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Cowardice:
In another age Mr. Clinton would have been taken out and
shot!
By JONATHAN
POWER
August 9, 2000
LONDON - George W. Bush and his Republican praetorian
guard of hard-liners (many of whom, for no other reason
than cowardice, ducked the call to duty in Vietnam) have
put Al Gore needlessly on the defensive on the issue of
national missile defense. Their intent, by hook or by
crook, is to make Mr Gore look weak on defense, even if
it means unilaterally abrogating a solemn international
treaty with Russia and risking driving emerging Russia
back into its Cold War bunker.
Missile defence is predicated on the increasingly
nonsensical notion that a "rogue state" (though these
words are no longer politically correct, according to no
less an authority than Madeleine Albright) will fire
nuclear tipped missiles into Alaska and even northern
California and seize a political advantage that its
suitcase nuclear bomb deposited in a left-luggage locker
in New York's Grand Central Station could not. No wonder
that even the ever-faithful British who have made a habit
of never querying U.S. defense issues have started to air
their doubts.
Now, by one of those quirks of journalistic fate, I
have been handed a report that has been considered at the
highest levels of the Pentagon. The report makes it clear
that 1) that there is an alternative that would mean that
it was quite unnecessary either to need to break
international law or alienate Russia, 2) that this
alternative has the added bonus that it would not
neutralize China's strategic retaliatory nuclear
capability and thus would not work to indirectly trigger
a dangerously destabilizing nuclear arms race between
China and India. The reason, perhaps, that this report
has been kept from out-loud discussion is that it is
astonishingly similar to the proposal touted recently by
the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In four words it is a system of "Airborne Boost-Phase
Defence" or, in common parlance, shooting down missiles
as they take off rather than waiting for them to come
near to landing. Rocket boosters are easy both to detect
and to track. They are more vulnerable and easier to
destroy than incoming warheads, and the entire payload-
warheads and decoys- can be downed with a single shot.
Added to that, is that such a defense system need only
cover the enemy's territory rather than the wide expanse
of territory at home that might be threatened. Moreover,
the Pentagon has already admitted that it will have
difficulty distinguishing between decoys and an actual
incoming missile. But with this boost-phase defence, such
misleading counter measures would be much more difficult
if not impossible. However, such a system is only
effective against small states like North Korea or Iraq,
not against big continental countries like Russia and
China with their intercontinental ballistic missile
forces. Thus it is not going to upset the status quo, a
vital political consideration for those who value big
power strategic stability.
How does it work? It is, according to these papers
before me, based on a high-speed rocket making use of a
small "kinetic-kill vehicle" for a payload. This homes in
on the booster's infra-red signature. For dealing with
the supposed coming threat from North Korea these
airborne interceptor launch platforms could be located
over international waters in the Sea of Japan. They can
be launched from fighter aircraft or unmanned aerial
vehicles. Or they could be a high-powered laser carried
aboard a Boeing 747-400F.
There are 80 pages of scientific and strategic
justification for this scheme, which a layman like me
peruses with leaden eyes. But certain items stand out- it
is more likely to work than the so far unproven national
missile defence system to be based in Alaska. Second, it
is very much cheaper. Third, it avoids adverse Russian or
Chinese reactions which could undermine US security in
the long term.
This raises the political question why has the Clinton
Administration attempted to portray thinking of this kind
as purely Russian inspired when its very own advisors are
hard at work on a similar idea? Why also has the Clinton
administration not encouraged public debate, as it has
with its spend-thrift, dangerously destabilizing and,
more than likely, unworkable Alaskan scheme?
Beyond that one can also ask why, when Mr Clinton has
achieved so much with his creative diplomacy with North
Korea, when the UN-led disarmament programme in Iraq
seems in retrospect to have been thoroughly effective and
when every U.S. general knows full well the U.S.'s best
defence against the "rogue states" is its retaliatory
capability, does the Clinton Administration persist in
tying itself publicly to the pursuit of its national
missile defence scheme?
There is indeed only one answer - that for too long Mr
Clinton has run scared before the old Cold War warriors
who have now arranged themselves anew around the
Republican presidential candidate. The Clinton
Administration, having no defence of its own, has
capitulated before the right's offence. No administration
since the onset of the Cold War has done so little for
arms control. The Clinton Administration enters its final
days having passed up the great historic opportunity to
engage in really effective nuclear disarmament with its
erstwhile enemy, Russia, despite the encouragement from a
range of informed opinion from a former secretary of
defence to a former head of U.S. nuclear strategic
forces. It is a mistake that is not much less than a war
crime. That Mr Clinton should compound this dreadful
record by conniving in obfuscating the choices before the
American people in providing for their defence - albeit
in this case, most likely, only an imaginary threat- is
beyond all reason. It is simply cowardice and in another
age Mr Clinton would have been taken out and shot.
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2000 By
JONATHAN POWER
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