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Southampton Papers in International Policy (SPIP)

Published by the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, Department of Politics,University of Southampton.

The Centre bears the name of Lord Mountbatten (1900-1979) whose Papers are housed at theUniversity of Southampton.

ISBN 0 85432 747 9

© Mountbatten Centre for International Studies June 2001

All rights reserved

The views expressed in this monograph are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect theviews of the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies; the University of Southampton; or anyindividual or organization associated with them.

CONTENTS

About the Authors iv

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1

INTRODUCTION 3

PART ONEESTABLISHING EBMD 5The Positions of Key European States 5Collective Assessments and Responses to Threats 8The Consequences of US Policy 8

PART TWOSYSTEM ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER TECHNICAL ISSUES 10Defining the Requirements for EBMD 10

The Defended Area 10The Target Array 11Requirements of Effectiveness 11The Link With Other Missile Defence Systems 11The Russia Question 11

A Shopping List for EBMD: The Options and the Candidates 12Territorial Shield 12Sea-based EBMD 13

Boost Phase Intercept 13Architecture Options for Europe 14Procurement and Development of EBMD: Constraints and Opportunites 15

Technology Transfer Constraints 15Europe and the US 16Europe and Russia 16Early Warning 17Simulation and Testing 17

Implementing EBMD: Command, Control and Communications (C3) 17NATO’s Current Missile Defence Programme 18

NATO’s TMD Feasibility Study 19

PART THREEEBMD AND RUSSIA 20Russia and Deterrence 20Russia and Models of EBMD 21Policy Implications: Russia and European Security 21Policy Implications: Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control 22Policy Implications: Non-proliferation 23

PART FOUREBMD AND ‘STATES OF CONCERN’ 24Targeting Strategies for ‘States of Concern’ 24

Military Targeting 24Political Targeting 24

Deterrent Strategies for ‘States of Concern’ 24ICBM Attack on Long-Range Countervalue Targets 24Countervalue and Counterforce Attack on Nearby Allies 25

PART FIVEEBMD AND CHINA 26EBMD and China 27

PART SIXCONCLUSIONS 28

References and Notes 31

About the Authors

Mr. Ian R. Kenyon

Ian Kenyon is Visiting Senior Research Fellow atthe Mountbatten Centre for International Studiesat the University of Southampton. He served in theUK Diplomatic Service from 1974-97, holdingvarious positions including First Secretary, UKDisarmament Delegation, Geneva (1976-78);Assistant Head (1982-83) and then Head of theNuclear Energy Department, Foreign andCommonwealth Office (1983-85); and from 1988-92Deputy Leader of the UK Disarmament Delegation,Geneva. From 1993-97 he was the ExecutiveSecretary of the Preparatory Commission forOrganization of the Prohibition of ChemicalWeapons. He holds a BSc in Chemical Technologyfrom Edinburgh University.

Dr. Michael L. Rance

Michael Rance is currently an IndependentConsultant specialising in ballistic missile defence,weapons systems and international defenceco-operation. In December 2000, he retired fromUK’s MoD where, since 1995, he held the post ofDirector of the Directorate of Science (BMD). From1991 to 1995 he was a diplomat in the BritishEmbassy in Washington as Counsellor for DefenceScience & Equipment.

Professor John Simpson

John Simpson is the Founding Director of theMountbatten Centre for International Studies and

Programme Director of the Programme forPromoting Nuclear Non-Proliferation. Since 1990he has been Professor of International Relations atthe University of Southampton. From 1982-84 heserved as the UK representative on the UNSecretary-General’s Study Group on ConventionalDisarmament; in 1985 he was a member of the UKdelegation to the UNESCO conference in Sofia; andmore recently was an advisor to the UK delegationto the Preparatory Committee session for the 2000NPT Review Conference in 1999 and also to the 2000NPT Review Conference. He has served as aconsultant to the UK Ministry of Defence ArmsControl Unit; sat on the UN Secretary-General’sAdvisory Board for Disarmament Matters from1993-8; and in 1999 was a member of the TokyoForum for Nuclear Non-Proliferation andDisarmament.

Dr. Mark Smith

Mark Smith is a Research Fellow at theMountbatten Centre for International Studies,University of Southampton, UK. He holds a BA inPolitics from the University of East Anglia, and aMasters in Strategic Studies from the University ofWales, Aberystwyth. Whilst at Aberystwyth, hewas also a Research Assistant on the NuclearHistory Program, researching British nuclearstrategy 1945-64. He gained his PhD for a thesis onNATO enlargement, subsequently published asNATO Enlargement During the Cold War: Strategyand System in the Western Alliance.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• The current BMD debate in the European NATOstates differs significantly from that of the 1980s.While European states may agree with the US onmany of the technical evaluations of the WMDthreat, they differ in their judgements of itstiming, significance and the methods of dealingwith it.

• For many of these European states, the issue ofacquiring a similar type of missile defence to thatproposed for the United States, namely onecovering all their territory (an EBMD), is just noton their security agenda, nor do they want it tobe.

• The most likely trigger for a debate on EBMD willbe a US proposal to push ahead with an NMD,and to offer to share the technology withEuropean NATO states.

• An EBMD debate would inevitably open uppolitically significant gaps between the EuropeanNATO states. Fault lines seem likely to occur infour areas: imminence of the threat; forceprojection outside of NATO-Europe; deterrence ofRussian capabilities, and industrial partnershipissues.

• Many European would see such a debate as beinglinked to the future of NATO. They may thus feelpressured to go along with considering an EBMDeven if they see no pressing need for it.

• Once the United States makes a decision toproceed with NMD, the European states, bothwithin and outside NATO, will be subject toconflicting pressures from the United States andRussia. These would probably take the form ofeither accepting US arguments for its need of anNMD, or developing a closer and more directpolitical relationship with Russia to neutralise itsthreatened political effects for European security.

• European concerns over Russian responses to aUS decision would focus in particular upon theINF Treaty and the MTCR.

• The impact of an EBMD upon Russia appears tobe heavily dependent upon the assimilation ofRussia into a constructive US-Russia-NATOrelationship, perhaps, inter alia, involving ithaving the role of a provider of technology andother assistance in building an EBMD. In itsabsence, Russia may regard the US-NATOpartnership and the combination of NMD andEBMD as devices to give the partners unfetteredfreedom to intervene in the affairs of otherregions using their advanced conventionalweapons.

• System architecture should figure large in anydebate on EBMD. It will be dependent uponwhich states wish to be defended; the type ofsystem adopted; and the availability of techno-logy from either the United States or Russia.

• Participation in an EBMD would determinewhere its facilities, such as radars, interceptors,command and control systems and otherelements would be situated. This in turn wouldgenerate perceived vulnerabilities to pre-emptivestrikes and to debris from interceptions. Both ofthese issues are likely to be highly sensitivepolitically.

• The choice of architecture, whether territorialshield or boost-phase intercept, would revolvearound the availability of the technical buildingblocks for each type of system and its politicalimplications.

• Boost-phase has considerable politicalattractions, as it is capable of being targetedagainst specific states: it also has the potential tobe a joint European NATO/US system, in contrastto a non-space based territorial shield. However,it would have to be near-automatic in operation,while the political decision to deploy such asystem into a threatening region might provedifficult to take.

• A territorial shield EBMD would need to bedesigned to address a range of ballistic missilethreats, and thus would need to consist of severaldifferent systems [short, medium and long-range]integrated together, a problem that does notconfront either a US land-based NMD or aspace-based system.

• EBMD would also necessitate a single Europeancommon command and control structure. Europeis not a single state and, without that politicalcontext, the necessary infrastructure,procurement and command and control decisionsto create an integrated NATO EBMD along USNMD lines appear too difficult to contemplate.This also implies that any US offer oftechnological partnership in an EBMD may behighly problematic.

• Without the further development of politicalintegration in Europe, an EBMD may not beachievable, and thus logically an EBMD linked tothe EU may be more feasible than one linked toNATO. Yet while an EU-Europe might offer amore permissive political infrastructure for thedevelopment and deployment of an EBMD, itsnature, technological base and motivations would

probably be significantly different from aNATO-based EBMD.

• Nevertheless, it may be useful to discuss conceptsfor an EBMD system that would facilitateadaptation; that were layered; which might beaffordable; and which would have a modern, openarchitecture. Such a system could then form thebasis for an effective EBMD if, at some futurepoint in time, the political processes of Europehad proceeded to the point where such acompletely integrated EBMD was possible.

• For the “states of concern”, regional conflictappears to be the main driver of missileproliferation, and thus their response to EBMDis unlikely to be to abandon development ofmissiles with increasing range. Moreover,EBMD might serve to justify and accelerate suchproliferation, especially if the deployment of aboost-phase system made the identity of targetstates transparent.

• China seems unlikely to a driver for EBMD, butat the same time it is difficult to see how EBMD

would be a driver for Chinese nuclear or otherdefence policies, except through perceptions thatit was a political and military extension of a USNMD.

• Any future NATO debate on US NMD and EBMDmust recognise the unique geographical,technical and political challenges of extending USmissile defence technology to its European NATOallies. NATO needs to explore the detailedoperational requirements for such a system, in asimilar way to the process it has just initiated fora TMD.

• This intra-NATO process could also becomplemented by a NATO-Russian co-operativethreat reduction initiative, and by movingforward with the MTCR Code of Conduct AgainstMissile Proliferation/Russian GCS discussions,to create an alternative, politically driven path toaddress the problem of opaque missileproliferation, and by extension opaqueintentions.

2 The Prospects for European Ballistic Missile Defence

INTRODUCTION

The arrival of the Bush Administration in theUnited States was accompanied by an inaugurationspeech that pledged “we will build our defencesbeyond challenge, less weakness invite challenge.We will confront weapons of mass destruction, sothat a new century is spared new horrors”. Thisappears to make it inevitable that, for the third timein the post-war era, missile defences will be at theheart of the global and European security debate.

The first such debate, in the 1950s and 1960s,concerned the priorities to be given to a land and airbased anti-aircraft, and then anti-missile, defence ofnational territories, cities and nuclear deterrentbases by the United States, Britain, and NATO.This came to an end with the ratification of the ABMTreaty, and the acceptance of Mutual AssuredDestruction (MAD) as the basis for future strategicstability. The second debate, the Reagan-era SDIcontroversy from 1983-8, grew out of an innate USdesire to recreate the inviolability of its homelandthat it had enjoyed prior to the missile age, and theapparent prospect of new nuclear and spacetechnologies that might make the defence of both theUS and NATO Europe feasible. The programmewas based on a concept of “common defence”, andthe co-operative development of the necessarytechnologies through memoranda of understandingbetween the US and its allies.

A common thread in all three debates is thecombination of heightened US concerns overpotential threats (immediate, medium and longterm), and the timelines of possible militaryresponses to them. A second common theme is thepotent political effects of even the most preliminarydebates. The very act of promoting SDI hadsignificant effects on the contemporary strategicsituation, even though the technologies that weredriving the debate remained decades away fromdeployment. NMD involves major technologicaluncertainties, but its political effects have been bothinstant and global.

Despite these similarities, the context of thecurrent debate over NMD, and any future one overa European ballistic missile defence (EBMD), is verydifferent from that of the previous two in several keyrespects:• There is no longer a consensus between the

United States and European NATO or EUmembers on the ordering of the security threatswhich face them. Unlike the Cold War period, theUSSR nuclear threat no longer acts as a common

cause of concern to generate a sense of shared fateif war should occur;

• The current non-nuclear technology of NMDcannot easily be extended to cover Europe, or betransplanted into the European theatre, sinceNMD is concerned with ICBM intercept and theICBM threat to Europe is currently regarded asminimal. Thus the political aspirations of theBush administration to offer a common defencefor Europe and the United States differ radicallyfrom the technical realities of what is possible, asdoes the scope for co-operative development;

• EU and NATO European states base keyelements of their security, especially againstWMD, upon sustaining the fabric of the existingcooperative arms control regimes. The currentUS administration is inclined to minimise thiselement in its security calculus, and emphasiseself-help instead;

• Since 1993, philosophical divisions have openedup between the United States and Europe overhow to handle missile and WMD proliferation.This is one example of the broader issue ofdefining and establishing a desirable futurerelationship with Russia, China and potentialproliferators. Thus decisions on NMD andEBMD involve wider questions of internationalorder, as well as the specifics of missileproliferation and defence;

• NMD and EBMD threaten to play the same rolein the 2000s as the neutron bomb and INFmissiles played in the late 1970s and 1980s: acoded language for debates over the future ofNATO, and the political and military relationshipbetween the US and European states. Thus apolitical priority to sustain alliance solidaritycould lead to policies on missile defence that aremilitarily, economically and strategicallysub-optimal, if not self-defeating.

Together with these changes in political andstrategic context, three recent developments havecombined to make an examination of the prospectsfor an EBMD timely. First, the robust commitmentto NMD deployment by the Bush Administrationmeans that European states are going to becompelled to think seriously about how such adeployment affects their own security calculus.This will depend in part on how the United Statespursues NMD, and the effect this has on theinternational security environment: in particular,the consequences of NMD for arms control andmultilateral non-proliferation will be important.

Second, both the United States and Russia havepublicly claimed that they are willing to transfertheir missile defence technology to European statesfor the construction of an EBMD. Third, theproliferation of ballistic missile technology meansthat long-range capabilities are likely to emerge onthe south-east periphery of Europe.

Taken together, these three developmentsmean that, whether they wish to or not, Europeanstates will need to make decisions about missiledefence, even if they are the negative ones ofchoosing not to embark upon it. This paper hastherefore been written to shed some light on someof the currently understudied elements of theinternational missile defence debate, namelywhether the European NATO members want amissile defence for themselves, whether they needit, and whether the technology exists to give it tothem. It identifies the differentiated politicalconcerns over these issues that exist within Europe,and between Europe and the United States. Thesedifferences arise from history and geographicalposition; the central role that arms controlagreements, especially the INF Treaty, may play inthe way these concerns could evolve; the centralityof Russian perceptions and actions with regards tothis matter and the comparative irrelevance of thoseof China; and the very different perceptions of threatand system architecture that exist when missile

defence is viewed from the stance of those in Europeand the United States.

The first section of this report highlights thesedifferences, and indicates the developments thatwould be necessary for European states to make adecision in principle to construct an EBMD system.The second section, assuming that this decision hasbeen taken, looks at the formidable techno-politicalproblems that would confront any attempt toconstruct EBMD. In other words, these two sectionsanswer the questions of (a) what would stimulateEuropean states to want a missile defence system;and (b) what would the system look like? For thepurposes of this report, we take a “European”missile defence to mean one designed to protect thenational territories of NATO’s European members.In the following three sections, we examine theconsequences of such a decision: assuming thatEBMD has become desirable and practical, whatwould its probable impact be? We concentrate on itseffects on relations with Russia, China, and themissile-possessing ‘states of concern’ on thesouth-eastern periphery of the Alliance. In effect,we have set ourselves to provide a Europeananalysis of the prospects for missile defence, usingthe criteria set by former President Clinton: is therea threat, is defence cost-effective and feasible, andwill it have a manageable impact on strategicstability?


PART ONEESTABLISHING EBMD

Any analysis of the perceptions of European andother states on establishing an EBMD system todefend the homelands of the European NATOmembers must distinguish between two possiblestarting points. One is a first–order politicaldecision in principle to deploy such a system, similarto that taken by President Clinton in 1996. Theother is the second-order reactions of the EuropeanNATO states to decisions on the detailedarchitecture of the system, when parochial ‘not inmy back yard’ issues over the siting of systemfacilities and other such matters may colour specificnational views concerning the system. Thesepractical questions, concerning system architectureand implementation, are dealt with in the nextsection. In this opening section, our main focus isupon the requirements for a decision in principle todevelop an EBMD. This entails going beyondcurrent NATO discussions on procuring a TheatreMissile Defence System (TMD), to consider adefence of NATO European territory as a whole.

Currently, there is no active public debate onwhether such a defence is desirable or feasible.Thus any attempt to identify the factors whichwould colour judgements on this matter in NATOstates is inevitably speculative. Less speculativeare the differences that are already visible betweenthe US and its European allies over how they viewthe need for a US NMD; its impact upon strategicstability; and the consequences of this US policy forEurope. As a result, this section examines theconsiderations that will influence the thinking of theNATO European states, both individually andcollectively, about the idea of an EBMD system, andwhat developments might lead them to support it.

The Positions of Key European States

Given their geographical position and history, it isinevitable that individual European states will havedifferent perspectives on both a US NMD and anEBMD. As debate has already been joined on NMD,evaluating how individual states will be affected bythis is markedly simpler than in the case of anEBMD. With the exception of Britain andDenmark, none seem likely to be asked to providesupport facilities for a US NMD, although this iscontingent upon the technology used. Thus thosetwo states alone seem to be in a position to bedirectly affected by, and to be able to exert somedirect political influence over, US policy.

