Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective explains the origins, evolution, and implications of the regional approach to missile defense that has emerged since the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and has culminated with the missile defense decisions of President Barack Obama. The Obama administration's overarching concept for American missile defense focuses on developing both a national system of limited ground-based defenses, located in Alaska and California, intended to counter limited intercontinental threats, and regionally-based missile defenses consisting of mobile ground-based technologies like the Patriot PAC-3 system, and sea-based Aegis-equipped destroyer and cruisers.
The volume is intended to stimulate renewed debates in strategic studies and public policy circles over the contribution of regional and national missile defense to global security. Written from a range of perspectives by practitioners and academics, the book provides a rich source for understanding the technologies, history, diplomacy, and strategic implications of the gradual evolution of American missile defense plans. Experts and non-experts alike—whether needing to examine the offense-defense tradeoffs anew, to engage with a policy update, or to better understand the debate as it relates to a country or region—will find this book invaluable. While it opens the door to the debates, however, it does not find or offer easy solutions—because they do not exist.
Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective explains the origins, evolution, and implications of the regional approach to missile defense that has emerged since the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and has culminated with the missile defense decisions of President Barack Obama. The Obama administration's overarching concept for American missile defense focuses on developing both a national system of limited ground-based defenses, located in Alaska and California, intended to counter limited intercontinental threats, and regionally-based missile defenses consisting of mobile ground-based technologies like the Patriot PAC-3 system, and sea-based Aegis-equipped destroyer and cruisers.
The volume is intended to stimulate renewed debates in strategic studies and public policy circles over the contribution of regional and national missile defense to global security. Written from a range of perspectives by practitioners and academics, the book provides a rich source for understanding the technologies, history, diplomacy, and strategic implications of the gradual evolution of American missile defense plans. Experts and non-experts alike—whether needing to examine the offense-defense tradeoffs anew, to engage with a policy update, or to better understand the debate as it relates to a country or region—will find this book invaluable. While it opens the door to the debates, however, it does not find or offer easy solutions—because they do not exist.
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Overview
Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective explains the origins, evolution, and implications of the regional approach to missile defense that has emerged since the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and has culminated with the missile defense decisions of President Barack Obama. The Obama administration's overarching concept for American missile defense focuses on developing both a national system of limited ground-based defenses, located in Alaska and California, intended to counter limited intercontinental threats, and regionally-based missile defenses consisting of mobile ground-based technologies like the Patriot PAC-3 system, and sea-based Aegis-equipped destroyer and cruisers.
The volume is intended to stimulate renewed debates in strategic studies and public policy circles over the contribution of regional and national missile defense to global security. Written from a range of perspectives by practitioners and academics, the book provides a rich source for understanding the technologies, history, diplomacy, and strategic implications of the gradual evolution of American missile defense plans. Experts and non-experts alike—whether needing to examine the offense-defense tradeoffs anew, to engage with a policy update, or to better understand the debate as it relates to a country or region—will find this book invaluable. While it opens the door to the debates, however, it does not find or offer easy solutions—because they do not exist.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780804796569 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Stanford Security Studies |
| Publication date: | 09/23/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 328 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
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Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective
By Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Peter Dombrowski
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior UniversityAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-9656-9
CHAPTER 1
ADDRESSING THE MISSILE THREAT: 1980–2008
Susan J. Koch
THIS CHAPTER WILL DISCUSS U.S. BALLISTIC missile defense policies and programs through four administrations, from President Reagan through the second President Bush. That history has been one of major change — in basic strategy, military aims, threat definition, technological focus, funding, and U.S. and international political salience. National missile defense (NMD) efforts, aimed at countering strategic ballistic missiles, were particularly subject to dramatic fluctuations over this period. Programs grew or contracted, and were emphasized or terminated, depending on several different factors.
One major determinant was the changing perception of the primary strategic missile threats facing the United States. There were real differences on the nature of the ballistic missile threat, especially during much of the Clinton administration. However, for most of the period, the central controversies surrounding missile defense tended to be more about the feasibility and desirability of active defenses to counter those threats than about the threats themselves. The early Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), still in the Cold War, was to defend against a full-up Soviet ballistic missile threat. Over the years, with the end of the Cold War and the emergence of greater proliferation dangers, major focus changed, first to accidental or unauthorized Soviet launch, then to proliferant short- and medium-range threats, and finally to proliferant threats of all ranges. NMD proponents strongly objected to the initial shifts from the Reagan vision, but there is now near consensus that missile defenses can and should address only limited proliferant threats.
