U.S. to lose sovereignty over missile defense?

In mid July, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported that "Russia outwitted U.S. strategic defenses with a missile test," as two Russian nuclear submarines arrived under thick Arctic ice floes unobserved by U.S. reconnaissance satellites and launched two test missiles. Then, in early August, the New York Times reported that Russian nuclear subs had been spotted off the U.S. East Coast, a throwback to Cold War days. And, in mid-August, the Czech Republic expelled two Russian diplomats, accusing them of trying to organize civil opposition to the announced U.S. deployment of anti-missile radar there.

These three events have a common undercurrent – increasing Russian concern over U.S. plans to deploy a global missile defense. These actions could also be hints of future, more radical actions. In fact, Russian officials have repeatedly raised the possibility of unspecified "countermeasures" against future global missile defense deployments, especially those in Eastern Europe, which is uncomfortably near the Russian border. The endgame of this entire process, however, may not be to either country's liking, for it raises the specter of permanent loss of national defense sovereignty.

Ever since the Bush II administration officially withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 and announced that the U.S. would pursue a national missile defense – which would also cover its allies and, thus, have global reach – Russia (along with China) has been raising alarms. The crux of the Russian argument states that mutual deterrence offers the greatest stability. Key to that was the ABM Treaty, embodying the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), according to which the nuclear superpowers must be assured that their arsenals would survive a first strike in sufficient capacity to guarantee "unacceptable damage" to the aggressor. In line with this Cold War-era theory, a significant presence of missile defense systems on either side might tempt either to launch a nuclear first strike and rely on missile defense to "mop up" the other side's surviving ballistic missiles, opening up the specter of "victory" (that is, if irradiating such a large part of the globe, either American or Soviet, could be construed as such). And the ABM Treaty severely limited the superpowers' strategic missile defenses.

The Bush administration claimed that missile defense was necessary due to nuclear proliferation and the possibility of nuclear and missile technology falling into the hands of either "rogue states" such as North Korea, Iraq or Iran, or terrorists. The Russians have partly conceded the point, announcing in late August that SS-400 anti-aircraft/anti-ballistic missiles would be deployed on the Russian Pacific coast to guard against potentially failed North Korean ballistic missile tests. In addition, while opposing abandonment of the ABM Treaty, the Russians have also offered joint development and operation of limited missile defenses.

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Over the last 20 years, the missile defense program, with its origins in Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or "Star Wars") program, has cost about $120 billion, with billions more slated. And, while a U.S.-deployed global skeletal structure combining satellites, radar installations, missile defense batteries and lasers has slowly taken shape, testing has revealed that serious shortcomings still exist.

One thing is certain – neither Russia nor China will sit back and allow the deployment of a global U.S.-led missile shield that would even theoretically neutralize their nuclear arsenals. In addition, even allies such as France and Germany have expressed reservations about the U.S. missile defense program.

In the end, the present road of building global missile defense leads to only two choices: either Russia and/or China react "before it's too late" – either in the form of a renewed nuclear arms race or an incident that might lead to an instant nuclear crisis – or the U.S. ultimately relents and agrees to make its missile defense part of a jointly run, international structure, one requiring the permanent stationing of foreign (i.e. Russian, Chinese, IAEA, U.N.) monitors and verifiers on its bases. Of course, barring deliberate brinksmanship, the former option would almost certainly evolve to the latter in any case, as "global opinion" (real or manufactured) would inevitably cry out for a "world-saving" solution. Thus, after global "greenhouse emissions" control, it would not be hard to imagine globally run missile defense control.

Ironically, then, the Pentagon's 20-year drive to increase American security and the billions spent so far could ultimately bring loss of U.S. military sovereignty and the "globalization" of national defenses.

From the standpoint of purely national defense against rogue state or terrorist attack, limited missile defenses within a slightly modified ABM treaty still seem the cheapest and the most stable way to go, together with fortifying national information-electrical networks against possible electro-magnetic pulses (EMP) resulting from a high-altitude nuclear detonation. As for more formidable adversaries with strategic nuclear arsenals, MAD has worked for half a century, and nothing better has been offered.

There is still a window of opportunity to opt – or, better said, go back to – that kind of approach. In late August, a Polish newspaper quoted American sources as saying that the U.S. plans for missile shield installations in Poland and the Czech Republic "will almost certainly be scrapped" – although this was vaguely denied by State Department officials, who said that the U.S. was still weighing its options. At the same time, other sources have hinted that the U.S. might reconsider the Eastern European missile shield in return for Russian support for a tougher approach to Iran's nuclear program.

However, even the shifting of this particular missile defense to other parts of Europe, Turkey or even Israel, while softening immediate Russian concerns, would not solve the main problem. The world would still be faced with the prospects of a dangerous arms race that would either bring crisis or lead to a globally run missile defense and, by extension, very tight, globally run control of national offensive systems, putting a final end to national defense sovereignty. Then again, perhaps that was supposed to be part and parcel of a New World Order all along?

Aleksandar Pavic covers the Balkans and Eastern Europe for WND.