The initial reaction of both states, as with allthe allies, has been to regard such decisions as bothcurrently unnecessary and dependent upon theirfuture context — in particular whether the ABMTreaty has been amended by mutual agreementbetween the US and Russia. Recent debates in theDanish and Greenland parliaments both stressedthat satisfactory amendment of the ABM Treatywas a necessary precondition of consent over use offacilities at Thule, and the Greenland parliamentwent so far as to say that permission would bewithheld if the ABM Treaty was abrogated.1 TheUK position similarly hinges on the amendment ofthe Treaty, rather than its abrogation, as aprecondition for co-operation. However, if consentwere given, this would make Britain and Greenlandoutposts of US territorial defence. This is alreadygenerating public concerns that they would becomethe targets of an asymmetric attack by a ‘state ofconcern’, if the arguments on the need for an NMDthe US were also to be extended to these states.

Yet both faced similar threats during the ColdWar when they hosted US nuclear bases and stagingposts, and such a threat would probably be viewedas having a lesser risk of implementation than thoseof the past. In addition, Britain can respond to anythreat or use of WMD against its territory or forceswith counterthreats from its own nuclear deterrentcapability. This might also be regarded asneutralising threats arising from UK strategicmilitary presence in areas of regional conflict, suchas the Middle East. While both states couldconceivably refuse the US the use of their facilitiesat Thule and Fylingdales, and thereby make NMDdeployment more difficult, to do so would mean aredrawing of the boundaries and terms of theirexisting defence co-operation with the US in anexceptional manner.2

In the case of the emergence of EBMD as anitem on the NATO or EU agenda, some guidance forpossible attitudes of key European states towards itcan be found in government or parliamentaryreports on the implications of WMD and missileproliferation, and possible ways to respond,published in France, Germany and Britain. Themost striking difference between these reports andthe US equivalents is that none of the Europeanreports advocated national missile defences (ofEurope or the US) as the best way forward, eventhough they all acknowledged proliferation to be alegitimate and growing cause for concern.

The German report was published by itsintelligence service in October 1999.3 Thisacknowledged that a direct missile threat to theFederal Republic could emerge from the MiddleEast (Iran, Iraq and Syria) “in the medium to longterm”, and cited the export of MRBMs to such statesby North Korea and the possible re-emergence ofIraq as more near term problems. The report sawpotential WMD missile proliferation threats asbeing driven by regional security threats, but did notovertly connect these threats with European states,individually or collectively. There was thus noanalysis of why one of these ‘states of concern’ mightchoose to launch a long-range WMD missile atGermany. The report was also revealing in itsprescriptions for dealing with such a situation.These focused almost exclusively on arms controland export controls. Engagement, rather thanmissile defence, was seen as the best option fordealing with missile proliferation and itsconsequences.

German views on US NMD were articulatedlast year by the Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer,in a speech to the Bundestag.4 He emphasised thatthe US ought to consult with its allies before makingfirm decision on deployment, and expressed concernover the possible effect of NMD on arms control andnon-proliferation regimes and on the cohesion of theNATO Alliance. This unease about the implicationsof the US developing missile defences manifesteditself not only in these public statements, but also inthe ambivalent German support for the MediumExtended Air Defence System (MEADS) systemover the latter half of 2000.

There also appears to be a further element inGerman perceptions of NMD, and of a possibleEBMD based upon US technology, that has beenarticulated less vociferously, but may neverthelesssignificantly colour views of both systems. Thisconcerns the industrial implications of engagingwith the US in such activities. There appears to begreat sensitivity in Germany to the fact that they,and Britain, were persuaded to give visible politicalsupport to SDI in 1986 by signing a Memorandumof Understanding on joint development oftechnology and the participation of their defenceindustries in the project. Germany regards itself ashaving little, if any, industrial benefits from it. Themulti-million dollar contracts just did not appear,which led to accusations of political bad-faith by theUS. There is clearly a determination not to seehistory repeat itself. This concern may link into amore general German readiness to considerco-operative activities with Russia and other statesof the former USSR, as seen in its insistence onhaving Ukrainian design considered in thecompetition for the European Future Heavy LiftAircraft.

Thus Germany is likely to be receptive to theRussian proposals to make an EBMD a jointEuropean-Russian enterprise, incorporating bothUS and Russian technology, as well as cautious ofany US attempt to buy the European allies off bytechnology sharing offers over NMD or an EBMD.This caution was noticeable in Germany’s response

to the Bush Administration’s rather vague offers toinclude NATO allies in US missile defence plans.The response was conciliatory on NMD, butSchroeder did stipulate that Germany should not be“excluded from the technology and the knowledge ofthe technology”. This was an echo of the “notechnological one-way street” condition thatGermany placed on the SDI deal, and reflected aconcern to be treated as an equal.5 This meansknowledge-sharing by the US, and not a simple caseof Germany buying technology off-the-shelf.Memories of how Washington’s reluctance to sharePatriot technology caused genuine problems for theMEADS programme are likely to be strong.6

French defence planning has undergone a“southward reorientation” to take account of WMDand missile proliferation in developing states sincethe Defence White Paper of 1994.7 The FrenchSenate Report of June 2000 accepted thatlong-range missile capabilities would emerge in theMiddle East at some point in the future, but, likeBritain, France places greater faith in the deterrentpower of its nuclear weapons against small ‘roguestates’ than does the US. Indeed the BritishParliamentary Select Committee appeared to speakfor most European states in stating that “we areconcerned that the US over-emphasises thecapability component of the threat equation, whenit comes to assessing the extent of the threat it faces,and attaches too little importance to intention”, andargued that the negative impact of NMD on theABM Treaty and arms control would outweigh anytangible defence benefits. Its recommendation wasthat Britain should “encourage the USA to seekother ways of reducing the threat it perceives”.

France and Britain occupy a unique position inrelation to the need for missile defences, in that theyare nuclear-weapon states (NWS), and thus havetheir own means of responding in kind to WMDmissile threats. They are also the only Europeanmembers of NATO with significant capabilities toproject military power outside the NATO area.While for many European states missile defence isassociated solely with defence of the homeland,these states also have the requirement to provideTMD for forces abroad.

However, the British and French faith indeterrence is not unqualified. A recent report by theBritish Ministry of Defence argued that deterrenceat the sub-strategic level was in need ofdevelopment, in light of ballistic missileproliferation and the possibility that “some statesmay not respond to deterrence as we might expect”.The latter concern was focused on instances ofirrational or unattributable attacks, but the threatunder discussion was to force deployments overseas,not to the UK homeland.8 This is particularly thecase when facing militarily inferior forces, where ahostile government may initiate the use of chemicaland/or biological weapons in asymmetric response.9

This appears to be as far as official thinking isprepared to go.

The southern tier members, Greece, Italy andTurkey, who are closest to the ‘states of concern’have so far made little or no public comment on


NMD or the possibility of EBMD, which in itself isa revealing fact. However, some information aboutlikely responses can be gleaned from their academicand NGO communities.

Greek threat perception usually focuses onTurkey and instability in the Balkans, and it is onlyrelatively recently that WMD and missileproliferation have begun to feature in DefenceMinistry White Papers. Given the Greekacquisition of Russian S-300 TMD systems (whichhave the capability to intercept high-altitude cruiseand short-range ballistic missiles) it can beanticipated that the reaction to a NATO TMDsystem would be sympathetic, especially if it madeuse of its Russian-supplied TMD systems. But it isalso likely that any proposal to develop an areadefence system would raise Greek concerns over itsgood relations with the Arab states in the EasternMediterranean, as some of its drivers will almostcertainly be seen to originate in this area.

Italy is still the only NATO member to havecome under direct ballistic missile attack in thepost-war era. Although this attack was on a verysmall scale (a couple of Libyan missilesunsuccessfully aimed at Lampedusa in 1986), itpossessed all the characteristics of current USconcerns and NMD rationales: a limited strike withunsophisticated missiles, upon an ally of the UnitedStates, from an archetypal ‘rogue state’. Yet theItalian response was to mobilise diplomatic andpolitical initiatives against Libya, not military ones,and Italy has shown no overwhelming interest inacquiring missile defence technology beyondparticipating in the MEADS programme, eventhough it will be among the first European NATOmembers to become vulnerable to intermediate-range missiles such as the Iranian Shahab.Contrast this with the US response to theTaepodong test of 1998, and the likely reaction inWashington if the DPRK were to launch a missile inthe direction of, say, the Aleutian Islands base in thePacific. To reiterate an earlier general point, Italyclearly prefers to deal with such threats primarilythrough political, rather than military means.

Turkey’s prime concerns over missile defencesfocus on an overwhelming desire to preserve theexisting non-proliferation regimes, the US-Russianarms control regime and in particular the INFTreaty, and the cohesion of NATO. All of these will,in the Turkish perspective, be jeopardised by the USNMD, and, by implication, any EBMD linked to it.In the first place, Russia and China are perceived aslikely to withdraw their support fornon-proliferation regimes if NMD is deployed (seebelow), and that is likely to benefit the ‘states ofconcern’, most of whom are on Turkey’s strategicperiphery. Second, if the ABM Treaty is abrogated,Russia has threatened to withdraw from the INFTreaty. The implementation of this threat is seenas having serious implications for Turkey, as it couldgenerate new missile threats to its north and eastfrom Russia itself; from the east from Russianmissiles stationed in the Central Asian Republics,and from the south if this led to Russia abandoningits MTCR commitments and selling such systems to

states in these areas. Third, the emergence ofdifferent strategic postures within NATO (i.e. withthe United States deploying missile defences but theEuropean states not doing so), is seen as likely tohave a corrosive effect upon Alliance cohesion,which is again to Turkey’s detriment.

Turkey, in common with other NATOmembers, has not publicly discussed the possibilityof an EBMD, though it regards itself as currentlyunder threat from the WMD that might be deliveredby short-range missiles based in states to its south.Uniquely among NATO members, Turkey has topractice central, rather than extended, deterrencein its threat assessment of missile capabilities.Currently, Turkey uses its land-air forces and thethreat of invasion as a deterrent against missileattack. It therefore has an active, if at the momentlargely theoretical, interest in TMD systems tocombat missile capabilities that might threaten theoperation of its land forces. In other words, itsgeostrategic concerns are different to those of otherNATO members, but its missile defence prioritiesare fundamentally similar: missile defences are onlyreally required to defend military forces, notnational territory.

However, as the current threat appears to befrom biological and chemical weapon capabilitiescarried on air-breathing systems, its priority needseems to be for an enhanced air-defence system,although if its fears prove well founded, its interestin a TMD system, either independent of, orintegrated into, an EBMD system is likely to grow.In addition, an abrogated INF Treaty would offerTurkey and other European states additionalincentives to consider such a system. Indeed, suchan event, while generating no new security concernsin the US, would certainly do so in Europe. Thus aUS abrogation of the ABM Treaty, leading to aRussian withdrawal from the INF Treaty could havethe effect of forcing European NATO states such asTurkey to consider an EBMD – or to come to anindependent accommodation on such matters withRussia.

Turkey’s interest in a TMD system whichwould have a national defence capability points tothe possibility that different perceptions ofvulnerability could lead specific states to favourdifferent strategies for dealing with such threats.Consequently, a mixture of deterrence and militarycounter-proliferation strategies may be favoured inone region of the NATO area, and of deterrence andpolitical non-proliferation policies in another.10

Berndt Kubbig has characterised this dichotomy asa technology-first approach versus a diplomacy-firstone.11 This suggests that unless the Europeansthemselves can agree on a common strategy tohandle future missile proliferation, some states inNATO Europe may find themselves de-coupled fromtheir European neighbours. Although an EBMDthat only covered part of the European NATO area(say, the southern tier) may be technically feasible,its political consequences may be extremely divisive,especially if the reluctance of states to participatearises from differences over strategies to deal withthe threat, and willingness to invest resources in a

Southampton Papers in International Policy No. 4 7

military response to it. The above discussion, whenlinked with additional issues such as the emergenceof European Security and Defence Identity and theRapid Reaction Force, suggest that it is by no meansa foregone conclusion that all the European NATOstates, and more particularly all the EU states,would be prepared to follow a US lead over missiledefence.

Collective Assessments and Responsesto Threats

Arguments on the nature of the threat are centralto differences between the US and the Europeansover missile defences. Hubert Vedrine, the FrenchForeign Minister, remarked in May 2000 that he didnot see the missile threat as “dire enough” towarrant deploying missile defences, and thisappears to be a widely-held view among Europeanstates. These doubts have been accompanied byscepticism that the US will become vulnerable toICBMs from ‘rogue states’ in the way predicted bythe Rumsfeld Commission. European members ofNATO and the US thus exhibit visible differencesover their perceptions of the threats arising frommissile proliferation. One facet of this washighlighted in a report by the Atlantic Council of theUnited States, which stated that: “the mostpervasive differences in threat perception across theAtlantic derive from a different weighting oftechnological capabilities as opposed to politicalintentions”.12 For the possession of a capability doesnot in itself constitute a security threat: that isderived from perceptions of the political relation-ships between a ‘state of concern’ and others.

This greater emphasis by the European alliesof the US on political intent in making threat assess-ments helps to explain why the US encounteredsuch difficulties in generating significant alliedsupport for its own policy of acquiring an NMD, evenafter it had made a case for ICBM capabilities in‘rogue states’ being closer to deployment than hadbeen initially thought. Another reason fordifferences in threat perceptions is that, as Karp haspointed out, evaluating missile capabilities is not anexact science. “Even seemingly specific character-istics like maximum thrust, payload, accuracy, andreliability ultimately are not mathematicalstatements of fact but of general parameters ... Inlieu of numerous and carefully-monitored tests orwar-time experience, there can be no clear answers,only interpretations”.13 One consequence of thisdifference is that the development of a long-rangemissile capability by states on the periphery ofNATO Europe seems unlikely in itself to createautomatically a pro-EBMD constituency withinEurope. For as the US Atlantic Council reported,“until there is a real prospect of a ballistic missilethreat to European countries from a state thatEuropeans see as potentially harbouring ill designson them in a crisis, their inclination will be to arguethat intentions are more important thancapabilities and that to base policy responses tooheavily on the latter risks undesirable andunnecessary strategic consequences”.14

History also appears to indicate that, just asEuropean states prefer to use political criteria inassessing security threats, they also display a clearpreference for deploying political and diplomatic,rather than military, responses when threats areseen to exist. They have tended to view nucleardeterrence as inherently political, involving themanipulation of choices, and have placed greaterfaith in its continued efficacy, and that of inter-national regimes, than the US sometimes seems todo. This difference was highlighted in a 1999 NorthAtlantic Assembly report which argued that: “it isnot clear why deterrence, which proved so effectiveat deterring the Soviet Union, is not applicable tolesser powers whose own capability to strike theUnited States is in doubt and who would not survivea retaliatory attack by the United States”.15

European states thus appear to favourqualitatively different methods to the US when bothdefining and responding to security threats, as aconsequence perhaps of both their historicalexperiences and different geographical positions.Moreover, the latter suggests that, even if what theyjudged to be an agreed missile threat to Europe,involving both capabilities and hostile intent, wereto emerge, it would not automatically generatestrong support for an EBMD, and thus enable thenecessary political will to be mobilised to pushthrough such a programme. One conclusion to bedrawn, therefore, is that neither perceptions of theexisting WMD threat to European states from‘states of concern’, nor the changes in that threatforecast in the 1999 NIE, are sufficient to generatean effective pro-EBMD constituency in the Alliance.For this to happen there would have to be a fairlycomprehensive change in both the strategic andpolitical circumstances of the European states. Andeven if the current vulnerability to Russian missilecapabilities were to be extended to other states, thegreater European emphasis on intentions dictatesthat it is political judgements that would have themost decisive influence over their EBMD policy,rather than concerns over the existence of technicalcapabilities.

