The Paradox of Missile Defense
One man picked up a club, and the other answered with a stone. A knife was parried with a sword. The shield followed, then the spear, the mace, the longbow, the fortified wall, the catapult, the castle, the cannon. Across eons, every warrior’s improvement in defense was followed by a breakthrough in offense, leading to yet new countermeasures, ever more lethal. This ancient offense-defense cycle was made modern by the machine gun and the tank, then by warplanes and anti aircraft guns, and, ultimately, by ballistic missiles and anti ballistic missiles.
In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara analyzed the structure of this dynamic to argue for a halt to it. “Were we to deploy a heavy ABM system . . . the Soviets would clearly be strongly motivated so to increase their offensive capability as to cancel out our defense advantage.” Not only would the mutual escalation, launched in the name of defense, be futile and wasteful, but it would make war more likely rather than less. At the end of his Pentagon tenure, McNamara had arrived at the central paradox of the nuclear age — how defense and offense had taken on opposite meanings, with the former having become the inevitable precursor of the latter. In opposing the deployment of the ABM, the American defense chief was breaking with the oldest pattern of human belligerence.
This counter intuitive repudiation of defense was soon embraced across the right-left political divide, with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger becoming its champions. The idea, enshrined in the 1972 treaty according to which Moscow and Washington jointly foreswore the anti ballistic missile, was arguably the most important intellectual achievement of the Cold War. Defense could no longer be simplistically defined as moral, with offense as immoral, because the two were halves of the same nut. At last, it was understood that the only way out of the endless cycle of arms escalation was the renunciation of the whole of it. The ABM treaty was thus the ground of subsequent arms limitation, and then arms reduction, leading to nothing less than the non violent resolution of the nuclear stand off.
When George W. Bush came into office as president, he quickly denounced the ABM Treaty as a “relic” of the Cold War. (In doing this, he was largely dependent on the analysis of Paul D. Wolfowitz, whose public career began on the staff of the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy, which was formed to oppose the ABM Treaty.) Because the United States was forbidden by the 1972 treaty to go forward with a Missile Defense System, Bush unilaterally “abrogated” the agreement in 2002. Not only did this action destroy the arms reduction process (immediately killing START II), it made inevitable the next round of arms escalation. Missile defense began as Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy, but in Reagan’s vision it was to be paired with steady progress toward nuclear abolition, an element that Bush simply dropped.
The actual deployment of US missile defense is well underway — a first shoe dropping. But the Bush system involves the added provocation that Poland and the Czech Republic are sites of some key components, confirming Moscow’s fears that the United States, putatively targeting a “rogue” state like Iran, is actually aiming at Russia. The Kremlin reacted exactly as McNamara had predicted it would 40 years ago, and last week the second shoe dropped. “Russia tests missile to pierce US shield,” a headline in the International Herald Tribune read, announcing an offensive breakthrough. On May 29, Moscow’s new missile flew, and it was a success. Multiple warheads will so enhance a new generation of long-range Russian missiles “as to cancel out,” in McNamara’s phrase, any imagined defensive advantage of America’s shield.
Two days after the Russian test, Vladimir Putin said simply, “It wasn’t us who initiated a new round of the arms race.”
Of all the problems that are exacerbating US-Russian tensions today, none compares for destructiveness with Bush’s misguided missile defense project. The irony, of course, is that this reigniting of the old tensions in the name of security leads to less security, not more. The tragedy is that it ignores the lesson that had already been so well learned four decades ago.
A consensus has lately developed that the Bush administration’s worst legacy will be tied to the disastrous war in Iraq, but that may be wrong. The resuscitation of the fantasy of missile defense, and with it the raising from the dead of the arms race, may result in catastrophes in comparison to which Iraq is benign.
