Nuclear Defense and Offense: An Analysis of US Policy

By Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.

Ballistic missile defenses, that is devices to shoot down missiles after they have been launched, have been advertised as serving two purposes: the protection of US troops in the battlefield (via theater missile defenses, such as the Patriot missile used in the 1991 Gulf War); and the defense of the "U.S. homeland" against missile attack (via national missile defenses).1 On the face of it, these goals seem unobjectionable -- hence the considerable support and money that the program commands in the United States. The United States has spent more than $100 billion on missile defense since the 1950s, of which about $60 billion has been spent since 1983, when President Reagan announced the "Strategic Defense Initiative."2 Yet, the deployment of missile defenses will increase nuclear dangers, not reduce them. To understand the emerging dangers, it is essential to place the ballistic missile defense program in the context of the historical and current US retention of a nuclear first use and first strike option as part of its overall military and political policy. The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a first use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. (In fact, Germany had been ruled out as a potential target as early as May 5, 1943 out of fear of possible German nuclear retaliation.3) Widespread belief about the effectiveness of those nuclear attacks in ending the war4 and assessments of the damage and contamination resulting from the first post-war nuclear tests were central to the formulation of US nuclear policy. It was premised on continuing US nuclear superiority, if not monopoly. The US aim was far broader than threatening nuclear retaliation in response to a nuclear attack. Rather, the United States aimed for an integrated military force that would deter the Soviet Union and allow the United States to pursue its "vital interests" anywhere in the world without fear of Soviet interference. For instance, as a prelude to the CIA-supported coup in Guatemala in 1954, the United States sent nuclear capable bombers to Nicaragua -- one of many occasions when use of US nuclear forces was threatened against non-nuclear countries.5 Daniel Ellsberg, a former Pentagon nuclear war planner, who revealed what became known as the "Pentagon Papers" to the press during the Viet Nam War, has pointed out that many US nuclear threats have been against non-nuclear countries. Threats actually constitute a use of nuclear weapons in the same way "that a gun is used when you point it at someone's head in a direct confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled."6 The refusal of the United States to give unequivocal assurances that it will never use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should be seen in the context of this history. The US aim has been to be able to use military force whenever and wherever it chooses, unilaterally or multilaterally, with or without UN Security Council authorization, while deterring retaliation, especially with weapons of mass destruction. Since the Viet Nam war, deterring retaliation also includes a goal of keeping casualties low enough to prevent backlash against intervention from the US public. Such an exercise of power worldwide is not accompanied by a commensurate system of global accountability. It can and has led to arrogance and tragedy. The CIA-supported overthrow of the elected government of Guatemala and its replacement by repressive military dictatorships led to the deaths of 200,000 people in "acts of genocide" -- in which the United States has now admitted complicity.7 US ballistic missile defense policy fits this pattern of unaccountable exercise of power. However, national missile defenses would actually increase nuclear dangers to people of the United States, contrary to the announced intent of providing a protective shield. To other nuclear weapons states, US national missile defenses appear to be an attempt to pre-empt nuclear retaliation, leaving the United States as the only state with an effective nuclear arsenal, whether for a first strike or for retaliation. The other nuclear weapons states will, of course, do everything they can to prevent such an outcome. The technical reasons for the probable reaction are bound up with the fact that both US and Russian nuclear weapons are accurate enough to destroy the nuclear forces of the other side before they are launched, except for those forces that are hidden deep beneath the sea, or those that are land-based but mobile (though these are still somewhat vulnerable in theory). The United States also has far more of these invulnerable strategic nuclear weapons on submarines than Russia (about 3,500 warheads compared to 1,600). Moreover, Russia is now forced to keep all or almost all its strategic submarines in port for safety reasons and also because it does not have the funds to maintain a large fleet at sea. China has about 20 land-based missiles that can reach the United States, each with a single warhead, that take a day or more to fuel. It does not yet have a deployed strategic nuclear submarine force, though it is developing one.8 The fear of a first strike has already created a severe danger of accidental nuclear war for the United States and Russia. Both sides keep thousands of warheads on high-alert based on the theory that they should be launched before they are destroyed on the ground or in port. The threat of a first strike and hence the dangers of an accidental nuclear war would be greatly aggravated by deployment of national missile defenses. Consider the arithmetic. Russia has almost 1,200 launchers -- that is missiles and bombers -- which generally contain more than one nuclear warhead each. If the United States destroyed Russia's entire nuclear strike capability except for a couple of Russia's strategic submarines, Russia could still devastate the United States with dozens of nuclear weapons. There is no way that the United States would risk this, by Russian calculation. But, if the United States could shoot down the remaining few dozen missiles with high probability after they were launched, the feasibility of a first strike by the US would be perceived to be much greater. This perceived risk would increase as numbers of weapons on the Russian side went down, since there would be fewer targets to destroy, especially if the numbers of US warheads do not decline, while Russia's nuclear forces decrease through attrition and lack of funds for maintenance. Such fearful and fearsome calculations, normal in nuclear weapons establishments, are made all the worse by the advent of non-nuclear precision weapons, demonstrated during the Gulf and NATO-Yugoslavia wars. They show that the US could destroy an adversary's nuclear weapons on the ground or in port with non-nuclear precision weapons. Hence, the US could theoretically make up for a reduced number of nuclear warheads by attacking with non-nuclear precision weapons. Such calculations would make US-Russian arms reduction agreements unlikely and may even cause a reversal of past reductions. The problems as seen by China would be even more severe, since it has far fewer long-range missiles to start with. Russia and China are therefore likely to react by increasing their offensive potential and taking measures to thwart missile