Still Opposed to Missile Defense?

Great Debates
1

Last night, there was a successful test of an ICBM interception. This time, the incoming missile tried to defeat the interceptor by launching three decoys as the missile approached. The interceptor successfully discriminated between the decoys and the real missile, and scored a direct hit, destroying it.

In light of this, does anyone still believe that missile defense is impossible? Does anyone think that it’s a bad idea?

Considering that the threat against the U.S. is almost certainly going to come from countries like Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria or another country like that, a missile defense system might have to bring down perhaps 1-5 missiles, none of which would be as sophisticated as the decoy-throwing target that was hit last night.

Does anyone not see the value in negotiation when your country has a credible defense against missiles? Will this not deter someone like Saddam attempting to use nuclear blackmail against the U.S.?

I’m interested in hearing what the rationale is now for opposition to missile defense.

2

Link for the lazy, s’il vous plait?

3

Is it at all plausible that Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong-Il would launch a missile against the United States or her allies, which would pinpoint exactly who launched it and invite a hundredfold response within minutes?

To paraphrase a columnist I once read, even if successful, it’s still like putting bars over the window while the front door stands wide open.

4

Just because it’s effective doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

I’m not really worried about the technical aspects of the project, I’m worried about the diplomatic and monetary aspects. Russia and China are on record as saying that the whole idea is offensive, and would stop their own nuclear deterrence. They are saying that this would spark another Cold-War esque arms race, and nobody wants that, do we?

Would we think it a good step towards World Peace if our enemies/allies deployed their own missile defense systems that negated our nuclear deterrent? I think not.

-Soup

5

No, but it does remove one of the objections.

6

Sorry, I just don’t accept the whole “we can’t have a defense, because our enemies will be angry that their offenses don’t work anymore” argument. It’s a ridiculous idea.

If a school bully tells all the kids that they’d better not learn how to block punches, because then his punches will be ineffective and he’ll have to start carrying a knife, would that be a valid argument? Of course not, it’s nonsense.

You think it’s like putting bars on the windows when the front door is open? Well then, the solution is to close the door, not to leave your windows unlocked. I could just as easily say that there’s no point in locking your door, since a determined thief could cut through the wall with a chainsaw.

There is no good reason why we should not put into place EVERY defensive measure possible. If we are to defend the nation, then it’s stupid to intentionally remain vulnerable in one area, just so your enemies are more comfortable. Are we trying to make Russia and China’s lives easier, or to make the country defensible?

7

I’m sorry, but missile defence is not needed. MAD is still in effect and will prevent N. Korea and others from launching against us. It’s FAR more likely that the bomb would be smuggled in and detonated in some port or something.

That said, I don’t think missile defence will start a new arms race and lead to the annihilation of the world as we know it, particularly if the US starts to get rid of some of its nuclear stockpile. In fact, missile defence might be worth it if it can be paired with SIGNIFICANTLY reducing US nuclear arms. I also wouldn’t have a problem with sharing the technology with China and Russia if we can get them to safely destroy some of their stockpiles, as well.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that will be the case, and so the money being thrown at missile defence will largely be wasted.

Oh yeah, here’s a link. Looking at that picture, I wish I was back home in LA…the vapor trails look quite pretty. It also looks like this test was free from the sort of trickery used in the last successful test. But we’ll see what comes out in the next few months.

8

Yes and yes. Because, alas, countries like Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria do not seem willing to provide decoys with very different signatures than the real warhead and then to give us detailed information about these signatures…The nerve of some countries! See http://www.ucsusa.org/security/Decoys.pdf [Disclosure, I know the two authors of this paper somewhat from my days when we were all physics grad students at Cornell. Lisbeth Gronlund just received the quite prestigious honor of election as a Fellow of the American Physical Society.] Here’s one small quote from that paper regarding this latest test:

So, Sam, this is still a “baby” test and your claims that the missiles that these nations would send are not likely to be as sophisticated as that in the test is probably something like you couldn’t even find someone in the NMD program to agree with!

Actually, I would not say that I believe missile defense is “impossible” but just that it is still very far from ready for the “big leagues”…i.e., actual deployment. Whether it will ever be ready is a question that really boils down to speculation. On the one hand, I am sure they will continue to make progress (and I don’t want to be seen as not applauding those who worked on this for the technical accomplishments that they have made so far). On the other hand, there are always significant advantages that belong to the offense. But, at any rate, this is all beside the point because the political debate on this topic is not around research but around a rush to deployment. In that respect, you have created a very nice straw man.

Of course, there are reasons to argue against deployment of missile defense even if one comes up with a defense that actually has some not-too-close-to-zero probability of being able to work in a real situation. But again, that is not really the political argument on the table at the moment.