James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
The Bush family, their “agent” Baker and other players are heavily involved in the Carlyle Investment Group which brokers huge sales of weapons around the globe. For this group, all war is good business. Amoral, to them dangerous weapons just mean more profit; and as the trail of blood following current American wars of pre-emptive exploit suggest, conscience is not part of the bargain. Besides, all the nuclear power plants need a place to recycle their detritus, and fashioning these radioactive agents into “modern weaponry” to the sorts who profit from the stuff of Hades is simply good business practice. It’s a strange and perilous fate that the safety, security and longevity of the world has fallen to soulless pro-war fools who worship mammon and show depraved indifference to human life. At every juncture where a political decision might have been made to better things, Bush opted for profit and temporal gain for his small circle of corrupt associates. THIS is not an ethos that can or will sustain a planet. How to hold the dark powers to account is quite another matter.
Bush, as a sociopath, knows he would have no moral inhibitions in ordering nuclear war. He then projects his own lack of morality on the rest of the world and seeks to defend himself from himself. Like Jim Jones and the mass suicide in Jonestown, Bush is leading America toward self destruction, his lawlessness is the foundation upon which America will slip into fascism and anarchy and those whose job it is to oppose him are in a state of denial that America is in grave danger, not from without, but from within.
It seems that Bush and his criminal gang are determined to enslave the masses of the world and steal their resources, and they are willing to risk nuclear armageddon and human extinction in order to achieve that ambition.
The hypocrisy. Saddam allows nuclear inspectors in and we destroy Iraq utterly. What is the punishment for imposing this missle “defense” threat. When does defense become aggression. All military imposes the threat of violence upon the innocent and unconsenting!
Iran neither has an atom bomb nor a delivery system to reach Poland or Czech Republic. In claiming that the missile defense is intended to counter the imagined Iranian offensive, Bush is insulting the intelligence of the American public. People around the world would wonder and ask themselves: Wow, if this represents the intelligence of their leader, what is the intelligence of those led by him?
Lockheed Martin, what have they done for you lately?
Saila,
Bush is only insulting the intelligence of about half of the American people (at least the voting American people). The other half didn’t have enough intelligence to vote against him in the last couple of presidential elections.
Bush is determined to bring us ALL to Jesus…one way or another
When he came to office, Bush downgraded efforts to lock up nuclear-weapons-grade material in the former Soviet Union to focus on Missile Defense. Thus, he killed two birds with one stone: making the current standoff with Russia inevitable, and INCREASING the likelihood that Islamic terrorists would have access to nuclear bombs.
There is an aspect of Christian theology that predicts that Armageddon, when it comes, will come from the Middle East and areas north of the Middle East (Russia). Bush must be listening to this particular strain of Christian fanaticism to work so successfully (and with such economy!) at making these prophecies come true.
Thanks, Siouxrose. Neocons (Wolfowitz, Perle, etc) had long been opposed to any arms reduction negotiations with the Soviet Union. Even without the Soviet Union, they are still doing thier best to try to lead the country and the world to the darkness. It is too obvious that the primary beneficiaries of this destructive policy are their friends, the defense contractors.
one scary thing in all this is this happening over a missile system that does not work and can never work. missile defense, like so much of the DOD, is a sick joke.
We are all Israelis now.
There is one factor missing in all of this, which some of us who were around for the 1980s debate on Star Wars may recall. If Country A has a missile defense system all ready to go, Country B has an overwhelming incentive to launch everything it has before the defense system is deployed and renders its entire arsenal useless.
The “star wars” critics of the ’80’s thoroughly demolished every conceivable justification for (Regan’s) foolish move to intensify the cold war. (For one, expensive and precarious anti-ballistic systems are easily overwhelmed on the cheap by launching a set of nonlethal decoys.) This is just another federally funded gift to the defense contractors.
“…some of us who were around for the 1980s debate on Star Wars may recall” that father of the Soviet H-bomb advised Gorbachev to let Delusion-in-Chief Ronald Reagan to built his Maginot Line in space and not to worry.
The whole anti-ballistic system is a bad joke since one need exactly 2 submarines class Kursk, one in NY Bay and another in SF Bay. These subs are able to emulate their acoustic image far away of their actual positions, each carry 28 supersonic torpedoes with 32 MREV nukes with an equivalent of 2 megaton of TNT; that is more than enough to totally annihilate this country on 10 minutes notice.
