The debates about the BMD reflect a fundamental crisis of the arms
control regime, which was created during the Cold War.
The strategic arms control does not aim at disarmament and
complete elimination of nuclear weapons. The arms control tries to regulate the
nuclear weapons by formalizing the rules of the game to make the competition
less dangerous, more predictable and less expensive.
The nuclear arms control regime, which we have today, was something,
which was created in a completely different international system - a bipolar
system. And its purpose was to stabilise the competition between the two
superpowers, not the nuclear disarmament. And that’s why we see the arms
control regime, which belonged to different historical era is today under
tremendous pressure and almost any arms control agreement-START, ABM, CTBT, NPT
are facing enormous challenges.
The strategic stability, which this arms control regime developed,
provided for three levels of inequality among nations:
On the first level, there was the competition between the superpowers,
the United States and the Soviet Union who had all rights and responsibilities.
On the second level, there were three other official nuclear countries,
which were permitted to have something but not much above that.
And than the rest of the world including Germany and Japan, who were not
permitted anything.
Today there are some challenges to this regime from the rogue states,
although they are not a big problem. There are bigger challenges at the next
level, coming from India and Pakistan, who created an even bigger problem. But
the main challenge comes from the United States and Russia, because the key
participants of the strategic arms control regime failed to rethink their
nuclear policy after the end of the Cold War.
The existing Russian-American nuclear arms control regime perpetuates
mutually assured destruction (MAD). This concept is based on some very dubious
premises:
First is the preoccupation of both sides with numerical parity: we must
have the same number, whatever are the weapons.
Second, and that is a key distinction from other nuclear powers, is the
reliance on counter-force weapons - weapons, which can kill other guys'
weapons.
And that allows the possibility of a pre-emptive strike, disarming and
decapitating.
That leads to tremendous dependence on tactical warning. The reliable
early warning systems are absolutely necessary to maintain crises stability in
the situation of mutually assured destruction.
And thus, both, the Soviet Union and the United States developed launch
on warning postures. And basically they still remain there ready to launch at
any moment.
Than comes the possibility of horizontal and vertical escalation and the
preoccupation with the perceived need for different types and huge numbers of
nuclear weapons to implement any war-fighting scenarios.
Besides there is the assumption that strategic offensive capability is
stabilizing while strategic defensive capability is de-stabilizing. This
conclusion was a major revolution in military thinking, departing for the
common sense perceptions.
There is also decoupling conventional weapons from nuclear weapons and
dealing with them, as they absolutely are unrelated.
And, finally, lack of transparency, because uncertainty is something,
which you must keep in the mind of your opponent. That is why, by definition,
there was a limit how far arms control and confidence-building measures can
advance.
Basically, this model remains intact in Russian-American relations.
There is no more ideological confrontation; there is no more Soviet Union. But
mutual assured destruction remains. Non-targeting is a gimmick because it takes
just a few seconds to do the job.
Now we can see that the United States seems to be loosing interest in
the arms control.
First of all, the United States is in a unique position – the United
States spends on defence more than all other nuclear powers plus Japan and
Germany. Never before in world history there was a situation when one nation
was spending more than ten nations following it. And that creates the illusion
that the United States can achieve absolute military superiority.
Thus while the United States does not possess a mature BMD technology
and it will take many years and huge investments to develop and deploy an
effective defence capability, the Bush Administration is determined to move
beyond the limitations established by the 1972 ABM Treaty. The new American President, being personally
committed to missile defense and having placed it at the top of his defense
policy platform during his election campaign, is now certain to proceed
vigorously—for the Bush Administration, the question is not “if” but “how and when.” There is every expectation that the
administration will propose the architecture of a missile defense plan before
the end of 2001, probably giving an early indication of its approach within the
next months.
The difference in the present American drive for absolute superiority,
if we compare it with what was the case during the Cold War, that it is based
on the notion of the Revolution in Military Affairs, on the idea that the new
generation long-range precision guidance munitions can allow to destroy the
same targets as only nuclear weapons could in the previous stage of the arms
race. Thus, the United States started a new arms race in conventional
precision-guidance long-range munitions. Nobody is competing with the United
States, not Russia, nor China, nor even European Allies. Nobody else can afford
to spend this much money on the new arms race.