9

P.S.–If you listen to people from the NMD program speak, their responses to criticisms of their tests not being very realistic usually come down to an argument that you have to crawl or walk before you can run. And, noone disagrees with that. We just think the time to enter an ultra-marathon is not when you are still in the crawling stage. (And, also, there does seem to be some tendency, especially after the problems with the first few tests, to design tests that seem like they may be catered more toward the political debate than toward actually advancing the technology.)

10

Thanks for the link, Neurotik.

For what it’s worth, I see two problems with MAD in connection with North Korea, Iraq, etc.

First, the obvious problem: Are you sure that some ruthless dictator will be afraid to push the button? Certainly Saddham Hussein does not seem to care too much about the welfare of his people.

Second, and equally troubling to me is that we (the U.S.) would have to pay Iraq/North Korea/whomever a lot more respect if they had nuclear missiles that we could not eliminate or defend against.

For example, suppose Iraq put together a few nukes, capable of taking out one major U.S. city. Then, the next day, they (the Iraqis) invade Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and every other oil-producing nation to the south of Iraq. In such a situation, our options are much more limited.

11

In the Persian Gulf war, it’s generally acknowledged that Saddam didn’t use his biological and chemical weapons against Coalition forces because of an explicit threat from the U.S. that nukes would be used to retaliate.

Look at it this way: you’re the tyrant in a small nation with a few nuclear weapons. The U.S. will either nuke you, or invade and depose you if you use those weapons in a way that it doesn’t like. How trigger-happy are you likely to be?

12

Can you give me a cite for this? I’ve never heard it before, and in fact I’ve heard a lot of speculation that the Iraqis did in fact use CBW in the Gulf War.

Well, you might be a lot more gung-ho about invading neighboring countries, and causing chaos in general.

In any event, I suspect that leaders frequently blind themselves to the fact that their actions will bring ruin upon themselves and upon their nations.

13

lucwarm hit the nail on the head. The primary threat is not an actual launch, but nuclear blackmail.

The day that Iran or Iraq has both nuclear warheads and an ICBM capable of hitting the U.S. or Europe, the entire balance of power will change, and not for the better. The risk of losing a city will tie the hands of the United States. The U.S. needs a credible deterrant to that missile, or it’s going to be faced with a continual game of brinksmanship, because unlike the Soviet Union which was rather restrained, these nations have proven themselves willing to bluster and threaten with any weapon they have.

And yes, it would seem crazy to launch a nuclear missile at the U.S., but are you really willing to gamble a few million lives that in the next, say, 50 years NO ONE will run one of these countries who might actually be crazy enough to do it?

Let’s say Saddam had a nuclear ICBM today. Just try to imagine how the whole situation would be different. First of all, we would not DARE put his back against a wall, because then he’d have absolutely nothing to lose by firing everything he’s got. So we would lose the option of invading him.

In turn, because he knows we will not invade, he has much more freedom to violate U.N. directives, attack his neighbors, gas his people, etc. Iraq would basically be completely out of our control.

Don’t forget that many of these countries are not solidly controlled from within. Often there are rival factions within the government that vie for control. What if Saddam’s internal enemy feels that the only way he can rise to power is to fire off a missile, let the U.S. take out Iraq in retaliation (while he hides), and then he comes out of hiding as an appeaser with hopes of leading a new government.

There are many more scenarios which would cause us great concern if one of these countries could hit us and we were powerless to stop them. For instance, a war between two of them could easily lead to one of them firing a missile at us in order to draw everyone into a larger war, much like Saddam tried to do against Israel during the Gulf war. Or a fanatic who hates the U.S. and is about to lose control of his country anyway may just fire a missile out of spite. If Saddam were surrounded in his palace and under siege, and knew that he only had hours to live, don’t you think he’d fire a missile at “The Great Satan” in order to become a hero in the Arab world?

No one is suggesting that NMD is ready today. Clearly it’s still in the development phase. But yesterday’s test should prove wrong all those people who said it will NEVER work. It’s clearly just a matter of incremental engineering improvements now.

The argument that it will spark a new arms race is also seriously flawed. In fact, you could just as easily argue that NMD will remove the incentive for these countries to spend significant portions of their defense budget on nuclear rockets, and PREVENT additional proliferation.

14

If Iraq had nuclear ICBMs, they could be detected by special forces or spy satellites to locate them, and they could be destroyed before Iraq would have a chance to use them. Iraq doesn’t have the cabability to detect stealth bombers.

It would be far easier for terrorists or a rogue country to smuggle nuclear bombs into the country once they obtained them. If simply attacking was their goal, the attack would be much harder to trace than a missile launch. Nuclear blakcmail would also be far easier if the bombs were already in place.