Even easier one backpack tactical nuclear device left unattended in downtown Manhattan will bring this country to total and absolute anarchy.
The main question remains, how this country conceived by the group of the most rational men the world ever known came to be taken hostage by the most vacuous generation that ever walked on the face of this planet?
Amaizing!
what i thought after reading siouxroses’ post about the Carlysle Group was, how much do these people need? I mean the Bush’s and the Bakers’ and the Shultz’s must be filthy rich, how much more could they want or need or use even? It always mystifies me this desire for more and more and more. But I am not a Bush or a Baker and there are other factors at play here. Ideology? Why arm the world the way we do? There must be a lot of fear in the mix for people to want to manufacture these awful weapons and scrap the NonProliferation Treaty. I have a friend who works for Lawrence Livermore Labs. He tells me the people manufacturing these weapons are pretty crazy. Maybe thats it, the Carlysle Group is plain Looney yet highly functional.
Melvin: I study mysticism and believe that End times, also cited as a massive overhaul as per the Mayan calendar and its mystical interpretation, ditto the astrological cycles is that mankind is approaching a serious juncture. A new paradigm is required in how we view ourselves as citizens of earth, rather than rabid nation-states, or religious fiefdoms. Remember the astronaut’s view, that from out in space, all earth is ONE amazing and miraculous BEING, surging (or up till recently) with a dazzling display of organic life.
I believe the old religions pay homage to what I term “the old gods,” and one of these is Mars, the god of War. Bush uses Jesus as a substitute for Mars, but that is a blatant blasphemy. The best case I can make for my thesis is the amount of money/treasure/human life/resources SQUANDERED on war and the making of new armaments, when quite literally children are starving, our cities are falling apart and this beloved Eden, home to ALL of us (there’s a right to life precept!) is burning. What god can such activity revere but Mars, god of war? These maniacs think they are the winning team, that karma will not hold them to account, that the martinis at the yacht club immunize them from the cries of those left limbless in our “war exploit adventure.” It’s such a painful thing to understand what’s really happening and feel impotent to make real change. That is exactly what Cindy Sheehan currently feels, and I am sure Dennis Kucinich and Nader and the visionaries OUT there fight this demon all the time. It is LOVE for Spirit, our fellow humanity and the GIFT of life that sustains us… I presume most on this site care about others and wish for our world to continue. It’s amazing how neatly the Christian End Times/Armageddon dovetails with the military’s own M.A.D (mutually assured destruction), as in, either way the Mars mandate to destroy trumps the RIGHT to life and the living.
Its all perfectly logical once you understand the premises. The overall goal is to establish a world of chaos so that people will want strong military leaders to protect them, in the process giving up their civil liberties. This makes the powerful leaders more powerful, channels more and more money to the military and the weapons manufacturing war machine, so everything is swell. If war breaks out, that’s fine, since it creates patriotic fervor, providing more support for the beloved leader, with the added advantages of reducing the planet’s overly large population burden and distracting people from their discontent with lack of education, health care, social services, etc. Plus, they can be taxed more to pay for the war, while taxes at the top are reduced, since those people need to be rewarded for their service to the economy. In time, the planet shifts to only two or three super powers constantly warring with each other. The populace is nicely split into the poor, who are just getting by, and the ruling class, which is fat fat. No middle class, of course.
So, abrogate the treaties, yahoo! re-ignite the arms race, pollute the environment, invade Iraq, then Iran, somalia, everywhere you feel like a little bit of fun, let’s go. Let’s have more and more chaos, war, fear, patriotism and allegiance to strong leaders. Wave the flag and cheer, now. Louder, please. Oh, and don’t forget to support the troops or else be called a sissy, weak on terrorism! You wouldn’t want that, would you?
