NMD, TMD, and Nuclear Arms Control
by UMEMOTO Tetsuya
Abstract
The assumption that large-scale missile defense is incompatible with
nuclear arms control has been premised on an intensely hostile relationship
between the hypothetical attacker and the defender, and the ability of
the former to readily enlarge its strategic forces if their penetrability
should be perceived to decline due to the latter's defenses. While
it cannot be denied from a technical standpoint that the US NMD program
(independently or in combination with the TMD program) has the potential
of undermining the retaliatory capabilities of Russia and China, its deployment
would not necessarily spell the end of nuclear arms control if appropriate
political initiatives are taken to ensure that this potential will not
be brought to reality. To ensure the prospects for nuclear arms control,
however, serious efforts should also be made to adapt the concept of "strategic
stability" to the nature of today's major power relations so that it will
no longer rest primarily on the mutual vulnerability to nuclear attack.
Text
During the latter half of the Cold War, it was common to assume that
strategic missile defense would harm prospects for nuclear arms control.
Challenges to this assumption came to the foreground from time to time
in the United States, but it was never clear whether the Soviet Union embraced
it fully. Nevertheless, mutual vulnerability was enshrined in the
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972, which presumably served as
a cornerstone of "strategic stability" between the superpowers.
The putative incompatibility between large-scale strategic defense and
nuclear arms control during the Cold War was premised upon two conditions:
a highly antagonistic relationship between the defender and the attacker
and the ability of the latter to enlarge its already formidable nuclear
arsenal quickly. If substantial defenses were mounted by one superpower
against the other, causing the latter to worry about the penetrability
of its strategic arsenal, it would aggressively seek, and easily attain,
the capability to overwhelm those defenses.
With regard to the limited National Missile Defense (NMD) system, the
deployment of which President Clinton has recently postponed, those conditions
no longer appear to pertain. Despite important disagreements between
the United States and Russia, they have definitely ceased to be enemies.
The United States and China, meanwhile, maintain a diplomatically correct
and economically expansive relationship. Moreover, NMD is ostensibly
aimed at "rogue states" (or "states of concern" in most recent official
terminology) like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq - none of which could possibly
engage in a nuclear arms race with the United States. Furthermore,
the "rogues" may, in the future, confront not only the United States but
also Russia and China with the threat of a long-range missile attack.
The vaunted offense-defense dynamics would not be set in motion, therefore,
if Washington managed to convince Moscow and Beijing that the limited defenses
it is planning to deploy are indeed directed against the "rogue states,"
not them. Failure of such efforts, however, would doubtlessly entail
deleterious consequences for nuclear arms control. It is true that
with or without NMD, Russia's nuclear stockpile is expected to shrink substantially
over the next decade. Regardless of U.S. action on missile defense,
China is likely to continue the policy of gradually modernizing its nuclear
armaments. As Russia and China become less certain about the penetrability
of their strategic forces, however, they will seek either to limit the
scope of nuclear reduction (in the case of Russia) or to accelerate the
pace of nuclear buildup (in the case of China).
Moscow and Beijing have, in fact, clearly indicated that they would
be ready to follow such a course of action. For example, President
Vladimir Putin told the Duma prior to the START II vote in April that he
would consider withdrawing from the "whole system of treaties" on arms
control if Washington breached the ABM Treaty(1). The following month,
Sha Zukang, China's chief arms negotiator, explicitly referred to the options
that his country might take in response to a large-scale missile defense
by the United States. One option included, first and foremost, a
significant increase in the number of nuclear warheads(2). Russia
and China could, among other things, retain existing MIRVed ICBMs or deploy
new ones, raise alert rates for strategic forces, and develop sophisticated
"countermeasures" to frustrate the defenses. They could also encourage
proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies, further complicating
nuclear arms control.
Washington has faced difficulties in attempts to persuade Russia and
China that NMD is not directed at them primarily because, from a technical
standpoint, there is no denying that the NMD program -- whether independently
or in conjunction with the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) program -- has
the potential to undermine their strategic capability. Most importantly,
China's current ICBM force, consisting of approximately 20 missiles, could
be effectively neutralized by NMD in its initial phase with 20 to 100 interceptors
(the deployment of which was planned to begin in FY 2005). Although
China might come to possess as many as 200 strategic warheads in fifteen
years, as estimated by the U.S. intelligence community (3), the United
States would also have acquired the ability by then to shoot down a large
proportion of those warheads used in a retaliatory strike.
Defenses of the size now envisaged by Washington could easily be defeated
by Russia's strategic arsenal, which will continue to contain more than
1,000 warheads in the foreseeable future. Moscow is concerned, however,
that radars and satellites to be introduced or upgraded with the evolution
of the NMD program might enable the United States to put in place a much
greater number of interceptors than the currently planned level of 250.
Coupled with the growth of the counterforce capability of the U.S. nuclear
forces and the decline in reliability of the Russian early-warning system,
a rapid increase in the number of interceptors might create a situation
in which the United States could, in theory, rationally contemplate first
strike against Russia (4). Moscow's fear is compounded by the fact
that Republicans are calling for a larger-scale missile defenses than the
NMD system promoted by the Clinton administration.
