Pursuit of the Shield
The U.S. Quest for Limited Ballistic Missile Defense - Executive Summary
By K. Scott McMahon
With a foreword by Senator John Warner
In September 1967, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced the Johnson Administration's decision to deploy a limited anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system that would be capable of protecting virtually the entire U.S. population against small-scale ballistic missile strikes. Five years later, the United States reversed course and signed the ABM Treaty, which placed severe restrictions on superpower anti-missile deployments.
For nearly twenty years, the ABM Treaty and its underlying rationale enjoyed widespread support among U.S. policymakers and members of the defense establishment. By the early 1990s, however, the consensus supporting America's 'no defense' force posture had been severely shaken by world events that led the Congress in November 1991 to demand the deployment of a limited ballistic missile defense (BMD) system.
This study compares and contrasts the interaction of technology, threat perception, national security strategy, and political forces that led to the rise and fall of limited BMD during the Cold War era and to its resurgence in the 1990s. The study's goal is to draw upon historical lessons learned and analysis of the emerging international security environment to develop a BMD proposal that can generate enough support to sustain it through deployment and operations. A ballistic missile defense deployment is imperative, lest the American people remain vulnerable to emerging threats.
The book is organized into three parts. Part one presents a historical case study, the development of America's ABM effort from World War II until the 1967 decision to deploy the Sentinel ABM system. The Sentinel decision represented the first time that a consensus was established for the deployment of a limited BMD system to protect the U.S. population.
A framework for analysis is used to assess how the consensus for Sentinel, however brief, was established. According to said framework, a strategic weapon program, and especially one requiring a major alteration in U.S. strategic doctrine, must be capable of meeting several prerequisites. The program must be justified by a perception of threats, threats that it can counter. It must be considered technically feasible and affordable. It must be sensible from the standpoint of strategy and doctrine. Finally, it must be politically desirable. Political consensus is, of course, most likely to be obtained if the first four prerequisites are met.
In addition to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the Sentinel proposal, application of the framework permits a categorization of the anti-BMD arguments that combined to derail Sentinel in 1969. Part one concludes with a listing of these arguments; they coalesced to generate an anti-BMD conventional wisdom lasting two decades.
Part two of this study focuses on the lessons learned from the 1991 Persian Gulf War (i.e., Operation Desert Storm). As the war's political fallout spread, it overturned the conventional wisdom established during the Sentinel debate.
The Gulf War experience, and Iraqi ballistic missile strikes in particular, demonstrate that deterrence should not be relied upon to protect U.S. forces or the U.S. homeland from future missile attacks, or from attacks with nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons. The war showed further that other means of protection - the global non-proliferation regime, diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and counterforce operations - are inadequate and must be reinforced with an active defense capability (i.e., BMD).
As Desert Storm subsided, a storm of a different type erupted on Capitol Hill. The war's lessons forced members of the U.S. Congress to question fundamental tenets of the Cold War security framework. The resulting debate broke years of deadlock over strategic defense policies and programs. Congressional passage of the 1991 Missile Defense Act demonstrated the basis for a new consensus for strategic BMD.
Part three of this study opens with an analysis of the international security environment of the 1990s and beyond. First, a detailed assessment of the proliferation of NBC weapons and long-range ballistic missiles is presented. This assessment validates the Missile Defense Act's original rationale, that is, that current measures are insufficient and active defenses are required to counter emerging threats.
Second, an analysis of potential attack motivations and operations is presented. Based on historical case studies and more recent conflicts, this analysis determines that NBC missile attacks on the continental United States (CONUS) might be unintentional or purposeful.
Unintentional strikes might be carried out if another strategic power loses control of the forces on its soil. This contingency was considered a real possibility during the 1989 Tiananmen Square crisis in China and during political upheavals in Russia in 1991 and 1993.
Iraqi ballistic missiles in design or research and development before Operation Desert Storm.