That’s why the ballistic missile defence, which is non-nuclear, is just
one piece of this new idea of achieving the capability which Secretary Cohen
described in his 1999 Report to the President and the Congress as “freedom to
attack and freedom from attack”. This formula is completely incompatible with
arms control because arms control by definition is mutual limitation of your
freedom to attack.
And
the problem is, that Washington does not see any incentives for the United
States to go into arrangements for new arms control regime. The retreat of the United States from
supporting arms control agreements, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
or the Ottawa treaty on landmines is a troubling departure from multilateral
cooperation for international security.
Arms limitations
are perceived as unilateral concessions for the United States, unilateral
because there is no Soviet Union or anybody else who has resources or
technologies to create a symmetrical threat to the United States.
If we talk about Russia: Russia experienced in the last decade a
tremendous decline. We failed to develop meaningful reform strategy and we also
failed to conduct a meaningful military reform. That resulted in an enormous
gap between the huge military infrastructure, which Russia inherited from the
Soviet Union, and the limited budget, which we spend on defence today.
And that created the feeling of weakness, of the isolation of Russia, of
a situation where Russia has really no reliable allies or partners, where
Russia is excluded. That is why we have seen a tremendous change in Russian
declaratory, nuclear posture, because we know how weak we are in the
conventional field. That is why Russia gave up the no first use pledge, that is
why we are threatening with early use of nuclear weapons, because
conventionally, as Chechnya demonstrated, Russia cannot invade even itself.
Russia is of course is to be blamed for the long delay to ratify SART
II, that is where we lost the momentum. And then the domestic tide in the
United States changed and Washington lost interest in arms control.
Meanwhile China is in a completely different situation than it was
during the bipolar system. China today is becoming an economic superpower. If
you take the purchasing power parity estimate of GDP, China it is number two
already. And that provides the Chinese Government with tremendous resources and
creates a temptation to do these stupid things which Russia and the United
States did before: to channel more of its resources into military
modernization.
Until now, the Chinese seem to be resisting this temptation. But they
are facing a double challenge: one is ballistic missile defence system from the
United States and this is a much greater threat to China than to Russia,
because even limited BMD undermines the existing the Chinese nuclear posture.
Tactical missile defences for Russia is a small headache. But tactical missile
defences can threaten 90% of the Chinese of the nuclear forces. And that has
related to something, which is crucial to the Chinese national strategy, the
issue of Taiwan.
And at the same time, China faces the challenge from India. India,
Pakistan and China entered a new dynamic tripartite competition.
Thus the basic premises of the existing arms control regime,
unfortunately, are endangered. We have to intellectually try to develop a
completely different approach to arms control regime, so it would be relevant
to the 21st century international system. We don’t know, well, we
could argue, what kind of a system it is going to be, but we know, it is not
bipolar.
* * *
We face a turning point in Russian-American relations.
Today open calls are heard in Washington to take advantage of Russia's
economic dependence and not to agree to a compromise, until Russia makes
concessions on political and military issues. One of the most important of them
must be Russia's consent to the demand by the US administration to give up the
ABM Treaty, which is a cornerstone of strategic stability.
There is an
important difference in American and Russian strategic cultures, due to
contrasting acceptances of vulnerability.
Russians have had centuries of armed conflicts with their neighbors and
numerous invasions of their soil.
Consequently, their historical experience has taught them to live with
vulnerability and uncertainty. In
contrast, American territory has been inviolate with the exception of the War
of 1812. Although the now-popular term
“homeland defense” implicitly suggests that absolute security is achievable,
many Americans do not fully recognize that the United States has been
vulnerable to missile attack for decades.
Technological optimism pervades American society. A missile shield of 50 states may therefore
be politically attractive despite the costs and uncertainties involved.
It is not a secret that economically Russia cannot afford to maintain
its nuclear forces either at the level of the START-I, or the level of the
START-II Treaty which has not come into force after all due to the refusal by
the US Senate to ratify the 1997 protocols on delimiting strategic and tactical
BMD. If the United States withdraws from the ABM Treaty, in a few years
Americans might get a decisive superiority both in defensive and offensive
armaments.
