DATE=05/05/2001

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-00948

TITLE=ON THE LINE: BUSH'S MISSILE DEFENSE STRATEGY

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Anncr:On the Line a discussion of United States policy and contemporary issues. This week, "Bush's Missile Defense Strategy." Here is your host, Robert Reilly.

Host:Hello and welcome to On the Line.

President George Bush has committed the United States to building a defense against a ballistic missile attack from "states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life," such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. He said that it is time to "move beyond the constraints of the thirty-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," which was negotiated with the Soviet Union. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia today is not considered an enemy of the United States. Critics say missile defense will not work and may set off a new arms race.

Joining me today to discuss President Bush's missile defense strategy are three experts. Keith Payne is president of the National Institute for Public Policy. Michael Krepon is the founding president of the Henry Stimson Center. And Gary Milhollin is director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

Gentleman, welcome to the program. Keith Payne, the president's announcement of his policy at National Defense University last week how would you rate it in terms of missile defense as it has been pursued by the United States since Ronald Reagan made his famous announcement in 1983? Is there anything new in this?

Payne: In fact, I think President Bush's speech was a watershed event because he essentially said we are now going to move beyond the A-B-M treaty and the constraints of the A-B-M treaty. As part of the speech, he outlined the kind of technologies that might be applied to missile defense. In doing so, he outlined a comprehensive defensive system, including the possibility of sea-based interceptors, land-based interceptors, even air-based interceptors, working against offensive missiles in a multi-layered approach, which presumably is the best approach because it gives the most chances for the defense to work against offensive missiles. So it was a speech that really was a watershed. It said we are going now to move beyond the constraints of the A-B-M treaty and we are going to at least develop and move toward a comprehensive approach to missile defense that could work across the various layers of defense with a whole system of defensive capabilities.

Host: Do you agree with that, Michael Krepon?

Krepon: I don't agree with Keith on a lot of things, but I think he is right on this one. The speech is a watershed. President Bush has basically declared that he wants out of the A-B-M treaty. He wants to replace it. He wants a clean break. In saying so, I find it very implausible that any future Republican administration could go back to the A-B-M treaty in some amended form. So we are off on a new course, and we are in uncharted waters.

Host: How are we gong to steer through those uncharted waters, Gary Milhollin?

Milhollin: Unfortunately, the president has not given us any direction whatsoever on how we are going to steer through those waters. He has not said what kind of system we are going to build. He has not said specifically what technologies he will use. What he has told us is that he is going to try to develop this in concert with other countries. He is going to send teams abroad to negotiate with allies and other countries to see if we can come up with a consensus on it. I suspect that the deal is going to be that the United States will reduce the number of its strategic warheads.

Host: He already said that.

Milhollin: Yes, to some level that is much lower than what we have today in the hope that the rest of the world will believe that that makes it okay to have missile defense. Whether that is going to sell is another question.

Host: How surprised are any of you by this, because missile defense has had more or less bipartisan support for a considerable number of years and everyone knew that it would arrive at the point where the United States would have to make a decision, if it was going to develop a system that really worked, that it would have to break out of this treaty in some way?

Krepon: The question was: do you adapt the treaty to get to where you want to go, or do you tear it up? And that was the issue. And the Clinton administration was headed in the first direction and, clearly, the Bush administration has chosen the latter course.

Payne: I don't necessarily agree with that because what the president said in his speech is that he wanted to put together a new framework. And the framework has to be a framework that allows reduction of offensive nuclear weapons and the building of missile defense. President Clinton's program included the building of missile defenses. And so President Bush saying he wants a new framework that involves the ability to build missile defense does not necessarily equate to tearing up the A-B-M treaty. He said we have to move beyond the constraints of the A-B-M treaty, but what he did then talk about is a framework. So the question is: is the A-B-M treaty withdrawn from? Is the A-B-M treaty revised in a very serious way in negotiations with the Russians? Or do we put together an entirely new package of agreements that becomes this new framework? That was not identified in the speech. And in some ways, my guess is in which direction that goes is going to depend on the consultations with the allies that the president emphasized and what happens in terms of the technology, because he did not say that the technology is here now to do this. What he said is that we are going to develop the technology. We are going to see what works. And what works we are going to move forward on. What doesn't work, we won't.

Host: One of the things the president tried to make clear in that speech, Gary Milhollin, is that the reason we are moving away from the A-B-M treaty is that it is superannuated. It is a Cold War relic. The Soviet Union does not exist. It is that country with which the treaty was signed. And the threats facing the United States today are coming from elsewhere. You have done a lot of work about nuclear and missile proliferation. Can you assess the threats he was talking about? How realistic is the threat?

