Virtually from the day Ronald Reagan announced the plan that became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, the United States conceived of missile defense as an effort to be shared with allies. Indeed, the President’s 23 March 1983 address specifically spoke of defending American and allied societies. Three days after the President’s so-called "Star Wars" speech, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger issued seventeen letters of invitation to each of America’s NATO allies, Israel and Japan to join the SDI effort and gave them sixty days to respond. Weinberger envisaged that the allies would each contribute resources to a joint program, and derive the fruits of its research accordingly. Since the allies were under America’s nuclear umbrella, it made sense that they should share in its nuclear defenses as well.

There were two additional reasons for seeking to enmesh the allies in SDI. First, the concept represented a break with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, one of the cornerstones of US-Soviet arms control. The NATO allies tended to be far more forward leaning regarding détente in general and arms control in particular, than was Washington. During the first years of Reagan’s term, Europe had become increasingly vocal in its opposition to what it viewed as an excessively hard-line American approach to arms control. That opposition manifested itself most strongly in the public demonstrations against the deployment of American cruise missiles to Europe. But often it was felt equally strongly, though more discreetly, in the foreign ministries of Europe’s major powers.

The Defense Department had few illusions about European attitudes. Nevertheless, SDI offered a vehicle for cooperation between defense ministries, which tended to be more sympathetic to the American view of deterrence than their foreign ministry counterparts. Cooperation on SDI thus offered the prospect of strengthening the hand of defense ministries regarding arms control issues.

The second reason was a more practical, and more muted, one. For SDI to succeed, the United States was likely to require the use of huge tracking radars located in Fylingdales, in the UK, and in Thule, in Greenland. Under the terms of the ABM Treaty, these radars were not meant to support ballistic missile defenses. Indeed, the United States was at that very time accusing the Soviet Union of employing its own tracking radar at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia for that very purpose. (The Soviets vehemently denied the charge, though in the waning days of the USSR admitted that the accusation was in fact justified). Clearly, in the near term the United States could do little to upgrade the radars without being exposed as a hypocrite regarding Krasnoyarsk. On the other hand, by working closely with the allies on missile defense, Washington could smooth the way for a conversion of these radars to supporting SDI once the program had moved sufficiently far to justify discarding the ABM Treaty.

The Weinberger invitation was not received with much enthusiasm on the part of America’s allies. The initial European reaction to the President’s speech was that Reagan’s plan would only defend American territory, leaving Europe worse off than in the prevailing environment that was governed by the principle of Mutual Assured Destruction. In addition, Europeans were concerned about the financial burden that participation in the SDI program would entail. Lastly, Europeans were not unaware of the domestic American debate that the President's speech had unleashed. The SDI proposal spurred opposition within the Congress, from scientists who questioned its technical feasibility, and even within pockets of the American military who feared that SDI would soak up funding intended for their own pet programs.

In the event, almost all the allies declined to participate. Canada bluntly rejected the Weinberger proposal. Other states, like Norway, France and Japan offered lukewarm verbal support for the program and preferred that any collaboration be on an industry-to-industry rather than official level. Only Britain and Germany were prepared to reach government-to-government agreements and even they were far from enthusiastic about the program itself.

Shortly after Weinberger issued his letter of invitation, British Secretary of State for Defense Michael Heseltine flew to Washington to discuss SDI cooperation with Caspar Weinberger. The Thatcher Government’s objectives were threefold. First, it would do nothing to undermine the "special relationship" with Washington, which had withered during the Nixon and Carter years and was again in full bloom. Indeed, the relationship was not only fostered by the manifest mutual admiration between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Weinberger at the Pentagon was an unabashed Anglophile; he had been the driving force behind America’s throwing in its lot with Britain during the Falklands War of the previous year.

Second, Britain maintained a unique nuclear connection with the United States. That connection was about to result in Britain’s acquiring the Trident D-5 missile. London had no desire to jeopardize the nuclear relationship in any fashion. Third, Britain wished that its industry could capitalize upon American research and development expenditure for SDI and recognized that this was only feasible if London was formally involved in the project.

The Pentagon assumed that Heseltine was armed with a set of British proposals for collaboration. But Heseltine had a different and surprising idea. He proposed to Weinberger that the United States fund British research on missile defense to the tune of £12 billion. The Pentagon team that was at the receiving end of the proposal was almost too shocked to respond.

