http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6726839.stm
Background
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 saw United States remaining the sole super power; militarily invincible, economically unrivalled, diplomatically uncontestable, and the dominating force on information channels worldwide. The next century was to be the “American century”. Within a decade, however, a new and increasingly potent multipolar world has surfaced, in which new powers are challenging different aspects of American supremacy — Russia and China in the forefront, with regional powers Venezuela and Iran forming the second rank primed to erode American hegemony.
The phenomenon behind the rapidly evolving world, that too so soon, is intriguing. The US getting bogged down in Iraq is clearly a major factor in this transformation. The Iraq fiasco has demonstrated the striking limitations of the world’s highest tech-savvy and most destructive combat machine. The phenomenal rise in price of oil and natural gas has enhanced the power of hydrocarbon-rich nations as never before; the rapid economic expansion of the mega-nations China and India and the end of the Anglo-American duopoly in international television news is another factor. Russia has recovered from the economic chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2005, Russia overtook the United States, becoming the second largest oil producer in the world. Its oil income now amounts to $679 million a day.
Strategic Defense Initiative
President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), also called ‘Star Wars’ was proposed in early 1980S, aimed at protecting the US, its allies and troops deployed around the world against a limited ballistic missile attack. The concept was shelved much before it could crystallise.
National Missile Defense
It was revived as Bill Clinton’s National Missile Defence(NMD) and reflected the US fixation with protecting itself from a ballistic missile attack. However, both the SDI and NMD systems were deactivated shortly afterwards because of their high costs and low reliability. Fearing that dissemination of these systems would alter the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), in 1972 the US and the Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile –ABM– Treaty, which limited the numbers and locations of anti-missile systems that the two superpowers could deploy to defend themselves against possible nuclear strikes. Thus, MAD ensured a strategic stalemate that the US has always aimed at overcoming.
GPALS
In 1991, SDI was formally cancelled and replaced by another, less ambitious system to suit the strategic reality of the immediate post-Cold War period: Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS). This project sought to protect American territory from ‘accidental, unauthorized or deliberate’ launches of a maximum of 200 ballistic missiles from the former Soviet republics or China. GPALS was also be required to guarantee zonal defence for forces stationed abroad; in light of the experience of Iraqi Scud missiles fired at American targets during the 1991 Gulf War. GPALS was active until 1996 and then stymied due to heavy maintenance costs and the fact that the Russian threat had almost evaporated.
BMD
BMD is an ambitious system, integrating NMD and Theatre Missile Defense (TMD) in a single project focusing on the use of a plethora of land, sea, air and space resources to destroy enemy missiles in the three flight phases (initial, mid-course and final). To destroy missiles in the initial phase, a period of time less than 300 seconds in which the rocket gathers the speed required to reach its target, the US is developing an Air-Borne Laser (ABL), flown in a Boeing 747, which will locate, track and destroy all short, mid and long range missiles, along with a Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) mounted on land or marine platforms and able to hit to kill by impact. Two initiatives are being developed with a view to intercepting enemy missiles in the central flight phase deploying sensors and interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland respectively. In order to intercept enemy missiles in their final phase, a brief period running from the entry of the warheads into the atmosphere to their impact on the target, the US is developing and integrating four systems.
BMD project seeks to protect the US, its allies and American forces deployed abroad against a hypothetical limited ballistic missile strike from a rogue state such as Iran and North Korea, or even terrorists who have managed to acquire these nuclear enables assets. The BMD is later proposed to be extended to cover a higher number of threats over the coming decades; to become a global anti-missile shield. The first of these shields systems was declared operative in 2006 and the aim is for most of the remaining devices to be functional by the end of the present decade.
While it is generally accepted that nuclear and ballistic proliferation constitutes a threat of a global nature, the American anti-missile shield may upset the global strategic balance. Furthermore, although BMD’s main aim is to eliminate the North Korean, Iranian and terrorists’ ballistic threat, the American commitment to facilitate Japan and Australia with theatre anti-missile defence systems and to station warning and monitoring systems on their territory, on the one hand, and the recent agreements reached with the Czech Republic and Poland to install monitoring and intercepting devices, on the other hand, have raised Chinese and Russian fears that the anti-missile shield is directed against them.
American Justification for Missile Shield
Another ugly and more potent threat had begun to surface in late 1990s; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and means for launching them by rogue states. Initial studies indicated that these nuclear weapons and the means of launching them could begin appearing in around 2003, with Iran and North Korea taking the lead.
The Gulf countries are reviewing the utility of the United States as the sole security guarantor, and contemplating a collective security mechanism that involves a host of international players. With the region rich in hydrocarbon deposits, the situation is unacceptable to the US.
The possibility of terror elements inimical to the US getting hold of some of this destructive apparatus from Pakistan was also taken into account. The proliferation activities of the Pakistani AQ Khan network later confirmed US’ worst fears. The US accordingly formulated its strategic aims, military resources and capacities to face the new challenges in the future. Intensification of anti-proliferation and counter-proliferation measures, the strengthening of dissuasion and creation of an anti-missile shield formed part of the US strategy. Ballistic Missile Defense Program was ordered and the implementation of this anti-missile system was to be operative by 2000.
