For months the Pentagon's space warriors and the White House's
space cadets have publicly fantasized about scrapping the world's
arms control structure and hurtling forward with National Missile
Defense (NMD): a costly, perhaps technically impossible system intended
to protect the United States from attack by a long-range missile
threat that--with the exception of about 20 warheads in China--doesn't
exist.
"Missile defense doesn't make any sense, and everybody realizes
that," says retired Rear Adm. Eugene J. Carroll of the
Center for Defense Information. "The least likely threat we
face is some third-rate nation developing an ICBM and launching
it at the United States knowing they will get back 50 times what
they send. There are all kinds of ways that are cheaper and more
reliable--smuggling in a suitcase bomb, for example--to inflict
harm and not be subject to instantaneous retaliation."
The idea of hitting incoming missiles with outgoing missiles as
some sort of "shield"
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U.S. SPACE
COMMAND
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has been around as a Pentagon concept for at least four decades. And
Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton and Congress, under both
parties, have steadily funded--at least $60 billion since the budget-busting
"Star Wars" delusions of the '80s--the often futile research. Now,
George II and his merry band of Strangelovian pranksters are pushing
funding for the next generation of research (and, eventually, at least
another $200 billion) by citing the missile threat of "rogue states"
like North Korea or Iran and trying to develop China as a new Cold
War enemy. The Bush administration is likely to get at least some
of what they want. Activists have followed the noise, bracing themselves
for a looming congressional battle.
But on another, perhaps more dangerous front, there's almost no
vocal opposition. Theater Missile Defense (TMD) is the quiet sibling
of NMD. In last year's budget, Pentagon funding for the two was
about equally divided. The Clinton administration already cut a
deal with Russia to create exceptions to the ABM treaty to accommodate
TMD, so research is further along. And leading Democrats who have
expressed reservations about NMD, like new Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), want to proceed full
speed ahead on TMD.
TMD is more politically achievable and technically feasible, and,
because it is to be deployed on land, sea, air and space around
the world, much more immediately threatening to allies and potential
enemies alike. When Europe, China, Russia and the rest of the world
have sent up howls about the Bush administration's ballistic missile
plans, TMD is what frightens them the most.
Defining the difference between NMD and TMD systems has been bugging
military and arms control planners for years because while the stated
intent differs, technically there isn't much difference at all.
Essentially, while NMD is designed to protect the U.S. mainland
from long-range missile attack, TMD is designed to protect U.S.
troop deployments, bases and allies against short- and medium-range
missile attacks--the kind of missiles that rogue states already
have and can deploy. A 1997 ABM protocol agreement between Clinton
and Boris Yeltsin defined the differences, for the purposes of arms
control treaties, in two ways: by limiting a TMD system's geographic
size, and by limiting the height, trajectory and speed with which
missile interceptors can travel (and hence, the distance it can
cover).
Like NMD, the Pentagon plans to deploy TMD facilities from as many
platforms as possible: fixed sites, trucks, ships, submarines, planes
and satellites. But TMD is far more flexible. If the NMD, for example,
is designed to counter the North Korean threat of a long-range missile,
it can't respond to a similar threat from a different country, or
a different threat from the same country. Even if NMD can be made
to work, it's as inflexible as it is expensive; this is why, as
French President Jacques Chirac recently noted, the sword always
defeats the shield. Chirac, unlike Dubya, remembers the Maginot
Line.
TMD has a number of components; together, they could be deployed
in Japan, for example, to protect U.S. bases from North Korea; or
they could be deployed more provocatively to encircle China with
platforms in Japan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Australia and at sea.
But no single system can perform multiple duties. That's why the
natural evolution for TMD systems--especially if the United States
ignores the ABM treaty--is to bundle them.
The 1997 Clinton-Yeltsin agreement prohibited this, but China,
Russia and Europe reason that if the Bushites intend to develop
NMD anyway, they could just as easily develop TMD as a global system,
intended to attack the types of cheaper, more plentiful missiles
that most countries rely upon. If TMD systems around the globe are
managed using a shared tracking and coordination system, the Pentagon
suddenly would have a global system designed not just to protect
the U.S. mainland, but as a forward, much more immediate network
that could impose American will anywhere on the planet.
TMD relies upon a number of different weapons systems, one of which
is already in operation (the Patriot PAC-2, a successor to the missiles
deployed with such famous inaccuracy during the Gulf War). The rest
are under development. They can be divided into two types: those
that target missiles in the early "boost phase," and those that
target missiles in later stages.
The later-stage systems also have two types of components, lower-tier
and upper-tier. These are meant to be a layered approach to defend
in the lower or upper atmosphere, and vary in their trajectory,
speed and potential distance. Lower-tier TMD systems include the
truck-mounted, short-range (600 km) Patriot PAC-2; the PAC-3, with
a longer range (1,500 km) and wider area under its "shield" (40
to 50 km); the MEADS (Medium-range Extended Air Defense System);
and the Navy Area Defense, a chance for another service to get in
on the funding with a short-range, ship-based system capable of
shielding 50 to 100 km.