The Consequences of US Policy

A US decision to deploy a limited NMD systemappears to be the event most likely to change theway Europeans think about missile defence. Itwould leave the US protected and its Europeanallies (far closer to the Middle Eastern ‘states ofconcern’) vulnerable. If the arguments of some USadvocates of NMD are applicable, this may generatefears that the sort of terror attacks that the US isseeking to combat may be deflected onto Europeanstates. In other words, a ‘state of concern’ mightforce restraint on the part of the US, as well aslimiting its basing options, by threatening one of itsunprotected NATO allies. Thus, even if theEuropean states feel that there is no threat to themat the moment from ‘states of concern’, the NMDactivities of the US might change thosecircumstances.16


At the moment, however, these issues arelargely theoretical, as the US does not have aworkable NMD, either in test or in deployment.Both boost phase and mid-course intercept conceptsbased on conventional kill mechanisms remainunproven. However the THAAD system, after somedifficult times, is now at the advanced developmentstage, and could be deployed as early as 2007,though doubts remain about its credibility.17

Despite this, many Europeans will be tempted todraw parallels with the experience of SDI in the1980s, which has retrospectively been seen asdriven less by creditable estimates of likelytechnological effectiveness than by dollars, armscontrol scepticism, and wishful thinking. Thereseems to be little evidence to suggest that the pastwill not repeat itself, with US disillusion withcontinued problems in developing NMD beingfollowed by a return to arms control.18

Deployment of NMD by the US may thus bethe single most influential factor in creating apro-EBMD constituency in NATO — though itmight also generate major political schisms withinthe Alliance and concerns about its future cohesion.For the principle objection to NMD, and possiblyalso EBMD, is not primarily that missile defence isless effective than political solutions as a way ofdealing with missile proliferation. It is more thatits effects elsewhere, principally the changes it mayinduce in Russian policy towards both Europe andpotential proliferators on the European periphery,may make the cure worse than the disease. JacquesChirac highlighted this when he argued that NMDrepresented an “invitation to proliferation”, in thatit would stimulate vertical proliferation in Russiaand China, and horizontal proliferation byencouraging them to engage in unconstrainedmissile exports.19

If these effects could be neutralised, negated ordo not materialise, Europeans may be more inclinedto think positively about NMD. There are alreadyindications that this is taking place. Despitecontinuing scepticism about NMD’s rationale andfeasibility — one French official recently described

it as “a virtual response to a virtual threat” — theBush Administration’s single-minded commitmentto deployment has produced a subtle shift in theEuropean position.20 The argument that NMDmight decouple the US from Europe has been quietlydropped: as one German official put it, “responsibleEuropeans have largely accepted the US point thatsome security against missiles will makeWashington more reliable in stepping up to acrisis”.21 Moreover, during the recent tour of Europeby US officials hoping to marshal support for NMD,a NATO official remarked that “The challenge forthe Europeans will be to turn the unappetizinginevitability of missile defence into an appetizingopportunity”.22 The “unappetizing inevitability”must be made acceptably stabilising by ensuringthat the current dual-track strategy of deterrenceand arms control can incorporate a third dimensionof missile defences. The “appetizing opportunity” istwofold. Firstly, the NATO interest in TMD and thenew Rapid Reaction Force have exposed Europeansstates to possible dangers to their out-of-area forcesand new ways to protect them. There are alreadyindications that the RRF has accelerated Europeaninterest in TMD.23 Secondly, the industrial spin-offbenefits of NMD are potentially lucrative: BritishAerospace and the French-German-Spanishconsortium EADS are reportedly negotiating toparticipate.

However, getting the allies to acquiesce in USNMD and its consequences is one thing, butpersuading them to want their own missile defencemay be another thing altogether, given theirpreference for other strategies. However, this is aquestion of emphasis: Europeans are notaxiomatically opposed to missile defence. USdeployment may, at worst, generate the sort ofthreats that European states currently regard asoverstated; at best, it may mean a seismic shift instrategic posture which they may feel compelled tokeep up with. Either way, US deployment of NMDis likely to exert more profound influence over anEBMD constituency than, say, an IRBMdeployment by Iran.


PART TWOSYSTEM ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER TECHNICAL ISSUES

In this section, we take as read a generalised will toprovide a missile defence for Europe at some futuretime, and thus assume that the first question —whether there is a threat — has been answered inthe affirmative. The preceding section makes clearthat a very particular set of conditions would needto be met for this to happen, and that it might be aquestion of whether there is a need for a system tomatch the deployment by the US, as well as, or evenrather than, a threat. Whatever the motivatingfactors behind a decision that EBMD might, inprinciple, be desirable, European states will beconfronted with the next two criteria on the list: isEBMD technologically feasible, and is itcost-effective? Whilst the threat criterion is inessence about perception, these two criteria areessentially practical questions.

Having made a decision in principle,prospective members would need to make somemore detailed decisions about precise requirements.For European states, the line between TMD andNMD is blurred, and they may well endorse DonaldRumsfeld’s recent remark that it is more accurateto talk of missile defence as a generic term, ratherthan make distinctions between ‘national missiledefence’ and ‘theatre missile defence’. This sectionbegins by highlighting the decisions aboutrequirements that would be faced, and then exploresthe technological options that would be availableonce those requirements had been decided upon. Itthen evaluates how European states might bestdeploy the technology, and explores how they mighthave a role in its development and transfer. Thesection concludes by looking at the unique — anddaunting — command and control challenges thatwould be attendant on EBMD’s implementation,and the current debate within the Alliance overmissile defence.

Defining the Requirements for EBMD

The nature of any EBMD system will depend onprecisely which states are involved, what theyrequire from such a defence, and what technology isavailable: in procurement parlance, the customersmust state a requirement. This section focuses onthe issues of membership and defencerequirements. Obtaining agreement among themany states likely to be involved will be a lengthyand difficult process. The following questions,though, are likely to be of central importance.

The Defended Area

The characteristics of an EBMD system willcertainly depend on the area required to be covered.Its command and control system will be complicatedenough in a simple scenario (see below), but mayhave to cope with countries not requiring coverage,or nations which require different levels of coverage.An early question must be which countriesconstitute Europe? A simple answer might be thosethat are in NATO. This would omit certain EastEuropean states, but even within NATO, it does notfollow that all members would be interested inmissile defence, with the same level of coverage, andwith command and control surrendered to a centralorganisation. States outside EBMD are unlikely tobe willing to host elements such as radars orlaunchers, nor could they take part in command andcontrol, and those that do not sign up need notexpect to be defended by those that do. However,neither membership nor non-membership willprevent debris from interceptions falling uponEuropean states.

Geographically and politically, a difficult issueis exemplified by France and Britain, who are likelyto want to retain their independent nucleardeterrents as their principal means of dealing with‘rogue state’ threats. Would France, for instance, bewilling to host radar or launchers for the defence ofthe rest of Europe if they were not inside EBMD?Each country must ask itself the same question.Only if nations are prepared to share assets formutual protection, rather than controlling andhosting systems for their own protection, will a costeffective EBMD be possible. Another examplemight be the forward siting of radar in, say, Turkey.This would provide invaluable early warning andtracking data for the rest of Europe, but might playlittle direct role in the defence of Turkey itself.

Moreover, if an EBMD is not to be a completeshield for the whole of Europe, its participants mustmake decisions about scale (wide area defence orfixed-point coverage), and purpose (protectingcivilian populations or military sites). Theprotection of small areas (say 10km diameter) wouldrequire a much less complex and advanced defencethan one designed for nation-wide territorialprotection. The larger the area to be protected, thefaster the interceptors need to be; the moreinterceptor locations will be needed; and the earlierinterceptions should be attempted. This issue —

what targets does Europe wish to protect? — is theprincipal determinant of system requirements,timescale and cost.

The Target Array

Clearly, short-range missiles demand differentdefence systems to those for longer-range ones; eachnation may be threatened by different missiles, andthe north European nations will come under threatsome years after those in the south. It will thus beessential to decide whether the system is to dealwith ‘rogue state’ missiles only, and not thosedeployed by Russia or China, even if they areaccidentally launched. The capabilities of ‘countriesof concern’ are undoubtedly growing, both fromindigenous developments and the proliferation oftechnology. For some years, their missiles willlargely have short to medium ranges, carryingsingle warheads (no MIRVs) on top of a single ortwo-stage liquid propellant rocket. Many will benon-separating, although those of the NoDongvariety do employ a separating warhead. In duecourse, solid propellant technology will become morecommon, giving greater mobility and higheracceleration. As ranges increase and missiles getlarger it is likely that fixed launcher sites will berequired. These will be more vulnerable to counterforce than mobile systems, which are much moredifficult to locate and attack.

What type of countermeasures these emergingmissile states employ and when they might beincorporated in their systems, remain obscure,especially if they can be developed out of sight of theWest’s intelligence gatherers. However, to developrobust, reliable, effective countermeasures withoutflight-testing is likely to be beyond the currentcapability of the ‘states of concern’. Unreliable,ineffective designs are much easier to field, yet thedefender must invest an enormous effort — muchlarger than the aggressor — to have a chance ofstaying ahead in the counter-countermeasuresgame.

Requirements of Effectiveness

At the outset, the impossibility of a leak-proofEBMD must be recognised. In recognising it, thequestion becomes: just how effective should adefence be? Will nations demand high levels ofeffectiveness and if so, how will these levels beexpressed? Minimisation of casualties is a likelypolitical objective, but it is almost impossible todesign a system on that basis, since the link betweencasualties on the ground, and defensive systemperformance is impossible to define, and thus thesame applies to its likely effectiveness.

US TMD and NMD systems have beendesigned on the basis of a high probability of ‘noleakers’, side-stepping the issue of casualties andground effects. This at least gives the designer theability to design and test a system, but it leaves openthe issue of what happens to the residue of debrisfrom an interception, and also recognizes thatoccasionally a missile will leak through the defence.Europe must face this issue of the overall system

effectiveness requirement from the outset. Difficultas it is to understand and explain the concepts ofrisk and probability, the politicians and public mustnot be deluded into believing in a leak-proof, zerocasualty guarantee.

The Link With Other Missile DefenceSystems

An effective EBMD can provide a major contributionto the defence of the US against Middle Easternthreats. Missiles from Iraq or Iran over-fly Europeon their way to the US.24 With sufficiently fastinterceptors (THAAD-like or NTW systems wouldnot cope) and good early warning and tracking, anEBMD system may be able to intercept the ICBM inits ascent phase. Even if an interception is notachievable, defence of the US is significantlyimproved using tracking data from Europe; indeed,this is precisely why Fylingdales was seen to berequired for NMD, and why a new X-band radar(XBR) in Europe becomes necessary, as the threatbecomes more sophisticated. However, there islittle prospect that a US NMD (at least theClinton-era ground-based version) can help todefend Europe, except perhaps from North Korea;the aggressor/target geography does not work.

The Russia Question

What assurance can be given that EBMD is not andcannot be a threat to the Russian strategic rocketforces? This issue is already prominent in Russianobjections to NMD. Can an EBMD be inherentlylimited, and seen to be so, or might it be expandedto handle hundreds of missiles, rather than just afew, simply by adding further elements (launchers,radars, software)? Outsiders find these questionsimpossible to answer, and insiders are unlikely tobe entirely open about the system’s limitations. Thesimple answer is that launchers and interceptorscan be added until the cash runs out. The realquestion is whether the radars and the commandand control processing and software can beenhanced in a similar manner without encounteringtechnical limits. A conventional answer to this isthat additional layers would be needed, includingspace-based directed energy weapons orinterceptors such as the SDI-era Brilliant Pebbles.What is not in the public domain is precisely at whatraid size, or threat complexity, the missile defencearchitecture would fail if it were enhanced simplyby adding more of the same elements. There willclearly be untold political difficulties if an EBMDcannot be shown to pose no threat to Russia,especially as the ‘rogue’ threat increases in numbersand sophistication, forcing an EBMD to evolve froma system of TMD capabilities deployed insouth-eastern states to an ICBM defence for thosestates further to the north and west.

Finally, the requirement needs to note whatEBMD is not. It is not a defence against cruisemissiles. It has no capability against terrorists orthe so-called suitcase bomb. It will not necessarilydefend those who don’t sign up, and, to repeat two


points from the previous discussion, it is not a threatto Russia and it can never be guaranteed leak-proof.

A Shopping List for EBMD: The Optionsand the Candidates

This process of deciding on the requirements ofEBMD is logical and systematic, but EBMDdecisions are unlikely to follow the process as it hasbeen described here. More likely, Europe will befaced with some sort of offer from the US, with theRussians making different offers in parallel.Missile defence systems — such as the modifiedClinton-era NMD, or upgraded Aegis systems, or AirBorne Lasers, or THAADs and PATRIOTs orRussian S-300s — will be advertised as “on theshelf” with each nation being tempted by suppliersto pick-and-mix for its own purposes. Such anapproach will be divisive, chaotic and unworkable.Ideally, the nations of Europe will attempt to agreeon a collective response to such an approach, ratherthan engage in making separate piece-meal dealswith the US and Russia, which will be strategicallydestabilising.

Unless entirely new weapon systems are to bedeveloped, and such systems take at least 15 yearsfrom invention to deployment, the candidatesystems for an EBMD are already in development,or can be evolved from existing systems. Whateverthe Bush administration has in mind, US proposalswill inevitably include either territorial shield orboost-phase intercept systems — or both.

Territorial Shield

This model of missile defence provides a barrier overpotential targets rather than over a potentialattacker. It has two sub-types: terminal interceptand midcourse intercept.

Terminal Intercept

This form of missile defence, which intercepts thetarget array as it re-enters the atmosphere, isespecially useful for defence of military forces andpoint defence of ‘missile dangerous’ areas. It isconsiderably less effective against longer-rangemissiles. Options are:• The US Army’s PATRIOT PAC-3 system. This

will be capable of intercepting ballistic missilesup to perhaps 1500km range, although it is bestsuited to those below 1000km range. It mightdefend a small town, an airfield, a port or amilitary site. The longer the range of theoffensive missile, the smaller the defended areaand the less effective PAC-3 becomes. Beyond aspecific range it will have no performance at all.However, this not a unique PATRIOT feature: nosystem can deal with all threats.

• The US Navy’s Aegis ships with the Navy AreaDefense (NAD), based on the Standard missile.This does a similar job to PAC3, but at sea, oron-shore when the ship is close enough.

• MEADS is a co-operative venture led by the USwith Italy and originally Germany. It is a mobilesystem for battlefield use aimed at many different

types of air target, including short-range ballisticmissiles. Its performance against ballisticmissiles will be similar to Patriot, indeed in itsfirst version will use the PAC-3 missile.

• The US Army’s Theater High Altitude AreaDefense system (THAAD). This is a totally newdevelopment based on some SDI technologies.The hit-to-kill missile is faster than PAC-3, worksbest at the edge of, or outside of, the atmosphereand, if it works as advertised, will defend areasup to about 100km in diameter. Its performanceagainst missiles beyond 3500km range is notknown, but is likely to fall off rapidly (in terms ofarea defended and probability of kill). Land-basedsystems such as THAAD, PAC-3 or the Russiansystems must position their launchers relativelyclose to the defended area, which might be quitesmall. THAAD’s coverage diminishes with therange of incoming missiles, becoming more of apoint defence at, say, 3000 to 4000 km, althoughthis feature might be partly overcome by usingradars located well forward.

• The US Navy’s Navy Theatre Wide (NTW)system, also based on Aegis ships, will employ anexo-atmospheric hit-to-kill vehicle (EKV) on topof a modified (faster) Standard missile. Furtherdevelopments, with a yet larger, faster booster,are claimed to approach the capabilitiesenvisaged for the Clinton-era NMD. Its crucialcapabilities are the enhanced acceleration andvelocity of the interceptor, and the capabilities ofthe ship borne radar. However, a new radar anda new missile would be needed to deal with thelonger-range missiles (4000-6000km) thatultimately will threaten the northern countries ofEurope.

Midcourse Intercept

This was the system being pursued by the ClintonAdministration during its final term in office. Itconsisted of: space based infra-red (IR) launchdetection satellites; early warning radars (includingat Thule, Greenland and Fylingdales, UnitedKingdom); new X-band radars; interceptorscarrying exo-atmospheric kill vehicles (EKVs) withIR and visible-band sensors; and a centralisedcommand and control system at Colorado Springs.Of all the systems discussed so far, it is the only onethat can counter ICBM-range missiles (i.e. greaterthan 5000km). A Clinton-era NMD-like system tocover Europe would be relatively insensitive to thelocation of the interceptors, but would benefit fromhaving forward-based radars to develop trackingand discrimination as early in the missile’strajectory as possible. Simple facts such as theearth’s curvature and lack of time prevent NMD-like interceptors from dealing with short-rangemissiles targeted thousands of kilometres forwardof the interceptor launchers. Hence the need forother types of missile defence system to defend thesouthern and south-eastern regions of Europe.

Other developed systems, such as the IsraeliARROW, may find application in certain nichescenarios that are similar to that facing Israel. It is


a movable, if not mobile, system employing a largeinterceptor using a warhead for lethality; it is not ahit-to-kill system. Advice and some technology hasbeen provided by the US. Its capability is againstshort to medium range, relatively simple ballisticmissiles. Its discrimination capability is notpublicly known.

For early warning, tracking and discrimina-tion, an optimum system employs multiple wave-bands, with infra-red and radar as a minimum. IRsatellites give first warning and a crude trajectoryprediction. Forward-based UHF radar givesenhanced early warning, tracking and somediscrimination. Higher frequency radars (X-band inthe US systems) provide discrimination and refinedtracking data. If all sensors can be nettedsatisfactorily, it might be said that, for EBMD or forany other missile defence system, there cannot betoo many sensors. The C centre can be anywhere butwill need a complex network of secure, protectedcommunications links to feed in all the sensor data,and similarly secure links out to all interceptor sites.

The territorial shield model of EBMD wouldhave to cover a wide geographical area withradically different proximities to potential threats.The key to its effectiveness would be where thesensors were placed: interceptors travel at 8km persecond and are fast enough to intercept from a longdistance. A long-range system, utilising UpgradedEarly Warning Radar and X-Band Radar(UEWR/XBR) and satellite reconnaissance couldacquire and track missiles from the Middle Eastwithin five minutes of launch if placed in SouthernItaly. This system would work against longer-rangemissiles but, of necessity, a TMD terminal-interceptsystem would be required to defend againstshort-range ones. These lower-tier defences mightinclude the PAC-3 system to defend ‘point’ militarytargets against SCUD missiles, and upper-tierdefences such as THAAD to defend larger ‘area’targets against NoDong-type missiles.

