Limit missile defense—or expand it?

Abstract

Since 2002, when the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the international arms control regime has included no limits on missile defense. Washington wants to keep it that way, insisting that it “will continue to reject any negotiated restraints on US ballistic missile defenses.” Many experts believe that missile defense undermines strategic stability; but some argue that missile defense can play a role in denuclearization. Here, Wu Riqiang of China (2015), Tatiana Anichkina of Russia, and Oliver Thränert of Germany (2015) debate whether arms control arrangements should include limits on missile defense—or whether advances in missile defense should be encouraged because they might contribute to disarmament.

Should arms control arrangements include limits on missile defense? They used to—under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The treaty included limits only on strategic ballistic missile defense, not on regional or theater ballistic missile defense, but nonetheless it contributed to strategic stability. When the United States withdrew from the treaty in 2002, and began in 2004 to deploy missile defense capabilities that would not have been permitted before withdrawal, chances increased that a new nuclear arms race would emerge.

Since the termination of the treaty, Russia has embarked on a deep modernization of its own A-135 system for ballistic missile defense, presumably with a view to giving it a more layered structure. But Russia’s system is operational only around Moscow and, though it is capable of intercepting single or perhaps multiple ballistic missiles, it would be rather ineffective against a massive missile attack. Russia, unlike the United States, has no plans to extend its ballistic missile defense system worldwide.

The United States has already begun to deploy basic elements of what might become a global missile defense system. These include a variety of means for intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range air-launched cruise missiles—as well as medium- and short-range ballistic missiles. The US system’s capabilities are still limited. But if the number of interceptors were increased, and their performance were enhanced, significant challenges would be posed for international stability and security.

Regional powers, notably Russia and China, are deeply concerned by US plans to deploy elements of missile defense systems in locations around the world. For instance, George W. Bush’s plan to create a “third site” in Poland and the Czech Republic threatened to create a crisis in US-Russia relations. Russia’s response to the plan was quite negative—Moscow threatened, for example, to deploy short-range nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad. Washington acknowledged Moscow’s concerns with a few transparency measures. But the United States ultimately declined a Russian proposal, first made in 2007, according to which Washington would have scrapped plans to place a radar station and missile interceptors in Eastern Europe and in exchange would have gained access to information provided by Russian radars in Gabala, Azerbaijan, and Armavir, Russia. The United States likewise rejected Moscow’s proposal to establish centers for data exchange and joint threat assessment. Relations became so strained that bilateral dialogue, including negotiations for New START, very nearly came to a halt.

The situation improved for a while after Barack Obama instituted his “reset” policy, a key element of which was abandoning plans for missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama administration instead settled on a “phased adaptive approach”—basically, countering known missile threats through existing means while also pursuing new technologies to counter threats that might develop in the future (Arms Control Association, 2013). But US-Russia relations began to suffer again in 2010 when the United States rejected Russia’s “sectoral” approach to building a ballistic missile defense system in Europe—according to this plan, Russia would have taken responsibility for defending against missiles launched toward Europe from the southeast (Sokov, 2012). By November 2011, the situation had deteriorated to the point that then-President Dmitry Medvedev announced that Moscow would take countermeasures enabling Russia to destroy a US ballistic missile defense system in Eastern Europe. Moscow continues to believe that Europe-based elements of the US missile defense system are directed against Russia, even if Washington denies it. Russia’s concerns have not been alleviated by recent reports that some NATO countries are calling for the European missile defense system to be formally directed against Moscow.

To Russia, missile defense isn’t some sideline issue. It’s at the heart of relations with the United States. Moscow sees missile defense as a potential game-changer for strategic stability and international security. And the West’s conduct regarding missile defense is a litmus test for whether Russia will be taken seriously as a partner in the maintenance of European security.

China, meanwhile, regards US plans for missile defense in Asia with serious concern. It now appears that the United States may establish an Asia-Pacific Phased Adaptive Approach, a missile defense system that would entail cooperation from Japan, South Korea, and other countries in the region (Rinehart et al., 2013). It would be a layered system whose first tier would include offshore combat ships armed to intercept ballistic missiles at the boost stage, or early in the midcourse of their flight trajectories. Ground-based systems would provide a second tier. Officially, such a system would protect US and allied troops and military facilities in the Asia-Pacific region from ballistic missiles launched by states such as North Korea. But it would be no surprise if Beijing took countermeasures against the deployment of such a system. The region’s strategic balance would be upset under such a scenario, efforts to achieve arms reductions would be hindered, and an arms race would become more likely.

Few alternatives

Given all this, it is essential that limits be placed on ballistic missile defense within the framework of the international arms control regime. What alternatives to such an approach exist? Only two. First, missile defense could be transformed into a cooperative undertaking—something that Russia has proposed to the United States repeatedly, but to no avail. Second, nuclear powers could engage in a renewed arms race. Russian experts are already arguing that, in response to the US deployment of a global missile defense system, Moscow should withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and resume production of intermediate and short-range ballistic and cruise missiles. (The US government, meanwhile, argues that Russia has already violated that treaty.)

If the United States manages to build a functional missile defense system that leaves Russia out in the cold, building a common security space in Europe will be very difficult. And if Russia and China cannot counter expanded US missile defense deployments in a way that maintains the strategic balance within the US-Russia-China triangle, the result would be a crisis in politico-military relations among the three countries. This isn’t necessarily to say that Russia and China would form a politico-military alliance and prepare for confrontation with the United States. But the political and psychological environment would be troubling.