Milhollin: The threat isn't here now, but it may get here. North Korea has a program that could field a missile within the next five or maybe ten years capable of hitting the continental United States. Whether it could hit a city in the United States is another question. I personally think that the North Korean program is mostly motivated by the desire to sell those missiles to other countries. And that when North Korea does a missile test, it is sort of like a . . .

Host: Advertisement?

Milhollin: Yes, it is like a car dealer taking you for a ride in the newest model with hope of a sale.

Host: But that is no more reassuring to the United

States - that North Korea is selling missiles to Iraq or Iran.

Milhollin: Yes, so what you have to look at really are North Korea's customers. You have to look at Iran. You have to look at Syria. You have to look at Libya. You have to look at Pakistan. There are a lot of countries that are buying missiles. So far, none of them can reach the United States. And unless they get a lot of help from countries more sophisticated than North Korea, meaning Russia, where Iran is getting help now, I don't think they will be able to get here within five years at least, and possibly ten. So what we have is a hypothetical defense system that President Bush hasn't specified against a hypothetical threat that hasn't materialized. All we know for sure about it is that it is going to cost a lot of money.

Host: But if you wait for the threat to materialize and you still have a hypothetical defense, are you not in a little bit of trouble? Some people say there are twenty developing nations with ballistic missile development programs.

Krepon: I don't doubt that number and it could even be higher. Most of those missiles, like ninety-eight percent of them, don't go very far. They can still be extremely lethal. And everybody in the United States agrees that we need missile defenses against that threat, a threat to our allies, our friends, forward-deployed U-S forces. So everybody agrees to theater missile defenses. And that is part of the equation and always has been. The question is: how much should we invest? How quickly should we move on national missile defenses, strategic missile defenses? Every serious study of the threats facing the United States puts the threat of a very long-range ballistic missile, a globe-spanning missile, an ocean-spanning missile, as the very last in the list of probable threats to the United States. So we need an insurance policy, probably. How much should we spend for it? How much should we risk in trying to get it? Should we pursue a Manhattan-style project to get it? Those are pretty important questions. And President Bush seems to have answered in the affirmative. Yes, we need a Manhattan-style project to deal with this threat to our nation's shores by means of long-range ballistic missiles.

Host: Do you agree with what you have just heard, Keith Payne?

Payne: I'm certainly not reassured by the fact that the threat is not here now.

Host: It would take five to ten years to develop a defense system anyway.

Payne: Exactly. The missile defense system is not here now either. I'm frankly very happy and pleased that President Bush has moved in this direction now because it means that by the time the threat matures, which as has been rightly noted could be five years, could be some years after that, the United States may well have a missile defense system in place when this threat is very real. And by the way, the fact that the North Koreans look like they are developing I-C-B-Ms and are willing to sell such missiles to any country that has a leader with a heartbeat also doesn't reassure me. What that means is that, if North Korea goes true to course, they will make their long-range missiles available to anybody. And there are a number of countries that we know are quite hostile to the United States, and they have been anxious to acquire this type of capability. It doesn't mean they necessarily want to launch an attack on the United States out of the blue. I don't believe that. But for the United States to be essentially naked to those kinds of threats when those kind of threats mature, that's what would happen if President Bush did not start the process now and start the clock running. So again, the threat right now is some time off. But let's remember, our missile defense capability is also some time off. And interestingly enough, that's not what most Americans believe. Surveys show consistently over the last twenty years that between two-thirds and three-fourths of the American public believe that there is a missile defense system protecting the United States right now. And when they are informed of the truth, and that is that they are completely vulnerable to anybody's missiles, actually they get quite upset about it. So I take some comfort from the fact that President Bush has said now we are going to move and we are going to move forward and develop these systems. And those that appear to work we are going to move forward on.

Host: I just want to take a moment to remind our audience that this is On the Line, and I'm Robert Reilly. This week we are discussing President Bush's missile defense strategy with: Keith Payne from the National Institute for Public Policy; Michael Krepon from the Henry Stimson Center; and Gary Milhollin from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. What about the concerns of the critics who say this is just going to set off another arms race?

Millholin: I don't think it will. But I would like to respond to something that Keith just said. I think that even after this system is deployed, we will still be naked to the threat of a nuclear weapon exploding in our cities and we will still be naked to the threat that such a weapon could be delivered by a missile, a cruise missile or even a ballistic missile, shot from close in, from say a hundred, two hundred, or three hundred miles from our shores. So this system, which is designed to knock down a long-range ballistic missile, is still going to leave us naked to the nuclear threat. I think that this is just incontestably clear just from the technology. You can get one here today and you can put it in a building and you can set it off when you want. A number of countries could do it. And that will always be true. With respect to an arms race, I don't see an arms race being triggered by this decision. I don't think the Russians are going to substantially change what they are going to do unless we build such a vigorous system that their ability to hit us is seriously eroded. And I doubt if that is going to be possible. The Chinese, who have a smaller force, may see the day when a system developed by us could put into question their ability to hit us. I think they have the means to respond to that and to assure themselves that their minimal deterrent stays intact. Beyond that, I don't see much of an effect. I don't see India and Pakistan changing their behavior because we develop this missile defense system. I don't see Libya or Iran or Iraq changing what they are going to do. So I don't see an arms race being set off by this decision.

