US President George W. Bush’s decision to press ahead with the missile defense program carries many risks. Popular though the idea may be among US citizens, it is causing alarm among both Washington’s friends as well as its potential enemies.
The White House is arguing that this is a purely defensive initiative. State Department officials have talked airily about the need for the US to protect itself from nuclear attack by “rogue” states such as Iraq and North Korea. This presupposes that either of them has the ability to nuke the US mainland with warheads that would do much damage. Then there is the certainty of a devastating US reprisal. This would make any first strike by them an act of purest suicide.
It is indeed the fact that any first strike would unleash massive nuclear reprisal which has formed the basis of the deterrence that has kept the world from global conflict since 1945. The US action will change the rules entirely. Not only will the world’s strongest nuclear power have the ability to launch annihilating salvoes of missiles, but it will also be able to fend off any nuclear counterattack. Deterrence therefore will be meaningless. Pessimists argue that it could even make the once unthinkable horror of nuclear conflict entirely thinkable again.
The “Son of Star Wars” planners are clearly looking ahead 20 or 30 years to the time when the US could face economic and military challenges, most probably in the Asia-Pacific rim. If America’s economic supremacy is declining, it will at least have made the investment to defend itself against the nuclear assaults of rising economic powers. But the problem is that by acting unilaterally and tearing up the nuclear treaties which have underpinned the diplomatic concept of deterrence, Washington is in danger of setting off a new armaments race. There are equally clever scientists and technicians in Russia and China and India who can work on similar missile shields. America is unlikely to hold the technological lead for long. It might be argued that once all nuclear powers can shoot down any incoming ballistic missiles, the old balance of terror will be restored. But it is the instability that happens between now and that day which should give cause for concern.
And if Russia and India and China do feel forced to develop and acquire their own Sons of Star Wars, what a waste of tax payers’ money it will be, robbing these fast-emerging economies of the investment that they need to grow. But then, maybe, the likelihood of slowing down the emergence of economic rivals is a core part of the US calculations.
Perhaps the biggest risk that the Bush administration is taking is that the missile shield may never actually work. Son of Star Wars is designed to give complete protection. So, if just one missile gets through, it will have failed. Respected US scientists have argued that the shield will never work properly and could be about as much use as a string vest made of bullet-proof Keflar. The result may very well be that Bush will have plunged the world back into a destabilizing arms race for no very good reason at all. But then, that has been the lesson of human history. All that it takes to push mankind back into madness is one man with too much power and too little understanding.
