Missile Defense

President Bush yesterday gave a very broad outline of a new national security strategy that moves away from our reliance on deterrence and arms control toward missile defenses and unilateral arms reductions. While the President's brief remarks raise more questions than they answer, I would like to take a minute to address some of the key issues he touched on.

First, the President stressed that we must move away from our reliance on deterrence to keep our citizens and our allies safe from aggression or nuclear blackmail. I agree. If there is a real potential of a rogue nation firing a few missiles at any city in the U.S., responsible leadership requires that we make our best, most thoughtful efforts to defend against that threat. The same is true of accidental launch. If it ever happened, no leader could ever explain not having chosen to defend against the disaster when doing so made sense.

But missile defense is only a response of last resort, when diplomacy and deterrence have failed. And given that no missile defense system will be 100% effective, we must not set aside the logic of deterrence that has kept us safe for 40 years. Even in periods of intense animosity and tension, under the most unpredictable and isolated of regimes, political and military deterrence have a powerful, determining effect on a nation's decision to use force. We saw it at work in the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein was deterred from using his weapons of mass destruction by the sure promise of a devastating response from the United States.

President Bush also stressed the fact that national missile defense is only one part of a comprehensive national security strategy. I could not agree more. But missile defense does nothing to address what the Pentagon considers a much more likely and immediate threat to the American homeland from terrorists and non-state actors, who could quietly slip explosives into a building, unleash chemical weapons into a crowded subway, or send a crude nuclear weapon into a busy harbor.

Our first defense against this kind of an attack is a robust, international effort on non-proliferation. But the Bush administration wants to cut U.S. funding for counter-proliferation programs to deal with the huge weapons stockpiles of the former Soviet Union. President Bush has also sent mixed signals about his intention to continue the efforts of the Clinton administration with regard to the threat from North Korea. If the President is serious about nonproliferation, he should quickly complete the review of our policy toward North Korea, so we do not miss a real opportunity to freeze Pyongyang's ballistic missile program and stop its exports of missile technology.

While the President gave very few details about the nature or the technology of the system he wants to deploy, he did stress his interest in pursuing technology that will allow us to intercept ballistic missiles in their boost-phase, when they are moving the slowest.

Back in June 2000, I called on the previous administration to explore the technology for a boost-phase intercept system, which would build on the current technology of the Army's land-based THAAD (Theater High-Altitude Air Defense) and the Navy's sea-based Theater-Wide Defense systems, to provide forward-deployed defenses against both theater ballistic missile threats and long-range ballistic missiles in their boost phase.

I welcome President Bush's commitment to investing the considerable resources needed to make these systems capable of reaching the speeds required to intercept an ICBM. A forward-deployed boost-phase intercept system would allow us to target relatively small ballistic missile arsenals, or shoot-down a very few accidental or unauthorized launches.

Deploying such a system will require amendments to the 1997 ABM Treaty Demarcation agreements, which establish the line between theater missile defense (TMD) systems that are not limited by the Treaty and the strategic defenses the Treaty proscribes. In a nutshell, these agreements allow the United States to deploy and test the PAC-3, THAAD and Navy Theater-Wide TMD systems, but prohibit us from developing or testing capabilities that would enable these systems to shoot down ICBMs.

Russia certainly won't be happy about making these changes, but they will probably prefer accommodating a clearly limited system than allowing the Treaty to be scrapped and all limitations on strategic defenses to be removed.

I agree that the strategic situation we confront today is worlds apart from the one we faced in 1972, but nothing in this changed environment suggests that we will be better off by walking away from the ABM Treaty. If somehow Russia and China are not persuaded by President Bush's assurances that our missile defense system is not aimed at undermining their nuclear deterrent capabilities, and instead they perceive a growing threat to their interests, they will act to counter that threat. We will not be safer if our NMD system focuses their energies on developing -- and eventually selling – new ways to overwhelm our defenses.

The ABM Treaty can be amended to reflect our changed security environment. But to abandon it all-together is to welcome an arms race that will make us more vulnerable, not less.

The President made a point of announcing that he will begin high-level consultations with our allies about his plans for NMD and he stressed that he would seek real input from them as he moves forward. This is critical. Even if, as can be expected, our allies in Europe and Asia accept a U.S. NMD system, they have a lot at stake in how we develop and deploy that system. The President must take their views into account as he determines what architecture he will pursue and the timing of deploying. Clearly, these are important discussions that will require more than one or two cursory consultations.

The Administration must also pay close attention to our allies concerns about Russia. Because they are keenly aware that a fearful, insecure Russia is a dangerous Russia, they have consistently stressed the importance of including Moscow in our discussions on NMD. Let me be clear: the importance of working with Russia as we move forward is not to suggest that Moscow has a veto over our missile defense plans. But we have an obligation to avoid unilateral steps that will throw our already tenuous relations with Russia into further turmoil. Serious discussions with Moscow on amending the ABM Treaty – even if they are not ultimately successful – will allow us to move toward NMD deployment transparently and with minimal provocation.

As with Russia, if an NMD decision is made absent serious discussions with China, the leadership in Beijing will perceive the deployment as at least partially directed at them. The Administration must try hard to reach a common understanding with China that there is a real threat from isolated regimes bent on terrorism and accidental or unauthorized launches. The Clinton administration invested a great deal of time and diplomatic effort convincing Russia that the threat is real and it affects us both. We must make the same effort with China. If we fail to take this task seriously, we will jeopardize stability in the Pacific.

The President's proposal on NMD lacks specifics and his intentions on the ABM Treaty are vague. He and his advisors know that the American people will not support an expensive, ineffective NMD system, or one that comes at the expense of a Treaty that has made them safer over the last 20 years. So to sweeten the President's bad news on these two issues, he promised – again without any detail – to unilaterally reduce the U.S. arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons.

The proposal to unilaterally reduce U.S. nuclear stockpiles is an important and overdue first step toward reducing the nuclear danger. Unfortunately, before the President can make good on this promise, he will have to convince his Republican colleagues in the Congress to repeal a provision in the FY 98 Defense Department Authorization bill that prohibits the reduction of strategic nuclear delivery systems to levels below those established by the START I treaty.

Senate Democrats have tried for the last three years to repeal this provision, which prevents exactly the kind of nuclear reduction President Bush has spoken about. But they have been stymied by a Republican leadership that believes the U.S. should not move to START II arms levels – even though the Senate ratified that treaty in 1996 – before Russia has done so.

I hope we can move immediately to repeal this prohibition and begin the process of cutting our strategic arsenal in half -- from more than 7,000 warheads today to the 3,500 allowed under START II. While those reductions are underway, the President should immediately proceed to talks with Russia on a START III agreement, which could bring our arsenal to below 2,000 warheads and codify similar, transparent, verifiable and irreversible reductions by Russia.

Mr. President, for forty years, the United States has led international efforts to reduce and contain the danger from nuclear weapons. We can continue that leadership by exploiting our technological strengths to find a defense against ballistic missiles, and by extending that defense to our friends and allies. But we must not jeopardize stability in Europe and Asia by putting political ideology ahead of commitments that have kept us safe for decades.

source: http://kerry.senate.gov/~kerry/statements/2001711717.html 25sep01