Seeing that the Reagan Administration was enamored of SDI, and that money would not be forthcoming from the US, the British went far enough along with the program to remain in the Pentagon’s good books. The following year, Britain became the first ally to sign a Memorandum of Understanding regarding its participation in the American SDI program. London established a SDI Participation Office (SDIPO), committed small sums to the SDI project (a few million pounds annually), and also received American funding for a variety of studies conducted by HMG or its contractors. The British focused their efforts on defenses against tactical ballistic missiles (TBM) and sponsored studies for the development of an architecture for European defense against Soviet TBM.

It quickly became clear, however, that the British Government did not view SDI collaboration as a particularly high priority. Nevertheless, by the late-1980s the Pentagon’s SDI office had developed an intimate relationship with its British counterpart, which belied the paltry sums that London was contributing to the common effort. Heseltine had thus successfully achieved his rather narrow objectives.

Like the British, the Germans also reached a government-to-government understanding with the United States on SDI participation and like, the British, their motivations stemmed from concerns other than the program itself. Manfred Woerner, then Germany’s defense minister, was an outspoken advocate of a European ATBM network that would be independent of America’s presumed space-based capabilities. Yet it was not the ministry of defense, but the economics ministry, that negotiated an agreement with Washington. The issue was clearly jobs, not strategy. The German government did provide some funding for missile defense collaboration, but only as a result of pressure from Washington, and only on the heels of the 1985 Roland-Patriot agreement that provided American missiles to Germany in exchange for a number of undertakings, including support for SDI related efforts.

ISRAEL AND SDI

The Israelis initially expressed little interest in the American SDI program. In part, this may have been due to Israeli suspicion of Weinberger himself. In part, this may have been a reflection of Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin’s skepticism regarding the effectiveness of anti-missile missiles. The Israeli Air Force likewise was not enthusiastic about a program that threatened to siphon off money from its priority efforts, notably the Lavi fighter, which was anticipated to consume as much as half the foreign assistance Israel expected to receive from the US. By the time the Lavi was terminated in August 1987, Jerusalem had gone no further than to participate in a study by the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO) of Israel’s ballistic missile defense requirements.

Once the Lavi was canceled, however, Rabin reconsidered his position on SDI, and Israel began seriously to consider missile defenses for its own forces. Recognizing a new opportunity to add to the already massive level of American assistance that it received, Israel proposed the joint development of a theater anti-ballistic missile system, subsumed under SDI, which would receive eighty percent of its funding from the United States.

Washington had no operational requirement for such a missile; it was initially intended purely for the defense of Israel itself. Yet supported by its friends on Capitol Hill, Israel successfully launched a program for an anti-ballistic missile called the Arrow. Formally, Israel had to contribute 20 percent (later increased to 30 percent) of its research and development costs. In practice the Israeli contribution was closer to ten percent.

On the other hand, whereas the American program underwent a series of fits and starts, as its size and objectives continued to be scaled back, the Israeli program moved forward. Israel is on the verge of deploying its first Arrow battery. It has also developed a tracking radar to complement the Arrow, as well as the requisite C4 support systems. Most important of all, it is working with the United States to integrate Arrow’s capabilities with those that will be available to American forces for theater missile defense.

THE TMD CONNECTION

Britain, Germany and Israel was not alone in focusing their efforts on defenses against theater ballistic missiles, which for them were as strategic as inter-continental missiles were for the United States. In particular, France was developing a sea-based missile called Aster, that its proponents argued could be easily converted into an ATBM system. But for at least a decade the French never actually did fund the system’s conversion to an ATBM.

Other European states were even more cautious about ATBM. To begin with, they did not receive much encouragement from SDIO, which was ambivalent about its own role in developing theater missile defenses. Formally, that task belonged to the Army’s Strategic Defense Command based in Huntsville, Alabama. Complex organization charts linking the SDC to SDIO were as confusing to Americans as they were to Europeans.

In addition, the European NATO states worried that any link between theater and strategic missile defense would undermine the MAD regime, to which they remained strongly wedded. Europeans recognized that MAD was their best hope for a scenario in which they might be spectators in a nuclear war between superpowers who were retaliating against each other. Any move toward ATBM that helped to sustain the prospects for SDI would undercut this scenario. For this reason, as well as for the financial reasons noted above, even states on NATO’s southern tier, who had reason to fear missile attacks such as that of Libya on the Italian Island of Lampedusa, were reluctant to fund ATBM programs. Indeed, Italy, after years of negotiation, backed away from a proposed purchase of Patriot, which would have provided it with a rudimentary missile defense capability.