Other factors were more controversial. As George Lewis discusses in Chapter 4 of this volume, arguments about the technical feasibility and affordability of strategic missile defenses continue, even if they no longer create headlines. Controversy also surrounded the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty for decades, with some constituencies arguing that it must be preserved and others that it presented unacceptable obstacles to defenses required for U.S. security. That controversy essentially disappeared after the United States withdrew from the treaty in 2002. Finally, there were long-standing partisan political differences as to whether NMD would benefit U.S. security. Although the Clinton administration at first dramatically reduced NMD efforts, it adopted a quite different policy late in its first term, not least because of the Republican-controlled Congress.
Although this chapter will address ballistic missile defense programs only from the Reagan through second Bush administrations, it is worth noting that the trend of major fluctuations to U.S. NMD policy and programs from one administration to the next leveled off in the Obama administration. Most important was the continuation of the limited Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) deployments begun by the George W. Bush administration, directed against North Korean missile threats. Still, the Obama administration reduced NMD budgets (although nowhere near as dramatically as the early Clinton administration had done) and canceled two important boost-phase intercept programs — the Airborne Laser and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor. As noted by George Lewis, analysts differ as to whether those programs were ended for political, affordability, technical, or a combination of reasons. The Obama administration also slightly reduced the planned Alaska deployments at first but restored the Bush numbers after the third North Korean nuclear test in 2013.
Any effort to measure the precise impact of the decades-long fluctuations in U.S. NMD programs is necessarily a "what might have been" exercise that is difficult at best. Nonetheless, continual changes in policy emphasis, funding levels, and technical direction certainly did not provide a good foundation for effective, efficient progress.
In contrast, as discussed by both George Lewis (Chapter 4) and Amy Woolf (Chapter 3) in this volume, U.S. theater missile defense (TMD) programs have benefited from more continuity. The level of attention paid to TMD compared to NMD did vary from administration to administration; most striking was the Clinton administration's nearly exclusive focus on TMD. Nevertheless, TMD had many fewer programmatic starts and stops than did NMD. The result was a less turbulent (although certainly not smooth) development and deployment path for many TMD elements.
THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION: 1981–1989
Earlier Efforts
Reagan administration policy on ballistic missile defense is primarily associated with the president's March 23, 1983, speech announcing the SDI. Important though that speech was, it was neither the beginning of administration missile defense efforts nor the last word on them.
The United States had long deployed air defenses, both nuclear and conventionally armed, throughout the country. In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced the planned deployment of the Sentinel system, a thin antimissile defense to defend cities from an accidental Soviet launch or a Chinese attack. Two years later, President Richard Nixon changed that program to Safeguard, to protect land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Soviet attack. The interceptors for both Sentinel and Safeguard were to be nuclear armed.
With the 1972 signature of the ABM Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to maintain deterrence based on strategic offensive forces, prohibiting nationwide strategic ballistic missile defenses. Those defenses were limited to two 100-interceptor sites, one to protect an ICBM field, the other the national capital. The 1974 protocol to the treaty reduced permitted deployment to a single 100- interceptor site. The United States deployed its Safeguard site at Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1975 but deactivated it just five months later. Some attribute the end of the Safeguard program to opposition to nuclear-armed defenses; others cite its high operating costs for very limited capabilities. The Soviets kept, and Russia continues to retain, the nuclear-armed ABM site outside Moscow.
After Safeguard's termination, the Army's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization focused research and development on hit-to-kill interceptor technology and, for the longer term, space-based defenses, especially using high-energy lasers. The aims were described as "preservation of cost effective defense options which could be developed and deployed rapidly to meet near-term objectives with low development risk; and ... the maturation of advanced technology systems concepts which could counter projected Soviet threat growth and still be cost effective."
The "Astrodome"
Thus, President Reagan's speech launching the SDI in March 1983 did not emerge in a technological vacuum. Moreover, in February 1983, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended greater attention to strategic missile defense, out of concern with growing Soviet ballistic missile capability. Still, the speech was a surprise. The mere fact of a presidential prime- time television address brought missile defense to the political forefront for the first time in over a decade. More important, the speech was breathtaking in its ambitions for defense dominance:
What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? ... I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
Two other important elements of the speech maintained continuity with existing policy and strategy. First, the president stressed repeatedly the need to retain an effective nuclear deterrent for the foreseeable future to protect the United States and our allies. Second, the proposed strategic defenses would aim solely at countering "the awesome Soviet missile threat"; there was no mention of defenses against third parties or accidental or unauthorized launch.