defenses. Indeed, China is already moving to solid-fuel rockets that could be maintained on hair-trigger alert. Chinese fears of a first strike would be a factor in crises such as a potential US-Chinese confrontation over Taiwan.9 The likely net result would be that instability and hair-trigger dangers would rise steeply. The increased risk could also involve a range of European actions. For instance, it is possible that Germany might decide to acquire nuclear weapons capability due to the lower relative security for Europe implied by a US national missile defense system. According to the Washington Post, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, recently reminded Americans that "Germany's commitment to be nonnuclear 'was always based on our trust that the United States would protect our interests, that the United States, as the leading nuclear power, would guarantee some sort of order.'"10 As an alternative, the European Union could decide to make the nuclear forces of France and Britain into common European forces, an action that would violate the NPT prohibition of nuclear weapons sharing (Articles I and II). In view of world tensions and nuclear history, including the fact that the United States has used nuclear weapons in war and made nuclear threats against non-nuclear states, potential adversaries are likely to consider national missile defense deployment as an part of an offensive strategy. Because of this probable reaction, ballistic missile defenses do not have to be proven to work effectively before they create dangerous new problems. The mere prospect of their deployment will increase the risk of a new arms race with both Russia and China (see Statements on Missile Defense). The consequences are then likely to extend to India and Pakistan. US national missile defenses could become the central element in bringing more than four decades of arms control and arms reduction efforts to a halt. That is why the ABM Treaty is considered by many authorities as the cornerstone of nuclear arms control and reduction agreements. Finally, there is a non-negligible chance that, if the United States does deploy missile defenses, it may make itself more vulnerable to a nuclear attack from a state like North Korea. (President Clinton is due to make a decision on NMD deployment in July 2000.) According to the National Intelligence Council, pursuit of ballistic missiles, in preference to non-missile means of delivery, by a country like North Korea may be influenced by considerations like "prestige" and "coercive diplomacy" rather than actual effectiveness and reliability of delivery of a weapon.11 Were effectiveness of delivery the main criterion, the choice of delivery vehicle would more likely be a truck, commercial cargo vessel, or an aircraft -- a view also shared by critics of missile defenses.12 The twists and turns of negotiations and agreements with North Korea indicate that North Korea is using missile technology development as a means of getting a better negotiating position with the United States, South Korea, and Japan rather than as a means of actually delivering nuclear weapons. US missile defenses could take away this negotiating chip, endangering the current policies and agreements by which North Korea has held up missile development and agreed to inspections of its nuclear facilities. In other words, missile defenses might simultaneously torpedo diplomatic agreements with North Korea and anger China into potentially greater cooperation with North Korea. This may put the United States at greater risk, since under such circumstances, North Korean nuclear strategy may rely less on diplomacy in favor of contingency plans for delivery of nuclear weapons by non-missile means. Even one or a few nuclear weapons exploding on US soil would be more devastating than anything ever experienced by the United States. Given US ambitions to act freely abroad as well as its reflex to protect itself by military means and technically sophisticated methods, rather than by international agreements, missile defenses seem to be an attractive concept. But by persisting in the illusion that it can have security unilaterally even if it increases insecurity of other nuclear weapon states and potential nuclear weapon states, the United States will aggravate nuclear dangers for everyone, including its own people. This is indicated by the continuing vulnerability of the United States after spending almost one trillion dollars on various measures to defend against nuclear weapons, of the cumulative nuclear weapons expenditure of $5.5 trillion.13 The strategic implications of developing defensive anti-ballistic missile systems would, of course, be different if done in the context of enduring nuclear disarmament. Such systems would no longer be part of a nuclear first strike capability. However, even in a nuclear disarmament context, such systems could be considered threatening unless, possibly, they were deployed in a globally agreed-upon framework (presumably to protect against any country breaking out of the disarmament regime). While we doubt that such systems, which are hugely expensive and likely to remain unreliable, would be a useful expenditure even in that context, their destabilizing influence on international security would likely be lessened, at least so far as nuclear weapons are concerned. The difference between deployment of missile defenses before and after disarmament was recognized in the plan that President Reagan proposed to President Gorbachev during the 1986 Reykjavik summit.14 According to this plan, both the United States and the Soviet Union would disarm and destroy all of their nuclear missiles before deploying a joint missile defense system. There were many difficulties with President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, including the fact that it involved nuclear weapons in space, so that it was not a plan for complete disarmament. It may have left the United States with a huge advantage -- at least that was the basis for its rejection by President Gorbachev. But the Reagan plan at least implicitly accepted the principle that first strike capability must be abandoned before missile defenses could be deployed. That principle has been thrown overboard in the current rush to missile defenses. Missile defenses should not be considered outside the context of complete and verified nuclear disarmament, or at the very least, outside the context of the separation of all warheads from their delivery systems, with warheads and all weapons-usable nuclear materials stored under multilateral monitoring. Given that nuclear materials as well as the knowledge to make nuclear weapons are now widespread, there can be no perfect security against nuclear weapons. The moment for that, if it ever existed, passed with the bombing of Hiroshima. The next best thing by far is to set a steady and firm course towards complete and enduring nuclear disarmament. The NPT, the treaty that commits its signatories to move towards a nuclear-weapons-free world, is increasingly in peril. The US must change course towards disarmament and towards accepting the jurisdiction of international bodies. That should include recognizing the World Court's advisory opinion on Article VI of the NPT as binding. (See IEER's recommendations for the NPT Review Conference.) Also available on this website: Rule of Law or Nuclear Chaos? Editorial Statements on Missile Defense