Upper tier defences are among the mostadvanced missile defence systems, with THAADscheduled for deployment in 2007. It is usuallyassociated with TMD, but this is partly due to thefact that it is a US system, and for the United Statesanything short of ICBM defence qualifies as TMD.It is therefore possible that such a system might bedeployable as a cover for European territory, andthis possibility has already received attention.25 Toachieve this would require a very large defendedarea for each interceptor (i.e. a large ‘footprint’) ifthe defence is to be viable. An autonomous THAADsystem (i.e. one in which each interceptor batteryhas its own radar) can only defend a 120km circleagainst a single incoming warhead, and would thusbe effective only as a point defence rather than anarea one. The footprint of a THAAD system alsoshrinks markedly in the event of a multiple warheadattack.26 However, current NATO plans for upperand lower tier TMD, for example, could reportedlydefend some cities near conflict zones, regions suchas the Turkish-Iraqi border, and coastal areas suchas that of Italy.27

Coupled with THAAD, NTW could provide ex-tensive cover against missiles from the Middle East.Such a system might also be more palatable toRussia and China, as its effectiveness against soph-isticated ICBMs would be limited and it could notget sufficiently close to Russian launch sites tothreaten Russian missiles. NTW might also be ableto provide a boost-phase intercept capability, partic-ularly against long-range missiles with relativelylengthy boost time.28 However, the problems ofsuitable waters for ship placement, and of defendingthem, make intercepting Middle Eastern missilesproblematic, and so the possibility of airborne boost-phase intercept may be worth pursuing for EBMD.29

Sea-based EBMD

The ship-borne, sea-based elements can operatewherever there is a sea with ocean access that isreadily defendable. Clearly the ships themselvesbecome targets for the aggressor, and their defencewill become a significant new mission, since theships may be operating in areas they might nototherwise have inhabited. Studies will need to beundertaken to decide best locations in a range ofscenarios depending on the relative geography ofaggressor and target. Ship-based missile defencescould operate as boost phase, mid-course andterminal intercept systems. For instance, it isconceivable to defend Britain from missiles firedfrom Libya by using ships in the Mediterraneanand/or in the English Channel.

Advocates of naval missile defence may nowhave influence in the Bush administration. Theinherent mobility of this form of missile defence can,in many circumstances, position the interceptors sothat ballistic missiles can be intercepted in theirboost phase. The Eastern Mediterranean is onesuch location. Finding suitable areas of defendablesea to deal with all ballistic missile threats to thewhole of Europe may not be so easy, however. Onefeature that must be present for the whole of Europeto be covered is a much faster interceptor than iscurrently being developed. New radars will also beneeded to cope with increased distances and withthe discrimination task. In the long run, an entirelynew class of ship may be needed. Thesedevelopments will not be inexpensive or short-term.

However, sea-based missile defence, if it can bemade to work, offers important advantages such asthe ability to move it to the current hot spot, and thepossibility of early ascent phase attack. Sea-basedmissile defence potentially offers an invaluablelayer; mid-course and descent-phase systems candeal with those missiles not successfully interceptedby the ship.

Boost Phase Intercept

Boost phase technology is currently less developedthan other types of missile defence, but some typesare emerging. The US Air Force’s Air Borne Laser(ABL), currently the leading technology, is achemical laser carried on a 747 aircraft. This isdesigned to destroy rockets in the boost phase atranges up to about 300km. Unless the defender has


air superiority within the aggressor’s air space, thisdistance limits the use of ABL against many launchsites. In times of tension, the ABL has to be airbornepermanently, and provided with fighter protection.

Other boost-phase possibilities have beenstudied. These employ lasers or airborneinterceptors on aircraft or unmanned air vehicles(UAVs). The interceptor solutions require largemissiles with highly energetic propellants since themajor challenge is the so-called time-line: getting tothe offensive missile before its engines burn out.Terminal guidance is also difficult. UAVspotentially can loiter close to launch areas, but theyare still vulnerable to air defence systems. None ofthese systems is as advanced in development as theother options discussed above.

As a general rule of thumb, the interceptsystems for a boost phase defence would have to bebased within a 600-1000km radius of the potentiallaunch site in order to be effective. The advantagesof boost phase are its ability to defend againstattacks from specific states, and its radicallyreduced susceptibility to countermeasures. Thusthe technological problems that generate doubtsabout the very feasibility of the territorial shieldmodel are less critical for boost phase. According toan authoritative report, the intercept technology fora boost phase system could soon be available, butthe required sensor technology would take time todevelop.30 Moreover, the discriminate nature of aboost phase system means that it does not hold asmuch potential for degrading the deterrentcapabilities of Russia and China as the territorialshield system. This however is also the source of itsmost obvious problems. A boost phase systemmeans making very explicit political statementsabout enemies, and effectively ring-fencing thesestates with sensor and/or interceptor apparatus.This is something that will not necessarily be easyto create consensus about, especially in anorganisation as geographically diverse as NATO.

This highlights some of the key differencesbetween territorial shield and boost phase systemsin the European context. In the case of the formerthe ground-based architecture is all in the territoryof the defended NATO states. In the latter, theco-operation of neighbouring countries such asRussia would be indispensable, and one critic haspointed out that “launch of boost phase missiledefense interceptors based in Russia could be vetoedby them, operationally”.31 Therefore, this model ofEBMD would depend on key non-NATO countriessharing the same threat perceptions regardingMiddle Eastern states as Alliance members.

Architecture Options for Europe

The most likely architecture for an EBMD wouldemploy components from the US land-basedClinton-era NMD, including variants of its elements(for instance, a less energetic, slower interceptor).This would not however provide cover for thesouth-eastern countries, which would require lessenergetic, shorter range TMD systems such asTHAAD or NTW. In the extreme border regions of

south-east Europe systems such as PAC-3 would beneeded for fixed points; given that area coverage atshort range is extremely difficult. Ironically, it iseasier to provide wide area coverage at long range,using mid-course interceptors. For instance, for thetotal area coverage of Turkey, a large number ofTHAAD interceptor sites would be needed.

Although an alliance decision to deploy anEBMD could be taken in isolation from a decision onits architecture, this would probably need to beexplored before a decision in principle could beachieved. The 1999 NIE forecast suggests that anyarea defence of NATO Europe would need to belayered as it would have to be designed to defendagainst missiles with different ranges, and thusflight characteristics.32 Moreover, the political andstrategic questions raised by EBMD are inescapablylinked to the technological architecture that wouldbe used in the system.

A territorial shield model of EBMD couldoperate along the lines pursued by the UintedStates: a network of ground-based interceptors(GBIs) guided by ground-based radars and possiblyalso a space-based infrared sensor (SBIRS) system,together with TMD-derived systems for pointdefence, especially in southern tier states. Such asystem might be designed to defend against anattack from 5-20 single-warhead missiles withrelatively unsophisticated countermeasures. Thedefining feature of this mode of EBMD would be thatthe defensive activities would take place over theterritory of the states behind the shield, rather thanover that of a potential attacker. However, the onlyway to evaluate against whom it is directed wouldlie in the thickness of the shield. For example, theUS has been at pains to stress that its plannedterritorial shield NMD will not be thick enough toseriously threaten the Russian nuclear arsenal, andpresumably it would be prepared to formalise thisin a future arms control agreement, as would theEuropeans if they deployed an EBMD.

By contrast with the territorial shield model, aboost-phase intercept system puts the defensive lidover the attacking state rather than the defended,and can be used to target specific states in a waythat territorial shield cannot. Thus the defence hasto go to the attacker, and this demands a militaryreach that would not be required for territorialshield. The system can be based on sea/ground-based detection and intercept capabilities, andpossibly a space-based element as well. This wasthe basic idea behind the Global Protection AgainstLimited Strikes (GPALS) scheme discussedbetween Russia and the US in the early 1990s.

The development time needed to deploy eitherof these systems is very difficult to predict. In theUS the territorial shield model has suffered serioustesting problems, and boost phase has been largelyneglected in favour of territorial shield, although itis gaining a groundswell of academic and officialsupport.33 Moreover, the Bush Administration haspledged itself to a complete review of the NMDprogramme, with a commitment to a much morerobust system, and the new National SecurityAdvisor Condoleeza Rice has strongly criticised the


Clinton NMD plan, claiming, among other things,that it decoupled the US from its allies. Fortechnological and political reasons, the initial USdeployment date for an NMD of 2005 will not be met,and 2010 seems a more likely date, which suggeststhat deployment of a NATO-Europe wide systemwould be unlikely to occur before 2015. Thusprocurement of this system, if it occurred at all,would probably coincide with decisions on the futureequipment for the French and UK nuclear deterrentforces, as well as those in the US. The interactionbetween these two sets of decisions could have asignificant influence upon both.

A further factor influencing deployment anddecision times is that the Middle East ‘states ofconcern’, where the principal threats to Europe arelikely to originate, seem likely to deploy long-rangemissiles later than the DPRK, the principalperceived threat to the US. According to the 1999NIE, the Middle Eastern states will not developlong-range missile capability for ten to fifteen years,reinforcing 2015 or later as a likely deployment datefor a full EBMD. This would, among other things,offer more time for developing newer defencetechnologies.

One aspect of the choice between systemarchitectures is that boost phase and territorialshield would have radically different political andstrategic implications. Boost phase puts a ‘lid’ overa potentially hostile state and in so doing has adifferent impact on regional security dynamics toterritorial shield. For example, a boost phasesystem that targeted Iran would seriouslycompromise that state’s capabilities againstregional enemies, as well as its capabilities againstNATO members. This would focus attention on theconditions under which the defence would beactivated. Would this be only when NATO memberswere actively threatened? Or would it also beactivated in the event of missile attack on anotherstate such as Israel or Iran?

A boost phase intercept system, howeverattractive technically, would therefore createpolitical and military consequences by its veryexistence: those states or alliances which deploy itwould acquire a substantial influence over regionalconflict dynamics, whether they intended this ornot. For a close-in intercept capability does bestowthe capability to shoot down missiles wherever theyare headed and thus the capability to affect regionalconflicts without deployment of ground forces.

A further key question posed by a boost-phaseintercept system is who decides which states are tobe treated in this way, and how will the decision bemade? More specifically, would a decision to movethe elements of the system to sufficiently close rangeneed to be made by consensus among all the NATOallies? The geographical, political and strategicdiversity of NATO means that it would be a highlycontroversial exercise outside of anexplicitly-delivered threat of missile attack. Howdecisions were to be taken on when and how toactivate the shield would thus be critical. Onepossible problem might be that no explicit threats ofmissile attack would be received; another that

waiting until such threats were issued would giveincentives for a first strike. The counter-argumentof course is that activating the defence would be aprovocative act in itself.

Procurement and Development ofEBMD: Constraints and Opportunites

Technology Transfer Constraints

The ABM Treaty currently constrains theassistance the European NATO states could receivefrom either the United States or Russia in anEBMD. However, since it seems inevitable that thedevelopment of an EBMD system will be precededby a US deployment, the relevant issues becomeshow, if at all, the US and Russia amend the Treatyto permit this. Thus the issue will not be whetheran EBMD will be compliant with the existing ABMTreaty, but under what conditions transfers ofrelevant technology will be permissible under anyamended Treaty or successor arrangement.

Currently, Article 9 expressly states that “eachparty undertakes not to transfer to other states, andnot to deploy outside its own territory, ABM systemsor their components”. This would seem to rule outboth an EBMD system designed to provide aEuropean shield against long-range missiles usingimported US or Russian technology, and anyco-operative venture along the lines of GPALS. Theoperative part of Article 9 is “ABM systems”, withABM being defined as strategic missile defence. Itis difficult to foresee how the ABM Treaty mighteventually be amended or re-interpreted by the USand Russia, but the 1997 Demarcation Agreementspecified that a TMD with interceptor speed of up to3km/sec (e.g. THAAD) was permissible, whilst TMDwith interceptor speeds over that limit (e.g. NTW)was also permissible provided it did not “threaten”the strategic deterrents of Russia or the US. Thiswas clearly intended to allow the US to proceed withthe development of upper-tier systems, despiteTHAAD’s potential capability (albeit limited)against strategic missiles.34

There are broad and narrow interpretations ofhow this impacts upon whether missile defencetechnology can be transferred to the EuropeanNATO states. A broad interpretation would statethat anything within the technical limits of theDemarcation Agreement is permitted, includingTHAAD and similar TMD systems. A narrowinterpretation would state that any system havingnational defence purposes is a strategic system andtherefore non-compliant with the ABM Treaty.Thus, a point defence of some cities, forces, and someborder areas might be permissible as a nucleus ofEBMD. A more comprehensive system, but one stillbased on upper-tier technology such as THAAD andNTW, would be on the boundary between complia-nce and non-compliance, and might well be seen asthe thin end of a long wedge by Russia and China.A comprehensive EBMD which provided cover fromlong-range missile would, by contrast, contradict theletter and the spirit of the ABM Treaty.


However, the idea behind the ABM Treatywhen it was negotiated in 1972 was that it shouldmaintain the vulnerability of both major nuclearpowers to nuclear retaliation. While it could beargued that this deterrence logic also applies toFrance and Britain as they too are NWS, it does notapply to the non-nuclear US allies in Europe or toJapan (especially if all US nuclear weapons were tobe removed from European bases). As non-nuclearweapon states, there seems no reason why theyshould be barred from acquiring conventionaltechnology for use in an ABM role. ConfiguringEBMD so that it did not defend either France andBritain, and thus threaten the Russian deterrentcapabilities against these NWS might poseproblems for an EBMD, although, given their lownumbers, it is difficult to make the case that thenuclear arsenals of France and Britain have thecapability to carry out a nuclear-disarmingfirst-strike on Russia. However the solution to this,if one was needed, would be for the European NATOmembers to agree limits to their missile defencecapabilities by becoming parties to any amendedABM Treaty, or through bilateral/trilateralagreements with Russia.

Europe and the US

Comments from President Bush and his staff ontheir May 2001 world tour to explain US missiledefence ideas suggest that a layered total system isbeing contemplated, and that co-operation is beingconsidered. The proposals are likely to make use ofall the developments currently funded in the US,together with additional emphasis on the sea-basedconcept. The layers are likely to include the ABL (inthose scenarios where it can operate with leastsurvival risk to itself); sea-based systems for ascentand mid-course interceptions using ship locationsthat similarly can be defended; land-based THAAD,PAC-3, and S-300 systems largely in the south-eastregions for defence of population centres andmilitary installations; and a Clinton-type NMDsystem for the more northerly and westerly regions.

Europe’s politicians and industries will insiston substantial work being undertaken by Europeancontractors, in spite of the fact that all theintellectual and inventive effort and the technicaldevelopments are taking place in the US. Whereasin Europe there is basic knowledge, some relevantexpertise and industrial capability, the fact is thatEuropean industry simply has not worked on thesetechnologies in earnest. The technology gap onmissile defence is as wide as in any area of defencetechnology, although there are pockets of activity.The French, for example, are planning to upgradetheir SAMP-T (ASTER/ARABEL) air defencesystem to cope with short range ballistic missiles.However, this system will not even defend France,let alone Europe; it is intended for the defence ofdeployed forces. Germany and Italy retain a fingerhold on some relevant technologies throughMEADS, again a system for theatre use. Britainhopes to keep radar expertise alive through its ad-vanced digital adaptive beam forming phased array

work (MESAR and SAMPSON), and involvementwith the United States on early warning radar.

This is small beer indeed when set beside thebillions of dollars already invested by the US, bothin technology and in system developments. In theunlikely event that quite new developments areagreed to be needed for EBMD, and that US systemsare not suitable for it, it is unlikely that Europeanindustry, without US help, could develop an EBMDsystem in less than 20 years. Thus it would appearthat the only realistic role for the European defenceindustry is to manufacture under license.

However, there are two areas where Europemight reasonably insist on an integral role. One isthe command and control system, including the useof all available sensors, their networking, theircommunications links and the development of aBattle Management, Command, Control and Com-munications centre (BMC) for EBMD. Europe isunlikely to be content with the command and controlfor EBMD being located in the US. One approachmight be for the task to be handed to NATO, but onthe day of the attack each member must previouslyhave agreed to allow such a centralised system tomake the decision on how best to defend it. Thisraises the issue of command and control, which isarguably the most formidable technical challengefor EBMD and is looked at in more detail below.Another possibility for an integral European role isthe development of a European sea-based system,based on existing air defence ship developmentssuch as the UK’s Type 45 destroyers, Spain’s Aegisbuy from the US, or the Netherlands Air DefenceFrigate. These might be modified to take theappropriately evolved Standard Missile.

An age-old problem will probably arise in anytransfer of advanced technology from the US.Historically, the US has resisted transferring itsmost sensitive technology. If EBMD is to become arealistic option, it is highly likely that the Europeanstates will insist that any transferred technology beshared rather than ‘black-boxed’. In that event, theUS would have to relax its technology transfer rulessignificantly.

Europe and Russia

One strength of Russian defence technology isrecognised to be its ground based air defences. Notonly does Russia possess advanced systems in theS-300 family, but it also deploys the world’s onlyABM system to defend Moscow, albeit using nuclearwarheads which do not require accurate guidance.However, it is widely understood that Russia is lessadvanced with hit-to-kill technology than the US,and therefore still relies largely on biggerinterceptors carrying explosive warheads. Many ofits systems are mobile, and these form the basis ofRussia’s recent proposal to NATO for co-operationon missile defence. Precisely how the Russiansforesee such co-operation working is unclear, but theproposals must clearly be folded into any thinkingabout EBMD. These systems might, for instance, beused in the south-eastern regions of Europe insteadof THAAD, PAC-3 and NAD.