Reduced Ambition
Within two years, the Reagan administration began to be more cautious about near- and medium-term ballistic missile defense. In February 1985, Paul Nitze, special advisor to the president and secretary of state on arms control matters, outlined three criteria for missile defense deployment: feasibility, survivability, and cost-effectiveness at the margin (meaning that incremental additions to defenses would be less expensive than any offensive growth designed to defeat them). That third Nitze criterion was designed to counter arguments that strategic defenses would inevitably trigger an endless offense–defense arms race. In retrospect, however, it is difficult to imagine that any system aiming at defense dominance over Soviet forces could fully meet that standard. Thus, although the Nitze criteria remained official policy throughout the Reagan administration, they may have helped to set the stage for the decreased strategic defense ambitions that began to emerge.
Two years after the Nitze speech, the Reagan administration endorsed limited initial defenses, while keeping to its ultimate goal of complete defense dominance. The January 1987 National Security Strategy of the United States stated that the SDI could "shift deterrence to a safer and more stable basis." Those defenses would not overwhelm offensive forces but "inject greater uncertainties" into Soviet first strike calculations. In September 1987, Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger approved a concept of phased SDI deployments. Phase I, in the mid-1990s, would include space- and ground- based interceptors as well as surveillance and tracking systems. Like the full-up SDI, it would be a layered defense, designed to intercept strategic missiles in all phases of flight: boost, midcourse, and terminal. Subsequent deployment phases were not defined. Press reports said that Phase I would be designed to intercept about one-third of a 5,000-warhead Soviet attack.
In a further effort to scale back SDI, Senator Sam Nunn in January 1988 proposed an Accidental Launch Protection System (ALPS) to defend against accidental or unauthorized Soviet launches, while calling for research on advanced technologies that might provide a nationwide defense in the longer term. The Defense Science Board (DSB), a Pentagon advisory committee, endorsed ALPS as the first step in a six-step Phase I deployment process. Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci did not explicitly accept the DSB recommendation but called in October 1988 for keeping open an ALPS option. In doing so, he may have been accepting political reality. In the last years of the Reagan administration, the Congress cut administration budget requests for SDI, and in the FY 1989 National Defense Authorization Act urged the secretary to direct the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) to emphasize ALPS-type systems.
Arms Control
The ballistic missile defense envisioned in the Reagan SDI speech would not be allowed under the ABM Treaty, even with extensive amendments. The strategic concepts underlying the two were completely antithetical. However, the Reagan administration SDI program kept to research and development that did not raise treaty compliance issues, even after adopting the so-called broad interpretation of the ABM treaty in October 1985. Agreed Statement D to the treaty provided that "in the event ABM systems based on other physical principles ... are created in the future, specific limitations on such systems and their components would be subject to discussion in accordance with Article XIII and agreement in accordance with Article XIV of the Treaty." The broad interpretation would allow development and testing of mobile and space-based directed energy (and some would argue kinetic energy) systems. Although the issue generated great controversy, neither the Reagan nor Bush administration ever acted on the broad interpretation. The Clinton administration explicitly disavowed it in 1993.
At the October 1986 summit in Reykjavik, President Reagan proposed a two-phase U.S.–Soviet agreement. Over a ten-year period, each side would eliminate its offensive ballistic missiles and abide by its interpretation of the ABM Treaty. Thereafter, each would be free to deploy missile defenses unless agreed otherwise. General Secretary Gorbachev counterproposed the elimination of all strategic offensive arms, including heavy bombers, and a ban on testing space-based defense components outside the laboratory. Finally, the Soviets would not explicitly endorse freedom to deploy defenses beyond those allowed by the ABM Treaty, although they did recognize the right of treaty withdrawal.
At the Washington summit in December 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to pursue a legally binding accord that would echo some of the Reykjavik themes but not the elimination of ballistic missiles (still less of all strategic offensive arms). Under the proposal, the sides would abide by the ABM Treaty "for a specified period of time." Three years before the end of that period, they would engage in "intensive discussions of strategic stability," after which, unless otherwise agreed, each would "be free to decide its course of action." The sides appeared to envisage the proposed agreement as the defense counterpart of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), but nothing ever came of it.
