NATO's Missile Defense – Realigning Collective Defense for the 21St
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NATO’s Missile Defense – Realigning Collective Defense for the 21st Century Sean KAY* Abstract The Dilemma of Modern Collective Defense This article examines the rationale and implications of NATO’s missile defense program which was an appropriate, but problemmatic, Missile defense has been at the core response to collective defense requirements. By of global security dilemmas since the designing a theater-based missile defense in advent of nuclear weapons and long- southeastern Europe, the United States has returned the question of credible collective range ballistic missile delivery systems. defense back to NATO. The discussion provides During the Cold War, missile defenses a survey of the missile defense debates in NATO were seen as undermining the nuclear and the evolution of the concept under President Barack Obama. It then examines the challenge balance between the United States and of constructively engaging Russia in the the Soviet Union. This was because dynamics of NATO’s missile defense decisions missile defense can increase incentives and deployments. The analysis concludes with an overview of what this re-prioritization to launch first-strike nuclear attacks if an of collective defense in means for realigning enemy’s retaliatory response is survivable. America’s role in NATO. At best, associated technological competition can cause arms races. In Key Words 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the US and the Soviet Union Missile defense, NATO, Iran, Turkey, limited missile defenses and focused Russia, containment, collective defense, the strategic balance on mutual assured alliances. destruction. For some American critics * Sean Kay is Professor of Politics and of arms control, however, this treaty Government at Ohio Wesleyan University. He restricted America’s capacity for national is Mershon Associate at the Mershon Center for defense. This perspective was made International Security Studies at the Ohio State University and a Fellow in National Security at popular by President Ronald Reagan, the Eisenhower Institute, Washington, D.C. who’s “Strategic Defense Initiative” Sean Kay has published six books including had a stated goal of helping eliminate Global Security in the Twenty-first Century: The Quest for Power and the Search for Peace, 2nd nuclear threats entirely. Physicists and edition (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011). experts regularly remind policymakers 37 PERCEPTIONS, Spring 2012, Volume XVII, Number 1, pp. 37-54. Sean Kay that the technology is unfeasible and of nuclear deterrence applies to a state the risk of new arms races high. Yet like Iran. Iran’s conventional military what American politician wants to argue power is antiquated and containable by against defending an American city the collective military power in NATO. against nuclear attack even if there is a However, an Iran with nuclear weapons logic to raising concerns about missile introduces dangerous uncertainty to the defenses? Missile defense has thus been calculus of deterrence. Even a minimal popular and support for it has become a Iranian nuclear capability could enhance political litmus test in the United States Iranian leverage in the Persian Gulf- - regardless of the science or risks. making it difficult to maintain the flow of oil. The question is increasingly NATO has struggled since the end urgent given reports in late 2011 from of the Cold War over how to make the International Atomic Energy Agency collective defense relevant absent the (IAEA) about the advancement of Iran’s Soviet threat. As Joseph Lepgold pointed nuclear program. out in 1998, during the Cold War nuclear deterrence worked for collective Collective defense planning only defense because: “...once anything more occassionally arose in NATO after than a minimum nuclear deterrent force the Cold War as new members joined is provided, it can often be extended to the alliance. For example, after Russia others at little cost. The United States invaded Georgia in summer 2008, the has not hesitated in covering, albeit Polish Prime Minister said that: “Poland often implicitly, many states with its and the Poles do not want to be in nuclear umbrella.”1 Lepgold noted that alliances in which assistance comes at it would be difficult to persuade allies some point later- it is no good when to undertake a range of new missions assistance comes to dead people.”3 absent a unifying threat. The incentives Military conflicts, like the 2003 invasion of allies to undersupply capabilities or of Iraq also raised concerns- in this case in take risks was exposed in new missions Turkey. Before the war, Ankara requested like in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya that NATO coordinate for collective where victory was achieved for almost defense in the event of a retaliatory attack inspite of NATO.2 Now, as dangers of by Iraq against Turkey. This request was nuclear proliferation rise, the question rejected by some allies who believed the of whether the allies in NATO can best way to