John Wohlstetter - Sleepwalking with the Bomb

In the 1970s the Russians conducted extensive laser beam defense experimentation at their Sary Shagan site in central Asia. Their technology was simply not up to the exacting task then, nor does it appear to be even today. American efforts have shown promise, but to date no system has proved itself against ICBMs. President Reagan was much taken by H-bomb father Edward Teller’s X-ray laser concept: when an atomic device detonated, a laser based in space would emit intense X-rays that could destroy large numbers of attacking warheads in flight. Teller’s concept was highly original, but eventually was abandoned, partly due to arms-control considerations about space weaponry and partly due to technical reservations. All large laser systems raise serious power problems. As noted in chapter 13 the Airborne Laser program was cancelled for this reason. (It used lasers mounted on a 747 aircraft to target missiles.).

The Russians even objected to a midcourse intercept system promised to the Czech Republic and Poland in 2006 by President Bush, claiming that it would also be capable of tracking missiles in boost phase and possibly intercepting them. This gave President Obama a rationale in 2009 to justify unilaterally abrogating the 2006 deal. However, he negotiated not with our Eastern European partners but with Moscow, notifying the affected allied leaders a mere 25 minutes before announcing the swap of a land-based missile defense system for a sea-based one. The Obama administration asserted that the new system is better than the one promised our allies in 2006, but if this were true, why didn’t the United States approach these allies and tell them what a great deal it is? Thus did Cold War arms-control doctrine govern President Obama’s signature arms treaty, and trump concerns of two of our closest allies.

David Hoffman’s The Dead Hand offers a prime example of how hard violations issues are to definitively resolve. The Russians built a massive radar tracking facility at Krasnoyarsk, 1,869 miles inside the Soviet Union, with radar oriented inward. The ABM Treaty limited each side to a single radar protecting the capital, plus perimeter radars at the coastline. This was intended to prevent radars being used for “battle management”: directing large salvos of missiles to thwart a large-scale attack. At the perimeter, radars could take out individual missiles or small salvos but not represent a comprehensive shield. The U.S. maintained that the Krasnoyarsk facility was illegal because it was centrally located and also designed for battle management. On location the U.S. was clearly right. As to the system’s purpose, Hoffman contends it was to plug a hole in Russian defenses, not manage a large-scale defense, and thus a minor violation. In 1989 the Soviets openly admitted that the Krasnoyarsk facility indeed was a violation of the ABM Treaty.

That it took a confession by the Russians to establish a violation showed the infirmity of Cold War arms treaty enforcement. Russia could violate the ABM Treaty with impunity, without fear of being condemned for it. Absent a supervening legal authority capable of rendering judgment, let alone enforcing same, protesting Soviet violations amounted to shouting into the wind.

Thus has missile defense, for 40 years, been held hostage to arms control limits—even after the U.S. exited the ABM Treaty a decade ago.

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