Donald C. Whitmore
The National Missile Defense (NMD) program was dealt a fatal blow recently, but perhaps nobody noticed. In an exchange between ABC News NIGHTLINE host Ted Koppel and Undersecretary of Defense Jacques Gansler, an uncorrectable flaw in NMD was revealed. Here are excerpts:
TED KOPPEL. "... Mr. Secretary, let's assume for the sake of argument that ... the rogue state ... decides instead of delivering it by ICBM, it puts it on a barge... say into Baltimore Harbor-and explodes an atomic or nuclear weapon there. How do we guard against that?"
JACQUES GANSLER. "... We certainly have to be concerned about the idea of someone coming into an airport or harbor with such weapons..."
TED KOPPEL. "... before you spend $30 or $35 billion putting a (NMD) system like this into place when there are so many easy ways of getting around it, why would you do that?"
JACQUES GANSLER. "... The question is whether or not we want to develop a capability to deter an adversary from threatening us with nuclear weapons, ..."
Mr. Gansler offered no solutions to an easy, end-run attack and the "deterrence" response was a logical disconnect to Mr. Koppel's question. That's it. NMD cannot defend against such threats and cannot guarantee deterrence against nuclear threats -- a fatal conceptual flaw that cannot be fixed.
Strangely, the NMD corpse seems still full of life. But, then, the NMD idea has been "slaughtered" many times before. For instance, an August, 1999 article in the Scientific American magazine carefully explained why decoys and other countermeasures could easily defeat NMD. This NMD flaw is uncorrectable because we can never be certain which tricks an attacker will employ and it is not practical to protect against all possible tricks. The attacker is in control of penetration tactics (a basic handicap of defensive systems). As Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) noted in the June 20th NIGHTLINE program: "It's very vulnerable. It relies on one radar in Alaska which can easily be taken out. Without that, it is totally ineffective."
NMD was again hit by a lethal blow on November 2, 1999. This writer faced-off with an NMD program spokesman in a public forum sponsored by the University of Alaska (Fairbanks). Among the litany of conceptual flaws ("easy end-run"; countermeasures; damage to arms control and national security; etc.) it was noted that NMD will probably leak. Another nail for the coffin: we won't know how many warheads would penetrate because (1) full-scale field testing is too expensive to measure confidence in system performance, and (2) computer simulations are unreliable without sufficient calibration from realistic field tests. These technical points seemed to be quickly grasped by the forum audience, as well as the assertion that there is no practical fix. Some Alaskans may have noticed the demise of NMD, but the news evidently did not reach beyond state borders.
NMD has been "killed" countless times, yet lives on. How peculiar! Maybe this is understandable, given the fear of "nuclear blackmail"; ultimate faith in technology and American ingenuity; information "overload"; and the technical nature of NMD issues.
Another "understandable" factor is Congressional/Administrative politics. Before March, 1999, NMD measures failed in the U.S. Senate, generally along party lines. Then, momentum started shifting toward an uncertain vote outcome and Democrats panicked. Republicans were poised to charge disinterest in defending America from enemy missiles. Year 2000 elections were on the horizon and Democrats rushed to support the Republican proposal (after some face-saving conditions were added). The Senate passed the NMD deployment measure by a 96-4 margin! Politics had overruled long-held concerns for the 1972 ABM Treaty and its role in preventing a renewed, uncontrollable arms race. Missile defense had become a political football of the worst kind -- national security concerns were traded for political advantage. When partisan politics came on stage, common sense took the nearest exit.
Truly, the NMD concept has uncorrectable flaws. The promise of a nation-wide missile shield is a myth -- no practical defenses are in sight. The NMD corpse should be buried. This distraction from pursuing real protection from weapons of mass destruction should be removed.