Abstract
After months of hints and winks about its plan for national missile defense, in july the bush administration began revealing what it had in mind. To its many critics in the United States and the rest of the world, the glimpse of the future was not comforting. Many had wondered whether the new system was aimed at Russia and China, or at “rogue states” like North Korea and Iraq. But the primary target turned out to be the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
In early July, the Defense Department released some of the details of its new military budget, a request for $343.5 billion for fiscal 2002. Although the Pentagon reviews were not yet complete, it was nonetheless asking for $33 billion more than the year before—the largest increase since early in the Reagan administration. The most robust program in the new budget is missile defense, both national and theater, for which the request was $8.3 billion—a 57 percent increase from fiscal 2001.
A few days later, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz launched the administration's “vision” for a missile defense system in testimony before both the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees. In his opening statement, he described the United States as defenseless against a missile attack because of “four letters: A, B, M, T. Abm Treaty.” He neglected to mention that the United States had spent more than $100 billion on missile defense since the 1950s but failed to produce a system that worked. He also must have forgotten that Pentagon officials had testified in 1998 that the treaty did not hamper their planned tests.
Wolfowitz declared that the administration “does not intend to violate the abm Treaty; we intend to move beyond it.” He stated further that an expanded missile defense plan “will inevitably bump up against treaty restrictions and limitations … in months, rather than in years.”
In fact, some tests scheduled for as early as February 2002 could violate the treaty. Perhaps most ominously, the Pentagon was considering building five silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, that could be turned into a rudimentary deployment site as early as 2004.
Moreover, while the Clinton administration focused research on a land-based interceptor system designed to destroy warheads in mid-flight, the new plan resurrects all sorts of abandoned Reagan-era ideas—programs like Brilliant Pebbles, a plan to place in orbit as many as 4,000 small interceptors designed to smash into enemy missiles. It involves research into interceptors on land, at sea, in the air, and in space. And it would devise methods to intercept attacking missiles in the boost phase (shortly after launch), in mid-course, and in the terminal phase (as warheads begin their descent).
The Bush plan is not a universally shared vision, as many politicians and national security experts are quick to point out.
The primary leader of the opposition was Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, only recently elevated to chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee after Vermont's Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party. Levin's new position is crucial, because his committee will consider the first missile defense legislation before it goes to the full Senate, probably in September.
Levin was unsparing in his criticism. He opened a July 17 hearing with a blistering charge: “In order to meet a highly unlikely threat, if you rip up an arms control treaty and you start a new kind of arms race or Cold War with Russia and China, America could well be less secure.”
He was joined by most Democrats on the committee, including the moderates. Georgia's Max Cleland questioned why the United States should abandon a “system that has been reliable for 30 years, a combination of deterrence and treaty obligations.” Nebraska's Ben Nelson worried about blurring the distinction between development and deployment, particularly at Fort Greely, without knowing whether the system would work.
Florida's Bill Nelson was concerned about the accelerated pace of testing. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the chair of the strategic forces subcommittee, complained about what he called the four “Nos”: “No specifics with respect to a deployable system; no cost estimates with respect to the life cycle of a deployable system; no agreement with our allies, both our old allies and our new-found allies; and, most emphatically, no abm.”
Moderate Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee were similarly skeptical. Many are budget hawks who believe $343.5 billion is not sufficient to meet military needs. But at the same time, they see the missile defense program as sapping funds vitally needed for conventional weapons, readiness, and upgraded housing and other facilities. Mississippi's Gene Taylor objected to spending more than $8 billion on missile defense while telling the other services “there's not enough money for your budget.” Or, as Missouri's Ike Skelton, the ranking Democrat on the committee, concluded on July 19: “It's hard to support a program that says, ‘Let's buy everything and throw it against the wall and see what sticks.’”
South Carolina's John Spratt said the program sounded like “going off in pursuit of a lot of birds in the bush while we don't yet quite have that bird in the hand,” and he warned that the program risked losing focus. He also reeled off a list of successes produced by the Cooperative Threat Reduction program with Russia, including the de-activation of 5,504 warheads and the destruction of 423 intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Outside experts had their say as well. Philip Coyle, the former director of the Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation office, testified on July 19 that, administration claims notwithstanding, “in the near term, the ABM Treaty hinders neither development nor testing.” He also criticized the potential early deployment at Fort Greely as ineffective. And former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger challenged the administration: “How can we expect to negotiate modifications to the abm Treaty with the Russians in a matter of months when the purpose, architecture, and scope of the system are undefined?”
The first congressional votes on missile defense will occur in the fall, after the summer recess. The key data points are these: Most Democrats, southern moderates as well as northern liberals—even those who support missile defense—oppose the vastly expanded and accelerated program advocated by the Bush administration. Republicans, on the other hand, either back the plan or have remained silent.
With Republicans retaining a majority in the House of Representatives, the closely divided Senate, with a narrow 50-49 Democratic majority over Republicans (with one independent), is the most promising venue for slowing the runaway train. But a single Democratic defection would deprive missile defense skeptics of a majority.
The Bush plan resurrects several Reagan-era ideas, including Brilliant Pebbles—a plan to put 4,000 small interceptors into orbit to destroy enemy missiles.
One key Democrat is Connecticut's Joseph Lieberman, vice presidential candidate in 2000, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and likely presidential contender in 2004. At the July 12 hearing, Lieberman came close to endorsing Wolfowitz's proposals, pointing out that the question before the country “is not whether we will build a ballistic missile defense, but how and when we will do it.” He added that he “will not shy away from … a withdrawal from the abm Treaty” if it is necessary and if the administration has tried and failed to negotiate modifications of the treaty with the Russians.
But Lieberman may also provide an opening to slow the train—and perhaps eventually to derail it. When Bush adviser Richard Perle testified before the Armed Services Committee on July 19, he called for immediate withdrawal from the treaty without trying to negotiate first. This step was too radical for both Lieberman and ranking Republican John Warner of Virginia.
Both supported the need to engage Russian president Vladimir Putin on modifying the treaty before abandoning it or before conducting any tests that would violate it. Both Lieberman and Warner warned that negotiations would take time. They may agree to a provision barring spending in fiscal 2002 that could be used to violate the abm Treaty.
A second potential approach is to eliminate funding for Fort Greely, which the Pentagon describes as needed for more “realistic” testing. Opponents characterize the site as a “foot in the door” facility that, once built, could simply be declared operational. In reality, testing at Fort Greely is very unlikely. As Cong. John Spratt pointed out, tests at Greely would involve dropping booster stages on populated areas of Alaska. This transparent gambit—to consolidate the conservative Republican base behind the administration by deploying a defense in 2004, the last year of the first Bush term—may not pass the laugh test.
A third tactic is to divert some of the $8.3 billion slated for missile defense to politically attractive readiness programs or to programs that would improve service members' quality of life. It would then be up to missile defense proponents to transfer funds away from the troops to their “shield of dreams.”
The outcome of the fiscal 2002 budget is just the beginning. The administration is rushing the politics of deployment, but the system is far from ready. It will be many years before the fight is over.