Purposeful attacks on CONUS are also conceivable. Lesser powers might be highly motivated to attack CONUS (as opposed to overseas U.S. interests or forward-deployed forces) in order to disrupt a pending U.S. military campaign, claim revenge for a U.S. attack, or other reasons. This analysis finds further that long-range ballistic missiles could be an attacker's delivery system of choice. Other delivery options (e.g., smuggled bombs, aircraft or ship delivery, etc.) would entail significant operational challenges and could be countered by existing and planned U.S. defenses. America's total vulnerability to ballistic missile attack, on the other hand, would invite attacks using this delivery method.
Finally, as a starting point for the book's recommendations section, part three presents a summary of the book's major findings, which include the following:
1. Political and social upheaval can strike strategic powers (e.g., China and the former Soviet Union), thus threatening accidental or unauthorized missile launches.
2. The global non-proliferation regime can slow, but it will rarely stop, proliferators determined to acquire NBC weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.
3. New ballistic missile powers could threaten CONUS in the first decade of the twenty-first century, or sooner if proliferators exploit shortcuts to strategic rocket acquisition.
4. The United States must make BMD force structure decisions on the basis of global strategic capabilities, not intentions, because today's friends could be tomorrow's enemies.
5. The United States cannot count on deterrence to protect CONUS; rational and irrational enemies alike could threaten or carry out a missile strike on CONUS.
6. In principle, the United States can mount credible defenses at both the strategic and tactical levels against terroristic NBC strikes (e.g. "suitcase bombs"), as well as aircraft and cruise missiles.
7. The U.S. commitment to protecting its allies and military forces by upgrading its defenses against theater ballistic missiles further highlights the vulnerability of CONUS and invites attack.
8. Missile defense deployment timelines must be conservative in their anticipation of emerging threats. Deployments must be timed to permit extensive BMD training and exercises to ensure optimum performance when potential threats mature.
Given these assertions, the concluding chapter recommends (1) BMD deployments and research and development (R&D) programs to meet current and potential future ballistic missile threats, (2) ABM Treaty revisions that could be made to permit the suggested BMD deployments and R&D programs, and (3) cooperative measures that could be undertaken with Russia and other countries to ensure that future BMD deployments are compatible with strategic arms reduction efforts, and that they promote world peace and stability in general. To assess its viability, the book's BMD deployment proposal is measured against the same prerequisites used to assess the Sentinel system in part one.
The proposal takes into consideration the post-Desert Storm consensus that a threat to the U.S. homeland is at least gradually emerging. It further considers the deployment guidelines established by the 1991 Missile Defense Act, which were reaffirmed by the 1995 Ballistic Missile Defense Act. These considerations point to a phased BMD deployment that begins with an ABM Treaty-compliant site at Grand Forks, North Dakota. Such a site could be comprised of one hundred ground-based interceptors (GBIs) supported by sensors capable of providing over-the-horizon track data on inbound missiles.
Illustrative defended footprint provided by modern GBIs deployed in an ABM Treaty-compliant configuration at Grand Forks, North Dakota.
The U.S. Defense Department asserts that a Grand Forks deployment could defend all of CONUS against twenty to thirty reentry vehicles coming from a generally northerly direction. Outside analysts concur with the Pentagon's assessment.
To protect the entire country against a wider range of threats, America's phased BMD deployment should be completed with six additional GBI sites: three more in CONUS, two in Alaska, and one in Hawaii. The BMD system should be supported by space-based missile tracking sensors and be capable of shooting down about two hundred NBC warheads. With space sensor support and a total of four hundred GBIs deployed in CONUS, non-government studies indicate that more than 95 percent of the inbound reentry vehicles in a two-hundred-warhead attack could be successfully engaged, thus saving millions of American lives.
Illustrative national and theater missile defense architectures.
The ability to defend against two hundred warheads is required because this is the largest number controlled by a single person - the commander of a Russian "Typhoon" submarine, which carries twenty strategic missiles, each armed with ten nuclear warheads. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has determined that submarine and other commanders of Russia's strategic forces can probably defeat safety devices and launch their weapons without civilian authorization. Moreover, experts assert that some regional nuclear powers have already deployed nuclear arsenals comprising between seventy and two hundred warheads.