Difficulties both with respect to nuclear strategy and to finances were not the only factors to complicate allied collaboration on missile defense. Trans-Atlantic collaboration in all aspects of military weapons development had a long and unfortunate history. To be sure, both the Congress and successive Administrations paid considerable lip service to the need for weapons standardization within NATO. Congress passed several pieces of legislation to encourage standardization. These included granting the Secretary of Defense the right to override the Buy American Act; the 1979 International Security Assistance Act, which amended the Arms Export Control Act to provide for NATO "cooperative projects;" and the 1985 Nunn program for cooperative weapons development.

In practice, however, the Congress could not sustain enthusiasm for many projects for which it had provided initial seed money. As a result, the United States often withdrew entirely from joint programs, leaving Europeans to fend for themselves. For their part, Europeans often were unwilling to match American investments in proposed joint projects.

The track record of failures was a dismal one. They included the seven-nation plan for a NATO frigate, and the five-nation attempt to develop a common identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system. In fact, nearly fifty percent of all major US-European co-development projects undertaken during the late 1980s were canceled. It was therefore not surprising that Europeans were not prepared to take the risky step of committing themselves to joint collaboration with the US on politically highly charged missile defense programs.¹

THE MEADS DEBACLE

The experience of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) certainly seems to have underscored the wisdom of European reservations. It might have been expected that concerns about Iran and Iraq, particularly in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, would have prompted a European Theater Missile Defense initiative—much as it continued to provide the force behind the Israeli program. In fact, MEADS was an American creation, a virtual spur-of–the-moment 1995 initiative on the part of Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch. Sensing growing European unease in the post Gulf war era regarding missile threats from the Middle East, Deutch proposed a collaborative TMD effort that would replace a US Army program called Corps Sam. The Pentagon envisaged that Italy, Germany and France would join the program. The British, anticipating the completion of their own missile defense "pre-feasibility" study in 1996, reserved judgment as to whether they would participate.

The Army was not enthusiastic about the proposal for a collaborative effort. As its name implies, Corps Sam was meant to provide corps level defense against cruise and ballistic missile attack. The program, which was to replace the Hawk medium air defense system, was quite ambitious. The launcher was to be mobile, and would provide 360 degree coverage. It was meant to operate against stealthy as well as conventional targets.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Army had accumulated a generally dismal record in its attempts to develop new air defense systems for its larger units; Patriot was its only real success. It was fully aware of the failures that accompanied so many European-American development projects during the 1980s. MEADS offered the Army very little, except improved prospects for another failure. Not surprisingly, it never became a strong advocate for the MEADS effort.

The Deputy Secretary’s difficulties did not end with the Army, however. He failed to work closely with the Congress to ensure that MEADS would receive required levels of funding. Instead, the program became part of a larger dispute between the Republican Congress and the Administration over missile defense funding priorities. In February 1996, Secretary of Defense Perry assigned MEADS funding priority over THAAD and Navy Upper Tier, respectively the land and sea-based high altitude ("upper tier") missile defense programs, which enjoyed strong Congressional support. Given Congressional skepticism about the wisdom of pursuing any kind of new Army missile defense program apart from one based on Patriot, the Administration’s decision effectively to delay the fielding of the key upper-tier TMD programs served only to solidify opposition to MEADS.

The Pentagon faced problems on a third front as well. Deutch had proposed MEADS without awaiting the outcome of a NATO study on counter-proliferation requirements and of planned agreements on priorities for specific NATO deployments of theater missile defenses.²   Nor was it clear whether the Alliance was committed to the type of military activity for which MEADS would be most relevant. In the event, by 1997 the French had dropped out of the MEADS program; the British never came in.

For several years MEADS barely scraped through the Congressional funding process. On several occasions its funding was jeopardized by one or another of the key committees deciding its fate. By 1999 it was clear that the program simply had run out of steam and the Administration gave way to reality. The Pentagon put its bravest face on the project by calling for $150 million for the three years beginning in fiscal year 2000 to develop "technology related to the Medium extended Air Defense System."³ Needless to say, that meant that any decision regarding the fate of the program would be taken by the next Administration; the Clinton Administration had effectively washed its hands of the project, and the Europeans were given the choice of stringing along if they so wished.

