Ballistic Missile Indefensible

By Ryan McGreal
November 18, 2004
The Government of Canada is negotiating possible Canadian participation in the planned US Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) deployment.

Defending Canada's planned participation in a BMD, Defence Minister Bill Graham insists that it would work, deter other nations from developing ICBMs, protect us from likely threats, and won't advance the weaponization of space. All of these claims are false.


BMD Won't Work

Scientists, engineers, and analysts worldwide have concluded that a BMD simply cannot defend North America against real attacks. The technology that might do this hasn't even been conceived, let alone developed.

It's a seductively simple premise: track incoming missiles and launch "kill vehicles" to intercept those missiles before they detonate. Unfortunately, the real world is more complex.

First, a real BMD would have to identify an incoming ICBM traveling at super- or hyper-sonic speed, on an unpredictable flight path, in any kind of weather - and deploy an interceptor in time to stop it.

Second, the system would have to track and intercept multiple incoming targets simultaneously, matching a kill vehicle to each target.

Third, the system would have to distinguish between real missiles and decoys. Since decoys are much easier to make than missiles and can be designed to look identical to a missile on radar, any attack against a country with BMD would likely contain many more decoys than missiles, forcing the system to squander kill vehicles on dummy targets while real targets slip through.

No testing has been conducted under realistic conditions.


A New Arms Race

America has adopted an official policy of pre-emptive war and reserved the right to strike first with nuclear weapons [ 1 ], so no major power will tolerate a strategic environment where the US can project power globally but insulates itself from retaliation.

That is why the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty severely constrained a signatory's ability to develop missile defence: the vicious circle of defence and counter-offense guarantees an escalating arms race.

Since the United States withdrew from the ABM treaty and announced its plans to deploy a BMD, Russia and China have responded with plans to expand their own counteroffensive systems that will confuse the BMD with decoys and overwhelm it with too many targets.

Russia has announced new ICBMs that feature hypersonic speed and multiple independently targeted warheads, while China plans to triple its long-range missiles by 2010. (China is the only nuclear power with an explicit policy of not striking first with nuclear weapons. [ 2 ])

Sha Zukang, a senior arms control policymaker in China, explains, "Once the United States believes it has both a strong spear and a strong shield, it could lead them to conclude that nobody can harm the United States and they can harm any they like anywhere in the world." [ 3 ]

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhang Qiyue insists that a BMD "would upset the world's strategic balance" and "shatter the basis of nuclear non-proliferation" by undermining the ABM Treaty. [ 4 ]


Likely Threats

Even a working BMD would not protect against the kinds of attacks likely in the "War on Terrorism". No state government would dare attack America, because it would guarantee its own destruction in retaliation.

Terrorist groups, acting extra-nationally, do not suffer the same strategic constraints, but neither do they possess the weapons or long-range delivery systems that a BMD would counter. Terrorists exploit weaknesses in the existing frameworks of their enemies by using the enemy's strength against it. Recall that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were committed using technology no more sophisticated than bolt cutters, relying on the United States to provide the "missiles" - in that tragic case, commercial airliners.

At the same time, 'theatre' missile systems are proliferating worldwide, including the Russian "Sunburn" missile that travels three metres over the water at mach two and can destroy a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. BMD is completely useless against such weapons, but countries like China and Iran have been stocking up since the late 1990s.


The 'Ultimate High Ground'

In its "Master Plan FY 06 And Beyond" [ 5 ], US Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) calls military space command "the ultimate high ground of US military positions."

Military control of space will "greatly enhance modern military operations across the spectrum of conflict" by allocating "resources toward fielding and deploying space and missile combat forces in depth, allowing us to take the fight to any adversary in, from, and through space, on-demand."

The Master Plan also integrates command-and-control "capabilities for all the current and projected NORAD mission and [Strategic Command] space operations and missile defense missions into a single functional system rather than the current . collection of systems."

The US National Security Strategy [ 6 ] similarly calls for "key capabilities - detection, active and passive defenses, and counterforce capabilities" to be "integrated into our defense transformation and our homeland security systems."

So much for keeping ballistic missile defence separate from the weaponization of space.

How will the Government of Canada continue to oppose the weaponization of space in anything but words when we have already been integrated into the American space command-and-control structure? At what point will BMD 'cross the line' as it evolves from a land-based defensive system into a land- and space-based offensive system? When that point is reached, will it even be possible for Canada to bow out?


Notes



  1. United States Nuclear Posture Review (excerpts), January 8, 2002 http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm



  2. 2. See China's National Defence white paper: "From the first day it possessed nuclear weapons, China has solemnly declared its determination not to be the first to use such weapons at any time and in any circumstances, and later undertook unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones" http://cns.miis.edu/research/china/coxrep/doctrine.htm.



    By contrast, the United States Nuclear Posture Review reserves the right to us nuclear weapons under three circumstances: in response to a nuclear attack, in response to a non-nuclear biological or chemical attack, and in response to "surprising military developments." http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm



  3. Dr. Nicholas Berry, "For China And Russia, Missile Defense Is About Who Is Boss", Center for Defense Information, May 2, 2001 http://www.cdi.org/asia/fa050201.html



  4. Dr. Nicholas Berry, "U.S. National Missile Defense: Views from Asia", Center for Defense Information, April 11, 2002 http://www.cdi.org/hotspots/issuebrief/ch7/



  5. "US Air Force Space Command Master Plan FY06 And Beyond" http://www.peterson.af.mil/hqafspc/library/AFSPCPAOffice/Final%2004%20SMP--Signed!.pdf



  6. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 2002 http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html





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