Then there are the upper-tier, high-altitude TMD systems. THAAD
(Theater High Altitude Area Defense), whose spectacular test failures
predated those of NMD last year, is ground-based but transportable
by aircraft. It includes short and medium-range missiles with a
range of up to 3,500 km, and an umbrella of a few hundred kilometers.
The ship-based equivalent, with a similar range but larger shield,
is the Navy Theater Wide: It can only intercept very high missiles,
at an altitude above 80 to 100 km. A second generation, Navy Theater
Wide Block II, is planned for after 2010. Each upper-tier system
would have a larger defended area if a satellite-based missile tracking
system now being developed is deployed. Unlike THAAD, which was
exempted in the Clinton/Yeltsin agreement, Navy Theater Wide is
being developed in violation of the ABM treaty.
All of these systems propose to use technology similar to NMD.
But TMD, with its more immediate global reach, gets the Pentagon
closer to where it really wants to go: space.
The U.S. Space Command's
"Vision for 2020" pulls no punches about the intent or
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The U.S. Space Command's
"Vision for
2020" makes the Pentagon's intentions
clear: "dominating the space dimension
of military operations to protect U.S.
interests and investment."
U.S. SPACE COMMAND
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purpose of what the Pentagon is developing: "Dominating the space
dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment."
The Airborne Laser (ABL) system, a "boost phase" component of TMD,
is envisioned as a high-altitude laser. Its technology dovetails with
another project approved last December by the Department of Defense:
the Space-Based Laser. Both eventually will be able not only to intercept
missiles, but to attack fixed targets anywhere. A second space-based
laser, the Alpha High-Energy Laser, is already under development and
in testing.
These are the highest expressions of Theater Missile Defense, and
their clear intent is to control the world. As Sen. Bob Smith (R-New
Hampshire) says: "It is our manifest destiny [to control space].
You know we went from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United
States of America settling the continent and they call that manifest
destiny, and the next continent, if you will, the next frontier,
is space and it goes on forever."
The Pentagon's focus is not on the vision sold to the public of
protecting the country with NMD from attack by weapons that don't
exist, from dictators who won't live long enough or ever have enough
money to develop them. Instead, its goal is to enforce American
preferences and provide military protection for the U.S. economic
regime (i.e., to "protect U.S. interests and investment"). Institutions
like the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and
World Bank, as well as pacts like NAFTA and the FTAA, are intended
to enforce transnational corporate desires for economic and political
policies; the Pentagon is planning to ensure that nobody, anywhere,
steps out of line.
Beyond the ABM treaty, the United States plans, with much less
domestic opposition, to run roughshod over another, even more basic
pact: the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the fundamental international
agreement on the use of space. On November 20, 2000, the U.N. General
Assembly, in a resolution titled "Prevention of an Arms Race in
Outer Space," reiterated that 1967 pact; 163 countries supported
the resolution, and only three--the United States, Israel and Micronesia--abstained.
"Our affiliates in Japan, South Korea and the Middle East understand
the implications [of TMD], because that's where the United States
wants to deploy it first," says Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the
Global Network Against Weapons
and Nuclear Power in Space. "Developing NMD is a Trojan horse
for the real Star Wars that's coming down the road."
Gagnon sees TMD, not NMD, as the route to this apocalyptic long-term
vision. "[Support of TMD] seems to be endemic within the Democratic
Party," he adds. "They're against NMD deployment, but they think
[TMD] deployment is the way to go to protect our troops and ships,
when in fact it's very much part of the U.S. first-strike policy
in places like the Pacific."
And because Democrats like Biden enthusiastically support TMD under
the guise of protecting U.S. troops aboard, Gagnon charges, even
peace groups like Project
Abolition, Peace Action
and the Council for a Livable World--all
of which oppose Bush on NMD--are refusing to take a stand against
TMD or the R&D efforts that Gagnon predicts eventually will make
some sort of space-based system inevitable.
At the conclusion of George W. Bush's tense trip to Europe in June,
the United States was handed a completely predictable threat from
Russian President Vladimir Putin: If the United States persists
in planning to violate international ballistic missile agreements,
so will Russia. One of the biggest criticisms leveled at NMD is
that it will trigger a new, global arms race. That criticism has
had an impact on congressional consideration of NMD, as has the
price tag and the succession of favorably rigged but still disastrous
test results.
Yet none of those problems seem to be slowing down the funding
for research, development and deployment of TMD. In an interview
after Bush's Europe trip, Biden was explicit on this point: "No
one is saying don't spend the money on the research. No one is saying
don't continue down this road."
Would any of it work? Who knows? TMD might not intercept missiles
very well, but it will unquestionably succeed in enraging the world
and enriching military contractors. The smoke you smell is a combination
of your tax dollars being burned, and the torches of 6 billion angry
people marching up the hill toward our castle. ![](/global/end.gif)
For more information on Theater Missile Defense, visit the Web
sites of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in
Space (www.space4peace.org),
the Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org),
the Council for a Livable World (www.clw.org)
and the Center for Defense Information (www.cdi.org).
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