No Cause to Revive Missile Fever

Now that “ABM” is back in the armchair strategists’ alphabet soup, Moscow is haunted by a bad case of deja vu. Moscow swallowed President Reagan’s “star wars” bluff--hook, line and sinker--and in trying to keep up with the Joneses across the ocean, went broke.

I remember the discussion that took place at the meeting of the Soviet delegation in Reykjavik before the beginning of the Soviet-American summit in 1986. President Reagan’s “strategic defense initiative” was discussed. To go ahead with this plan meant violating the 1972 ABM treaty limiting antiballistic missile systems. So Americans talked about prematurely withdrawing from the treaty.

During our discussion, I ventured my humble opinion about SDI being a stellar delusion, not to be taken seriously. Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, chief of the general staff at that time, offhandedly dismissed my arguments. He took SDI very seriously.

Unbelievably, both sides came close to the agreement on nuclear disarmament at Reykjavik. Imagine the world today if they really had. But they did not because Mikhail Gorbachev insisted on Reagan abandoning his pet project, which he refused to do. Now everybody agrees that, no matter what Reagan’s pipe dream, the whole enterprise was no more than a bluff. Many Americans admitted it soon after the idea was launched in 1983. Strobe Talbott, who then worked for Time magazine, wrote in 1984: “After a year of study and refinement in the executive branch, the SDI now implicitly accepts the impracticability of a leakproof umbrella.” This same Strobe Talbott, now with the State Department, has been given the task of persuading the Russians to agree on the “modification” of the ABM treaty on the grounds that the United States needs limited missiles against “rogue states.”

I think that the many arguments against a “complete” territorial ABM program are just as valid against a “limited” one. The late British scientist John Bernal wrote in his book, “World Without War,” that the method on which ABM defense is based was first used by Baron Munchausen during the siege of Gibraltar. He fired his cannon at an oncoming ball and sent it back to destroy an enemy battery. Technology is faster and better now, but the slower human factor remains.

But let us look at the argument about the “rogue states.” To begin with, there are no “rogue” states, though there can be “rogue” leaders. The assumption that some of them, if and when they get nuclear ballistic missiles, will send them to New York or Honolulu just for the fun of it, is paranoid. They know about the “assured destruction” of their countries as a result of this kind of action. Even rogue leaders are not suicidal. To make life difficult for the United States, they have other means to employ: terrorism, bombs in suitcases, etc.

Paradoxically, the same paranoid logic can be detected on the Russian side. Russian strategists talk about the “destabilization of the strategic situation.” This is based on the deterrence factor in the concept of MAD (mutual assured destruction), strengthened by the ABM treaty. American withdrawal from the ABM treaty may undermine MAD because, these strategists say, the new “shield” over the United States may provoke a first strike by America.

For many Russians, who still think along Akhromeyev’s lines, this “limited” defense looks like “limited” pregnancy. And their suspicions may be reinforced if they read the Feb. 22 issue of National Review, which calls a strategic defense “more justifiable now, even vis-a-vis Russia.”

Let us check these fears with arithmetic. In six years, if the limited system proves to be possible (a big “if”), the United States will have deployed 200 anti-missiles. By that time, if all goes well with the SALT II treaty, Russia will cut its nuclear missiles to 3,000-3,500. If a nuclear war starts, 200 American anti-missiles are not going to be a big obstacle for the many more Russian missiles that would survive the first strike.

Why then are Russia and China worried about this new U.S. proposal, while Britain is not? Because British-American relations have something that is lacking in Russian-American or Chinese-American relations: trust.

Old notions die hard. Ideological conflict disappeared, but some old reasoning remains. I also think that the main reasons for the resurrection of the anti-ballistic missiles issue are domestic: The Clinton administration wants to take the wind out of the sails of the Republicans and ABM buffs, and to provide jobs on the eve of the election campaign. In any case, the Russians don’t like premature withdrawal. But politics makes strange bedfellows. I suspect the Russians might agree to jump into the U.S. bed if the Americans follow Reagan’s idea to share with the Russians technological knowledge in the field, just as we do in space exploration.