May The Shield Be With You

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The roguishness of states, however, is in the eye of the beholder. North Korea has moved to thaw relations with South Korea. For that matter, the State Department has announced it will no longer use the term rogue state and instead will substitute the more benign description "state of concern." In a new book, Rogue States and U.S. Foreign Policy, Robert S. Litwak, a former National Security Council staff member, argues that the term distorts policymaking by demonizing whole countries. Just a handful of nations make up the nuclear club, and these aspiring members are under constant scrutiny. "The ballistic-missile threat is confined, limited and changing relatively slowly," argues Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project, which is part of the nonprofit Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The NMD's limitations are still severe. (See previous story.) Critics argue that simple countermeasures by enemy states--such as the use of radar-absorbing materials or balloon decoys--may be enough to foil the U.S.'s pricey shield. Rogue states looking to deliver bombs could simply send them in on cargo ships or in suitcases. One of the few skeptics in Congress, Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, has proposed an amendment to next year's defense-authorization bill requiring that the missile shield be given more realistic tests employing the countermeasures that foes would be likely to use.

The NMD issue has led to a flurry of diplomatic byplay. Putin is offering to cooperate with NATO on a "boost-phase" antimissile system that would shoot down large missiles on their way up (easier to target with the fiery exhaust plume trailing them) rather than when their much smaller warheads are in mid-flight, as in the U.S. plan. Putin's proposals are sketchy, but Europeans, worried about being left out of a U.S. shield, are listening. American officials advise caution and note that Moscow does not have the financial wherewithal for such a scheme.

Clinton may play a waiting game on missile defense. He might choose to start clearing ground for one of the first phases of NMD, a radar station on Shemya, on the westernmost tip of Alaska. But he might hold off actual construction, technically avoiding a breach of the ABM treaty while keeping the U.S. on a timetable to build NMD before any "states of concern" are projected to have long-range missiles. Senate majority leader Trent Lott has indicated that he wouldn't mind seeing the NMD decision put off until the next Administration. For now, it seems, the question will remain on hold as the Pentagon awaits the results of this Friday's carefully choreographed antimissile test.