The US deployed devices to detect the launch of missiles, monitor their course and intercept them during the central phase of flight in California, Alaska, the UK, Greenland and via resources in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and also negotiated with allies in the region –Japan, South Korea and Australia– for them to join the initiative. By 2004, National Missile Defense (NMD) capable of defending the US against a limited ‘accidental, unauthorized or deliberate’ strike of between five and 20 ballistic missiles, was in place as part of land and naval based anti missile resources.
At the end of 2004, President Bush asked the Department of Defense to complete the deployment of an anti-missile shield capable of protecting the US, its deployed forces, and allied countries against ballistic missile strikes. This system would be called Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD).
Russian Objections
NMD caused deep unease in China and Russia, who felt that this system was directed against them, and that its deployment would alter the existing strategic balance between the US and the two countries. In Russia’s case, this argument lacks substance in view of the fact that the country could easily saturate the system with the 300 ballistic missiles that it maintains. Russia has suspended the FACE treaty and is threatening to review its military policy. But the actual fear stems from when it is not just two facilities (the anti-missile base in Poland and the radar site in the Czech Republic) but a global system. Perhaps if the US’ anti missile facilities were to be deployed in Turkey or Italy, the Russian reaction would have been muted but still negative.
China, however, only possesses 20 ballistic vectors capable of reaching the American continent. Beijing issued a warning that NMD would force it, both to develop active means to target destruction of American detection and monitoring satellites and to increase its ballistic arsenal. China has already demonstrated its anti-satellite systems by destroying a decoy satellite in Jan 2008.
The US also commenced dialogues with Moscow to modify the ABM treaty and thereby allow for the development of the American anti-missile shield. In September 2000, the US already had the technical capacity available to develop and launch NMD within six years and proceeded to deploy the system regardless of international criticism and Moscow’s reservations with modification of the ABM treaty, from which it eventually withdrew at the end of 2001, three months after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.
The UN Stand
In 1999, the United Nations passed a resolution urging the US to abandon its plans to build this system.
Conclusion
The BMD has already achieved short-term results and is currently on course to achieve its final goals. If a global anti-missile system becomes a reality, the nuclear capability of Russia, China and other countries will be undermined. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of the US reflects the views of all those who are not US allies.
There is no doubt the programme has invited heated opposition from Russia, China and a host of other players. However, given the current US’ threat perception, one shared by the West, the US has no other alternative but to go ahead and develop the BMD to ensure its protection against emerging new threats.
Background
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 saw United States remaining the sole super power; militarily invincible, economically unrivalled, diplomatically uncontestable, and the dominating force on information channels worldwide. The next century was to be the “American century”. Within a decade, however, a new and increasingly potent multipolar world has surfaced, in which new powers are challenging different aspects of American supremacy — Russia and China in the forefront, with regional powers Venezuela and Iran forming the second rank primed to erode American hegemony.
The phenomenon behind the rapidly evolving world, that too so soon, is intriguing. The US getting bogged down in Iraq is clearly a major factor in this transformation. The Iraq fiasco has demonstrated the striking limitations of the world’s highest tech-savvy and most destructive combat machine. The phenomenal rise in price of oil and natural gas has enhanced the power of hydrocarbon-rich nations as never before; the rapid economic expansion of the mega-nations China and India and the end of the Anglo-American duopoly in international television news is another factor. Russia has recovered from the economic chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2005, Russia overtook the United States, becoming the second largest oil producer in the world. Its oil income now amounts to $679 million a day.
Strategic Defense Initiative
President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), also called ‘Star Wars’ was proposed in early 1980S, aimed at protecting the US, its allies and troops deployed around the world against a limited ballistic missile attack. The concept was shelved much before it could crystallise.
National Missile Defense
It was revived as Bill Clinton’s National Missile Defence(NMD) and reflected the US fixation with protecting itself from a ballistic missile attack. However, both the SDI and NMD systems were deactivated shortly afterwards because of their high costs and low reliability. Fearing that dissemination of these systems would alter the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), in 1972 the US and the Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile –ABM– Treaty, which limited the numbers and locations of anti-missile systems that the two superpowers could deploy to defend themselves against possible nuclear strikes. Thus, MAD ensured a strategic stalemate that the US has always aimed at overcoming.
GPALS
In 1991, SDI was formally cancelled and replaced by another, less ambitious system to suit the strategic reality of the immediate post-Cold War period: Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS). This project sought to protect American territory from ‘accidental, unauthorized or deliberate’ launches of a maximum of 200 ballistic missiles from the former Soviet republics or China. GPALS was also be required to guarantee zonal defence for forces stationed abroad; in light of the experience of Iraqi Scud missiles fired at American targets during the 1991 Gulf War. GPALS was active until 1996 and then stymied due to heavy maintenance costs and the fact that the Russian threat had almost evaporated.