Moreover, NMD could be effectively combined with TMD to produce a greater
effect on strategic missiles. The ABM-TMD Demarcation Accords of
1997 remain unratified and the line between permitted and prohibited defenses
has not been drawn very clearly. Upper-tier TMD systems like the
Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the Navy Theater
Wide (NTW) defense system would have some, but very limited, capacity to
intercept long-range missiles. However, if interceptors could be
guided in flight using track data from advanced radars and satellites that
had been introduced as elements of NMD, their ability to shoot down strategic
warheads would increase many folds. With more than one thousand THAAD
interceptors and several hundred NTW interceptors planned, such linkage
of TMD and NMD would substantially reduce the penetrability of not only
China's but also Russia's retaliatory forces (5).
Finally, apart from the possibility of its being tied to the NMD program,
the TMD program could prompt China to enlarge its missile forces because
of regional considerations. First, TMD might be extended to Taiwan,
which China regards as part of its own territory. Beijing would fear
that as people in Taiwan become more confident in their ability to defend
themselves, they will be further inclined to support a call for independence.
Second, it can be assumed that China will place a high value on its potential
to launch a nuclear strike against Japan (and possibly some others countries
in Asia). It is with this potential that it hopes to deter the United
States from militarily interfering in what Beijing considers internal affairs,
and keep Japan in check generally. Participation by Japan (and others)
in the TMD program would partially offset this potential.
On the other hand, if TMD is deployed alone, it is less likely to be
a factor in slowing down the reduction of Russia's nuclear stockpile.
Moscow remains receptive to the idea of theater missile defense as distinct
from strategic missile defense. This is suggested by the fact that
it continues to cherish the Demarcation Accords for all their limitations.
While Putin has agreed with Chinese and North Korean leaders in opposing
TMD in Asia, he has also proposed building a European missile defense system
in collaboration with NATO. During his meeting with Clinton in Okinawa
this July, it was announced that Russia and the United States should "renew
and expand" cooperation on theater missile defense and "consider the possibility
of involving other states." (6)
Under these circumstances, it seems that Washington needs to pursue
a double-track approach vis-a-vis Moscow and Beijing, if it wants to avoid
sacrificing nuclear arms control on the altar of ballistic missile defense.
On one track, the United States must step up its efforts to persuade Russia
and China that its defense systems would not endanger their retaliatory
capability. However, since the technical potential of NMD (and TMD)
to endanger their retaliatory capability cannot be denied, emphasis should
be placed on political initiatives to assure that the potential could not
easily be brought to reality.
As far as Russia is concerned, neutralization of a significant proportion
of its strategic missiles by U.S. defenses is still essentially hypothetical.
Greater transparency of the NMD and TMD programs would help reassure the
Russians. It would also help if the US could convince the Russians that
they would not face a sudden increase in the number of NMD interceptors
or an abrupt growth in the capability of TMD interceptors. Washington
might also seek to lessen Moscow's latent fear of a first strike by committing
itself to resuming the reduction of strategic forces (either through the
START III process or unilaterally), reconsidering improvements in counterforce
capability, removing nuclear weapons from high-alert status, and assisting
Russia in rebuilding its early-warning facilities. However, it would
be very difficult to reassure the Chinese about their retaliatory capability
because, from a technical point of view, threat to its viability is much
more imminent.
On a second track, Washington should begin an earnest search for a new
formulation of "strategic stability" among the United States, Russia, and
China that does not depend primarily on mutual vulnerability to nuclear
attack. As long as Moscow sticks to the traditional concept or even
the initiatives recounted above, it would not diminish its sensitivity
to the missile defense programs of the United States. Reduced reliance
on retaliatory capability would probably be the only way to make the deployment
of NMD and TMD compatible with the involvement of China in nuclear arms
control. It must also be noted that, from the viewpoint of many nonnulcear-weapon
states, Washington, Moscow, and Beijing should not emphasize the value
of nuclear weapons even if they were to be used only for retaliatory purposes,
much less their utility in restraining nonnuclear-weapon states.
As stated in the opening paragraphs of this paper, mutual vulnerability
as a basis for "strategic stability" has been predicated, in part, on an
intensely hostile relationship between the possessor of defenses and the
hypothetical attacker. However, this condition no longer applies.
Today, Russia and China are not mortal enemies of the United States as
the Soviet Union once was and the security interests of the three largely
overlap, especially when it comes to dealing with the threat posed by the
"rogue states." It appears that the time has come to at least make
a serious attempt to adjust the strategic thinking of Washington, Moscow,
and Beijing in response to the changed character of their relations.
(1) Michael R. Gordon, "Putin Wins Vote in Parliament on Treaty
to Cut Nuclear Arms," New York Times, April 15, 2000.
(2) Erik Eckholm, "China Says U.S. Missile Shield Could Force
an Arms Buildup," New York Times, May 11, 2000.
(3) Steven Lee Myers, "U.S. Missile Plan Could Reportedly Provoke
China," New York Times, August 10, 2000.
(4) Lisbeth Gronlund and George Lewis, "How a Limited National
Missile Defense Would Impact the ABM Treaty," Arms Control Today, 29-7
(November 1999), 11-12; Steven Lee Myers, "Russians Get Briefing on U.S.
Defense Plan," New York Times, April 29, 2000.
(5) Dean A. Wilkening, Ballistic-Missile Defence and Strategic
Stability (Adelphi Paper 334) (London: International Institute for Strategic
Studies, May 2000), p. 54; Gronlund and Lewis, p. 12.
(6) "Joint Statement on Cooperation on Strategic Stability,"
July 21, 2000. |