It is hard to imagine a more expensive and futile way to increase the danger of nuclear missile attack against the United States than by building the National Missile Defense system. Any American concerned with the safety of their home and environment is well advised to study the National Missile Defense program.
National Missile Defense is one of many plans to shoot down ballistic missiles headed toward the United States which have been under research and development since the 1960s. National Missile Defense is comprised of a system of radar sensors designed to detect and track ballistic missiles bound for the United States, and souped-up Minuteman missiles which carry Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicles intended to strike and destroy the attacking missiles with the force of impact in outer space.
U.S. Congress and the Clinton Administration have made National Missile Defense a Deployment Readiness Program. In the fall of 2000, the President will review National Missile Defense for technical readiness, and decide whether or not to deploy the system. Deployment, if ordered, will take at least three years to be completed. If deployment is not ordered, design and testing of the National Missile Defense system will continue.
Today the United States is in active nuclear weapons confrontation with both Russia and China. The United States fields the dominant nuclear weapons force, with fourteen Trident submarines armed with nuclear missiles prowling incognito, ever ready to completely annihilate even an aggressor who had already destroyed the United States.
Russia has thousands of nuclear missiles on hair-trigger alert aimed at the United States, and explicitly threatened nuclear attack against the United States last winter if NATO intervened in the Russian war in Chechnya.
China has several hundred nuclear-tipped missiles, many capable of reaching the United States. Today it is preparing the Chinese people for a nuclear confrontation with the United States, as the People's Republic of China moves to assert its sovereignty over the island of Taiwan. The Chinese Government is using the threat of nuclear weapons attack against the United States to deter the United States from intervening militarily to defend Taiwan from a Chinese military takeover.
The U.S. National Missile Defense program is designed, in the words of Secretary of State Madeline Albright, to defend against "at most, a few tens of missiles." National Missile Defense is marketed to the public by the U.S. government as a defense only against missiles from "rogue states," a list of nations which sometimes includes China along with North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and Libya. The Russians are told by the Americans that they have so many missiles that National Missile Defense should have no effect on their nuclear weapons posture.
Actually, both the Russians and the Chinese believe National Missile Defense is intended to prevent them from threatening to hit the United States with their missiles, possibly the few missiles they would have left after an overwhelming nuclear first-strike against them by the United States. Both Russia and China have repeatedly and urgently warned the United States that National Missile Defense would "destabilize" the nuclear weapons balance of power, causing a renewed nuclear arms race and ending any hope of nuclear arms control or nonproliferation agreements.
The United States and Russia are parties to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which prohibits either nation from building a national missile defense system. Russia, China and many other nations are urging the United States to observe the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and stop building National Missile Defense. The United States is seeking to modify the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with the agreement of the Russians. Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush says, if elected, he will abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and build a National Missile Defense system.
Neither Russia nor China has the economic ability to attempt to build their own national missile defense. The most credible countermeasure to national missile defense is deployment of hundreds of alert-ready missiles, which is what China may be expected to do if the United States pushes forward with National Missile Defense.
Already the Chinese buy $1 billion of military equipment from the Russians, in an increasingly close Chinese-Russian military alliance being driven, in part, by the U.S. effort to build National Missile Defense. The Russians urgently need to downsize their arsenal of thousands of nuclear missiles, which they cannot afford to maintain or even secure. Perhaps the Chinese will buy a lot of Russian missiles to counter the U.S. National Missile Defense program.
If the Russians or Chinese come to believe that nuclear war is the only way to prevent the United States from setting up an effective National Missile Defense, they will be tempted to launch a preemptive nuclear first-strike against the United States.
In short, while providing no offensive or defensive value to the United States in our nuclear confrontations with Russia and China, National Missile Defense greatly increases the danger that either or both of those nations will attack the United States with nuclear missiles.
Because United States nuclear forces can destroy any nation anywhere several times over, even if the United States itself already is devastated or damaged by nuclear attack, rational national leaders are deterred from attacking the United States by the certainty of counter-annihilation. National Missile Defense is intended to stop only intercontinental ballistic missiles in space from "undeterrable" sources, leaders or terrorists who do not fear U.S. nuclear counterattack.
These people may well choose to float their nuclear weapons into U.S. harbors, and certainly should not be expected to wait three years after National Missile Defense is scheduled to be deployed, then shoot a 'sitting-duck" missile into it.
"The only way to avoid terrorist attack against the United States is by not being hated," noted Dr. Robert Bowman, head of the secret national missile defense program in the 1970s and now a vigorous opponent of National Missile Defense. Short of that, protection against "rogue states" and terrorists is a global police effort that will work a lot better if we cooperate with the Russians and Chinese as much as possible.
There is a lot of scientific and "expert" literature on the decoys, balloons, dodges and spins on missiles that can be used to defeat the current hit-and-destroy National Missile Defense system. National Missile Defense has failed in most of the "sitting-duck" tests to which it has been put, and its Pentagon managers say it is not technically ready to deploy. All this has challenged the Boeing Corporation and other military contractors to further efforts to make the system work.
Vladimir Putin said that if the United States goes forward with National Missile Defense, the Russians would build countermeasures to it which would be a lot less costly than the missile defense system. However, neither Russia nor China has the endless billions to spend on military technology enjoyed by the United States Department of Defense. Nor is either government sitting comfortably; both face internal and external threats to their survival in power. They will both build countermeasures to U.S. National Missile Defense, but the Russians may have to sell some nuclear weapons to do it, and the Chinese will need to increase the size and intensity of their nuclear confrontation against the United States.
National Missile Defense will drive the Chinese and Russians to more crippling defense spending, for missiles threatening to the United States, making them desperate and dangerous adversaries rather than friends and business partners.
The actual and estimated cost of National Missile Defense from its beginning in 1991 through deployment of 100 interceptors in Alaska by 2005, maintained through 2026, is $30.2 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. The Congressional Budget Office estimates a cost of nearly $60 billion for National Missile Defense, which would cover two sites with 250 interceptors at each, and the $10.6 billion cost of 24 low-altitude satellites with infrared sensors used by National Missile Defense and for other missions.
Cost of deployment is estimated to be $12.7 billion over three years, covering flight testing, development and procurement of 100 missile interceptors, construction of interceptor silos in Alaska, a battle-management center, a new X-band radar, and upgrading five existing radars. (James T. Hackett, "Missile Defense is a Bargain," Wall Street Journal, April 27,2000, p. A26.) By comparison, the total 1999 Russian military budget was $55 billion, the 1998 Chinese military budget $37.5 billion, the U.S. military budget in 1999 was $288.8 billion. (Center for Defense Information)
" Military action is important to the nation--it is the ground of death and life, the path of survival and destruction, so it is imperative to examine it."
--Sun Tsu, The Art of War
For more information on National Missile Defense, see the website of the Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org > and the author's website devoted to Peace Strategy to Avoid Nuclear War,
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2000
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited