So I'm reading the September/October 2007 Foreign Affairs and I come across an article on US nuclear policy by Wolfgang Panofsky. It was only in reading this that I have encountered a compelling argument against building a missile defense system. "It provokes our enemies", "It costs too much", "It will never work". I think all of those arguments are BS so what follows is a far more compelling argument (taken directly for Foreign Affairs).
The old strategic triad of ICBMs, bombers, and sub launched ballistic missiles is being supplemented by missile defense and a “responsive infrastructure” in the defense industry that can adapt swiftly to changing conditions. The problem is that this capabilities based approach destroys a rational response to emerging threats. Rather than encouraging decision makers to interpret the political context, judiciously measure the capability and intent of an adversary, and do what is necessary, it encourages them to respond to threats simply based on what they can do.
Yes, instead of trying to create a system that makes us feel safe, we should do something about the root causes of insecurity. Instead of spending money on missile defense, we should be spending it on eliminating the causes of state's desire to shoot missiles at us.
It turns out that Wolfgang Panofsky is a particle physicist and Director Emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Ho worked on the Manhattan Project from 1943-45 and served as a Science Policy Adviser to Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Carter. Maybe we should vote for scientists (and movie stars) instead of career politicians...
2 comments:
Good, solid argument that I agree with.
The notion that "it provokes our enemies" is hogwash is not so accurate though. Nuclear doctrines are not simple, obvious, or isomorphic, and the issue of how percieved opponents react to changes in another party's doctrine is intimately entwined with opposition to BMD on the basis that it creates a doctrine of capability-based policy rather than scenario-based responses.
Take Jerrery Lewis' "The Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age." Probably the (currently) definitive look at China's nuclear capabilities (and far more importantly, nuclear doctrine), in it Lewis concludes that China pursued a nuclear weapon principly as a defensive policy, based on teh logic of deterrent. More importantly, Chinese planners saw nuclear weapons in terms of strategic parity, rather than numeric parity. Thus, the marginal return on more nuclear weapons quickly flattened out after achieving the (relatively) small number required to achieve deterrrence, while the risks associated with organizational failures, security breakdowns, and plain old accidents increase exponentially if numbers of weapons are increased. This has resulted in a very restrained Chinese nuclear posture, which includes far fewer weapons than their economy is capable of producing and maintaining, and a very benign, reactive deployment doctrine that sees China's ICBM force deployed in a way that makes it highly unsuitable for fist-use operations.
What does this have to do with BMD? BMD throws a great deal of cold water on the notions of deterrence and reprisal. Even if MAD (which never applied between the USA and PRC anyways) is a highly theoretical doctrine, it was nevertheless the basis upon which NATO and the USSR conducted business for years. Agreement on the theory meant that deployments and doctrines were predictable. First-use, despite pronouncements to the contrary, became a practical impossibility in the minds of most planners.
(Effective) BMD changes a nation's nuclear posture. It turns nuclear arms into purely offensive weapons. To be continued....
Or at least makes them (if one has no political or moral objections) into useable weapons. BMD changes the political environment, it changes perceptions of intent, it throws others for a loop. It forces the world's other nuclear powers to reinterpret American intentions, and they may not reach conclusions in line with American decision-makers.
BMD not only creates an attitude that looks to deal with new eventualities on the basis of capability, but it pushes the world into a situation never before seen: a nation with an 'impermeable' shield that nevertheless retains nuclear arms. The political repercussions of such a scenario ought to be taken very seriously.
Note: Jeffrey Lewis, not 'Jerrery'
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