Clearly, the United States still does not have a coherent policy on missile defense that is sufficiently attractive to encompass its European allies. The current debate over National Missile Defense and the possibility of abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, as well as arguments by many analysts that without abrogation American upper tier systems cannot be employed to their best advantage, have had the effect of worrying Europeans who are still committed to arrangements that were far more relevant to the Cold War era. Only Britain seems to be moving ahead with a multifaceted missile defense program, and even London may find itself under severe budget constraints as it is forced to finance long term deployments in the Balkans. The other NATO states, with far less enthusiasm for missile defense, and in some cases, proportionally onerous costs related to either Balkan deployments or EU financing of Balkan redevelopment, will be that much more leery about taking on any new commitments in the realm of missile defenses.

The challenge for Washington is one that has remained unchanged since 1983: how to convince the Allies that missile defense is in their interest as well as in America’s. Given the many missteps of the past, not least of which those that took place on Capitol Hill, that is a tall order for the Clinton Administration, which it simply may not be able to fill in its remaining days in power.

COOPERATION IN EAST ASIA

There has generally been little interest in missile defense in the part of America’s Asian allies. For years, Japan resisted American prodding to involve itself in the SDI program and its successors. South Korea continues to place higher priority on acquiring longer-range missiles to deter the North rather than defenses against Pyongyang’s short range ballistic missiles. Only Taiwan has increasingly expressed interest in acquiring whatever missile defense technology or systems the US might deign to make available to it.

Japan. The original Weinberger invitation to join SDI had been addressed to Japan. In practice, it took about fifteen years for Tokyo to respond. Other than carrying out some studies and contract work on propulsion materials and advanced composites, the Japanese government resolutely hesitated to commit itself to a missile defense program of its own. It was only after years of negotiation with the U.S., and the 31 August 1998 North Korean flight test of the Taepo Dong missile, that Japan finally committed itself to an agreement with the United States for a joint research program on a missile defense system. The agreement was signed on August 16, 1999, and, as a Japanese Foreign Ministry official put it, "it would be difficult to say that this agreement has no relation to the…situation…with North Korea."⁴  The agreement commits Tokyo to match American expenditures of exceeding over a five to six year period, though initially Tokyo’s contribution is quite small, only a few million dollars. Nevertheless, in signing the agreement, Japan becomes America’s only East Asian partner in the missile defense arena.

Missile defense remains a controversial issue for Tokyo and its ongoing cooperation with the United States on missile defense cannot be taken for granted. Certainly, one product of the cumbersome Japanese system of policy making is that once consensus is reached, as it has been on missile defense, it is not easily ruptured. Moreover, should North Korea test fire a Taepo Dong II missile, Japan’s commitment to missile defense would become ironclad.

But if Pyongyang chooses not to test fire any more missiles for several years, and if Japan’s economy remains in the doldrums, there could well be pressures to restrain the level of funding for missile defenses. A Japanese decision to acquire lower tier missile defenses for its AEGIS ships can be avoided for several years. In the meantime, a change in the American Administration, coupled perhaps with promising developments on the Korean Peninsula, could lead Japan to delay any major funding commitment to missile defense. Indeed, the Japanese foreign ministry stressed at the signing of the US-Japan agreement that the possible deployment of a system is "years if not decades away." In other words, Japan’s fielding a missile defense system, and certainly an upper tier system, should not be taken as a foregone conclusion.

Taiwan. As noted above, unlike the Japanese, who are just beginning to shed their ambivalence about theater missile defense, the Taiwanese would be delighted to receive an American commitment to sell them more advanced systems, notably THAADS, whenever these became available. Taiwan has already acquired an indigenous version of the American PAC-II missile system. The difficulty with acquiring more advanced systems is, of course, on the American side. With Mainland China bitterly attacking any potential cooperation on TMD, even if it is still far in the future, Washington will not make any commitment to Taipei unless the PRC follows up its current bellicose posture with any kind of military action. For example, should the PRC seize uninhabited Taiwanese islands in the course of the current crisis, Congressional pressure to commit Washington to enable Taiwan to obtain the requisite missile defense could well be irresistible. Taiwan might then not only move to the top of the prospective list of purchasers of THAAD or Navy Area Wide Systems, but also could well take part in their development.

It is of course unclear whether events will come to pass that will bring Taiwan within the American missile defense orbit. But just as the nature of Japanese participation is a function of events beyond its control—namely, decisions made in Pyongyang—so too will the Taiwanese involvement in America’s missile defense program be the result of exogenous decisions taken in Beijing.