15

We would have to be pretty sure that we’d pin-pointed every last nuke silo before we launched our strike. Honestly, I’m not sure we could do this. Certainly we were not able to take out every last SCUD launcher before the Gulf War got going.

I’m guessing, but I think that it would be easier for us (the U.S.) to take out bombs sitting in the U.S. than bombs overseas. But I’m not sure I understand the scenario you are proposing.

In any event, defense against the smuggling of bombs should also be a part of the U.S. military strategy, IMHO.

16

Mutually Assured Destruction has been in place for a while, now. The entire ABM treaty was based on the concept (which, by the way, bans NMD).

MAD as I see it…
Every entity has the power to destroy the others. Thus, for one entity to use nuclear weapons is practical suicide, as it would invite reciprocity and destroy all involved, as well as most of life on earth.
Now, if NMD is entered into the mix, we suddenly have one entity capable of defending itself against this reciprocity. This entity now has the power to use nukes with impunity, as there is no threat of destruction if it decides to do the unthinkable.

I don’t think I need to point out that the use of nuclear weapons is utterly unthinkable, especially against these “new” threats (Iraq, North Korea, etc). Afghanistan showed us that our new enemies seem to enjoy hiding out in the civilian population, so a nuclear strike would kill untold numbers of civilians, and as such would be morally reprehensible. (Not only the initial blast, but the contamination of enemy territory by radioactive material.)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki told us that the United States is not ashamed to nuke civilians in order to achieve its ends when the enemy cannot reciprocate. I shudder at the thought of the United States having that power once again.

-Soup

17

The key word here in your scenario is credible. Let’s replay your whole scenario about the blackmail and now assume that we are somewhere in the future where we actually have a missile defense system which, to be very generous, we believe has about a 75% chance of working under realistic real-world conditions. Is the President now going to take the chance of doing something that would risk a nuclear launch by this crazy leader because there is only about a 25% chance that NYC will successfully get nuked? I’d hate to be the President making that sort of decision.

Well, again, I think you are arguing against a straw man. There are probably only a handful of people in Congress or the Senate who would vote for a termination of funding for NMD. So, who are you actually arguing against here? I disagree that yesterday’s test “proves wrong” people who said it will never work or that what is left is just “incremental engineering improvement now” but even if I were to grant you these two arguments, you are still a long way from arguing that we should rush to deploy it and that we must invent excuses about why the ABM treaty is constraining our development when in fact we could continue along the path of further development for a long time before running into conflict with the treaty.

By the way, along the lines of the will it ever work / incremental engineering lines: I don’t think many people believe that it could NEVER be made to work if the offense were to stand still. The question, however, is harder once you consider how much easier it is for the offense to try to defeat the system than for the defense to be ready to react to any decoy, etc. As I’ve said, I think at some point it gets into speculation over which reasonable people can disagree. That is probably why there is a fairly broad consensus on continuing to do research on NMD.

I believe that China, for one, has said that they would do what it takes to maintain a credible deterrent including building more missiles (and thus modernizing their rather antiquated missiles). I don’t think it would spark a new arms race with the Russians but it would probably give their hawks more power behind the scenes to block the sort of real things that could improve our safety like de-alerting missiles and working to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials.

Also, since it does nothing to prevent a country from delivering nuclear weapons by much more attractive means (in that they are easier and do not come with a return address), I don’t really see how it works to prevent additional proliferation even buying into the questionable thesis of your argument there. [I’m all in favor, by the way, of working to develop technology that would make it easier to detect nuclear material getting smuggled into our country…A much more real threat.]

18

Soup, is it fair to say that for many years now, the U.S. has had nukes while two enemies – North Korea and Iraq – have not?

Are you saying that you think the situation would be more stable if those two countries each had large numbers of nuclear missiles?

19

This is the sort of argument that assumes infinite resources. When some liberals make similar arguments (e.g., “even if it saves one life, that’s enough…”), they are rightly criticized by conservatives. With our finite resources, we should try to protect against the most credible threats.

Secondly, you seem to assume that we are necessarily making ourselves safer by doing these things. The fact is that China and Russia etc. are going to react to things that we do and just assuming that what we do won’t have consequences that make the world more dangerous rather than safer for us is not going to cut it. Until we have the magical defense that can keep us safe from all threats we are in the unfortunate position of sometimes having to make our adversaries for better in certain regards so that they are not given the incentive to make things more dangerous for us. You may not like this, but I am afraid it is reality. [And, to be fair, from their point-of-view, you can understand how they might have reason to not want the U.S. to have complete freedom of action to do absolutely anything it pleases unilaterally. But regardless of whether you can or cannot sympathize with their point-of-view, just the reality that they have it is something we do have to consider in deciding what is best for our own security interests.]

20

Defense officials admits test not that significant

and, as our friend jshore points out, resources are finite.