The consensus that seems to be emerging in Russian discussions is based
on the following premises. First, Russian security will for at least the next
decade rely primarily on nuclear weapons and the need to deal simultaneously
with US/NATO and China. Second, agreement with the United States on offensive
reductions and continued limitations on BMD deployment are preferable to
unilateral measures for sufficient retaliatory capability.
In 1985, the Soviet Union deployed more than 10,000 strategic nuclear
weapons. Today, Russia has fewer than 6,000. By 2010, it will likely have just
over 1,000. The size of Russia's future nuclear arsenal depends primarily on
two factors: the production rate of its new missile, the SS-27 Topol-M, and the
tempo of retirement for its submarines. Most of Russia's other long-range missiles have either passed their
service lifetimes or are set to be dismantled under the START-II Treaty, which
both Russia and the United States have ratified but which has not gone into
effect. Russia has no choice but to radically reduce the number of
deployed nuclear warheads and to downsize nuclear modernization programs. The Strategic Missile Forces, which still
control the bulk of Russia's strategic triad, are going to loose their status
as a separate armed service. But it is not clear whether these plans would
actually be implemented in the absence of the arms control regime.
Russia lost its superiority in conventional weapons. Thus, nuclear
weapons have become the main deterrence factor in this situation. Consequently,
Russia gave up its no-first-use pledge. As long as Moscow feels a potential
non-nuclear threat, it will pursue the logical strategy of "defence in all
directions," with the possession of nuclear weapons being a substantial
element thereof.
The Military Doctrine, which was approved by President Putin on April
21, 2000, proclaimed: "The Russian Federation retains the right to use
nuclear weapons in reply to the use of nuclear and other mass destruction
weapons against it and/or its allies, as well as in reply to a large-scale
aggression with the use of conventional weapons in situations critical to the
national security of the Russian Federation."
The deterioration of Russia's satellite network has created "blind
spots" in its early warning system against missile attacks, especially in
detecting possible ocean launches from the Trident submarines. Such gaps could
make Russia feel more vulnerable in a time of crisis to a possible first strike
from the United States. Moscow’s concern is that this erosion of its
capabilities, combined with American plans to deploy BMD, could mean that
Russia is growing more vulnerable while the United States grows more secure.
There is a great concern in Moscow that inevitable unilateral reductions
of Russian strategic forces might enable the Pentagon to plan a pre-emptive
strike, thus avoiding nuclear retaliation. Moreover, it is feared that the
United States will have a possibility to deliver a counterforce attack against
Russian strategic targets with the high-precision long-range conventional
armaments. A surprise U.S. strike could, under some conditions, destroy all but
a few dozen of Russian warheads, and the command and control system over these
surviving weapons might be lost. In the future Russian forces can drop to a few
hundred, in which case the protection afforded by a "limited" U.S.
NMD system would undermine Russia's nuclear retaliatory capability. Thus it is
claimed that even a limited NMD may be capable of protecting the territory of
the United States from the surviving Russian warheads.
According
to President Vladimir Putin, the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the
1972 ABM Treaty "will entail legal consequences that do not depend on
Russia. The ABM Treaty is like an axle
to which a number of agreements on international security are attached,» Putin
said. "If we remove this axle,
those agreements will automatically fall apart, destroying the entire
present-day security system."[1]
In accordance with the Law on the Ratification of the START II Treaty by the
Russian parliament, that treaty is to be implemented only if the ABM Treaty is
observed.
Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov dashed U.S. hopes again on Tuesday
of amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and instead promoted a
global programme on curbing missile technology: ``One has to be fully aware of the fact that the prevailing
system of arms control agreements is a complex and quite fragile structure.
Once one of its key elements has been weakened, the entire system is
destabilised. The collapse of the ABM Treaty would, therefore, undermine the
entirety of disarmament agreements concluded over the last 30 years. The threat
of the erosion of the non-proliferation regimes related to nuclear and other
weapons of mass destruction and their delivery means would, therefore grow.''[2]
Moscow views the ABM treaty as the foundation of strategic stability and
a necessary condition for maintaining the broad array of agreements on
controlling weapons of mass destruction and the means for their delivery,
including existing and potential START treaties, the 1991 parallel agreements
on tactical nuclear weapons, the NPT, and the Missile Technology Control
Regime. Russian officials claim that the collapse of the ABM treaty would have
a destructive domino effect for the existing system of disarmament
agreements. The terms on which Start I
and II were agreed would change. Even from the formal point of view, if the
United States withdrew from the ABM treaty, Russia would not be bound by its
strategic arms reduction obligations. The question of the fate of agreements on
medium- and shorter-range missiles would arise. Finally, further reductions of
nuclear weapons would be disrupted. We would be back in an era of suspicion and
confrontation.