THE GEORGE H. W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION: 1989–1993
Changing Threat Perceptions
Despite the reduction in near-term ambitions for ballistic missile defense and improvement in relations with the Soviet Union, SDI stayed focused during Reagan's second term on countering Soviet forces. Its ultimate aim remained defense dominance in the U.S.–Soviet strategic relationship. Interim steps like Phase I and even ALPS were still directed against Soviet ballistic missiles, whether to "inject uncertainties" into attack plans or to protect against accidental or unauthorized launch. Work continued on TMD systems, especially Patriot, but those did not receive much policy or public attention. There was relatively little consideration of Chinese or potential rogue state strategic missile threats. Notwithstanding references to the possibilities of U.S.–Soviet technology sharing and a "cooperative transition" to defense dominance, the Reagan administration did not show much interest in practical missile defense cooperation with the Soviet Union.
All of that would change greatly in the administration of George H. W. Bush because of a dramatically new strategic environment. Most importantwas the disappearance of the Soviet threat, beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and culminating in the USSR's dissolution in December 1991. Newly independent Russia was viewed as a partner, not an actual or potential adversary. At the same time, regional theater missile threats gained new salience after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Patriot deployments to the region.
Global Protection against Limited Strikes
In a significant shift, a review at the start of the Bush administration found that the most important missile threats came from unauthorized or terrorist attacks on the United States and from shorter-range attacks on allies and forces abroad. Still, the review found SDI policy to be sound. The most notable change to the program in 1989–1990 was the replacement of the Space-Based Interceptor (SBI) in the planned Phase I with Brilliant Pebbles. The latter was designed to be a space-based system, using small kinetic projectiles to intercept ballistic missiles in their boost phase.
Then, in the January 1991 State of the Union address, President Bush announced a major refocus of SDI to "providing protection from limited ballistic missile strikes, whatever their source." Although the Global Protection against Limited Strikes (GPALS) program shared many characteristics with Reagan's Phase I and Nunn's ALPS, it also had major differences. First, GPALS was not an initial step, but the purpose of the program. More robust defenses would be pursued only with a new decision to expand the aims of the system. Second, GPALS was directed solely against accidental, unauthorized, or third-country missile threats. Finally, GPALS would integrate both TMD and NMD. Still, the GPALS architecture was substantial, both ground- and space-based, designed for boost-phase, midcourse, and terminal intercept. It would include 1,000 Brilliant Pebbles, 750 GBIs, six ground-based radars, sixty Brilliant Eyes satellites, and advanced ground-based TMD interceptors.
Many SDI supporters decried the end of the Reagan vision of rendering ballistic missiles impotent and obsolete, whereas opponents thought GPALS too ambitious and doubted its potential effectiveness. Views changed quickly, with the Patriot engagements of Iraqi Scuds in the January–February 1991 Gulf War, the military effectiveness of which were debatable even as their political importance to U.S. allies was clear. The December 1991 Missile Defense Act directed the secretary of defense to "aggressively pursue" several advanced TMD options, with deployment by the mid-1990s, and work to deploy by 1996 an ABM-compliant missile defense as the first step toward a system "capable of providing a highly effective defense of the United States against limited attacks of ballistic missiles."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective by Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Peter Dombrowski. Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Excerpted by permission of STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Contents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractMissile defense, and particularly regional missile defense, has returned to the spotlight after nearly a decade of relative obscurity. It has returned to the global policy agenda both because President Obama made regional missile defense a centerpiece of his national security strategy and because Russia's aggressive foreign policy toward Ukraine and elsewhere has soured its relations with Europe and the United States. The new hallmark of Obama's regional missile defense system, the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) scheduled to be operational in 2020, has become a pawn in the larger game of resetting the West's relations with Russia. Current uncertainties about missile defense in the European context have global implications, however, because regional missile defense has been a centerpiece of U.S. strategic diplomacy since the middle of the George W. Bush administration.