………..and ultimately you create an offense to this “defense”, and that is some new guerilla warfare (i.e. terrorism as defined by the bushies). overwhelming power is countered by methods that have been used for centuries………..the cycle goes on.
it’s about the people, not the ideology. you can not deny free will………no matter what your intent.
Dirt dumb neo cons = star wars missle squander = Maginot line thought processes. The Germans weren’t stupid then and the Chinese and Russians aren’t now
Missile defense doesn’t work. Not only that, the tests of missile defense systems have been beset by claims of fraud from reputable sources like MIT professor Postol - http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan05/2921
See the quote from Professor Postol:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0615-02.htm
“WHAT WOULD you do if you had a missile defense system that couldn’t tell a warhead from a balloon decoy? If you’re the US Missile Defense Agency, you’d classify the data about missile defense tests to hide this fatal flaw.
In May of 2000 I wrote a letter to the White House that described how the Missile Defense Agency had doctored results of National Missile Defense tests to hide the fact that they could not tell the difference between simple decoys and warheads. I also described how the agency had altered its entire test program to hide the flaw. Two General Accounting Office reports issued in March of this year verified the facts I provided to the White House. The agency responded to my letter by claiming that it was classified, and it engaged in multiple attempts to stop me from revealing that its claims amounted to scientific fraud.
In one of these attempts, the agency tried to enlist the help of MIT’s president in order to seize research papers from my office, and in another, it sent three agents to deliver a letter to me that was classified ‘’secret.” The letter contained nothing more than publicly available information deemed classified by the government so that the agency could claim that I would be violating security agreements if I continued to speak about this matter of national security…”
Corruption within the military-industrial-Congressional complex? Say it isn’t so!
There is one more step we can take in our ancient race for supremacy, we have to deny the OTHER any right of self-defence.
Since the second World War, this became the ultimate goal and Joint Vision 2020 ‘Full spectrum Dominance’ has made this official policy. But that includes not just the military arm of a nation, but also to deny access to resources, which incl. food, water, to technology and the right to destroy - when required - the communication facilities of other nations.
But Iran or North Korea won’t bother with missiles, they ‘lock themselves in’ and Russia is again reminded of 200 years of their recent encounters with the West. It wasn’t Russia which attacked France, it wasn’t Russia which attacked Germany… any General of any Military advisory board will urge his Government not to let this happen again. The demonised attempt foil another attempt and to create a buffer zone - their areas of influence - has crumbled and the West is again on their door step. Only when we understand these memories we will understand the instinctive fear we create in the world.
Self defense denied: Example 1, Israel denies any resistance and defiance not just to the Palestinians, but Syria, Egypt and Lebanon as well.
Example 2, the US presented to Iraq such a ‘clear and present danger’ as it massed on its border in Kuwait, but any form of self-defense has to be crushed.
Because today, self-defense and defiance is terrorism.
In JV 2020, Full spectrum dominance these policy is for everybody to see, but America need to understand that since this policy was published, the Nations of this world prepared themselves to challenge it.
When Bush lies, he holds his hands out palm side up, smiles ingratiatingly, and makes remarks like, “Vladimir…. I call him Vladimir” followed by assertions that Vladimir has nothing to fear from us and, in fact, could join in and help us make the world safe from the demon Iran.
The Czech Republic and Poland would be nuts to agree to the placement of these missiles. I believe Putin is correct in describing Bush as having re-started the Cold War. I believe too that Congress must start reversing some of the militaristic garbage we are foisting on the world in the name of “free trade” and “the Global War on Terror” before it comes back to bite us.
it’s inevitable it will come back to bite us. how could it not unless we disarm these madmen in the military and in the political establishment. and yes our generational thrust should be not arming but disarming, building solar fields in the deserts, mass bullet systems for our cities,monorails,family farms dotting our rural areas, decent schools, libraries, health care for all, oh man, the list goes on and on but instead our resources are squandered on war and implements of war. pure madness. what goes around comes around.
What more can one expect from a bunch of craven draft-dodgers like Cheney, Bush and John Bolton ( who famously bolted from the prospect of dying in some ‘South-East Asian rice-paddy’.)