Regional Opposition to TMD. Like Russia, indeed even more so, China has been vocally and at times hysterically opposed to the notion that theater missile defense could be introduced anywhere. Because it is not a signatory to the ABM Treaty, China has little leverage over any American decision to deploy a national missile defense. It can, however, rely upon Russia to make against NMD which, of course, Moscow has consistently done since the day SDI was first announced to the world.

Regional TMD is a different matter, however. As noted, China bitterly opposes any American cooperation with Taiwan. It is only somewhat less vociferous about cooperation with Japan. The crude Chinese attempt to influence the 1996 Taiwanese presidential election by means of missile tests would have been far less potent had Taiwan been able to marshal missile defenses. If Taiwan were able to obtain a TMD capability, it would effectively rob the mainland of its most effective tool for blackmail, and indeed, of its most credible threat to the island.

While Japanese missile defense clearly is a result of North Korean developments, China recognizes that Japanese TMD would reinforce America’s regional military superiority. Even worse from Beijing’s point of view, possession of a TMD capability would create the temptation for Tokyo to carve its own independent path in Asian security affairs.

China is thus confronted with a serious dilemma regarding Japan. Because it fears an independently-minded Japan, it wishes Tokyo’s security to remain closely tied to American leadership. Yet it recognizes that the closer Tokyo’s ties are to Washington, the more likely that Japan will field the missile defenses in response to Washington’s desires.

Beijing has therefore focused primarily on the provision of TMD to Taiwan, but has also posited more generalized arguments against the introduction of missile defenses in Asia. For example, Luo Renshi, a senior Chinese security analyst with the China Institute for International Strategic Studies, recently argued that "co-operation between the US and its allies in the construction of theater ballistic missile defense systems is in essence proliferating ballistic missile technologies, countering its own program of controlling the proliferation of missile technologies." He added that the United States "has in practice violated the principles of the MTCR (missile technology control regime)."⁵

Luo offered a second, Asia-specific argument as well. "Construction of theater missile systems by the US…adds to regional instability…in East Asia." He noted that joint US-Japanese TMD development would jeopardize Russia’s position in its balance of military power with the US and Japan in the Western Pacific. And of course he added that provision of TMD to Taiwan was a blatant interference in China’s domestic political affairs.⁶

Other Asian states have kept their counsel about the wisdom of introducing TMD in their region. But none have voiced much enthusiasm for the notion. No doubt, the posture of many of the ASEAN states is influenced by Beijing; the smaller Asian states have for years avoided being caught up in the rhetorical crossfire between Beijing and Taipei. None are therefore likely to take a high profile on an issue that would certainly enflame PRC-Taiwan relations. It is also not clear to what extent many Southeast Asian states are comfortable with Japan’s acquisition of TMD. In the short run, a Japanese-US TMD program will certainly tie Tokyo closer to Washington. Privately, however, many Southeast Asian policy makers share China’s long term concern about Japan; how TMD fits into that concern is as yet unclear.

AMERICA’S FUTURE MISSILE DEFENSE POSTURE IN ASIA

America’s Asian allies and friends will not introduce defenses into the region at any time soon, and will probably not do so for the better part of the next decade. The United States needs to come to terms with this reality. It must steadfastly prod its allies forward, and not permit Chinese opposition to dominate their thinking.

At the same time, allied hesitancy on missile defense should serve as a spur to the United States to accelerate its own sea-based defenses, both the Navy Area TBMD program and especially the Navy Theater-Wide (NTW) effort. American missile defenses onboard AEGIS ships would accomplish multiple goals. First they would demonstrate to allies and friends throughout the region that, contrary to China’s claims, missile defenses are not destabilizing. Second, they would demonstrate that America’s commitment to regional defense remains strong, and that it will not back down in the face of Chinese intimidation or hysteria about missile defenses. Third, they would provide critical reassurance to Japan to stay the course with its own missile defense efforts. At the same time, Taiwan would feel less pressed to field defenses of its own, though these need not be ruled out.

The Administration currently does not envisage the deployment of Navy Theater-Wide defenses until 2007 at the earliest. This program should be accelerated as much as possible. Providing a jittery East Asia the reassurance it needs is a task that cannot be accomplished too soon. 