BMD
BMD is an ambitious system, integrating NMD and Theatre Missile Defense (TMD) in a single project focusing on the use of a plethora of land, sea, air and space resources to destroy enemy missiles in the three flight phases (initial, mid-course and final). To destroy missiles in the initial phase, a period of time less than 300 seconds in which the rocket gathers the speed required to reach its target, the US is developing an Air-Borne Laser (ABL), flown in a Boeing 747, which will locate, track and destroy all short, mid and long range missiles, along with a Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) mounted on land or marine platforms and able to hit to kill by impact. Two initiatives are being developed with a view to intercepting enemy missiles in the central flight phase deploying sensors and interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland respectively. In order to intercept enemy missiles in their final phase, a brief period running from the entry of the warheads into the atmosphere to their impact on the target, the US is developing and integrating four systems.
BMD project seeks to protect the US, its allies and American forces deployed abroad against a hypothetical limited ballistic missile strike from a rogue state such as Iran and North Korea, or even terrorists who have managed to acquire these nuclear enables assets. The BMD is later proposed to be extended to cover a higher number of threats over the coming decades; to become a global anti-missile shield. The first of these shields systems was declared operative in 2006 and the aim is for most of the remaining devices to be functional by the end of the present decade.
While it is generally accepted that nuclear and ballistic proliferation constitutes a threat of a global nature, the American anti-missile shield may upset the global strategic balance. Furthermore, although BMD’s main aim is to eliminate the North Korean, Iranian and terrorists’ ballistic threat, the American commitment to facilitate Japan and Australia with theatre anti-missile defence systems and to station warning and monitoring systems on their territory, on the one hand, and the recent agreements reached with the Czech Republic and Poland to install monitoring and intercepting devices, on the other hand, have raised Chinese and Russian fears that the anti-missile shield is directed against them.
American Justification for Missile Shield
Another ugly and more potent threat had begun to surface in late 1990s; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and means for launching them by rogue states. Initial studies indicated that these nuclear weapons and the means of launching them could begin appearing in around 2003, with Iran and North Korea taking the lead.
The Gulf countries are reviewing the utility of the United States as the sole security guarantor, and contemplating a collective security mechanism that involves a host of international players. With the region rich in hydrocarbon deposits, the situation is unacceptable to the US.
The possibility of terror elements inimical to the US getting hold of some of this destructive apparatus from Pakistan was also taken into account. The proliferation activities of the Pakistani AQ Khan network later confirmed US’ worst fears. The US accordingly formulated its strategic aims, military resources and capacities to face the new challenges in the future. Intensification of anti-proliferation and counter-proliferation measures, the strengthening of dissuasion and creation of an anti-missile shield formed part of the US strategy. Ballistic Missile Defense Program was ordered and the implementation of this anti-missile system was to be operative by 2000.
The US deployed devices to detect the launch of missiles, monitor their course and intercept them during the central phase of flight in California, Alaska, the UK, Greenland and via resources in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and also negotiated with allies in the region –Japan, South Korea and Australia– for them to join the initiative. By 2004, National Missile Defense (NMD) capable of defending the US against a limited ‘accidental, unauthorized or deliberate’ strike of between five and 20 ballistic missiles, was in place as part of land and naval based anti missile resources.
At the end of 2004, President Bush asked the Department of Defense to complete the deployment of an anti-missile shield capable of protecting the US, its deployed forces, and allied countries against ballistic missile strikes. This system would be called Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD).
Russian Objections
NMD caused deep unease in China and Russia, who felt that this system was directed against them, and that its deployment would alter the existing strategic balance between the US and the two countries. In Russia’s case, this argument lacks substance in view of the fact that the country could easily saturate the system with the 300 ballistic missiles that it maintains. Russia has suspended the FACE treaty and is threatening to review its military policy. But the actual fear stems from when it is not just two facilities (the anti-missile base in Poland and the radar site in the Czech Republic) but a global system. Perhaps if the US’ anti missile facilities were to be deployed in Turkey or Italy, the Russian reaction would have been muted but still negative.
China, however, only possesses 20 ballistic vectors capable of reaching the American continent. Beijing issued a warning that NMD would force it, both to develop active means to target destruction of American detection and monitoring satellites and to increase its ballistic arsenal. China has already demonstrated its anti-satellite systems by destroying a decoy satellite in Jan 2008.
The US also commenced dialogues with Moscow to modify the ABM treaty and thereby allow for the development of the American anti-missile shield. In September 2000, the US already had the technical capacity available to develop and launch NMD within six years and proceeded to deploy the system regardless of international criticism and Moscow’s reservations with modification of the ABM treaty, from which it eventually withdrew at the end of 2001, three months after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.
The UN Stand
In 1999, the United Nations passed a resolution urging the US to abandon its plans to build this system.
Conclusion
The BMD has already achieved short-term results and is currently on course to achieve its final goals. If a global anti-missile system becomes a reality, the nuclear capability of Russia, China and other countries will be undermined. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of the US reflects the views of all those who are not US allies.
There is no doubt the programme has invited heated opposition from Russia, China and a host of other players. However, given the current US’ threat perception, one shared by the West, the US has no other alternative but to go ahead and develop the BMD to ensure its protection against emerging new threats.
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