Russia might take a number of asymmetrical measures in reply to the US
plans of deploying an NMD system, which had been kept secret before.
First, Russia might build up the number of warheads on its
intercontinental ballistic missiles (the Topol system was initially designed
for MIRVed missiles). Besides, it has
been decided to extend the service life of the group of RS-20 intercontinental
ballistic missiles (SS-18 Satan in NATO parlance) to 24-25 years.
Second,
if Washington makes the decision to create a national missile defense system,
Moscow will have nothing else to do but to develop means to penetrate this
system and equip their strategic nuclear forces with these means. Russia has already developed and tested
means of counteracting such systems.
Third, if the USA withdraws from the 1972 ABM Treaty, Russia may
withdraw from the agreement on the liquidation of intermediate- and
shorter-range missiles. Such missiles cannot reach the USA (their range is
5,500km), but they can cover Europe up to and including its resorts on the
Atlantic coast. Russia's withdrawal from the INF Treaty would again turn Europe
into a hostage of the superpowers' confrontation. In accordance with its
strategic security concept, the USA plans to continue to deploy 100,000 troops
with command stations and corresponding equipment in Europe, and these would be
befitting targets for Russian missiles.
Finally, the Russian Federation can establish much stronger strategic
ties to China, which is also concerned about American BMD. Russian analysts
assume that the Chinese response to the BMD will be to increase production of
missiles into the hundreds. In the
past, Russia supplied China only with conventional hardware such as aircraft,
tanks and warships, but playing together against the initiator of the
dismantling of the ABM Treaty provides for other forms of cooperation. One of them is the joint creation and
production of weapons capable of effectively evading the US ABM shield and to
hit its space-, land- and air-based elements.
The value of such contracts can run into billions of dollars. If Russia and China decide to stop talking
and start acting, one of the priority projects will be the joint creation of
different ASAT weapons (lasers and interceptor missiles) and the improvement of
the accuracy characteristics of the Chinese ballistic nuclear missiles by
linking them up with the Russian GLONASS orbital group.
At the same time, the Russian Federation offers “a constructive
alternative” to the disruption of strategic stability. Instead of NMD, the
Russian president alternately called on the USA and Europe to create a joint
BMD system. President Putin's proposal to work with NATO and Europe on an
anti-missile defence system released some of the tension building in Europe
over fears that the U.S. plan to build its own system would spur a renewed arms
race. Critical to the proposal, was Putin's tacit acknowledgment in the
proposal that a threat by rogue states does exist - in essence validating the
United States' chief reason for pursuing its own national missile defence
system.
Russia shifted the ABM
Treaty issue from a bilateral United States-Russia matter to one that involves
China, Europe, and other countries. Although the decision on the ABM Treaty
remains a United States-Russia prerogative, Putin multilateralized it by making
it a matter of discussion in his meetings in Europe, China, and elsewhere.
Moscow proposes to the United States to jointly develop a program that
would prevent the proliferation of missiles and missile technologies or remove
incentives for acquiring them. Another path is to continue efforts to
strengthen the control of missile technology and to create a global control
system to prevent proliferation of missiles and missile technology.
The Russian side proposed the United States
close cooperation in creating non-strategic ABM systems to contain the
development of the North Korean missile programme. Russia is prepared to
cooperate with the United States and other countries in creating systems of
non-strategic antimissile defence that are not banned under the 1972 ABM
treaty. The basis for this is perceived to be the Russian-American agreements
on the delimitation of strategic and non-strategic BMD systems of 1997. Russia is
ready to bring the total ceiling of nuclear warheads to 1,500 under Start III,
reciprocally with the United States -- provide an additional stimulus for the
strengthening of the regimes of non-proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and means of their delivery.
