To some extent, as has been explained above, U.S. missile defense plans will be limited naturally by the sheer cost of such ordinance in a time where the defense budget looks set to shrink and by the restrictions imposed by technology and engineering. As a result, and while such a policy is not going to bring about a world free from nuclear weapons any time soon, and is far from being a security panacea, a balanced strategy offers an opportunity for a more stable, secure environment from which the next stage of the nuclear disarmament agenda can potentially be launched. Notes 1. For a good overview of this, see Bradley Graham, Hit to Kill: The New Battle over Shielding America from Missile Attack (New York: Public Affairs, 2003). 2. For more on this see Aaron Karp, “The New Indeterminacy of Deterrence and Missile Defense,” Contemporary Security Policy, vol. 25, no. 1 (2004): 71–87 3. Ibid., 71. 4. “Presidential Q&A: President-elect Barack Obama,” Arms Control Today (December 2008), available at http://www.armscontrol.org/2008election. 5. See “Historical Funding for MDA FY85-10,” U.S. Missile Defense Agency, available at www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/histfunds.pdf. 6. Jenny Shin, “Overview of Fiscal Year 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Budget Request,” Center for Defense Information, May 20, 2009. 7. Jim Wolf and Andrea Shalal-Esa, “U.S. Defense Plan Kills Programs, Trims Missile Shield,” Reuters, April 6, 2009; and “Pentagon Officials Point Out Flaws in Missile Defense Programs,” Center for Defense Information, June 5, 2009. 8. For more on this, see Andrew Futter, “Sensitive Rationalization or Overlooked Expansion? Obama’s New Missile Defence Plan for Europe,” BASIC Getting to Zero Working Papers, no. 13 (March 1, 2010), available at www.basicint.org/publications/andrew-futter/2010/ sensitive-rationalization-or-overlooked-expansion-demystifying-obama. 9. “Fact Sheet on U.S. Missile Defense Policy—A ‘Phased, Adaptive Approach’ for Missile Defense in Europe,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, September 17, 2009. 10. Robert Gates, “A Better Missile Defense for a Safer Europe,” New York Times, September 20, 2009; and Peter Baker, “White House Scraps Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield,” New York Times, September 18, 2009. 11. Gates, “Better Missile Defense for a Safer Europe.” 12. “White House Debuts Four-Phase Plan for European Missile Defense,” Global Security Newswire, September 18, 2009. 13. “Fact Sheet on U.S. Missile Defense Policy.” 14. U.S. Department of Defense, Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report, February 2010, vi. 15. Ibid., 31 266 A. Futter 16. U.S. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review, April 2010. 17. Robert Gates, “The Case for the New START Treaty,” Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2010. 18. See, for example, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, “Hearing on New START and Implications for National Security,” June 17, 2010, available at armed-services. senate.gov/Transcripts/2010/06%20June/10-54%20-%206-17-10.pdf. 19. Barack Obama, “Letter to the U.S. Senate Regarding New START,” December 18, 2010, available at missiledefenseadvocacy.org/data/files/obama%20letter/obamastartlettertosenate.pdf. 20. “MDAA Alert,” Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, December 20, 2010, available at www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org. 21. U.S. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review. 22. U.S. Department of Defense, Ballistic Missile Defense Review, 23. 23. U.S. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review. 24. Oliver Thranert, “NATO, Missile Defence and Extended Deterrence,” Survival, vol. 51, no. 6 (2009): 64. 25. Ibid., 72. 26. Robert Golan-Vilella, “NATO Approves Expanded Missile Defense,” Arms Control Today (December 2010), available at http://www.armscontrol/act/2010 12/NATO MissileDefense. 27. Tom Collina, “NATO Set To Back Expanded Missile Defense,” Arms Control Today (November 2010), available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010 11/NATOMissileDefense 28. “UAE Said Close To Buying U.S. Antimissile System,” Global Security Newswire, June 4, 2010. 29. “Missile Defense Deployments Ramped Up Around Iran,” Global Security Newswire, February 1, 2010. 30. George Perkovich and James Acton, “Abolishing Nuclear Weapons,” Adelphi Paper 396 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2009), 27. 