A multisite national missile defense could be deployed during the first decade of the twenty-first century and it should be a negotiated deployment. That is, it should be deployed under the auspices of U.S.-Russian negotiations to modify the 1972 ABM Treaty. In this regard, the United States should pursue time-limited negotiations and change the ABM Treaty to permit, inter alia:
1. Multiple ground-based interceptor sites.
2. Unrestricted use of ABM sensors regardless of basing mode.
3. Unrestricted testing of ABM systems at observable test ranges.
A modified ABM Treaty must also include an expiration date. The Treaty should only be renewed if the parties agree that the strategic environment warrants maintaining the accord.
In a dramatic change from the Cold War era, compliance with an expanded ABM regime can now be ensured with high confidence. Existing strategic arms reduction treaties (START), the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Open Skies Treaty offer a wealth of precedents for the creation of a robust BMD verification protocol. Such a protocol might include, for example, routine inspections of ABM sites, monitoring of ABM-related activities via aerial surveillance, short notice challenge inspections of suspect ABM sites, and continuous on-site monitoring of ABM equipment production. A verification protocol that includes these and other measures will help ensure that militarily significant cheating will not go undetected and that limited missile defenses remain limited.
With a revamped treaty and a monitoring regime in place, joint U.S.-Russian ABM development programs can be initiated to increase transparency and promote a strategic partnership between the former rivals. The construction of a global missile launch warning center could be an immediate area of teamwork. Indeed, ambitious projects related to formerly secret directed-energy weapons have already been the subject of U.S.-Russian discussions. Joint BMD development programs could have the added benefit of employing Russian scientists who might otherwise continue to create strategic offensive weapons for Russia or, worse yet, market their talents to rogue states.
A cooperative U.S.-Russian approach to reducing strategic offensive arsenals and deploying BMD systems will reinforce peace and strategic stability. If a future confrontation nonetheless occurs, it would be unlikely to escalate as deterrence and crisis stability would prevail: Neither side could expect to launch a successful first strike using its limited BMD system for protection. In fact, even if the attacker found its victim's strategic forces at a peacetime level of preparedness (a heroically optimistic scenario) and destroyed a large portion of them, the attacker would still suffer a devastating retaliatory blow. This will be the case with the reduced force levels envisioned in the 1991 and 1993 START accords and at even lower strategic force levels.
Scenario I: Scenario II: Russian First Strike U.S. First Strike on United States on Russia ORIGINAL WARHEADS Russia 3,221 3,221 United States 3,500 3,500 SURVIVING RETALIATORY WARHEADS ON TARGET* Russia - 664 United States 582 -
*These figures assume a scenario that is highly favorable to the attacker. The attacking state finds its victim's strategic forces at a peacetime level of preparedness. If each side's forces were instead on generated alert, which would almost certainly be the case during any serious crisis, the victim state would retain hundreds more warheads with which to retaliate against a first strike.
Other countries, including the declared nuclear weapon states, could be brought into the offense-defense arms control process as well. A carefully managed regime of the type described in this book should afford all participants better protection against emerging threats while at the same time reducing, or at least limiting the growth of, existing strategic arsenals.
In contrast to technical assessments of the Sentinel proposal, there is a general consensus in the U.S. technical community (both among missile defense supporters and opponents) that 1990s BMD technology can counter simple, two-hundred-warhead threats. The United States can ensure its ability to defeat more sophisticated threats (e.g., those employing penetration aids such as decoy warheads) by conducting a robust program to develop follow-on BMD technologies.
Political constraints rule out the near-term deployment of space-based weapons, but such constraints will dissipate as BMD becomes more accepted after the United States and Russia deploy ground-based national defenses and a global launch warning system. As such, in addition to advanced discriminating GBIs, follow-on technology projects should include space-based interceptors, and space-based directed-energy weapons for discriminating warheads from penetration aids and destroying theater and strategic missiles during the boost phase of their flight.
