Going Ballistic

For a moment, way back in the halcyon days of the early 1990s, it looked as if we wouldn't need to worry about nuclear missiles anymore. There were new and frightening menaces, such as nukes toted in terrorists' suitcases or nerve gas spilled in subway trains; but the arms race and the doctrines of mutually assured destruction were history. The world was a safer, saner place.

But that was then. Today people on both sides of the Atlantic hear dark warnings that Western countries might soon be vulnerable to nuclear attacks from a "rogue state" such as North Korea or Iran or Iraq. In the U.S., at least, such thinking has been upgraded from foolish alarmism to conventional wisdom. And it has revived a project once confined to the cold war trash heap: a national missile defense (NMD) system which, its enthusiasts hope, will shield the American people from nuclear harm. The Republican Congress, the Clinton administration and both presidential candidates are committed to pouring close to $40 billion into construction of a limited NMD system by 2010, once tests show it will work. A third trial run of the prototype will take place over the Pacific Ocean on June 26; after that, President Clinton will decide whether to authorize deployment or to leave the decision to his successor.

But NMD's fervid opponents, most of whom are in Europe, have already made up their minds. The erection of a U.S. shield, they say, will shatter a key arms-control agreement and reheat the global arms race. The issue has become the most contentious security dispute involving Russia, Europe and the U.S. in more than a decade. Russia charges that the plan violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) banning national missile defenses. In London last week, Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin vowed to pull out of the newly ratified START II treaty, which will further reduce nuclear arsenals in Russia and the U.S., and junk all other bilateral arms-reduction agreements too if the U.S. goes forward with NMD.

Clinton immediately announced a June summit with Putin aimed at getting his agreement to amending the ABM treaty to allow for missile defenses. But it won't be easy. "I don't think there's a game plan," says former American arms control negotiator Thomas Graham. "The administration is thinking mostly about domestic politics and electing the Vice President." Adds one top European defense official: "It's still impossible to talk to the Russians about this."

Meanwhile Washington has only recently started to work seriously on assuaging European and Canadian officials miffed that the U.S. has embarked on the road to NMD which could antagonize Russia and make European cities the new targets for rogue-state nukes with hardly a mention of it to friends. "We get the impression," says a French defense official, "that the reaction of their allies is the least of their concerns."

European criticism gives Russia excuses to resist compromise, and the transatlantic sniping may weaken efforts to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty the 187-country pact currently up for month-long review at the U.N. In a larger sense, NMD underscores the splits in interests and capabilities emerging between the U.S. and Europe. And it raises a question sure to gnaw at European policymakers: If America is defending itself against missiles, shouldn't Europe do the same?

In the U.S., the missile defense debate accelerated like a booster rocket. The end of the cold war seemed to make a relic of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, the chimerical attempt to build a Star Wars missile shield that could withstand a huge Soviet attack. But in July 1998, a high-level report warned of a growing threat from rogue states not to mention the ambitions of existing nuclear nations like China, India and Pakistan. The very next month, North Korea confirmed fears by launching a three-stage Taepo-Dong 1 missile over Japan.

Though intelligence analysts continued to stress that nukes stuffed in briefcases or trailer trucks posed more grave danger than ballistic rockets, the political debate was settled. Last year Congress passed and Clinton signed legislation calling for NMD deployment "as soon as technologically feasible." Proponents such as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Avis Bohlen argue that missile-defense capability will not only protect civilians in San Francisco but also prevent a rogue regime from using its nukes as "blackmail to deter [the U.S.] from acting in a regional crisis."

The American plan would install a sophisticated new radar system and 20 ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska by 2005 with plans for 80 more by 2007 intended to shoot down North Korean missiles headed for the U.S. In succeeding years the U.S. hopes to build a second NMD site outfitted with 100 more "kill vehicles" in Grand Forks, North Dakota; those interceptors would thwart warheads originating in the Middle East. The new network would also upgrade missile-tracking outposts in the U.K. and Greenland. But a defense system must be breathtakingly precise something like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet and not surprisingly, it doesn't always work. Decoys and multiple-warhead bombs can foil the defense, as can human and mechanical failure in January a $100 million test failed because of moisture in the sensor-cooling mechanism.

Still, pressure will be strong on Clinton to give the go-ahead to break ground in Alaska if the June test succeeds. The next step is getting Russia's assent to amend the ABM Treaty. But Moscow is stubbornly opposed, using Star Wars-era arguments: missile-defenses destroy the grim logic of deterrence, which assumes that nuclear powers won't attack each other if they know the other side will hit back with devastating force. With NMD, the U.S. could launch a first strike against Russia and protect itself against retaliation. American policymakers counter that such thinking is misguided. The system would be designed to deal with only a few rogue-state missiles and would not be "thick" enough to parry an arsenal the size of Russia's. Besides, one State Department official says, "We're not going to play around with lives like that." MORE>>

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