ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:96052302.txt
DATE:05/23/96
TITLE:23-05-96 TONY LAKE VIEWS ON MISSILE DEFENSE IMPLICATIONS FOR TREATIES
TEXT:
(Article on Air Force One chat with reporters May 22) (1400)
By Alexander M. Sullivan
USIA White House Correspondent
Washington -- Like a pebble tossed in a pond, the congressional
proposal to deploy a nation-wide defense against intercontinental
missiles, if passed, would have spreading consequences for U.S.
foreign policy and especially for the decades-long drive to contain
nuclear weapons.
The Clinton administration, which is working on theater missile
defenses against short-range rockets, would like to take more time to
evaluate the best technology for the more complicated interception of
long-range missiles, to assess the potential threat three years down
the line, and to proceed after the United States and the Russian
Federation have agreed on the dividing line between theater defenses
and strategic or continent-wide defense.
Moving precipitously, the administration warns, would jeopardize
ratification of the Start Two treaty by the Russian Federation and
derail historic reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the United
States and Russia. By changing the nuclear dynamic, hasty moves could
also endanger negotiations to achieve a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty.
Anthony Lake, President Clinton's adviser on national security
affairs, fears that deployment of the sort sought by Congress would
require amendment of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or would
place the United States in violation of treaty terms. (The NSC Advisor
spoke with pool reporters on board Air Force One May 22 en route from
Andrews Air Force Base to New London, Connecticut; a copy of the pool
report was released to the White House press corps early morning May
23.)
As Congress is weighing the plan, he says, the Russian Duma is
simultaneously considering whether to ratify the Start Two treaty,
which would require sharp reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the
two countries by the end of the century.
"They have made it very clear," Lake says, "that if we violate the ABM
treaty or appear to be about to violate it, they will not ratify Start
Two. That in turn would mean that we have lost an historic opportunity
to reduce by two-thirds the strategic arsenal of warheads that were in
place during the Cold War."
Meanwhile, Lake adds, Washington is working with Moscow on what
constitutes a theater defense (which would be permissible under the
AMB treaty), and what technology would spill over into banned
strategic defenses. Postponing possible deployment of a strategic
system, he adds, "gives you the opportunity to decide if the
(potential) threat required deployment, and what its implications
would be for the ABM Treaty, rather than leaping into it...with the
consequences for Start Two."
The administration, Lake says, has "a conceptual difference" with
Congress on the plan. Tony Lake cites the on-going research into the
feasibility of a nation-wide defense, which Clinton would like to
continue for another three years. "Then you would make a threat
assessment," Lake says, "and decide whether you need to deploy
immediately."
If the risk were real enough, full deployment would take three years.
(Although Clinton says a threat is ten years away, the intelligence
community estimate is 15 years.) Lake says if the threat is deemed
insufficiently immiment, an annual estimate of risk would be employed.
Deployment of a defense system, Lake points out, "requires a very,
very complex and very expensive" combination of technologies. "We
think it is prudent to use the three years to figure out which of a
variety of systems is the most cost efficient, whether that be laser
systems or kinetic energy systems or whatever."
With the end of the Cold War and the implementation of treaties
reducing the number of nuclear weapons, the perceived threat of
missile attack now would come from a "rogue" nation like Libya or
North Korea, which would be able to launch only a limited number of
warheads, not the hundreds Washington and Moscow have at their
command.
Members of Congress, many of them of the opposition Republican Party,
would like to immediately resurrect the Star Wars missile defense
system of the Reagan years and risk violation of the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty binding the United States and Russia to shun
space-based defenses.
(In a time of harsh budget constraints, a new report by the General
Accounting Office may have set back the Republican plan as much as the
president's opposition -- the GAO said the plan would cost as much as
$70,000 million before deployment in 2003.)
The congressional plan calls for a "layered" defense featuring "a
highly effective defense of all 50 states against limited,
unauthorized and accidental attack" and a second system to defend
against "larger and more sophisticated ballistic missile threats."
Both the Star Wars concept and the new Republican proposal rely on
satellites to detect missile launches, radar to track missile
trajectory and interceptors to destroy warheads in the upper
atmosphere. The original Star Wars proposal would have based both
radar and interceptors in space, but later modifications relied on a
combination of ground and space based components. Both laser and
kinetic energy interceptors have been tested. In the first a laser
beam has destroyed an incoming warhead. The kinetic energy version
would simply run an object into the missile, which would be destroyed
by the impact.
Whether the cost estimates kill the continental defense proposal or
merely delay it, renewed consideration of the concept illustrates the
complexity of security in a nuclear age.
American and Soviet officials living with the threat of hair-trigger
nuclear response to a real or perceived threat decided more than a
generation ago to agree that a missile attack on one nation would
ensure the total destruction of the other. That was because each side
fielded so many weapons, an initial attack could not destroy all of
them; enough would remain to destroy civilization in a retaliatory
attack against the first-strike state.
The so-called Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine was further
enhanced when the two countries agreed to make no attempt to erect a
missile defense system. Each agreed to defend only its national
command center and one missile emplacement. The theory was that
neither side would be tempted to think it could destroy the other's
retaliatory ability.
For Clinton, the Republican proposal to resurrect the reassuring
concept of an invulnerable shield is the wrong plan at the wrong time
advanced for the wrong reasons. Contending that any potential threat
of attack by intercontinental missiles is a decade away, the president
contends, "We should not leap before we look. This (Republican) plan
is misguided. It would waste money. It would weaken our defenses by
taking money away from things we know we need right now. It would
violate the arms control agreements that we have made and these
agreements make us more secure. That (plan ) is the wrong way to
defend America."
Although the United States has spent more than $40,000 million seeking
to build a nation-wide defense system, it has been unable to develop
technology that would successfully defend against a sophisticated
attack that might have been launched by a nation like the Soviet
Union. The Soviets -- and the Americans -- deployed missiles (Multiple
Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicles or MIRVs) that could carry as
many as 40 nuclear warheads each and direct them to 40 individual
targets. In addition, each missile could launch chaff or even dummy
warheads to confuse the sensors of the defending nation and overwhelm
the number of interceptors available to destroy incoming missiles.
While the sheer number of re-entry vehicles available to Washington
and Moscow has been able to overwhelm the sensors and interceptors of
test defense systems, the technology already exists to assure
destruction of most weapons in a small-scale attack.
Even before the demise of the Soviet Union, the two countries had
begun to negotiate reductions in their nuclear arsenals, and by the
turn of the century, under current plans, would be able to deploy only
a third of the weapons on hand at the height of the Cold War.
Meanwhile, to deal with theater or battlefield attack, the United
States is upgrading the Patriot anti-missile system and is at work on
the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the ship-based
Upper and Lower Tier programs.
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