Critics have argued that even America's advanced BMD systems could be defeated by enemy countermeasures. But the world has changed. With the USSR's collapse, there are no potential adversaries that could pose a serious challenge to the United States in an offense-defense competition. A robust effort to develop BMD counter-countermeasures will probably deter most countries from even attempting a strategic military-technical competition with the United States and its allies.
Since technical and strategic issues appear tractable, BMD costs might constitute the most significant barrier to future missile defense deployments. The total deployment cost for the proposal herein should be on the order of $45-48 billion in fiscal year 1996 dollars. Averaged over a ten-year deployment timeframe, a multisite system might come to $4.8 billion per year, or an annual expenditure equal to just 1.9 percent of the defense budget, assuming a budget of $250 billion. And though affordable, this deployment cost might be reduced considerably if mid-1990s proposals for new approaches to ABM acquisition (e.g., the use of existing commercial and military equipment instead of specially designed ABM systems) are adopted.
As threats emerge and become more apparent, cost factors will recede in significance. Even so, financial hurdles must be cleared in a timely fashion; defenses must be deployed and thoroughly tested before threats are at the nationÕs doorstep. This was Desert StormÕs most important lesson.
In sum, by combining limited BMD with ongoing efforts to improve defenses at borders and ports of entry, which will counter terroristic NBC strikes, and upgrades to CONUS air defenses, which technical advances will facilitate, the United States can significantly raise the costs and risks to potential NBC attackers. A few 'suitcase' bombs or a handful of strategic missiles will no longer be sufficient to guarantee strikes on CONUS. Arsenals that are substantial, sophisticated, and costly will be required. Some potential NBC aggressors might thus forgo pursuing a long-range strike option; others might face significant delays in their ability to deploy military significant arsenals. Such delays will offer the world community valuable extra time to dissuade proliferators from their chosen course.
As for countries that do retain or acquire strategic arsenals, the United States will have greater flexibility to deal with them if CONUS is secured against limited threats. Indeed, AmericaÕs force projection capability, which is vital to implementing U.S. global strategy, can only be maintained if CONUS is secured.
A far-reaching agenda with something so controversial as BMD as its centerpiece might seem unrealistic. But it offers a chance to turn human talent in participating countries away from destructive, offensive military research and toward far less threatening defensive efforts. Even a few steps in this direction would be worth the effort and, indeed, steps have already been taken. In the 1990s, Moscow and Washington began unprecedented talks on BMD cooperation; Washington and Beijing took important steps toward initiating a strategic dialogue as well. Ballistic missile attacks during the 1991 Persian Gulf War prompted heightened global interest in tactical and strategic defenses, especially on the part of some U.S. allies. The foundation is already in place and ready to support expanded, even global, BMD deployments.
The United States faces a stark reality as it approaches the twenty-first century. The country's utter vulnerability invites ballistic missile attack. In addition to putting the American people at risk, this threat might cripple the country's ability to join with its allies in leading the world toward a new international security framework. Failure in this mission will ensure that the world is an increasingly dangerous place in the future.
The decision to invest in protection against future threats is never an easy one. Indeed, history records the plight of countless nations that pursued myopic defense policies and failed to see disaster until it rested on their doorstep. The United States can avoid adding its name to this tragic list by returning strategic defense, and BMD in particular, to its rightful place in the nation's doctrine and force posture.
K. Scott McMahon is a National Security Analyst with the Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation in Arlington, Virginia (phone: 703-516-6243).
To order, contact:
University Press of America
4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland, 20706, USA
FAX: 301-459-2118 or toll free 1-800-338-4550
Phone: 301-459-3366 or toll free 1-800-462-6420
April 1997 ISBN 0-7618-0686-5 $62.50 (cloth) 408 pages
ISBN 0-7618-0687-3 $39.50 (paper)
Postage and Handling, $3.00 for first book, 75 for each addition book
Copyright © 1997 by K. Scott McMahon
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