Those missiles in Poland Now isn't the time to pick a fight with Russia
Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/69986/
My column of Aug. 30, 2008 argued
that the West has followed a
dangerous Russia-phobic path ever since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. After surrounding Russia with ten new NATO members, we are pouring fuel on the fire of Russian fears of encirclement by urging Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO, and by going ahead with plans to site a defensive missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend the United States and Europe from future Iranian missiles.
Anybody who argues that the missiles in Poland are purely defensive and thus pose no threat to Russia doesn’t understand the concept of deterrence. Let me explain.
During the Cold War, each superpower developed enormous strategic nuclear weapons arsenals that were meant to destroy the other side as a functioning society. Neither side planned to actually use these weapons to launch an attack. Instead, the purpose of each side’s arsenal was to prevent the other side from attacking by guaranteeing an annihilating counterattack. The Soviet Union, for example, regarded its nuclear weapons as a guarantee that the United States would not attack, because the surviving Soviet strategic weapons would then launch a counter-attack that would obliterate the United States. Thus, strategic nuclear weapons “ deterred” both sides from attack. It’s called Mutually Assured Destruction.
But MAD works only if both sides regard retaliation as inevitable. Now suppose that either side had “ Anti-Ballistic Missiles” designed to shoot down other missiles. Then deterrence becomes far more risky. If, for example, the United States possessed ABMs, the Soviets might fear that the United States could shoot down the weakened retaliatory blow that the Soviets would launch following a U. S. attack. So deterrence breaks down if either side has effective ABMs. That’s why defensive missiles can be a threat.
Returning to 2008, Russia’s Foreign Ministry warns that Moscow’s response to ABMs in Poland “ will go beyond diplomacy, ” because the missile system “ will be broadened and modernized” and “ lacks any target other than Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles. ” The United States dismisses these Russian fears as “ ludicrous, ” “ bordering on the bizarre ” and “ incredible. ”
But a careful analysis (see “ The Technological Basis of Russian Concerns, ” http: // www. armscontrol. org / act / 2007 _ 10 / LewisPostol ) by physicists George Lewis of Cornell University and Theodore Postol, a former scientific advisor to the Navy who is currently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, concludes that Russia’s fears are quite rational. Here’s why.
The most important part of the U. S. system is not the missiles themselves but instead the system’s large radar, located in the Czech Republic. Lewis and Postol ask how Russian military analysts would assess this system. A directive signed by President Bush in 2002 states that the United States would begin deploying missile defenses in 2004 “ as a starting point for fielding improved and expanded missile defenses later. ” A Russian analyst will conclude that the new U. S. system will be upgraded to something far more capable.
The current size and power of the radar is limited by the number of individual transmitters mounted in its faces. Current plans are for 20, 000 transmitters, but 17 times this many could be mounted, boosting the total power by a factor of 17, and the two factors (the number and the power ) combine to yield nearly a 300-fold (17 times 17 ) increase in capability. Since the initial system will be able to simultaneously track and target the 10 missiles that Iran might deploy initially, the expanded system would be able to target nearly 3, 000 missiles. Although the United States might never expand its system, a Russian analyst must assume the worst.
But the system is supposed to be directed toward Iran. Will it also be able to target the Russian deterrent force ? Despite U. S. claims to the contrary, interceptors launched from Poland using the Czech radar could intercept missiles from all of Russia’s European-based strategic nuclear missile fields, including even the 25 mobile (not silo-based ) SS-25 missiles stationed northwest of Moscow.
In fact, the radar’s placement in the Czech Republic is not optimal for defending Europe from Iranian missiles. Interceptors placed in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania or Albania would be better able to defend Europe from Iranian attack. But an Iran-oriented system located further north, in Poland and the Czech Republic, would be better suited to targeting Russian strategic missiles, and a Russian analyst would have to interpret this choice as an indication of hostile intent.
Internal Soviet documents from the late 1980 s show that Soviet analysts had concluded that Russian silo-based missiles could be nearly wiped out by a surprise attack from then-existing U. S. submarine-launched nuclear missiles and other U. S. forces. The concern of Russian analysts today would be that a future crisis might lead to U. S. strikes on Russian silo-based missiles followed by an ABM defense that would eliminate the Russian retaliation.
To repeat an analogy from my earlier article: What would be our response if the Soviets had won the Cold War, surrounded the United States with Soviet military allies, and now planned to place “ defensive ” missiles in Cuba ? Would we have accepted Soviet assurances that these missiles posed no threat to the United States ?
The United States has been pushing Russia hard ever since 1991. We need to back down from our ABM plans, back down from further NATO expansion, and support an internationally supervised referendum in the two disputed Georgian provinces. Then we should offer NATO membership to Russia, and cooperate with Russia to develop ABM defenses against Iran. President Putin has already offered to participate in such a cooperative effort.
Art Hobson is a local resident and retired physics professor who is the author of “ Physics: Concepts and Connections, ” a college-level textbook for nonscientists. His column appears every other Saturday.