Early Warning

The most promising area for co-operation initially isthe sharing of timely, all-source, early warning dataof missile launches. A start has been made, both inNATO and between the US and Russia, the latterbeing essentially a confidence building step. Manymore steps, similarly bold, will be needed before atruly co-operative missile defence evolves, but thesharing of early warning data would appear to bethe least difficult (technically), the least risky(politically) and the least costly. NATO should movein this direction at once. The challenge is to the USto be willing to release more of what hitherto hasbeen “classified” data, notably from its IR launchdetection satellites (DSP and SBIRS).

Simulation and Testing

Like US missile defence, an EBMD system cannever practically be tested in anything approachingrealistic trial conditions. TMD test conditions cancome closer, but there will always be real-worldfactors that never can be included. The principaldifficulty is the lack of suitable test ranges, and theimpossibility of offering targets precisely like thoseof the aggressor in tests.

Moreover, post-intercept problems of debrisshortfall and intercept altitude can be almost asintractable as the problems of ‘hitting a bullet witha bullet’. Terminal phase intercept does tend toresult in debris from the intercept, including thewarhead itself, falling from the atmosphere, and onestudy has concluded that “it is a relatively simpletask to wire up a nuclear warhead to explode themoment it is intercepted”.35 The BMDO haveattributed this capability, known as ‘salvage fusing’to emergent missile states in the developing world.36

The consequences of both the associated heatflashand electromagnetic pulse for the ground below theintercept would clearly be severe, and raise the issueof the acceptable altitude limits of ballistic missileintercept. For this reason, states may be highlyreluctant to allow interceptor missiles to be basedon or near their soil.37 The debris from the use ofsuch interceptions will fall to ground, and if thewarhead has not been neutralised, agent or nuclearmaterial may be dispersed to unintended areas.

Two different scenarios illustrate this point.First, a successful hit-to-kill interception of awarhead just inside the atmosphere on a ballistictrajectory. Where does the debris fall to earth? Andwhat are the consequences of a nuclear or biologicalwarhead descending to the ground? Second, theinterceptor misses. Assuming there is no follow-upintercept attempt, the ballistic missile warhead mayhit its target and may cause the intended (orunintended) damage; the interceptor missile willproceed on a ballistic trajectory and, depending onits velocity and direction, will also hit the ground,perhaps causing damage to a non-participant,although probably not, depending on the populationdensity in the area.

These problems are less of an issue for the US,which has huge expanses of ocean on either side, butare a grave problem for EBMD, where debris is

highly likely to come down on land. These issuesare, so to speak, the fall-out problems of EBMD.None can be answered yet with any confidence, andnor is it likely that we will know very much morewhen the systems come into service. These areissues which have not been addressed, althoughcomplex and costly testing and computer modellingmay yield some of the answers.

In the US one part of the answer is to test, asfar as possible, “at test points near the extremes ofthe envelope”, although even this is all butimpossible for US NMD under current ABM Treatyrestrictions. The second part of the answer is to usesimulation, principally with “hardware-in-the- loop”in an attempt to replicate all conceivable conditionsthe system might encounter. Europe would need tofollow a similar path, but the test range restrictionis a significant one. Potentially, this is anotheropportunity to involve Russia, where geography andpast experience may mean that co-operative testingon ranges in the former Soviet Union can be morerealistic. The US Pacific Test Ranges or France’socean ranges, and the White Sands Missile Rangefor shorter-range systems would also have to beused. Australia — already showing support to NMD— might also be able to help here, as it did in theUK case in the 1950s and 60s.

It is probable that Europe will be buyingtechnology that has already been tested by Russiaor the US. It will be important for evidence to beprovided that any system actually works inscenarios and conditions defined by Europe. Suchevidence will be hard to produce, but the customerwill need to know that the defence is “fit forpurpose”. Computers and software offer the bestopportunity for Europe to come together and tothink through EBMD. With no risk and relativelylittle cost, an EBMD Simulation Facility might beestablished, with its doors open to all interested,threatened countries, to undertake bothbroad-brush and high fidelity simulations of threatsand responses. Table-top wargames/seminars canplay a part, together with detailed assessments ofscenarios, architectures and effectiveness, usingcomputer models many of which already exist.Whatever ultimately comes about on EBMD, such afacility will be needed, so it would seem timely tobegin to build it soon. NATO has a head start withNATO’s Command, Control and CommunicationAgency (NCA) in the Hague, but the US NationalTest Facility (NTF) at Colorado Springs can help, ascan organisations such as UK’s defence researchorganisation, DERA, ONERA in France, the USApplied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University,the National Defence University in Washington DCand many other centres.

Implementing EBMD: Command,Control and Communications (C3)

In the event of an attack on a European state,missiles en-route to country X may well over-flycountries Y and Z. The most appropriate launchersmay be in country W, the radar in country V, oron-board ships belonging to country U sitting


off-shore country S. Satellites belonging to countryT might be sending early warning data via countryR. The whole C3 system may reside in country Q.Debris from the interception might land on anyone.

The command, control and communicationimplications of any EBMD are thus profound, notleast because it would need to be integrated bothhorizontally and vertically. If it had a territorialdefence architecture, it would be vertically layeredto intercept missiles with ranges from 500km up toICBM range, and be horizontally spread over a widegeographical area. It would therefore have to be amultinational, but also genuinely multilateral,system, rather than a series of individual NMDs foreach member. Integrating and managing such asystem would be a unique challenge, and one thatthe United States would not have to face.

One implication is that the early warningsystem, the terminal phase interceptors that wouldbe necessary for defending against shorter rangemissiles, and the wider area defence for interceptinglonger range missiles, would need to be integratedwith each other, and the whole integrated intoNATO’s command structure. What would result isa super-system: “a group of autonomous systemsreliant upon the achievement of interoperability fortheir successful integration”.38 This raises issues ofarchitecture compatibility and commonality, butalso the more difficult area of intelligence andcommunication. One US Joint Chiefs of Staff paperhas pointed out that “In coalition warfare it isessential that issues of releaseability of intelligenceinformation and products be resolved early in thecrisis”.39 A US NMD — a single-state system todefend against a single type of missile — faces asimple task in this area by comparison with anEBMD.

A second challenge concerns the inherentnature of ballistic missiles. Their very short flighttimes mitigate heavily in favour of permissive termsof engagement: the fact that the missile is airbornefor such a short period means that the defencesystem must be able to react quickly and with a gooddegree of autonomy from central and/or politicalcontrol. The difficulties involved relate closely tothe phase of the missile flight in which the intercepttakes place. A system designed for earlyinterceptions gives time for a second intercept if thefirst is unsuccessful, but also involves a very shortdecision time between radar pick-up and the firingof the interceptor. It therefore offers little, if any,time for human decision-making, and such activitiesand procedures would need to be prepared andplanned well in advance of any conflict on anexpert-system basis.40

Such a system contains inherent dangers. Theactual target of a missile only becomes apparent asit moves towards its terminal phase. It is then thatinterception becomes a clear act of self-defence.Early intercept could mean destroying a missilewithout knowing where it was heading. Indeed, aboost phase system might need to be fullyautomatic. For example, the Brilliant Pebblesintercept system, developed as part of the 1980s SDIprogramme, was intended to operate autonomously

once it had received weapon-release authority fromthe ground. Thus without appropriate checks, thereis a reasonable chance that such a system couldunintentionally intercept a missile test or even anSLV. Jacques Gansler of the Clinton Administrationacknowledged this as a key problem with ascentphase intercept: “(boost phase) assumes that yourecognize or don’t consider the type of launch that isoccurring, that it is actually carrying a warheaddirected at the United States and not simply asatellite launch or a test launch. Certainly there isno time for human decision-making”.41

The shooting down of an Iranian airliner by theUSS Vincennes in July 1988 is evidence of thecapacity for error even when there are humandecision-makers present.42 However, in the case ofmissiles, this may be less of a problem than it mightsound. Missile attacks rarely come ‘out of the blue’outside a crisis situation, and thus in practical termsit could be assumed that a missile launch is hostile.Given the short times involved — especially in theshorter-range regions of southern and south-eastEurope — this command and control process mustbe largely automatic, or at least devolved to theoperator, sitting at display screens with the ‘trigger’nearby. There will be no time for a real timepolitical input. All command and control proce-dures must have been pre-planned, programmedand agreed in advance. In any event, responsibilityfor deciding to launch an intercept would have to besubstantially delegated downwards: as CharlesSwicker’s study points out, the permissive rules ofengagement inherent to some models of missiledefence mean that “individual...officers may beforced to carry out defensive actions that may makenational policy without prior or real-time guidancefrom national leaders”.43

The only answer to these complexities wouldseem to be centralised command and control. Eachcountry will need to subsume its national require-ments into a single system. National systems wouldlead inevitably to major arguments and difficulty.The advantages of centralised command and controlare: scope for optimum use of defence assets(compared with the chaos of fire-at-will); thepossibility of making use of all the available layers;and the ability to use all the available sensor datafor tracking and discrimination. However, thecomplexities of centralised command and controlare likely to be formidable. It would require thenetworking of all sensors, and the willingness of allowners of data to hand it over automatically andimmediately, for the benefit of cooperative defence.The computing and software challenge ofintegrating all this data, of processing it quickly andof deriving a “fire control solution” is potentially theAchilles’ heel of the whole system. It would, inshort, be the real time processing challenge of the21st century.

NATO’s Current Missile DefenceProgramme

NATO has been developing an extended airdefence/TMD capability, known as MEADS, since


the Brussels summit of 1994, and this was boostedby the adoption of the Defence CapabilitiesInitiative (DCI) at the Washington Summit in 1999.The DCI was partially motivated by perceptions ofa “capabilities gap” between European states andthe US, and it therefore placed emphasis on themeans to deploy forces beyond NATO’s borders.Although MEADS now has only one committedEuropean member left (Italy), the idea of providingTMD capabilities to ground forces appears to enjoymore widespread support, as it is regarded asconforming with NATO’s out of area agenda.

Beyond this simple NATO requirementhowever, lie two further issues: the need for TMD toprotect European forces deployed out of area in anon-NATO context, and the need for defences ofNATO territory against proliferators on the marginsof Europe. In practice, European involvement with‘out of area’ states has been issue-driven rather thanalliance-driven (e.g. Kuwait) and conducted throughad hoc ‘coalitions of the willing’. Britain and Francehave used their substantial intervention capabilityto participate in joint operations outside Europe inthe Middle East, but none of the other EuropeanNATO members have a well-developed culture offorce projection as a core task for their militaryforces. Thus joint power projection between theUnited States and Europe does not necessarilyinvolve NATO forces, although it always involvesNATO members. In an era of proliferatinglong-range missile capabilities, this raises questionsabout alliance cohesion, since a state that founditself under missile attack (Britain from Iraq, forexample) would in principle be entitled to call in itsArticle Five NATO guarantee (this was along-standing strategic concern of NATO’s northerntier members). Moreover, the military presence ofsome NATO members in, say, the Middle East mayheighten the sense of exposure to missile threats onthe part of NATO members who are not as involvedin such strategic theatres. Thus consensus on eventhe minimalist move to develop and deploy TMD forNATO forces operating in a non-permissive environ-ment could be difficult to sustain.

NATO members are also clearly concernedover the implications of missile proliferation alongthe south-eastern tier of the Alliance. In 1994 theWEU published a paper which argued that missileproliferation among “regional adversaries” in NorthAfrica and the Middle East posed a genuine threatto Europe, and advocated a European missiledefence as a way to combat this.44 NATO has openedits Mediterranean Dialogue as an outreach to statesof strategic interest who are ineligible for NATOmembership. Turkey and Israel, both activeparticipants in this dialogue, have indicated thatthey might be interested in extending their existingmilitary co-operation to include ballistic missiledefences.

If the proliferation of longer-range missilesfollows the path forecast in the 1999 NIE, demandsfor defences against short- and medium-rangemissiles seem likely to increase in the southern-tier

NATO states. Meeting these needs through acomprehensive EBMD programme would result ina profound change in its military posture. The con-sequences in terms of reactions from Russia, Chinaand potential proliferators are described below. Interms of NATO itself, it seems likely that thesimultaneous development of US NMD, EBMD andthe proliferation of intermediate and other longer-range missiles will lead to a heightened demand bystates in the former WTO and USSR to join NATO.Current candidates are likely to clamour harder forentry, and the number of hopeful entrants is likelyto grow. This may not be to NATO’s interest, givenits keenness to maintain stable relations withRussia.

It is thus hard to see how a comprehensiveEBMD, as against a mobile TMD, can be squaredwith NATO’s post-Cold War role in the absence of aclear missile threat to Europe.45 Yet the missilethreat to Europe is largely, with the possible excep-tion of Turkey, likely to be a function of activitiesthat do not involve NATO as an institution. Thisraises the issue of whether EBMD would beimplemented via NATO or via another separateinstitution. The European members of the Allianceseem uniformly opposed to US NMD, but it isdifficult to gauge their likely reaction to a Europeanequivalent. However, given that much doubt aboutthe US system centres on technical feasibility andpolitical consequences, both of which apply equallystrongly to EBMD, it seems likely that somemembers at least would be reluctant to sanction anymove in principle to deploy a NATO EBMD.

NATO’s TMD Feasibility Study

This two-year study, funded from NATO’s infra-structure budget, is a low cost attempt by NATO toreview the options for a missile defence for deployedforces. NATO’s defence companies have formed intoconsortia, have submitted proposals to NATO forfeasibility studies, and await an announcement insummer 2001 of who gets the job.46 The work thatis done against NATO’s requirement will inevitablyaddress many of the issues that are relevant toEBMD, including command, control and communi-cations, effectiveness, networking of sensors, earlywarning and data sharing, mobility, sea-basedversus land-based systems, coverage areas, fixedpoint defences, layered systems, national assetsversus imported systems, simulations, testing andso on.

If NATO is to be the organisation to run anEBMD, then this study will provide invaluableinput and preparation for a subsequent EBMDstudy. And the experience gained by NATO inmanaging the TBMD study should give it a headstart in dealing with the larger, more complex andmore politically sensitive EBMD work. NATOmight, therefore, begin to think about EBMD whilethe TBMD study is in progress, although NATO isunlikely to move fast.


PART THREEEBMD AND RUSSIA

Russia has a well-established and regulateddeterrent relationship with the US, which providesa framework in which the effects of US NMD can beassessed. Russian concern over NMD is less overshort term effects than a fear that, over 20-30 years,US technology might be able to neutralise Russianoffensive nuclear capabilities, and that itsinsistence on moving forward will force the collapseof the existing agreed constraints on the US in thenuclear field. For example, the Chair of the Duma’sCommittee for International Affairs recentlyremarked “Everybody understands that [NMD] isan attempt to protect the US territory not from Iran,Iraq or North Korea, but from possible retaliatorystrike on the part of Russia or China, if the armedconflict reaches its climax”.47 The Russian strategicrelationship with France and Britain, the twoEuropean NWS, is more opaque than with theUnited States. It appears unlikely that deploymentof an EBMD will significantly affect the Europeanslimited ability to inflict punishment upon Russia orthe ability of Russia to do so upon Europe, but a moreprofound impact will be on Russian perceptions of aUS/European alliance to force other states to act inways that support their interests. This section ofthe report attempts to piece together a picture ofhow Russia might therefore perceive, and respondto, an EBMD system.

Russia and Deterrence

Russia’s own strategic culture and posture play asignificant role in determining the importance it willcontinue to attach to nuclear weapons andlong-range missiles. Russian strategy has generallyemphasised the integration of offensive anddefensive forces into a single operating concept — a“comprehensive” approach to strategy. In thisapproach, war prevention and warfighting werenever as separate as they often were in Westernstrategic thought. When coupled with a long-standing historical concern with its periphery,especially along its Western frontiers, these are thekey elements in Russian strategic thinking. Innuclear terms, especially during the Soviet era, thistended to mean that the ability to deter was veryclosely linked to the ability to sustain a warfightingcapacity rather than a retaliatory one. Buzan hasremarked that Soviet nuclear doctrine “bore thestamp of the artilleryman”.48

The last decade has seen a growing degrad-ation of the Russian nuclear capability. One reasongiven for signing the START II agreement was thatthis would keep Russian strategic forces at themaximum sustainable level whilst simultaneouslypreventing the United States from expanding itsown arsenal without Russian consent. However,the ban on land-based MIRVs has been viewed as aUS-imposed and inequitable burden. To maintainSTART II levels after dismantling its MIRVs,Russia must produce 1500 new single-warheadICBMs and SLBMs.49 This makes it unlikely thatthe decline in Russia’s strategic capabilities can behalted in the short term.