1Addressing the Missile Threat: 1980–2008 chapter abstractThis chapter discusses U.S. ballistic missile defense policies and programs through four administrations, from President Reagan through the second President Bush. That history has been one of major change—in basic strategy, military aims, threat definition, technological focus, funding, and U.S. and international political salience. National missile defense (NMD) efforts, aimed at countering strategic ballistic missiles, were particularly subject to dramatic fluctuations over the period. Programs grew or contracted, and were emphasized or terminated, depending on several different factors. Changes in the political environment surrounding NMD were undoubtedly due in large part to the scaled-down ambitions of U.S. NMD efforts.
2U.S. National Missile Defense Policy chapter abstractSince the collapse of the Soviet Union, every U.S. administration has articulated similar missile defense objectives: (1) The United States will defend its homeland from limited ballistic missile attacks, and (2) it will defend U.S. deployed forces from regional missile threats while also protecting our allies and partners. This continuity may seem unremarkable. But it stands in stark contrast to the Cold War, which saw the United States adopt almost every conceivable policy on ballistic missile defense (BMD), ranging from no policy to outright opposition to complete support to the qualified endorsement of limited defenses. It represents an equilibrium between three forces: external threats, domestic politics, and technological and financial realities. The first two forces have tended to put "upward pressure" on BMD programs. The scale of U.S. ambitions has, however, been kept in check by the cost and technical complexity of developing and deploying defenses.
3Theater Ballistic Missile Defense Concepts chapter abstractThe Obama administration has adopted the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) to guide its deployment of defenses against theater-range ballistic missiles. Under this approach, the United States will deploy missile defense architectures tailored to the needs of specific regions and support the integration of U.S assets with allied resources. It will deploy these capabilities over time, taking advantage of improvements in its sensor and interceptor technologies. The phased approach will also allow the missile defense architectures to adapt vis-à-vis changes in an adversary's capabilities. With the PAA concept, regional ballistic missile defense (BMD) capabilities will combine with other U.S. military systems in extended deterrence architectures goals. As the United States and its allies deploy more capable systems, and as these systems blend and overlap into a global missile defense architecture, they will affect assessments, among both adversaries and allies, of regional and global stability.
4Technical Controversy: Can Missile Defense Work? chapter abstractPerhaps the most important and contentious question regarding ballistic missile defenses is whether can they work. However, the answer to this question is not simple and will depend on many factors, such as the type of defense, the nature of the attacking missiles, the circumstances of the attacks, and the standards by which the success or failure of the defense is judged. Broadly speaking, many supporters of ballistic missile defenses argue that not only can they work but that they have already demonstrated that they will work. On the other hand, critics argue that not only is the effectiveness of defenses unproven but that there are fundamental reasons to believe that they will never be able to function effectively.
5Congress and Missile Defense chapter abstractCongress has been more involved in missile defense than it usually is on national security, but its motivations and impact are often misunderstood. One common misconception is that missile defense was intensely controversial during the twentieth century but now represents a rare area of stable consensus across party lines and between the Executive Branch and Congress. Another is that Congress has been unusually active on missile defense because the public strongly supports it and would punish politicians who did not. A deeper look shows that there is not, and never has been, a consensus about the feasibility and desirability of comprehensive missile defense, nor on related questions such as how nuclear deterrence works and what, if any, role arms control should play in security policy.
6Europe and Missile Defense chapter abstractThis chapter assesses American missile defense initiatives in Europe over the last ten years. Specifically, it reviews missile defense priorities under the George W. Bush administration for a "third site" in Europe and the follow-on initiative for a European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) unveiled by the Obama administration. The chapter examines some of the principal policy debates in Europe concerning missile defense and how these currently shape the evolution toward an integrated NATO ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability. The chapter ends with an overview of issues for future consideration, including how developments in other regions might impact the future evolution of missile defense in Europe. It concludes that missile defense programs in Europe are still in their infancy but strong and that the regional capabilities increasingly serve as political expressions of NATO's pursuit of collective defense.
7Postcrisis Perspectives: The Prospects for Cooperation among the United States, NATO, and Russia on Ballistic Missile Defense chapter abstract8From Dream to Reality: Israel and Missile Defense chapter abstractThis chapter reviews the evolution of the missile threat against Israel and the emergence of the indigenous Israeli and collaborative U.S.–Israeli missile defense response. It highlights the remarkable success achieved by the Israeli missile defense program, not only in tests and simulations but in combat. It also goes on to briefly analyze some of the vexing dilemmas in its second phase, such as who and what should get a higher level of protection, that have grown precisely as a result of these remarkable technological advances in missile defense. It concludes with a brief discussion of key implications of the Israeli introduction and operation of a multilayered missile defense system. Although some of these dilemmas and implications are specific to Israel, others may have broader relevance for other nations seriously considering the implications of missile defense.
9Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation in the Arabian Gulf chapter abstractOne of the least well known of the regional missile defense efforts encompasses the Arabian Gulf nations, primarily those allied with or friendly to the United States, who all face a new strategic landscape in the twenty-first century. For almost a decade, the United States has been laboring to construct an integrated and layered missile defense architecture in the Gulf, one that networks the sensors and interceptor missiles of all its Gulf allies and partners into a unified command, control, battle management, and communications system to maximize efficacy and cooperation with American programs nearby. Washington's efforts have encountered numerous hurdles.
10Ballistic Missile Defense in South Asia chapter abstractThis chapter outlines the unique, and still largely nascent, development of ballistic missile defense (BMD) capabilities in both India and Pakistan. The focus is on each country's indigenous efforts, as well as support that they have sought from foreign suppliers. It then outlines how BMD figures in each country's national security strategies and nuclear doctrines. The chapter then discusses the interactive effect between BMD developments on the one hand and nuclear doctrines, modernization, and potential nuclear weapons use in peacetime, crisis, and war. How external involvement—both supply and cooperation and actions that shape threat perceptions—affects ballistic missile developments is emphasized. In particular, China's role in the Indo-Pakistan dyad, including Beijing's own actions and reactions to U.S. ballistic missile defense developments, has a significant impact
11Chinese Attitudes Toward Missile Defense chapter abstractChina has long viewed U.S. development and deployment of missile defense systems as an important threat to Chinese national security. Specifically, Chinese analysts are concerned that U.S. missile defenses could diminish the credibility of China's growing, but still relatively modest, nuclear deterrent force by threatening to eliminate missiles that would survive a hypothetical disarming first strike against China. Yet even as Beijing continues to object to U.S. missile defense programs on the ground that they are strategically destabilizing, China is developing its own midcourse missile defense intercept technology. This chapter explores Chinese views on missile defense technology and capabilities
12Japan's Ballistic Missile Defense and "Proactive Pacifism" chapter abstractIn early October 2013, the U.S.–Japan Security Consultative Committee (SCC), comprising the heads of defense and foreign ministries in both countries, issued a joint statement. The statement emphasized the centrality of the two countries' alliance in maintaining international peace and security and, more specifically, in providing for the security of Japan through the full range of U.S. military capabilities. The strategic vision was emphatic on the need to significantly upgrade the capabilities of the U.S.–Japan alliance.
13Strategic Dead End or Game Changer? chapter abstractThe purpose of this chapter is to reconstruct the debate about U.S. BMD in these new circumstances. It begins with a description of the new strategic problem for which missile defense is relevant. This is the problem posed by regional actors like North Korea seeking nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them at all ranges, with the hope of creating a relationship of mutual vulnerability with the United States. The chapter then defines the place of BMD in the intended comprehensive approach to this new strategic problem. It goes on to catalogue the particular and specific values of BMD. Turning to the stability topic, it addresses the concerns of Russia and China in the context of technical considerations. The chapter also considers two main counterarguments to the propositions set out here
14Evaluating the Opportunity and Financial Costs of Missile Defense chapter abstractThirty years, and many billions of dollars later, the policy debates raised by President Reagan's "Star Wars" speech continue, with many of the same critiques being applied to a system that is now operational. Nevertheless, many changes have taken place, both in terms of the international political context in which the merits of missile defense are debated, as well as in the very nature of the missile defenses themselves. These changes have not only affected the policy debate but also the debate over the economics of missile defense and, in particular, the question of foregone expenditures, or the opportunity cost, of missile defense budgets. Debates about the viability of missile defense range from capability issues, to cost estimates, to ideologically driven views of the optimum manner in which to pursue strategic stability. It is the last of these three factors that will continue to dominate the antiballistic missile debate.
Conclusion: The Future of Ballistic Missile Defense chapter abstractEven with the Obama administration's successes building on the missile defense policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations, there remain questions of comparative strategic impact, cost, and technology like those that derailed the previous periods of missile defense enthusiasm. It is unclear how theater and national approaches to missile defense—especially EPAA, but the other regional arrangements as well—will progress in the face of three major challenges: strategic implications, cost, and technological progress.