Now they glory in the prospect of their peerless arm-chair knight-errantry culminating in that wondrous blaze of glory. (Never having grown out of an adolescence, mis-spent in playing with toy-soldiers.)
Without a thought that their playing fast and loose might well result in the rest of the world being nuked out of existence. (While they remain safe and secure in their impregnable Fuhrer-bunkers.)
It’s eminently possible that ,deep withing the recesses of their depraved , deluded minds ,they scent ultimate victory over the Russian hordes. (Who were primarily responsible for the overthrow of Sen.Prescott Bush’s patron Herr Adolf Hitler.) And thereby right one of the terrible wrongs of History.
i can only suppose that if we manage to avert utter catastrophe in the form of ww3 (or 4, if 3 is the fight against global corporate dominance), preparing our children for the inevitable decline/blowback/karma in this country will be our greatest challenge. they will rightly ask what we did to screw things up so badly. and what we did about making it right. “i voted for (whoever)” isn’t going to cut it. hopefully, we will somehow instill in them greater levels of courage, creativity, problem solving, conflict resolution and empathy than we now possess.
Picking the worst of Bu$h the inferior’s legacies is a challenge that will consume the efforts of historians for ages. If there are any more ages.
Thought I’d dig one of my old anti war poems out …. here it is to you late nighters:
chrome colored howitzers banging at the dead
anger spilling forth in lethal doses
cutting civil codes in mindless rage
our heroic failures now rewarded
of what betrayal have our hearts fallen
fragmented in blooded soaked dreams
numbed into mechanical death
blinding wisdoms gentle eye
vainly we try to flee this beast
whose jaws open into blackend voids
until in anguished crys
we are deminished into retreating sorrows
Saila:”Wow, if this represents the intelligence of their leader, what is the intelligence of those led by him?”
It’s not the intelligence of those led by him, it’s the intelligance of those who voted for him and continue to back him, I suppose that’s why they called it mindless devotion.
I’m reminded of the spin line, “We must fight the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them here at home.”
Now if I’ve got this straight, Bush is going to protect Europe by setting up ABM’s on Russia’s front door so that in the event of a terrorist attack on Europe from a Middle Eastern country with ABM’s, Russia will target European cities with their ABM’s. And Europe will get hit from all sides. And that will make America safer which is REALLY important. Because what keeps coming across in American foreign policy and the press is that American lives must be protected at all costs, including at the cost of everyone else’s lives no matter what.
So what is Bush’s real aim? Possibly to break up the European Union, which competes as a major economic entity with the US, not to mention the strong euro, and then take control of the pieces under NATO of course controlled by the United States.
EU countries would do well to close ranks with some form of constitutional document insuring mutual defense and excluding non EU countries setting up ABMs within the EU. Then Czechoslovakia and Poland ought to be allowed to choose whether they wish to remain in the EU
Or perhaps Bush could smooth the troubled waters,invite over to the US the Russian “folks” and let them know it would be fine if they help protect the world from terrorists by setting up some ABMs in Cuba? That would be fair.
I think Bush was truly surprised that a missle defense system in this region provoked Russian ire. Since Condoleeza Rice soared to the top of this administration, merely because she is a sycophant, she had no idea either. Periodically Bush throws a new policy at us, thinking it will save his image. He has tried social security reform, illegal immigration reform, sending a man to Mars, and now this. We are supposed to be in awe of the technology (that doesn’t exist) and impressed by the President who brought it to us. Bush is certainly criminal, but he is not a mastermind. Newt Gingrich in a recent Newsweek article described our President as a hopeless incompetent. I agree with Newt.
“kivals June 5th, 2007 12:08 pm
It seems that Bush and his criminal gang are determined to enslave the masses of the world and steal their resources, and they are willing to risk nuclear armageddon and human extinction in order to achieve that ambition.”
Very much so! This was published some five years ago:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1544.htm
Missile Defense this Swoosh