By Luke Warren and Victoria Samson*
June 5, 2001
WASHINGTON -- In making his case for a national missile defense system, President Bush argues that it's time to move beyond such Cold-War era security paradigms as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). And one way to accomplish this, according to the administration's arguments, to is abrogate the 1972 Anti- ballistic Missile Treaty.
Such arguments demonstrate an appalling lack of understanding about the Cold War, MAD and nuclear deterrence.
First of all, Bush mistakenly equates Cold-War logic with the logic of nuclear weapons, known as deterrence. The Cold War was an attempt by two superpowers with completely different ideologies to contain, if not destroy, the other. On the other hand, deterrence, and its extreme form, MAD, is the logic of nuclear weapons. Even without the Cold War, if more than one country has nuclear weapons, they are going to want to ensure that their weapons survive a nuclear first strike by the other nuclear powers. This survivability allows for a devastating retaliation against the attacker. If that retaliatory capability is compromised, then the deterrent effect of having nuclear weapons is lost.
Therefore, countries are always going to be extremely protective over maintaining nuclear deterrence. Deterrence, and particularly MAD, is the bizarre logic of nuclear weapons. As long as nuclear weapons exist, deterrence will remain as a strategic doctrine of nuclear nations.
Secondly, the ABM treaty did not enshrine, or create, the concept of MAD. MAD was already well ensconced in 1972. The Soviets and the Americans were engaged in an accelerating arms race at the time the ABM treaty was signed. In fact, the ABM treaty was created to slow down the nuclear arms race.
By banning anti-missile systems, the ABM constrained the arms race to numbers and quality of nuclear weapons. Without the ABM treaty, both sides would have pushed the strategic arms race into hyper-expensive anti-missile systems, more offensive weapons to counteract the missile defenses, and other whole new categories of weapons, causing an even more unstable arms race. For the sake of scaling MAD down to a more sane, controllable pace, the Soviets and Americans ratified the ABM treaty. The ABM treaty counteracts MAD.
Destroying the ABM treaty does not alter the logic of nuclear weapons in any way. If Bush wants to evolve past MAD into something more rational, then he needs to start working towards nuclear disarmament. He should de-alert nuclear weapons, eliminating the possibility of accidental nuclear launch. START III should be signed and ratified to bring Russian and American nuclear weapons down to 1,000-1,500 per side. The administration should pursue negotiations with North Korea to end its ballistic missile program and missile exports. These steps will help take the world away from the old security paradigm of MAD.
On the other hand, the president's desire to ditch the ABM treaty could have the opposite effect. Russia may keep more nuclear weapons on hair-trigger status. They could sell their weapons, fissionable-weapons material, or missile technology to terrorists and states of concern. China will build more nuclear weapons than they plan to already. Countries could resort to putting bombs in suitcases, trucks, or ships. In other words, nuclear and ballistic missile proliferation would get worse as a result of deploying a national anti-missile system.
Bush is right to seek to abandon the MAD strategy and reduce the importance of nuclear deterrence as a security strategy. But he is going about it the wrong way. The source of the problem is nuclear weapons, not the ABM treaty. Getting rid of the ABM treaty and deploying a national anti-missile system is treating the cure, not the disease.
Luke Warren is the media director and head analyst at the
Council for a Livable World Education Fund; Victoria Samson is
the Senior Policy Associate at the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear
Dangers. Both groups are based in Washington, DC.