In 2000, some ominous changes took place indeclaratory Russian security policy, apparently tocompensate for what were perceived as increasingmilitary weaknesses. In January the new NationalSecurity Concept signalled a change in nucleardoctrine. Previously the strategy had been to usethese weapons only in instances where “the veryexistence of the Russian Federation” was at stake,but the new strategy pledges their use “to repelarmed aggression if all other means of resolving acrisis situation have been exhausted”. This subtleshift, which neither mentioned Russia nor stressedthreats to its very existence, was also reflected inthe statement that “multipolarity” and “the West ledby the US” were now “mutually exclusive”tendencies. This implies that Russia would tend tosee EBMD as little more than an extension of USNMD: an expression of strengthening unipolarity.In practice, this meant a significant lowering of thenuclear threshold, in order to use nuclear deterrencefor dealing with regional, conventional conflict.50

Therefore nuclear weapons may have a role outsideglobal conflict and are more intimately related toRussian strategic policy on its periphery.

Moreover, the new concept stated clearly thatmilitary power was being used to dominate globalpolitics by the West — giving a clear if unspokenhint that it would be necessary to find ways tocounter this. This was repeated in the new ForeignPolicy Concept of 2000, which also accused the USof attempting to establish unipolarity and globaldominance, and this perception was probablyreinforced by President Bush’s inaugural speech.The two key themes in current Russian strategicthought thus appear to be the need to respond to arenewed emphasis on military power in

international politics, and an emergent sense ofconflict with the global presence of the US.

Russia and Models of EBMD

As with so much about EBMD, its implications forRussia are inseparable from the architecture that isdeployed. A territorial shield EBMD would be a‘thin’ defence designed to defeat a limited attackfrom an unsophisticated enemy, and thus its impacton Russia’s missile forces would be limited to thepoint of being negligible. A boost phase lid, beingfar less susceptible to countermeasures, hascorrespondingly higher potential to defend againstmore sophisticated missiles. However, boost phaseinvolves ‘ring-fencing’ of particular states and thuscan be directed in a way that territorial shieldcannot. Such a system seems unlikely to have amajor effect on Russian retaliatory capabilities, andthis may be one reason why Russia has expressedan interest in co-operating in the development ofboost phase defence systems for some years

While a territorial shield EBMD, similar to thecurrent US NMD, would do little to degrade Russia’smissile capabilities, there are reasons for thinkingthat it may have a greater impact on Russianstrategic policy. Russian concerns about territorialshield BMD lie not in the implications of currentplans, but in future possibilities: for Russia, USplans are potentially the thin end of a wedge, whichat some later point may produce a system that wouldthreaten Russia’s strategic capabilities. However,the ABM Treaty provides a framework within whichRussian concerns regarding US plans can be heard,and means of ameliorating them implemented. It isvery possible that the ABM Treaty can and will beamended to permit a thin defence, and therebycurtail (for the time being at least) the possibility ofdeveloping a thicker defence against moresophisticated missiles.

Russia has proposed a missile defence systemof its own, to be developed and deployed in collabora-tion with the Europeans. Despite widespreadscepticism about its motives and seriousness, theproposal does nonetheless give a picture of currentRussian thinking. It proposes a mobile, rapid-deployment TMD system for intercepting missilesup to INF range: e.g. SCUD up to Shahab. In thisway it avoids threatening the nuclear capabilities ofthe P5, all of which use missiles well beyond INFrange, and also avoids abrogating the ABM Treaty,which forbids transfer of strategic missile defencesystems. The Russian scheme is ‘strategic’ neitherin range (it cannot intercept ICBMs) nor purpose (itcannot be used for national territorial defence,beyond limited area defence), and thus would not besubject to restrictions.

Because the Russian system would be mobile,non-strategic, and can go to the threat if and whenit exists, it is more linked to usable force than it isto mutual deterrent capabilities. This is animportant distinction. An EBMD that was linkedtoo closely to mutual missile deterrent capabilities,such as one that could intercept ICBMs, wouldpotentially degrade Russian counterforce and

countervalue capability, and thereby force relianceon a greater strength of attack to overwhelm thesystem. Their evaluation of the effect on their ownforces of needing the capability of countering bothUS NMD and EBMD is problematic, but likely toinvolve enhanced deterrent capabilities rather thanmissile defence alone. Given the Russian emphasison warfighting capabilities as a central aspect ofdeterrence, this is likely to be a cause for concern.The choices facing them would probably be to findways to overcome an EBMD (countermeasures orMIRVing); to increase reliance on delivery systemsother than missiles; or to control EBMD develop-ment through a formal arms control agreement.

In terms of conventional weapons, the CFETreaty regulates the levels of conventional forces inEurope, and the former Soviet Republics in theCaucasus and Central Asia via the FlanksAgreement. Russian concern over its ‘near abroad’has already led to force deployments in excess of theagreed limits. The impact of EBMD upon this isdifficult to predict, but it has already been noted thatmissile defences are perceived to remove inhibitionson the use of conventional weaponry, which wouldoffer NATO states a heightened ability to intervenein out-of-area conflicts.

NATO does not fix force levels between Europeand Russia, but is the contextualiser of militarypower in Europe. The force posture and strategy ofthe Alliance are pivotal in giving meaning to itsmembers military forces, and so NATO tends to bethe medium through which they define the militaryaspect of their relations with Russia. The tensionscaused by the intervention in Kosovo were aboutNATO’s military reach extending beyond itspre-1991 membership borders, not just theenlargement of its membership. In this sense theperiod 1997 (Madrid Summit) to 1999 (Kosovo) maywell be a defining moment in post-Cold War Europe,since this was the period in which NATO mademajor inroads into Eastern Europe with littleconsultation with Russia. The sidelining of the PJCduring the Kosovo intervention underlined how farthe Alliance was prepared to go without Russiansupport.

One further impact of an EBMD may be toenhance the significance of the Kaliningrad enclave,especially if NATO was to be enlarged inmembership to include the Baltic States. As itwould then fall within NATO’s defence perimeter,any nuclear missiles stationed on its territory toenhance Russian leverage over NATO and outflankEBMD would be a source of considerable friction.

Policy Implications: Russia andEuropean Security

There are three schools of thought in Russiaregarding European security: a group who regardthe relationship between Russia and the US as thekey to Russian strategic policy, and thereby viewNATO in those terms; a group who think more interms of a discrete Russia-Europe relationship andentertain the prospect of a pan-European securitysystem; and those who regard the ‘near abroad’ in


the Caucasus as the principal source of instabilityand security problems for Russia.51

EBMD is likely to concern the first two groupsmore than the third. If it were to be deployed withlittle or no consultation with Russia, the conclusionsdrawn in Moscow are likely to be grave. With NATOexpanding eastwards and also demonstrating itswill to intervene outside membership boundaries, itis difficult to see how EBMD could be presented asanything other than threatening. It would be ashield around an increasingly expansion-orientatedorganisation that the two schools both see as a keypotential threat to Russian security interests. Therecent Russian proposal of a cooperative defenceinvolving Europe and Russia should not bedismissed entirely: there is a pro-European group inMoscow who see greater co-operation with Europeas the key foundation of Russian stability.52

Moreover, Russian TMD technology is in circulationin the NATO area: S-300 missiles have found theirway to Greece.53

If a cooperative EBMD is not forthcoming, thatneed not mean a breakdown in relations, but someform of Russian military response is highly likely.The previous section highlighted the ABM Treatyissues, and that the most likely Russian response tothe abrogation of this Treaty will be an asymmetricone, probably involving qualitative changes in theRussian strategic triad. Most current sourcessuggest that the most likely course is a limitedMIRVing of the Topol M missile, and thestrengthening of sea-based capabilities such as theSS-N-23 SLBM.54 Such an arrangement might alsohave the added benefit of drawing the political stingof the more hawkish elements in Moscow, who haveconsistently criticised START as generally inimicalto Russian strategic stability.

Policy Implications: Nuclear Weaponsand Arms Control

The fact that territorial shield EBMD would notexert immediate effect on Russia’s standing missileforces means that its consequences would be foundin the future evolution of Russian forces and inRussian perceptions of the intentions of those statesto be protected by it. Again, the marked differencesin the impact of the boost phase and territorialshield models are worth highlighting. The latter isdefined by who is behind it, the former by who it isaimed at. To put it another way, it is politically fareasier to see both sides of the defence equation(defence of whom against whom) with the boostphase system. Since a territorial shield EBMDwould almost inevitably be paralleled with a USNMD along the same lines, it is reasonable tosuppose that the two would exert a joint influenceon Russian strategic perception. Russian responseswould be driven by long-standing Russian views onnuclear weapons and the integration of warfightingcapacities. BMD has an inherent capacity forforcing upwards the scale of warfare and thepreparations for it, since overwhelming the systemis arguably the most effective way to circumvent it.This being the case, a territorial shield EBMD would

have the potential to make Russian nuclear strategyconsiderably more difficult to implement, as well aschanging political perceptions of the relationshipwith the European states protected by it.

However, these effects are related todevelopments in a 7-15 year technical time-scale;Russia’s current ability to increase its arsenal isvery limited. It is also unlikely to wish to see theSTART regime abrogated, since the US could easilymatch its build-up, and Russia might see abrogationas playing into the hands of a more hawkishRepublican administration. One possible optioncould be for Russia to pursue the deep cuts it hasadvocated for the START III treaty (1500 warheadseach, as against the 2-2500 proposed by the US) butalso negotiate a limited amount of re-MIRVing aspart of the agreement. This would allow Russia topursue mutual reductions in missile and warheadnumbers whilst still maintaining some capacity tooverwhelm a territorial shield missile defence. Atthe same time, MIRVing would reduce the numberof required missiles and hence be financially veryappealing.

This is not necessarily a retrograde step forEuropeans. The dangers of land-based MIRVs werealways thought to lie in their effect on crisisstability, but reMIRVing in the context of armscontrol and deep cuts ought to significantly reducethe likelihood of crises occurring. Moreover, thiswould not degrade British and French nuclearcapabilities in the way a Russian NMD would.However, reMIRVing is a likely response to USNMD rather than EBMD, a response designed tomaintain Russian capabilities vis-à-vis the US. Inorder to maintain these capabilities vis-à-vis Europe— and missiles are almost Russia’s sole strategiccurrency in this post-Warsaw Pact era — it maybecome necessary for Russia to abrogate or amendthe INF Treaty. This appears to be a genuinepossibility: a prominent Moscow-based analyst hasstated that “a decision by the United States tounilaterally abrogate the ABM Treaty will trigger aRussian response to not only withdraw from STARTII but also the MTCR and the INF Treaty”.55 Evenmore ominously, research analysts at the Dumarecently concluded that, in the event of USwithdrawal from the ABM Treaty, Russia wouldlose its “political instruments to influence US[nuclear policy]”, and in this eventuality ought to“abrogate START II, suspend elimination of heavyMIRVed missiles, prevent access of US inspectors tomissile sites, prohibit to release information [sic]about launches of Russian missiles”.56

Unlike the reMIRVing possibility, even apartial return to INF deployments does not have anobvious arms control framework. Unregulatedbreakout from the Treaty would be a significantshift in the strategic balance between NATO andRussia, especially for states such as Turkey that lievery close to Russia’s sensitive southern tier. More-over, breakout could mean deployment of cruisemissiles, which are not vulnerable to BMD. In thisway, EBMD might generate a military response thatit is unequipped to deal with. Unregulated breakoutwould clearly not be in Europe’s interest, and they


have even more reason than Washington to hope fora Russian response that is compatible with armscontrol regimes.

It is likely that such a response would requiresome concessions on the part of European NATOmembers. Since it has to assumed that EBMDwould not have the aim of degrading Russiandeterrent capabilities or damaging arms controlregimes, such a compromise may well be on thecards. There are a number of options, but theunderlying purpose will be to simultaneously allowEBMD deployment and protect the integrity ofRussia’s deterrent capabilities. It may well be thatRussia will demand some limited INF capability tocompensate for EBMD, or possibly Russianparticipation within EBMD. The former wouldprobably be a difficult pill for Europeans to swallow,but perhaps not an impossible one.

Policy Implications: Non-proliferation

The principal and most immediate effect of EBMD,however, would be political rather than military ormaterial: the shift in relative military capabilitiesthat are likely to be wrought by EBMD would feedthrough into Russia’s security outlook, which itselfmeans that the impact of a territorial shield EBMDmay not be confined to the direct relationshipbetween Russia and Europe. The changes inRussian national security doctrine over 1999-2000were clearly driven by a conviction that theemergent post-Cold War order was characterised bya clash between the multipolar concept, advocatedby Russia and states such as China, and a world ofunipolar hegemony imposed by the US and its allies.Whether Russia has the capacity to create thismultipolar world is open to serious doubt, but thefear that the US and its allies are prepared to asserttheir interests by the use of military power is realenough.

The effect of EBMD on regional proliferators isdiscussed in the following section, but a secondary

effect may become visible on Russian policy towardsthese states. Russian MTCR policy towards Iranand the DPRK is already regarded with suspicion,especially in the United States. For example, theIranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile programme isbelieved by US intelligence to be using Russiantechnology to develop an intermediate-rangecapability, which would put southern and easternparts of NATO within reach. It has also beenalleged that the DPRK’s NoDong (the basis for theTaepondong and also the Iranian Shahab) is in facta non-deployed Russian missile whose provendesign and components had been exported toPyongyang.57

This has been a recurrent source of frictionbetween the US and Russia, and was raised onceagain by President Clinton during his meeting withPresident Putin at the Millennium Summit in NewYork. It is possible, therefore, that in the absence ofthe economic or technical means to match USmilitary capabilities, Russia may feel compelled toresist US policy by assistance to regional powers,and by bolstering anti-US states. The negativeeffects of this on the MTCR (which is alreadystruggling to keep pace with missile proliferation)are easy to imagine. It would also significantlystrengthen potential threats to NATO states.

Such export policies will be due topolitical-economic necessity as well as enmity: thecollapse of the ABM Treaty regime with the USwould simultaneously weaken the position of thepro-arms control liberals in Moscow and createpressures to use arms sales as a means to generaterevenue to replace that lost as a consequence of thechanged strategic relationship with the US.58

Moreover, as there is evidence that some missileprogrammes in states such as Iran are driven asmuch by ‘dabbling’, or opportunistic acquisition ofavailable technology, as by identifiable strategicpriorities, Russia is likely to find a ready market inthese areas for exports.59


PART FOUREBMD AND ‘STATES OF CONCERN’

There are no institutionalised or formal deterrentrelationships between European states and thosepotential proliferant states that, under current cir-cumstances, would constitute the principal strategicrationale for EBMD: they are highly non-established. This is for three reasons. First, a verylimited number of EBMD states have a strategicpresence outside the NATO area, and only two —Britain and France — have a substantial history offorce projection. Second, the regional states inquestion are relatively new to the field of WMDweaponry, and very new to long-range deliverysystems. Their WMD missile capabilities are stillfuture developments rather than existent facts.Third, as noted earlier, European states havegenerally preferred dialogue and trade as ways ofdealing with recalcitrant regimes. These factors —limited and piecemeal military involvement and apreference for non-military options — mean that theimpact of EBMD will be intrinsically linked to theextent to which European states have directmilitary involvement. The dominant strategicmotive of regional states will thus not be tointervene in European affairs, but to prevent NATOstates intervening in their own activities.

Targeting Strategies for ‘States ofConcern’

Military Targeting

Ballistic missiles can be attractive deep strikeweapons if their range is adequate for targetingadversaries. For example, as early as 1989, Syrianballistic missiles (SS-21s and SCUDs) had thecapacity to strike military targets inside Israel, suchas troop concentrations and air bases. A pre-emptive counterforce attack would have severelyimpaired Israeli strategy, which relied uponlarge-scale troop mobilisation and deep air strikes,and thus could have assisted an attempt to makelimited gains in the Golan Heights.60 Moreover,Iraq used chemical weapons as part of an ‘areadenial’ strategy during the Iran-Iraq War, and Syriahas reportedly developed chemical bomblets for usewith SCUD-Cs. These types of weapons can beeffective against larger targets such as airfields, orfixed troop concentrations, and thereby can disruptoffensive preparations. Such threats would betheatre-based ones, and an effective TMD capability

such as Patriot, the S-300, or THAAD would berequired, rather than an EBMD.

Political Targeting

Poor accuracy means that regional ballistic missilesare better suited to large targets, which, whencoupled with the psychological effects attributed tothem, tends to make them more politicalinstruments than military ones. For example, Iraqattempted such a tactic with its missile attacks onSaudi Arabia and Israel during the Gulf War. Theseattacks had different objectives (the former was toforce a state out of the anti-Iraq coalition, the latterprecisely the opposite), but involved similarstrategic thinking. They had little military value,but the political consequences of success would havebeen considerable. Alliances and coalitions,especially involving extra-regional states, areparticularly susceptible to such strategies.

Deterrent Strategies for ‘States ofConcern’

There are three concentric circles at work here: thedeterrence of intervention by threatening ICBMattack on long-range countervalue targets;deterrence of intervention by threatening mediumor intermediate-range countervalue and counter-force attack on nearby allies (perhaps thosesupplying basing facilities etc); and centraldeterrence in order to force a halt in fighting andprotect the regional state from complete defeat. It isunlikely that NATO members would mount anassault on a regional power with the aim of totaldefeat, since all are fundamentally status quopowers, and so it is the first two of these which areof direct consequence for Alliance members. Thisalso means that, above the theatre level, the aim ofmissile attacks upon NATO members will almostcertainly be to affect the political, rather thanmilitary, shape of the conflict.