protect Turkey was to stop regain their footing on collective defense a US invasion of Iraq. In crisis, NATO is a primary concern. A fundamental members refused for nearly a month to question arises for NATO members as plan for defense of Turkey. Collective to whether conventional assumptions defense planning eventually moved 38 NATO’s Missile Defense – Realigning Collective Defense for the 21st Century forward, but only after the US shifted the to be developing capacity to produce discussion out of the political realm of weapons grade nuclear material as NATO and into its military committee suggested by the IAEA in November (which then did not include France).4 2011.7 Iran’s existing missile capability The allies in NATO had a bigger problem (about 1,000 total short and long- as security management challenges are range) is mainly old Soviet-era SCUDs. increasingly non-military- ranging from However, Tehran has been seeking cyber-attck, energy security, climate Russian nuclear-capable, intermediate- change, terrorism, demographics, and range, strategic air-launched cruise economic crises.5 The military utility of missles (KH-55 Granat) and appears NATO seemed increasingly outdated- to be consolidating the basis of an 8 particularly as it struggled with basic indigenous ballistic missile program. warfighting in Kosovo, Afghanistan The internal “Shahab” system has been claimed by Iran to test successfully up and Libya- and especially if it could to 1,300 kilometers (Shahab-3). Iran not address new collective defense has also researched a 2,500-kilometer requirements. range (Shahab-5) missile and launched Iran has the largest force of suborbital rockets implying a nascent capacity for inter-continental ballistic ballistic missiles in the Middle missiles. For now, these systems may East and the second largest in put southern Europe in range of Iranian the underdeveloped world after missile launches albeit with limited North Korea. accuracy.9 There is thus growing allied consensus on Iranian objectives but disagreement on the pace and degree of By 2008, when NATO first capabilities. For example, while Iran was contemplated missile defense, there developing advanced centrifuge capacity, were over 120 ballistic missile launches they also experienced technical setbacks. worldwide- though most of these were Iran likely remained some distance away conducted by American or European from even a crude nuclear weapon test 6 allies. Iran, in particular, is a significant and without effective long-range delivery concern to European NATO members systems. Nonetheless, the combination given its increasing proximity to missile of Iran’s behavior outside the norms of ranges. Iran has the largest force of acceptable international behavior gave ballistic missiles in the Middle East and the NATO allies legitimate concern. the second largest in the underdeveloped As Victor Utgoff writes: “Widespread world after North Korea. Iran appears proliferation is likely to lead to an 39 Sean Kay occasional shoot-out with nuclear harbour.12 There are about 75,000 cruise weapons, and that such shoot-outs missiles worldwide relative to less than a will have a substantial probability of dozen, mainly friendly, nations that have escalating to the maximum destruction ballistic missiles with ranges longer than possible with the weapons at hand. This 1,000 kilometers.13 The point about kind of world is in no nation’s interest.”10 cruise-missiles is important because even if a ballistic missile defense system The idea of a missile attack with works, its presence creates incentives to circumvent the system. Defenses that nuclear weapons on a NATO do not work can create a false-sense of ally mandates serious policy security, while simultaneously damaging consideration. essential security relationships.14 Still, the idea of a missile attack Even with agreement on the concept, with nuclear weapons on a NATO ally the NATO allies also confront the reality mandates serious policy consideration. of physics and technological constraints. If Iran got nuclear weapons, other As Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson governments in the Middle East might state: “...shooting down an enemy feel the need to get nuclear weapons. missile is like trying to hit a hole-in- Thus it would be preferable for NATO one in golf when the hole is moving members to provide reassurance of a at 17,000 mph. And if an enemy uses defense shield and thus disuade against decoys and countermeasures, missile a chain-reaction of regional nuclear defense is like trying to hit a hole-in- proliferation. One Saudi diplomat was one when the hole is moving at 17,000 asked how to respond to a nuclear Iran mph and the green is covered with and answered: “With another nuclear black circles the same size as the hole.”11 weapon.”15 The initial American reponse, Sometimes a defensive capacity can developed under the administration make offensive war more tempting- and of former President George W. Bush thus scare other countries into balancing envisioned the European systems as efforts or even incentivize “use-it-or- a Ground-Based Midcourse Defense lose-it” pre-emptive wars.