Full
details of the Russian plan were not made public, but it reportedly involves a
three-stage approach under which a close assessment would first be made of
existing and future missile threats to Europe.
Any such threats, which might be detected, would then be met first by
political efforts to defuse the threat.
Should those political efforts fail a mobile missile force would as a
last resort be deployed near the potential aggressor.
From a technical
standpoint, a European TMD system could perform many of the tasks for which the
United States is designing NMD. Europe
is much closer to the countries most likely to threaten the West with ballistic
missiles, such as Iraq or Iran. A
missile fired from the Middle East against Europe would follow a much shorter
and shallower trajectory than one aimed at the United States.
The Russian
document given to NATO on February 20, 2001, states that its aim "is to
ensure the strategic and regional stability in Europe by concentrating efforts
to create an all-European system of defense from non-strategic ballistic
missiles.” Unlike the U.S. plan, it
targets short- and medium-range missiles instead of intercontinental
weapons. The concept rests on a
three-step process: evaluating any missile threats against European states;
developing a missile defense concept; and determining deployment of antimissile
units. The Russians suggest mobile
batteries that can be shifted to protect particular regions when they come
under threat.
The proposal
envisions creating a single database with the characteristics of all known
non-strategic ballistic missiles, opening a joint center with the Europeans to
share information from launch warning systems similar to one envisioned earlier
with the United States, and testing new equipment using existing Russian
facilities. Ground radar would be used
at first, but satellite detection systems could be developed in the
future. A diagram included with the plan
suggests a multi-layered shield, with one type of system targeting missiles at
a height of 90 miles and smaller batteries within the larger umbrella aimed at
enemy missiles at a height of 18 miles.
Analysts say the
Russians have in mind as a model their own air defense systems, the S-300 and
the soon-to-be-completed S-400, essentially Moscow's equivalent of the U.S.
Patriot system that was used in the Persian Gulf War against Iraqi Scud
missiles. However, those systems were
designed to be more effective against enemy aircraft than missiles. Moscow envisions a system, which might make
use current Russian antimissile systems, including the S-300, S-300V, C-400,
Antei 2500, and low-grade Tor and Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missiles. Aside from the fact that a system of this
sort would not violate the ABM treaty, Russian officials say that its major
advantage is that it would be far less costly than the sorts of systems being
talked about in Washington.
* * *
There are serious
differences between Europe and the United States on BMD. That’s why Moscow was accused of trying to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe by
exploiting these differences and seeking an independent deal with Europe at a
time of great sensitivity among the transatlantic allies about the future of
European defence.
While not an
official party to the ABM treaty themselves, Europeans see the ABM Treaty as
being the bedrock of the overall arms control regime for dealing with nuclear
weapons, as much now as in past decades.
Europeans remain convinced that it is the nuclear deterrence that has
kept the peace. They fear that, should
the United States withdraw unilaterally from the ABM Treaty, the result would
be a major breakdown in the structure of strategic arms control. Europeans fear that Moscow could respond by
withdrawing from START II and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, if
Washington moves ahead unilaterally with missile defense without an agreement
with Russia on revising the ABM Treaty.
This would reverse the trend of past decades and could lead to a renewal
of the arms race.
Many European
strategists see the dangers of a strategic “decoupling,” if the United States
is protected from even a limited missile attack while Europe is left
vulnerable. This could undermine the
implicit American nuclear guarantee and the broader security relationship that
has been the keystone of the Atlantic alliance for the past half-century. Were circumstances to arise whereby, in a
crisis with a power thought to have a missile capability, there was a need for
joint action, the vulnerability of Europe compared to a secure United States
might lead to conflicting interests and objectives.
Europeans doubt
the core of the American rationale for missile defense, which is based on the
assessment that there is a serious threat from “rogue states” that are developing,
or could in time acquire, ballistic missiles and that these states are not
susceptible to the deterrence which has worked effectively for the past
decades. In Europe, there is hardly any
public sense of an immediate ballistic missile threat from North Korea or even
Iran or Iraq.