MOVING FORWARD IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Israel’s Arrow program, still benefiting from American funding, continues apace. Israel originally was to deploy two Arrow batteries, which included the Arrow missile itself, the Arrow launcher, the Green Pine radar, and fire and launch control centers. The United States was to contribute 48 percent of the cost of what was termed the "Arrow Deployability Program." It now appears that the United States will contribute to funding the deployment of a third battery as well.

The development and fielding of new Iranian medium range ballistic missiles has led the United States to accelerate its effort to improve the connectivity between its own TMD forces and those of Israel.⁷  Presumably, the Ballistic Missile Defense Office (BMDO, formerly the SDIO) also intends to link upper tier systems to the Israeli defense network once those systems are deployed to the region.

Israel has been reported to be discussing with Turkey that country’s possible acquisition of the Arrow system. Some Israelis are in fact contemplating the creation of a regional missile defense network, centered on Arrow, and with nodes in both Turkey and Jordan. Neither country has expressed any public interest in the scheme, however. Moreover, any such plan would probably have to await the outcome of the Syrian-Israeli peace process. Should a successful agreement be reached regarding the Golan Heights, the prospects for Jordanian participation in a ballistic missile defense network would markedly improve.

Israel and the United States are cooperating in other missile defense programs. Most notable of these is the Boost Phase Intercept Program (BPI). Unlike the American concept, which calls for an airborne laser to destroy incoming ballistic missiles shortly after they are launched, the Israeli program envisages a missile (the MOAB) launched from an unmanned aerial vehicle. Both programs are expected to become operational during the first decade of the next century.

The United States has initiated theater missile defense dialogues with other states in the region. In particular, under the auspices of CENTCOM it has held seminars with representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council states on the basics of the TMD threat and options for defense. While these states should be expected to take an interest in TMD, since they are in the immediate shadow of both Iran and Iraq, it is unlikely that they will take any action on TMD in the foreseeable future. The Gulf states have traditionally been cautious about taking initiatives that will ruffle the feathers of their larger neighbors. Moreover, Saudi Arabia, the largest of the GCC states, has been suffering from tight budgetary constraints for the past few years, and is unlikely to find the resources to acquire TMD systems even if were to have the inclination to do so, which it may not. TMD is thus still very much an abstract matter for America’s Arab allies; the level of discussion is one that resembles that with Europe well over a decade ago.

AMERICA’S TMD POSTURE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

America remains committed to supporting the Israeli Arrow TMD program. It has been less forthcoming regarding the expansion of that program into a regional umbrella for other friends and allies, notably Jordan and Turkey. Yet, there are greater near-term prospects for these states joining with Israel to create a multinational TMD system capable of operating with US forces than for the GCC states to coordinate a missile defense effort. Those states have not even gone so far as to integrate air defenses. Several of them, notably Saudi Arabia, are strapped for cash. It is simply unrealistic for Washington to expect the GCC states to achieve any progress in the realm of missile defense. On the other hand, Washington is being short sighted in not pushing more vociferously for the creation of a new Israel-Turkey-Jordan TMD capability based on the Arrow.

THE BOTTOM LINE: ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT

Although the United States has devoted tens of billions of dollars to missile defense research development since 1983, it has been unable to generate anything like the same degree of enthusiasm for, much less commitment to, missile defense programs on the part of its Allies. European allies remain skittish about the arms control implications of missile defense, and are reluctant to allocate scarce defense resources to the acquisition of defensive systems. Moreover, they worry about the consistency of the US commitment to missile defense. The strategic defense program has undergone numerous major changes in direction, while the potential for a collaborative tactical program, embodied by MEADS, has been seriously called into question.

Apart from Israel, Asian and Middle Eastern allies have been no more enthusiastic about missile defense. It took years to get Japan to reach a very modest agreement on TMD research, whose ultimate end has yet to be defined. Other states have not even gone as far as Japan. In East Asia, strident Chinese opposition further undermines the readiness of America’s regional friends to join in any TMD effort.

What is required is consistency of purpose and program on the part of the United States. The Administration must work hand-in-glove with the Congress to support collaborative efforts. It must sustain its support for any cooperative efforts once they are launched. Most of all, it must demonstrate that it is really serious about its own missile defense efforts. As long as Washington remains ambivalent about NMD or its own upper-tier TMD programs, few allies will be ready to commit themselves fully to operationalize their missile defense effort, regardless of the objective requirements they are meant to address.

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