31. Ibid. 32. “Eight Nations Hold 7,540 Deployed Nukes, Report Finds,” Global Security Newswire, June 3, 2010. 33. See Daryl Kimball, “After New START, What Next?” Arms Control Today (January/ February 2011), available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2011 01-02/Focus. 34. For more on this, see Bruno Tertrais, “The Illogic of Zero,” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2 (2010): 125–138. 35. U.S. BMD plans can actually be traced all the way back to the late 1940s. On this, see Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); and Richard Burns and Lester Brune, The Quest for Missile Defense, 1944–2003 (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2003). 36. For more on the history of Russia’s BMD plans, see A. Karpenko, “ABM and Space Defense,” Nevsky Bastion, no. 4 (1999): 2–47, available at www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/soviet/ 990600-bmd-rus.htm. 37. See “New START Treaty Fact Sheet: Unilateral Statements,” U.S. State Department, May 13, 2010, available at www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/141837.htm. 38. “Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms,” signed April 8, 2010, available at www.state.gov/documents/organization/140035.pdf. 39. For more on this, see Pavel Podvig, “Offense and Defense after New START,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 6, 2011. 40. See Michael O’Hanlon, A Skeptics Case for Nuclear Disarmament (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010), 134–141. 41. See, for example, Nikolai Sokov, “Missile Defence: Towards Practical Cooperation with Russia,” Survival, vol. 52, no. 4 (2010): 121–130. 42. “Russia, NATO Begin Discussing European Missile Shield,” Global Security Newswire, May 21, 2010. Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 Getting the Balance Right 267 Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Caitlin Dallas] at 06:51 27 July 2011 43. Tom Collina, “Russia, U.S. Working on Joint Launch Notification,” Arms Control Today (July/August 2010), available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2011 01-02/Focus. 44. “NATO, Russia Plan Meeting on Missile Defense Collaboration,” Global Security Newswire, January 12, 2011, available at gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw 20110112 9412.php. 45. See Victoria Samson, “Prospects for Russian-American Missile Defense Cooperation: Lessons from RAMOS and JDEC,” Contemporary Security Policy, vol. 28, no. 3 (2007): 494–512. 46. See Andrew Futter, “U.S. Must Prioritize BMD Cooperation with Russia,” World Politics Review, July 2, 2010. 47. For more on this see, for example, Richard Weitz, “Illusive Visions and Practical Realities: Russia, NATO and Missile Defence,” Survival, vol. 52, no. 4 (2010): 99–120. 48. William Maclean, “Russia-NATO Joint Missile Defense Seen Years Away,” Reuters, September 18, 2009. 49. O’Hanlon, Skeptics Case, 135–136. 50. Kori Urayama, “China Debates Missile Defence,” Survival, vol. 46, no. 2 (2004): 125. 51. Ibid., 125–8. 52. For more on this, see M. Taylor Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros, “China’s Search for Assured Destruction: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure,” International Security, vol. 35, no. 2 (2010): 48–87. 53. For more on this, see Hui Zhang, “China’s Perspective on a Nuclear-Free World,” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2 (2010): 149–150. 54. Ibid., 149–150. 55. For more on this, see Scott Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). 56. Mark Thompson, “China’s Missile Test: A Symbolic Warning,” Time, January 13, 2010. 57. See “Historical Funding for MDA FY85-10,” U.S. Missile Defense Agency, available at www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/histfunds.pdf. 58. “DoD News Briefing with Secretary Gates and Gen. Cartwright from the Pentagon,” U.S. Department of Defense, September 17, 2009, available at www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/ 2009/September/20090918120914xjsnommis0.8748133.html. 59. George Lewis and Theodore Postol, “A Flawed and Dangerous Missile Defense Plan,” Arms Control Today (May 2010), available from http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010 05/Lewis-Postol. 60. Yousaf Butt, “The Myth of Missile Defense as a Deterrent,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 8, 2010, available from http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-myth-of-missiledefense-deterrent. 61. “Remarks by President Obama,” Hradcay Square, Prague, Czech Republic, The White House Office of the Press Secretary, April 5, 2009.