Having lived with
the possibility of ballistic missile attack for some 40 years, Europeans are
lees concerned about the “rogue states” or “countries of concern.” In a study entitled “European Views of
National Missile Defense,” the Atlantic Council of the United States pointed
out that European governments “emphasize the importance of engagement rather
than isolation of countries of concern.”[3]
When President
Bush put the missile talks with Pyongyang on hold, the alarmed EU immediately
filled the breach by announcing that it would send a high-level delegation to
the Korean Peninsula for talks to include the missile issue. Many Europeans think that the right approach
toward Iran is to help President Khatami, rather than to treat Iran as an
international pariah. Europeans also
believe that the best way to limit the missile program in Iraq is to keep
Saddam Hussein’s regime constrained through sanctions focused on his military
programs.
Even if Europe
and the United States agree that the so-called ‘rogue countries’ have both the
capability and the intention to mount a missile attack on their territory, they
would likely disagree on the proper response.
Europeans prefer a broader political approach to missile threats,
involving less emphasis on BMD and more on non-proliferation. Europeans urge a strategy that encompasses
both offensive and defensive systems, continues nuclear arms reductions where
possible, and strengthens control over weapons of mass destruction and missile
proliferation.
Besides the
United Kingdom and France, as nuclear powers, have special worries related to
their own nuclear forces. The
abrogation of the ABM Treaty and any resulting additional Russian missile
defenses could pose a new situation, forcing the French and the British to
upgrade their missile forces.
An additional
problem for the British arises out of a likely American request for an upgrade
or replacement of the critical early-warning radar at Fylingdales. The Blair government has tried to avoid a
public debate on these upgrades because they could violate the ABM Treaty.
Besides the BMD
issued, there are a number of other issues at stake in the transatlantic
relationship that are of more immediate concern for the Europeans. At the NATO summit in 2002, which will take
up the further enlargement of NATO, there could be strong differences between
most European nations and the Bush administration over which countries to admit
next into NATO and when. There is, for
example, much less support in Europe for bringing one or more of the Baltic
nations into NATO at this time than there appears to be within the Bush
administration.
The European
Union seeks to establish a new European Security and Defense Identity, which is
feared in Washington as something, which would undermine the American influence
in Europe. But the Bush Administration
had to agree to formally support a rapid reaction force under the auspices of
the EU, seeking to mute the European criticism of missile defense.
European concerns
are having an impact on the BMD debate in the United States itself. The Bush administration’s decision to drop
‘national’ from National Missile Defense can be directly attributed to European
objections to the title as a symbol of a ‘Fortress America’ attitude. In part to pre-empt and respond to European
concerns, Washington promised that, in addition to protecting the 50 states,
the Bush missile defense plan will be designed to defend America’s friends and
allies, as well as U.S. troops deployed overseas. In dropping the word “national” before “missile defense,” the
Bush Administration declared that the purpose of creating a unified approach is
to avoid significant differentials in vulnerabilities between the United States
and its European allies.
While skeptical
about NMD, European countries have been interested in pursuing TMD-type systems
to protect their troops deployed in areas of conflict. Italy and Germany are cooperating with the
United States to build Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) designed to
guard against short-range ballistic and cruise missiles. The Netherlands, Germany, and Italy are in
consultations with the United States about building a sea-based TMD system to
protect their fleets.
There is a
greater emphasis on the concept of an “allied missile defense.” The proposals for an allied missile defense
are aimed at avoiding a perception of “decoupling.” The North Atlantic alliance has been working on developing a
theater missile defense for several years.
In time, this effort could be melded with the new plan for the missile
defense of the United States, thereby creating an allied missile defense.
NATO is preparing
feasibility studies to design a future theater missile defense system to put
the alliance in position to make a well-informed decision in 2004 on the
development of a program and could lead to initial deployments by approximately
2010. As presently
envisioned, NATO’s TMD project will be a multi-layered extension of its air
defense system with the anti-missile element having two components: a
lower-range package including the U.S. Patriot PAC-3 with some European
contributions; and a higher-range package including the U.S. Theater High
Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), which is scheduled to be deployed in 2007. Such a plan would replace the ill-fated
MEADS (Medium Extended Air Defense System) program, the major multinational air
defense endeavor of the past decade, which has faced multiple problems and
delays.