ICBM Attack on Long-RangeCountervalue Targets

The principal long-range target is almost certain tobe the United States, since it has the mostsubstantial extra-regional military presence inregions such as the Middle East. To be sure, Britainand France also have a deployment, but the chances

of military action by them without the lead of the USare currently remote. This type of attack is theprime driver of US NMD policy, despite the fact thatEuropeans generally regard it as overstated.However, deterrence of US intervention, not tomention Washington’s overwhelming superiority inother weaponry, is usually cited as one of the maindrivers of Iran’s Shahab programme and Iraq’sstalled (for now) missile ambitions.61 ICBMprogrammes, in this sense, are based on twoquestions that Europeans ought to recognise fromtheir own Cold War days: would the US risk anattack on one of its own cities in order to respond toan attack on a faraway country? And is it possibleto neutralise a heavy conventional inferiority withmissile-borne WMD?

If these questions are answered, respectively,in the negative and the positive, then the US has aninterest in negating the leverage this strategy offersto ‘states of concern’. In that event, it is likely thatthose states will develop counter- measuretechnology, adopt an asymmetric response, such asalternative delivery vehicles, or switch to targetingof US allies as substitute targets. As we notedearlier, it is probable that NMD deployment, andresponses to it that affected Europe, that would bethe single most instrumental factor in stimulatingdebate over deployment of an EBMD.

Countervalue and Counterforce Attackon Nearby Allies

A threat to European states is likely to result fromthe fact that ‘states of concern’ view long-rangemissiles primarily as a way to dealing withWashington. That said, discouraging Europeanallies from participating in US-led coalitions hasbeen seen as having at least some motivating powerbehind the missile programmes of states such asIraq and Iran.62 The European states have adiplomatic and economic presence in the MiddleEast of a different nature to that of the US and,moreover, some are known to be highly scepticalabout Washington’s punitive policies. The ‘criticalengagement’ policy has been founded on theprinciple that behaviour can be influenced bycommunication, incentive and dialogue rather thanthe dual containment strategy of the US.63

Thus European policies towards MiddleEastern states such as Iran are qualitativelydifferent to that of the ‘Great Satan’, Washington,and are not currently dominated by relationships ofmilitary power. Moreover, Iran has explicitlyacknowledged that a European political role in theMiddle East acts as an important counter to what itsees as US hegemony.64 This highlights the fact thatan assertive US policy towards these states canmean that their links with European states becomecorrespondingly important, while the differences of

approach by the Europeans generates strains in therelationships between the NATO states.

It is difficult to say whether the links betweenEuropean states and potential proliferators wouldbe severed or endangered by US NMD, but it is likelythat, for Iran at least, targeting of European stateswould be a result of European involvement in amilitary coalition, rather than their value as proxytargets. Libya has been described by one (Italian)analyst as having capabilities that “can be definedmore accurately in terms of their scare value thanof their military value”, and Italy’s favouring ofpolitical dealings with Libya has already beennoted.65

However, it is likely that this would all changein the event of EBMD being deployed before aserious breakdown in relations between EuropeanNATO members and ‘states of concern’. It wassuggested earlier that EBMD could be configured soas not to limit Russian deterrent capabilities, but itwould be not only difficult, but positively dishonest,to claim to be doing the same for Middle East states,since EBMD would be designed for exactly thatpurpose. What is the likely response? The primeeffect would be a perceived shift in Europeanstrategic posture towards a potential compellancestrategy, rather than a deterrent one. This wouldbe especially the case in the Middle East states,where the Gulf War was dramatic and conclusiveevidence of the superior weaponry of the UnitedStates and its allies, and generated a consequentdesire for compensatory measures such as ballisticmissiles and WMD (this is particularly true in Iranand Iraq). Without this compensatory capability,the ability of Western states to intervene in the Gulfregion in pursuit of their interests will be relativelyunrestrained, and the ability of states like Iran todefend their own interests correspondinglydegraded.

For this reason, the most likely consequencesof EBMD upon potential proliferators will betwofold. The first is a heightened desire to developeither countermeasure technology, or asymmetricresponses such as alternative delivery systems.66

Both are likely to be considerably easier for ‘roguestates’ to acquire if EBMD rides roughshod overRussian and Chinese sensibilities, whileasymmetric responses are a particular danger forEurope, given its comparative geographicalproximity to the Middle East. The secondconsequence is likely to be a marked deteriorationin the political-economic dimension of relationsuntil such time as these states feel they areacquiring anti-BMD capabilities. In this way it maywell mean an increase in threats to Europe, andthereby a startling paradox: EBMD may become anecessity as a consequence of its own existence. Toput it another way, deploying EBMD specifically todefend against potential proliferation may generatethe response it was designed to combat.


PART FIVEEBMD AND CHINA

The direct effects of European states upon Chinesestrategic doctrine and deployments are currentlylimited, if not non-existent, but this will perhapschange if the US-European relationship expandsbeyond the US guarantee to Europe to embrace acommon BMD, with all the political symbolism thatthis would be perceived to imply. There are,however, two indirect conduits by which Europeanstates regulate their military relations with China.In the first place, China’s nuclear posture is heavilyregulated by the US-Russian axis, in which theEuropean states also have a substantial stake, andover which they have an influence. Second,although there is no NATO-style organisation tocontextualise military forces vis-à-vis China, the UShas a substantial stake in the North East Asianregion, and so again the European states have anindirect effect via their own relationship with theUS. Thus, Russia is unlikely to be alone in its sensethat the US and its allies are increasinglydominating world politics.

China’s strategic doctrine focuses on limitedwarfighting and the ability to maintain localconflicts as local. For the past fourteen years, thelimited deterrent strategy has aimed at deterringthe escalation of local conflicts and particularly theintervention of outside powers, such as the US, inissues like the future of Taiwan. The Chinesedoctrine of Active Defence describes three categoriesof war in which China might become engaged: aglobal conflict, a border conflict, or a limited war.The latter two are of principal current concern.

Nuclear doctrine, like much of Chinesemilitary strategy, is concerned to prevent theescalation of conflict. It has, however, been circum-scribed in this by quantitative and qualitativeshortcomings in Chinese nuclear and missilecapabilities, and by domestic political decisions todivert resources to other priorities. This has meantthat China has opted for a minimum deterrencepolicy of limited countervalue strikes, though it hasrefused to recognise or articulate this officially. Thestrategy is based on the military grounds that it candeter similar attacks but little more, and thepolitical ones that it favours global missiledisarmament. This has led to China placing greatstore by the continued effectiveness of the ABMTreaty: as long as the Treaty is preserved and thevulnerability of the US and Russia is therebymaintained, small and medium nuclear powers suchas China have the ability to inflict significant and

probably unacceptable damage even with a smallnuclear arsenal. Moreover, China regards the ABMTreaty and its own nuclear arsenal as crucial checksand balances against what it sees as US pretensionsto hegemony, and its propensity to intervene inChina’s dealings with Taiwan.

Nonetheless, dissatisfaction with minimumdeterrence has produced something of a dichotomybetween declaratory policy and operational strategyin Chinese military doctrine. China has publiclyfavoured a limited deterrent strategy, but lacks thecapability to properly put this into practice.“Limited deterrence” is a loose term, but it appearsto be a sort of scaled-back Flexible Response,deploying a limited capacity for counterforcetargeting at a range of theatre and strategic targets.The future direction of Chinese capabilities iscontingent on a number of factors, but technologicaldevelopments may mean that Chinese operationalstrategy will have to continue to rely on minimumdeterrence (i.e., a countervalue strategy with alimited number of targets). The prospects for anindigenous MIRV capability without abrogating theComprehensive Test Ban Treaty are restricted, butChina already possesses a MRV capability and maydevelop this.67 Abrogating the CTBT would be aserious step, and one authoritative study concludesthat China would be more likely to wait and see howthe global non-proliferation fabric responds tomissile defences before taking it.68 Other advancedmissile capabilities may also be developed toenhance a warfighting capacity.

China’s deterrent policy is thus predicatedlargely upon the ability to fight and prevail inlimited regional conflicts, which requires the meansto deter intervention by outside powers againstwhom China’s military shortcomings might beexposed. The outside power with the greatestlikelihood of intervention is of course the US, andChina has regarded the wars in the Gulf and Kosovoas irrefutable evidence that Washington has thecapability and will to intervene where and when itchooses. In particular, the use of highly accurate,conventionally-armed precision-guided munitionshas increased fears about the survivability ofChina’s small nuclear force: there is a possibilitythat these weapons could be used to destroy most ifnot all of the retaliatory capability, with a NMD todefend against those that were not affected. Thiswould remove one of the principal planks of China’sentire strategic policy.

Together with the emergence of India’s statusas a NWS (especially given the possible Indiandevelopment of a limited counterforce warfightingstrategy69), and the permanent presence of Russia,these are the principle influences on Chinesedeterrent doctrine. As things stand, the response isgeared towards continued development of its ad-vanced nuclear capabilities: improvements in range,payload, accuracy, survivability, countermeasuresagainst BMD (MIRVs), and, in particular, capa-bilities to destroy space and land-based commandand control systems.

EBMD and China

EBMD’s impact on China would consist largely ofindirect secondary effects rather than primary ones,as European states have little direct involvement inChina’s periphery. The principal consequence ofEBMD would be the knock-on effects of its impacton Russia. China’s deterrent relationship withRussia is ambiguous, despite shared concerns aboutUS NMD. It has been argued that the bottom linefor China is that Russian weakness will deepen andthat therefore Russia cannot be counted upon as astrategic partner. Beyond this, the nature of theSino–Russian deterrent relationship is not fullyunderstood, but a Russian response to EBMD suchas re-MIRVing could generate responses fromChina. For the shape and nature of Russia’s deter-rent posture would have to be taken into account inany future Chinese decisions on their nucleardoctrine and arsenal. US NMD would create acommon concern for Russia and China, and perhapsa common adversary. But its strategic implicationsare radically different (there is no Russianequivalent of Taiwan or the Korean issue, nor doesChina face a NATO), as are the range of possibleresponses (Russia might extract some START IIIconcessions as a price for an amended ABM Treaty,but any amendment of the Treaty which allowed a

US NMD would damage the credibility of thecurrent Chinese nuclear deterrent).

The direct impact of EBMD on China would bemore political than military or material, however.China has interpreted US NMD as indicative of thehigh salience placed on nuclear weapons by the US.An EBMD, protecting two more of the NWS states,would leave China as the only NPT NWS withoutdefences. It would also reinforce the impressionthat a creditable nuclear weapon delivery system isthe ultimate political and strategic currency whendealing with the US and its major allies, and signala shift in NWS strategic postures towards a mixeddeterrence-defence posture with a correspondingemphasis on high-end military technology.

This would be the key place where EBMDwould have a direct impact on Chinese policy. AsRoberts et al put it, the question for the architectsof such a shield would be whether they wish toregard China as a state whose missile capabilitiesshould be respected and preserved (as with Russia)or nullified as much as possible (as with Iraq). IfChinese weapons modernisation continues, asseems highly likely, and does so in the new contextof deployed missile defences, it is certain that thereported research into anti-BMD technology willalso continue and probably grow. This research hasapparently involved countermeasure technologysuch as decoy warheads, radar jamming, andmanoeuvrable warheads.70 The significance is notfor NATO or its European members since none hassignificant force presence on China’s periphery, butin the possibility of the transfer of such technology.China is known to supply the Pakistani missileprogramme, and is strongly suspected of aid to theIranian one. If the latter were to be aided incountermeasure technology by China, then EBMDmay, by its knock-on effects on China, havestimulated its own undoing.


PART SIXCONCLUSIONS

The material offered in this study demonstrates justhow different the current BMD debate in theEuropean NATO states is from its predecessor in the1980s. While European states may agree withmany of the technical evaluations of the WMDthreat, they differ in their judgements of its timing,significance and the methods of dealing with it. Atthe same time, they are inclined to place a greateremphasis than the United States on negotiatedarms control regimes and traditional diplomacy asa means of dealing with such threats and sustainingtheir security. One consequence of this is that formany of these European states, the issue ofacquiring a similar type of missile defence to thatproposed for the United States, what we have calledEBMD, namely one covering all their territory, isjust not on their security agenda, nor do they wantit to be. They have no position on it. As aconsequence, it is difficult to translate their currentresistance to a US NMD into a judgement onwhether they would be more or less inclined tosupport an EBMD if the issue were to be raised.

The majority of NATO Europeans now regardthemselves as more secure than at any time since1945. They perceive no imminent threat to theirhomelands from missile proliferation. In addition,different levels of vulnerability to the missilepotentials of “states of concern” have not translatedinto differential demands or levels of support for anEBMD. One explanation for this is the Europeanemphasis on political intent, as well as technicalcapabilities, in assessing threats. This also makesthem more likely to favour diplomatic responses tothe threats that do exist and to those that may existin future.

Yet it remains possible that a debate on anEBMD may arise, though its most likely trigger willnot be a change in threat perceptions. Rather it willbe a US proposal to push ahead with an NMD, andto offer to share the technology with NATO Europe.Such an offer would be unwelcome from a budgetaryperspective, something not explored in detail above.It would force the Europeans to make hard choicesconcerning their defence expenditure priorities, at atime when they appeared relatively settled andthere was considerable consensus around them. Itwould also be seen to threaten the current armscontrol structure that underpins European securityand, through threatened Russian reactionsaffecting the INF and MTCR, leave Europe exposedto new direct and indirect missile threats. At the

same time, many European would see such a debateas being linked, symbolically if not directly, to thefuture of NATO in the manner of earlier debatesover the deployment of new nuclear-relatedtechnologies. They may thus feel pressured to goalong with considering an EBMD even if they see nopressing need for it and have concerns that it willgenerate a self-fulfilling prophecy, through thedeployment of defences against specific statesgenerating an action-reaction arms race.

Such considerations would inevitably open uppolitically significant gaps between the EuropeanNATO states — and some EU non-NATO ones.Fault lines seem likely to occur in four areas. Oneis that while some of the states in the south and eastare already facing a technical threat from short andmedium range missiles, it will be many years, if notdecades, before the states to the north and west willbe subject to similar threats from long-rangemissiles deployed by “states of concern”. A secondis that two European states, France and the UnitedKingdom, are not only nuclear-weapon states, butalso have the capabilities to engage inpower-projection outside of the European NATOarea. They regard their nuclear forces as capable ofdeterring threats upon their own territory, but seea possible need for a TMD for their own forces whenoperating in an intervention role. Other EuropeanNATO states, however, may be concerned that theywill be subject to missile counter-threats againsttheir own territory to put pressure on France andthe United Kingdom, and any other alliancepartners involved in such interventions, to desistfrom such interventions.

A third fault line is that while Britain andFrance and other western NATO states may nowregard the missile threat from Russia as negligible,and capable of being countered by their nuclearcapabilities in the context of a well-established setof nuclear deterrence relationships, the moreeasterly NATO states may regard these threats asmore significant, and necessitating a defensiveresponse. Finally, while the more industriallyadvanced states of NATO-Europe may regardmissile defence as an area where they can advancetheir technical capabilities and where theirindustries can acquire lucrative development andproduction contracts in partnership with US firms,those elsewhere will not be able to share in thesebenefits, and thus be less inclined to support workin this area.

Once the United States makes a decision toproceed with NMD, the European states, bothwithin and outside NATO, will be subject toconflicting demands from the United States andRussia. These would probably be in the form ofaccepting US arguments for its need of an NMD, ordeveloping a closer and more direct politicalrelationship with Russia to neutralised thethreatened political effects of an NMD for Europeansecurity. Concerns in the latter area would focus inparticular upon the INF Treaty and the MTCR, forRussian withdrawal from the INF Treaty would putall of Europe potentially at risk from such missiles.Deploying an EBMD seems unlikely to figure largein discussions with Russia, however, unless itinvolved a role for Russia as a provider of technologyand other assistance in building such a system,rather than being one of the targets for it. It is inthe context of these conflicting demands that thethreats, direct and symbolic, to the future of NATOas an institution may become focused.

One characteristic of any current debate onEBMD, and also the post 2000 US debate on NMD,is that it is taking place against a background oflittle discussion about the architectures of thedefence systems that may be developed anddeployed. In the European context this would bedependent upon which states wished to be defended(though some states would automatically bedefended if their neighbours joined the system); thetype of system adopted; and the availability oftechnology from either the United States or Russia.Who chose to participate in the system woulddetermine where its facilities, such as radars,interceptors, command and control systems andother architecture elements would be situated. Thisin turn would generate additional vulnerabilities topre-emptive strikes and debris from interceptions.All of these issues are likely to be very sensitivepolitically.

The choice of architecture, territorial shield orboost-phase intercept, would also be highlysignificant, both in terms of the availability of thetechnical building blocks for each type of system,and for its political implications. Boost-phase hasconsiderable political attractions as it is capable ofbeing targeted against specific states, and beingseen to be so. It also has the potential to be a jointEuropean NATO/US system, by contrast to anon-space based territorial shield. However, itwould have to be near-automatic in operation, thusopening the possibility of inadvertent destruction ofsatellite launch vehicles and missiles aimed atregional opponents, while the political decision todeploy such a system might prove difficult to take.Territorial shield suffers from the problem ofgenerating concerns over its ability to move from athin to a thick system, which would threaten thedeterrent capabilities of existing nuclear-weaponstates.

