Feature story - May 19, 2003
In the same way businesses develop innovations to compete with new products introduced by their rivals, nuclear weapons states will not let the United States' attempts to construct a missile shield go unanswered.
From their perspective "Star Wars" is an offensive rather than
defensive system designed to make the United States immune from
missile attack and capable of a first-strike advantage. Nationalist
leaders in both Russia and China will have the evidence they need
to support expansion and modernization of their own arsenals.
Pentagon insiders are well aware what a Stars Wars system could
trigger. A classified report, "Foreign Responses to U.S. National
Missile Defense," leaked to major U.S. media last August predicted
that if the U.S. tries to build a missile shield, China will expand
its nuclear arsenal from its current level of 20 long-range
missiles to 200.1 Will this make the U.S. safer?
The report further warned that China's response would likely set
a domino effect in motion. India, which considers China its primary
national security threat, would try to increase its intermediate
and long-range missile capability, which would in turn prompt
Pakistan to further develop its nuclear arsenal.
The classified report also predicted that U.S. construction of a
missile defense system could prompt Russia to place multiple
warheads on ballistic missiles that now carry only one. Indeed,
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at a June 18 meeting with
reporters that this is exactly what Russia would do if the U.S.
proceeded with deployment of a missile shield.
Russia's parliament, the Duma, made ratification of the Start II
nuclear reduction treaty dependent on continued U.S. compliance
with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, so, if the U.S.
violates the ABM Treaty by developing and deploying a missile
defense system, Russia will no longer consider itself bound by
other arms control treaties.
Tensions over the end of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty could
also backfire for the United States in other ways: cooperative
efforts to ensure that Russian weapon-usable missile material is
not stolen and sold abroad may well collapse. Lastly, development
of a missile defense by the U.S. will spur even non-nuclear states
to develop methods to circumvent such an attempted shield.
1 New York Times, August
10, 2000, pg. 1. See also the Association of Former Intelligence
Officers, Weekly
Intelligence Note, 11 August 2000.