 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| About CDI > Staff > Bruce Blair > Selected Publications |
|
|
|
"Why a Thin U.S. National Missile Defense Looks Thick to the Russians" Press Briefing on National Missile Defense 7-7-2000
By Bruce Blair I believe that the United States has not appreciated the Russian view that the ABM Treaty is the cornerstone of stability and that even a thin U.S. missile shield is threatening. Nor have we grasped the fact that the fielding of U.S. missile defenses will increase the net nuclear threat to the United States. The simplest way to explain the Russian view is that a U.S. missile shield would be the straw that breaks the back of Russia's nuclear deterrent. Russia today can barely cope with U.S. offensive power alone, let alone a combination of offense and defense, a one-two punch they fear could deliver the knock-out blow to their strategic forces. The first punch would decimate Russia's strategic retaliatory forces. Why? Because Russian forces today are more vulnerable than they have ever been, going back at least to the early 1960s. On a given day, Russia could count on fewer than 100 and perhaps a few as nine weapons surviving a sudden U.S. missile attack, out of an arsenal of 6,000. On a given day, these weapons would reside on a single submarine and a single regiment of land-mobile rockets. Through Russian eyes, a U.S. missile shield around U.S. territory could deliver the second and decisive punch, by mopping up this small residual force once it launched in retaliation. U.S. officials often point out that Russia's thousands of weapons could easily overwhelm a thin U.S. missile defense consisting of only one or two hundred interceptors. What they do not point out is that Russia's second-strike force may consist of only tens of weapons. One or two hundred U.S. interceptors is a relatively big and threatening number. Like military planners the world over, the Russians will assume that the interceptors would work, and that their deterrent arsenal could be checkmated by the Americans in this situation.*** *** [Risk-averse planners on both sides credit the opposing missile shields with higher effectiveness than they deserve, and seek to overcome defenses by throwing more warheads at them than the defensive interceptors can possibly engage. The offense seeks to exhaust the defense's resources. For example, as late as the 1990s, 69 U.S. nuclear warheads were assigned to attack a single above-ground radar station in the ring of Russian interceptors around Moscow, even though the Russian interceptors would almost certainly have failed to destroy many of them.] So if Russian is going to overwhelm this shield, it must plan to launch massively and quickly in a crisis, either firing first or firing on warning from decrepid early warning sensors. Russia must get its forces off the ground before incoming U.S. missiles can strike them. That unfortunately is a dangerous escape valve because it increases the danger of launch on false warning or miscalculation. And so our thin defense is not so thin through Russian eyes. It would represent a real threat that would reinforce Russia's hair-trigger readiness to launch on warning. In trying to protect ourselves against small rogue attacks or small accidental or unauthorized launches by Russia, we would actually increase the risk of an accidental or mistaken large-scale Russian missile launch. If this risk grows by even a fraction of 1 percent, then the additional peril to Americans would far outweigh the benefits of protecting them partially from a nebulous, uncertain future threat from a country such as North Korea. As Russia's arsenal shrinks from aging and retirement, this thin defense will loom even larger to the Russians. Economic pressures could easily drive the numbers of Russian strategic weapons down to the low hundreds over the next 10 to 15 years. Russian confidence in their deterrent force would wither proportionately, even for scenarios in which Russian forces launch first or on warning. To the extent that Russian planners do discount the performance of U.S. missile defense against their small second-strike force, it only reinforces their suspicion that the United States' real scheme is to lay the groundwork for a later fast thickening of the defenses that would be designed to negate their deterrent. American officials dismiss such suspicions as unwarranted, on the grounds that U.S. defenses are not aimed at Russia at all, except for possible scenarios of accidental Russian launches. But Americans cannot dictate Russian perceptions, and Russian suspicions while perhaps unfounded are understandable in the light of recent setbacks in U.S.-Russian relations and in the light of statements such as the following taken from a 1995 analysis prepared for Congress by the Pentagon's BMDO: Defenses against the Former Soviet Union ballistic missile threat "...could augment deterrence by significantly increasing the Soviet planners' doubts that any military attack on the United States could succeed." (National Missile Defense Options, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, July 31, 1995, p. 1) Fielding a missile defense on top of the offensive U.S. missiles currently fielded thus could rebound to our grave disadvantage. Severe disruption of U.S.-Russian relations and of strategic stability might be avoided, however, if fully offsetting reductions in offensive forces are made. If severe constraints on offensive firepower are imposed then missile defenses may be tolerable, and in fact in theory stability could even be strengthened. One promising formula for striking a stable balance between offense and defense is to cut deeply the offensive missile arsenals and take all silo-busting U.S. warheads off alert and put them in long-term storage. By de-alerting most or all of the current 2,200 U.S weapons on high alert, a U.S. national missile defense would appear far less threatening to Russia. Russian strategic missiles would be far less vulnerable to sudden U.S. offensive forces, and thus they would be far more capable of overwhelming U.S. defenses. Russia in fact would be able to dealert its own strategic missiles and thereby greatly reduce the risk of a mistaken or unauthorized Russian missile attack. Neither country is presently pursuing this formula, though it is at least encouraging that George W. Bush seems to grasp and support it. Let me close with the recommendation that no matter what decision on NMD is taken, mutual dealerting ought to be the main item on the nuclear security agenda. Progress toward eliminating the hair-trigger on U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles is more critical to American security than anything else on the table today. Bruce G. Blair, a former Minuteman missile launch officer, is president of the Center for Defense Information and a co-author of "The Nuclear Turning Point."
|