Host: Do you agree, Michael Krepon?

Krepon: Partially. I don't see Russia competing in typical Cold War fashion. They don't have the economics to do it. The Bush administration could make it easier for Russia to compete if they waive the Strategic Arms Reduction treaty's prohibition on putting multiple warheads on land-based missiles. Then Russia will be able to build up more. China has the resources and is modernizing its strategic nuclear deterrent. Depending on the size of the U-S national missile defense, China could ratchet up the numbers some more. Where I disagree with Gary is that my study of India and Pakistan suggests that they will respond in a cascade effect. None of these countries, China, India, or Pakistan, has fixed nuclear requirements. They have all said that we are going to determine what we need by what other folks have. So if China increases the numbers, that is going to cascade down to the subcontinent.

Shot: What do you think, Keith Payne, because Gary Milhollin said that he doesn't believe a missile defense by the United States would change the behavior of Iran, Iraq, or Libya? Others say a successful missile defense would discourage these people from investing their money in something that is not going to work.

Payne: I think there are two points here. With regard to the arms race question, what we are trying to guess is how others will respond to a U-S initiative. And typically, folks like us are notoriously wrong when we guess. Whether they are going to come back in an arms race or whether they are not going to arms race. But I think the chances are just as great that, if a country sees that the United States is committed to missile defense, it is not going to choose then to put millions of dollars into developing missiles just so the United States can knock them out of the sky. They may choose to do other things. And almost anything else they do would be preferable to their building missiles aimed at us. I hear the argument frequently. If we go toward missile defense, we are going to start an arms race. I think just the contrary is just as likely to be the case. And that is, we are going to discourage other folks from building missiles because, if the United States can knock them down, there is not much point in building them and spending all the resources. The other point is the comment that we are still naked to all other means of delivery that Gary made. That's really not the case. In no other approach to the delivery of a weapon of mass destruction is the United States intentionally and completely naked. We have an F-B-I and we have customs agents that are intended to prevent sabotage. We have the U-S Navy that is to help prevent barges from floating in with nuclear weapons. All these other scenarios, the United States does something about those threats. Only with regard to missiles, does the United States at this point have no defense whatsoever. And that's what I meant about being naked. There is no defense right now. So this is an effort by President Bush to say, we do go to great lengths to try and prevent sabotage and these other possible means of delivery. Right now there is nothing on missile defense. Let's do something there.

Host: What about the people who say, for some reason, it can't work? I don't know on what grounds they make that claim, but is it credible?

Krepon: Some missile defenses are easier to make succeed than others. We are having pretty good luck now in flight-testing missile defenses against very short-range ballistic missiles. The hardest problems are the missiles that travel the longest distances and have all this stuff on the front end to confuse us. That's a big problem. But a central point. We have left the Cold War behind us and we have now entered the era of asymmetrical warfare. And Gary is exactly right in saying that, in the hierarchy of threats, the things we have to worry about the most, truck bombs, pontoon boats, subway system attacks, computer attacks . . .

Host: But are not many of these terrorist attacks that have quite different political purposes than a nation that is building a strategic ballistic missile force that can be used politically without actually firing them militarily?

Milhollin: It is hard to know what some countries might think is a realistic military-style attack on another country.

Host: I mean the whole point of having ballistic missiles is that you can either use them as a deterrent against other countries, or use them as a credible threat to impose your will on that country.

Milhollin: That's true. But if Saddam Hussein had five nuclear warheads now, I think the risk to us is not that he would put them on missiles. He doesn't have a missile to put them on. I think that the risk to us would be that they be delivered by some other means, what I call low-tech delivery, renting a floor in an office building and just bringing it in and setting it up. Putting it in a crate with an altimeter as it comes into an airport. There are lots of ways that you could do it that we would have a hard time defending against.

Host:I'm afraid that's all the time we have this week. I would like to thank our guests Keith Payne from the National Institute for Public Policy; Michael Krepon from the Henry Stimson Center; and Gary Milhollin from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control - for joining me to discuss President Bush's missile defense strategy. This is Robert Reilly for On the Line.

Anncr:You've been listening to "On the Line" a discussion of United States policies and contemporary issues. This is --------.