Technically, the key characteristic of any landor sea-based territorial shield EBMD system wouldbe that it would need to be designed to address arange of ballistic missile threats, and thus wouldneed to consist of several different systems

integrated together [short, medium and long-range], a problem that would not confront either aUS land-based NMD or a space-based system.Moreover, such a system would only be commonwith that of the United States in terms of some ofits technology, not in the majority of its componentsand functioning, unlike the concepts advanced forthe SDI of the 1980s. Above all, however, it wouldhave to have a single European command andcontrol system. Yet it is at this point where the mostintractable problems seem likely to occur. It isdifficult to imagine how the countries of Europecould reach a political consensus on acquiring sucha common system, when what is required to defendTurkey or Italy (and when) is quite different to whatis required to defend the United Kingdom andNorway (and when), even if the alternative waspiecemeal and uncoordinated investment insystems that provided limited, local and flaweddefences for those that saw a need for them. Inshort, Europe is not a single state and, without thatpolitical context, the necessary infrastructure,procurement and command and control decisionsthat would be needed to create an integrated NATOEBMD along US NMD lines appear near-impossibleto contemplate. This also implies that any US offerof technological partnership in an EBMD would behighly problematic.

What may be possible, however, is to work ona concept for an EBMD system that would facilitateadaptation (to take account of evolving threats); thatis layered (giving the best defences for all); andwhich might be affordable (by procuring commonassets such as sensors, launchers, interceptors andcommand and control systems). Above all thiswould need a modern, open architecture, andrequire member states to subsume some nationalinterests for the benefit of the whole. Such a systemcould then form the basis for an effective EBMD if,at some future point in time, the political processesof Europe have proceeded to the point where such acompletely integrated EBMD was possible.

Despite this negative political and technicalassessment of the possibilities for an integratedEBMD, it remains useful to evaluate its possiblepolitical consequences upon states outside theNATO region. The impact upon Russia appears tobe heavily dependent upon the evolution of theUS-Russia-NATO Alliance nexus, and whetherRussia can be assimilated into this nexus or willregard the US-NATO alignment as the major threatto world peace and security, and thus somethingwhich has to be consistently opposed. For thecombination of NMD and EBMD are likely to beregarded internationally as devices to give the USand their European allies unfettered freedom to usetheir advanced conventional weaponry to intervenein the affairs of other regions. In this latter context,Russia’s reaction to EBMD is likely to be anextension to that to the US NMD, though this mightbe modified, if Russian technology and facilitieswere to be incorporated into the system.

For the states of concern, regional conflictappears to be the driver of missile proliferation, andthus its response to EBMD is unlikely to be the


abandonment of missiles with increasing range.Moreover, while EBMD might serve as a tool inmanaging such proliferation, it could also serve tojustify and accelerate it. This problem would beeven more significant if a boost-phase system wasdeployed, as the identification of the target stateswould them become transparent, as would theassociated threat to intervene in regional conflict.

China seems unlikely to be a driver for EBMD,but at the same time it is difficult to see how EBMDwould be a driver for Chinese nuclear or otherdefence policies, except through perceptions that itwas a political and military extension of a US NMD.China lacks any formalised deterrence relationshipwith the European NATO states, and there is nolonger any overt reason why it should regard themas likely to intervene militarily on its periphery,other than in association with the United States.

This study has focused upon NATO Europe,rather than EU Europe. The distinction issignificant, as NATO-Europe implies a Europe ofindividual nation states, while EU Europe is alreadyseeking to move forward with a common securityand defence policy, and can be seen as developingcertain of the attributes of a federal state. As oneconclusion of the study is that without the furtherdevelopment of those attributes, an integratedEBMD may not be politically feasible, an EBMDlinked to the EU may be regarded as more feasiblethan one linked to NATO. Yet at the same time, asis becoming increasingly apparent after the EUsummit in Nice, an EU Europe incorporating theformer European neutrals is likely to pursuedifferent policies from a NATO Europe, both interms of its relationship with the US and withRussia, China and states in the Middle East. Thus

while on the one hand an EU-Europe might offer amore permissive political infrastructure for thedevelopment and deployment of an EBMD, itsnature, technological base and motivations might besignificantly different from a NATO-based EBMD.

What this study has perhaps demonstratedmore than anything else is that beneath assertionsthat a US NMD would enhance the security of theNATO European states lurk many specific politicaland technical issues that have yet to be examined inany detail. This suggests that a core element in anyfuture NATO debate on US NMD and EBMD mustbe to recognise the unique geographical, technicaland political challenges of extending US missiledefence technology to its European NATO allies.Only if these are explored fully and effectively is aconsensus on whether and how to move forwardgoing to be possible. This suggests that NATO willneed to explore the detailed operationalrequirements for such a system, in a similar way tothe process it has just initiated for a TMD. Throughthis process, areas where co-operation, commonindustrial development, technological developmentand a possible role for Russia could be identified;options for its architecture and operationalprocesses discussed; and all of its consequences andbudgetary consequences analysed. This intra-NATO process could also be complemented by aNATO-Russian co-operative threat reductioninitiative, and by moving forward with the MTCRCode of Conduct Against Missile Proliferation/Russian GCS discussions, to create an alternative,politically driven path to address the problem ofopaque missile proliferation, and by extensionopaque intentions.


References and Notes

1. Denmark could overrule the Greenland parliamentif it wished, but this is described as “unlikely”. SeeJoergen Dragsdahl, ‘Danish Opposition May Impede USNational Missile Defense’, BASIC Nuclear Futures Paper[British American Security Information Council], 7March 2000.

2. The British House of Commons Select Committeeon Foreign Affairs was clearly opposed to NMD in arecent report, but also acknowledged that “A UK refusalto allow the upgrading of facilities at Fylingdales wouldbe unprecedented and prove very testing for theAlliance”. See Weapons of Mass Destruction, House ofCommons Paper No. 407 of Session 1999-2000.

3. BND report, ‘Proliferation vonMassenvernichtungsmitteln und Tragerrakaten’. Thereport claimed that Iraq could regain its 1990 positionwithin a maximum of 3-5 years.

4. Joachim Krause, ‘The Political Debate AboutBallistic Missile Defence in Germany’, PolitiqueÉtrangere, forthcoming.

5. Bernd Kubbig, ‘The SDI Memorandum ofUnderstanding Between Bonn and Washington: AReview of the First Three Years’, PRIF Report no. 5,Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt, 1987.

6. ‘German Ministers Outline MEADS FundingStrategy’, Defense News, 14 May 2001.

7. Shaun Gregory, ‘France and Military Satellites:Implications for European Security’, ISIS Briefing Paper,April 1996 [International Security Information Service].

8. The Future Strategic Context for Defence, Ministryof Defence, February 2001, p. 19; Defending Against theThreat: Biological and Chemical Weapons, Ministry ofDefence, July 1999.

9. Defence Policy 2001, Ministry of Defence, February2001, p. 8.

10. North Atlantic Assembly PoliticalSub-Committee on Transatlantic Relations, NMD andImplications for the Alliance, November 2000.

11. Bernd Kubbig, ‘Positioning Europe as a CredibleActor in the Ballistic Missile Defense Game: Conceptsand Recommendations’, PRIF Report No. 56, September2000.

12. Stephen Cambone, Ivo Daalder, Stephen J.Hadley & Christopher J. Makins, European Views ofNational Missile Defense, ACUS Policy Paper, September2000 [Atlantic Council of the United States].

13. Aaron Karp, ‘Regional Implications: Middle East’,paper delivered at MCIS workshop on The InternationalImplications of Ballistic Missile Proliferation andBallistic Missile Defences’, 1-3 December 2000.

14. ACUS Policy Paper, p. 9.15. North Atlantic Assembly Political

Sub-Committee on Transatlantic Relations, NMD andImplications for the Alliance, p. 10.

16. Theresa Hitchens and Stuart Samuels, ‘NMD:Allied Fears in Focus’, BASIC Paper, no 32, April 2000.See also ‘Globalization of the Security Environment’,Summary of DTRA’s 9th Annual InternationalConference on Controlling Arms, US DoD DefenseThreat Reduction Agency, 2000.

17. Defense News 18 December 2000.18. David Auerswald, ‘The Domestic Politics of

National Missile Defense Under the BushAdministration’, in Missile Proliferation and Defences:Problems and Prospects, Occasional Paper No.7, SpecialJoint Series on Missile Issues, Monterey Institute ofInternational Studies/Mountbatten Centre forInternational Studies (June 2001).

19. ‘Europeans Receptive to a Broad Strategy’,International Herald Tribune, 2 May 2001.

20. ‘New Global Security?’, Time Europe, 14 May2001.

21. Joseph Fitchett, ‘Europeans Receptive to a BroadStrategy’, International Herald Tribune, 2 May 2001.

22. ‘New Global Security?’, Time Europe, 14 May2001.

23. Joseph Fitchett, ‘Europeans Receptive to a BroadStrategy’, International Herald Tribune, 2 May 2001.

24. See map of Iran to Washington missile trajectoryin Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of theOperational Effectiveness of the Planned US NationalMissile Defense System (Washington DC: Union ofConcern Scientists, 2000), p. 89.

25. Robin Ranger & David Wiencek with HumphryCrum-Ewing, ‘Missile Defence: Options for UK/USCo-operation’, Global Defence Review 1997.

26. Dean Wilkening, How Much Ballistic MissileDefense is Too Much?, p. 15-16.

27. Luke Hill, ‘TMD: NATO Starts the Countdown’,Jane’s Defence Weekly, 3 January 2001, p. 27.

28. Rodney W. Jones, Taking National MissileDefense to Sea: A Critique of Sea-Based and Boost-PhaseProposals, Council for a Livable World, October 2000.

29. Dean Wilkening, Ballistic Missile Defence andStrategic Stability, Adelphi Paper, no 334, 2000.

30. National Missile Defense: Policy Issues andTechnological Capabilities, IFPA Report, July 2000, p.5:3.

31. Jones, p.vi.32. Iranian SCUDS can hit targets inside Turkey,

whilst a NoDong could reach Eastern Europe. A LibyanNoDong could reach targets in Italy and Greece. Office ofthe Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat andResponse, January 2001.

33. See, for example, Stephen Cambone’s tesimony tothe House Armed Services Committee, 28 June 2000;Dean Wilkening, Ballistic Missile Defence and StrategicStability, Adelphi Paper; Theodore Postol, ‘A US-RussianBoost-Phase Defense to Defend Russia and the US FromPostulated Rogue State ICBMs’, ProliferationRoundtable at the Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, October 12, 1999; John Deutch,Harold Brown and John P. White, ‘National MissileDefense: Is There Another Way?’ in Foreign Policy,Summer 2000, pp. 91-99.

34. Lisbeth Gronlund, George Lewis, Theodore Postoland David Wright, ‘Highly Capable Theater BallisticMissile Defenses and the ABM Treaty’, Arms ControlToday 24 (3). THAAD can intercept ICBMs at 40-80kmaltitude, when all countermeasures will have burnedaway in re-entry, but would need a much faster flyingspeed. National Missile Defense: Policy Issues andTechnological Capabilities, IFPA Report, July 2000, p.3:6.

35. Neville Brown, ‘Ballistic Missile Defence: ABritish Perspective’, London Defence Studies No. 27,Brassey’s.

36. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization,‘Summary of Report to Congress on Utility of Sea-BasedAssets to National Missile Defense’, 1 June 1999.

37. National Missile Defense: Policy Issues andTechnological Capabilities, IFPA Report, July 2000.

38. WEU Symposium, Interoperability andCooperative Requirements of Anti-Missile Defense.

39. Joint Staff (J36), Joint Theater Missile DefenseCONOPS, quoted in Charles Swicker, ‘Theatre BallisticMissile Defense From the Sea: Issues for the MaritimeComponent Commander’, Newport Paper No. 14, NavalWar College, 1997.


40. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, “TheaterMissile Defense Command and Control Plan (InitialDraft)”, cited in Swicker.

41. Transcript of NMD Hearings, House ArmedServices Committee, 28 June 2000.

42. The US Navy cruiser Vincennes fired two missilesat the airliner, with the loss of 290 lives. At the time,Washington claimed that the airliner had been mistakenfor a fighter. These claims have always been rejected byIran.

43. See note 39.44. Sumner Benson, ‘Middle Eastern Missiles, NATO

Missile Defenses and Mediterranean Security’, inMediterranean Quarterly 8 (4) pp. 13-31.

45. We will take is as given that an EBMD would nothave the purpose of seriously affecting the deterrentcapabilities of Russia.

46. Luke Hill, ‘TMD: NATO Starts the Countdown’,in Jane’s Defence Weekly, 3 January 2001.

47. The Duma and Arms Control, April-May 2001,PIR Centre.

48. Barry Buzan, Introduction to Strategic Studies p.141

49. Alexander Pikayev, ‘The Rise and Fall of STARTII: The Russian View’, Carnegie Endowment WorkingPaper No. 6, September 1999, p. 8.

50. Celeste A. Wallander, ‘Russia’s New SecurityPolicy and the Ballistic Missile Defense Debate’, inCurrent History Vol. 99 Pt. 639, p. 340.

51. Conversations with leading Russian NGOanalyst.

52. Nikolai Sokov, ‘Russian Missile Defence forEurope: The February 20 Proposal is More Serious Thanit Seems’, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, MontereyInstitute, March 2001,http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/sokrmd.htm.

53. Claus Telp, ‘The British Government’s Position inthe Ballistic Missile Defence Debate’, PRIF Bulletin No.11, Summer 2000.

54. Alexander Pikayev, ‘Why Russia Still Wants theABM Treaty’, in Jane’s Special Report on BallisticMissile Proliferation (ed. Ben Sheppard), March 2000;Celeste Wallander ‘Russian Policy and the Potential forAgreement on Revising the ABM Treaty’, PONARSMemo No. 34. The Institute of Foreign Policy Analysissuggest 3-4 warheads on the Topol M as most likely.

55. Ruslan Pukhov of the Centre for Analysis ofStrategies and Technologies, Arms Trade News, June2000.

56. ‘Possible Withdrawal of the USA from the ABMTreaty: Forecast of the Duma’s Analysts’, The Duma andArms Control, February 2001, PIR Centre.

57. This allegation has been made by RobertSchmucker, a German missile analyst, who has arguedthat there are too many similarities to be coincidental,and that “The North Korean missile is a complete

Russian system, with nothing developed in North Korea”.It should be emphasised that Schmucker’s accusationsare targeted at Russian companies, not necessarily theRussian government, and that his claims remaincontroversial. See ‘N. Korean Missiles Have RussianRoots, Explosive Theory Says’, Los Angeles Times, 6September 2000.

58. According to Celeste Wallander of HarvardUniversity. Arms Trade News, June 2000.

59. Aaron Karp, ‘Lessons of Iranian Missile Programsfor US Nonproliferation Policy’, Nonproliferation ReviewSpring-Summer 1998, p. 21.

60. Martin Navias, ‘Ballistic Missile Proliferation inthe Middle East, Survival May/June 1989.

61. Michael Eisenstadt, ‘Living With a Nuclear Iran’,Survival Vol. 41 (3) p. 128, Autumn 1999.

62. Exploring U.S. Missile Defense Requirements in2010: What Are the Policy and Technology Challenges?,Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, April 1997.

63. Peter Rudolf, ‘Critical Engagement: TheEuropean Union and Iran’, in Richard N. Haas (ed.),Transatlantic Tensions: The United States, Europe, andProblem Countries (Washington DC: BrookingsInstitution, 1999); Patrick Clawson, ‘The ContinuingLogic of Dual Containment’ Survival Vol. 40 (1), Spring1991.

64. Rudolf, p. 84.65. Stefano Silvestri, ‘Libya and Transatlantic

Realtions: An Italian View’, in Haas, op cit, p. 170.66. Clay Moltz, ‘Forecasting the Strategic-Military

Implications of NMD Deployment’, paper delivered atMCIS workshop on The International Implications ofBallistic Missile Proliferation and Ballistic MissileDefences’, 1-3 December 2000.

67. Bob Bell, former Senior Director for Defense andArms Control Policy at the US National Security Council,stated recently that “Without nuclear testing...China isgoing to be greatly constrained in any effort to putmultiple warheads on its existing strategic force. Thischallenge for China of MIRV-ing its strategic force, whichcould have major impact on the strategic balance, isgoing to be benefitted if they can conduct nuclear tests”.Press Briefing, The White House, Washington, D.C.,October 5, 1999.

68. Robert A. Manning, Ronald Montaperto and BradRoberts, ‘China, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control: APreliminary Assessment’, Council on Foreign RelationsReport (2000).

69. The Indian strategic doctrine announced inAugust 1999 stressed minimum deterrence and punitiveretaliation, but some sources feel it may yet develop alimited counterforce capacity. See Manning et al.

70. Robert A. Manning, Ronald Montaperto and BradRoberts, ‘China, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control: APreliminary Assessment’, Council on Foreign RelationsReport (2000), p. 20


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