It is claimed
that new theater missile defenses will not be designed to defend against
intercontinental ballistic missiles and will therefore not contravene the ABM
Treaty. Rather, it is primarily
intended to provide NATO with the ability to protect deployment of troops and
some limited territory. It will,
nevertheless, give NATO the ability to interdict short-range missiles, such as
Scuds, aimed at targets such as cities and ports. There is, therefore, the possibility of an eventual integration
of a high-tech missile defense system built for the United States, if and when
achieved, with a considerably more limited theater missile defense system built
for Europe (or East Asia).
It is possible
that Russia may also participate in NATO’s TMD program, if the gap between the
Washington and Moscow positions is bridged.
A Russian-American
agreement to modify the ABM treaty so as to permit a limited missile defense
would alleviate many of Europe’s concerns.
The Europeans would welcome a parallel understanding that led to deep
reductions in Russian and American offensive forces—preferably even below
proposed START III levels—through either a negotiated agreement or mutually
agreed upon unilateral steps similar to the Bush-Gorbachev reciprocal
declarations of 1991 concerning tactical nuclear weapons. This could lead to a new mix of offensive
and defensive strategic capabilities that still preserved deterrence. But such measures, in the Europeans’ view,
should be in place before the United States proceeds with missile defense.
* * * In a major policy address May 1, 2001, President Bush vowed to press on with a National Missile Defense. But Bush also promised to consult allies and nuclear nations, including Russia, and refrain from a unilateral breach of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Mr. Bush seeks to accomplish a foreign policy goal that eluded Bill Clinton's best efforts - to win Russian acquiescence in the overriding of treaty limits to the development of a defensive system that would destroy incoming ballistic missiles. The US Administration appears to have settled on a complex, indirect strategy that will avoid both an outright renunciation of existing arms control agreements or picking up Mr. Clinton's efforts to negotiate treaty amendments with Moscow. Instead, the United States will seek "informal agreements" with the Russians on ways to move out of the Cold War's nuclear posture and rationales[4]. President Vladimir Putin, who sees preservation of the ABM pact as vital, said Bush's speech was a "good basis" for dialogue but only time would tell what such talks would produce.
But Russia and the United States should not be forever locked into MAD,
into mutual nuclear deterrence. The reasons why MAD was developed between
Russia and the United States are gone. There is not ideological competition and
economically Russia is not a competitor to the United States.
There are examples of interaction between nuclear states, which don’t
rely on MAD. While France and the United Kingdom have many disagreements, they
are not engaged in mutual nuclear deterrence. Relations between the British and
French nuclear postures and Russian and American nuclear postures are
fundamentally different.
So, can Russia and the United States move beyond MAD?
There are two ways of doing it: One is achieving unilateral superiority
by the United States as a result of Russian decline in offensive weapons, and
as a result of American deployment of National Missile Defences. And basically
that means that a Russian retaliatory strike may at some point become
impossible, so Russia would even more depend on launch on warning and may be
even pre-emption because even launch on warning may become impossible.
Another option is that step-by-step Russia and the United States try to
change the main premises mutually assured destruction and try to replace in
several decades some of the components of MAD like reliance on launch on
warning postures.
The current negotiating stalemate between the United States and Russia
could be resolved by a bolder U.S. position on boost-phase defence, permissible
Russian MIRVing of land-based rockets, de-alerting, and deep cuts down to 1,500
warheads on each side. Various options
combining these elements into packages that stand a good chance of successful
negotiation with Russia are outlined below.
This could be done, in my view, if we quickly move towards START III
Treaty which would establish ceilings like 1000 warheads or not much higher.
But what is important, most of these permitted weapons should be on zero alert
or very low alert status, which would make it impossible to conduct a
pre-emptive decapitating and disarming strike.
For instance, if you Russia and the United States have no more than 500
nuclear warheads on high alert status, it will be impossible to conduct a
counter force attack with so few available warheads. The transparency and
verification measures will not allow to move weapons from a low alert status to
the high alert status to prepare for a surprise attack. This is a position,
which de facto establishes a situation of no-first use of nuclear weapons between
Russia and the United States.
These arrangements may help to reconsider the relationship between
offensive and defensive and design an arrangement for transition to a new
regime, no more relying on MAD. The cooperative transition in Russian-American
relations also means that the main premises of the arms control regime should
be maintained for the next decade while the two countries step-by-step move
away from MAD to a new, more stable relationship.